So, I’ve written a book of short stories.

During the pandemic, before we all got vaccinated, I wrote 17 short stories and have just published them under the name “Ned Wakes Up’” which is the name of one of the stories. I’ve always wanted to work on short stories, and in my twenties I tried writing some. But they were terrible. I’ve always loved the short story as an art form and it has been my goal to get back to it someday.

Then came the pandemic and Zoom calls. Some of my friends and I began using our regular Zoom calls as an opportunity to do some writing, and then share it with each other over video chat. We met every other week, and I started writing quick little micro-stories. They got very good response from my friends, and I realized that I was actually pretty good at writing them, so I leaned way into writing creative fiction. 

I had already been reading books about plot and structure, and had a love of typewriters. I had already started a small typewriter collection and was itching to have an excuse to use these wonderful old machines.  I was primed and ready, with fiction on my mind, even before the pandemic hit. 

For nearly a year I wrote a new short story every two weeks to share with my friends. Now we are all vaccinated and will be able to meet in person soon, so I collected all the stories and decided to publish them as a collection. 

I did some research about self-publishing vs traditional fiction publishing, and also got price estimates from local and online printers. In the end I decided to go with Amazon KDP, which will publish both paperback and Kindle versions with no cost to me.  Since Amazon is has over 50% of the physical book sales in the US, and 95% of the ebook market, it seemed like a worthwhile place to start. It took a few weeks to get everything organized and formatted, but  I uploaded and went “live” about a week ago.

I’ve sent out notices to all my friends and family on social media and have sold a couple dozen or so. I’ve been reading a lot on the subject of self-publishing and marketing, and am starting to understand the general lay-of-the-land and what kinds of thing I need to do to be successful at selling my books. 

So here is my new website and my new blog. I plan to blog about my experiences as I try to become an author.  

I hope you find my journey into authorship an interesting one.