I was around twelve when I wrote my first "book." It was seven pages long and told the story of a man who had just purchased a brand new car. He was jazzed! The car he picked out was exactly what he wanted (and probably a bit more than he could afford.) Didn't matter. He felt amazing when he first sat behind the wheel, sparked the engine to life and put the transmission into gear.

He was on top of the world! To think, he could actually be the owner of a brand new car; one that would certainly turn heads and have all the women fawning over the presumed successful man behind the wheel.

He pulls out of the dealership and onto a very busy road. He could have turned left (which was the logical and shorter way to his home) but instead chose to turn right and to take the more scenic route home.

The car was twenty feet away from the auto dealer's parking lot when it is crushed from behind by a delivery truck.

Totaled.

He was battered, bruised and more than a bit disappointed, but he would live to see another day.

Welcome to the world of self publishing.

When most authors publish a book, they are filled with excitement; thinking that once their book leaves their desk and enters the market, it will become an overnight success! Millions of copies will be sold and at least one out of every two people who purchase the book will leave a five star (or at least a four star) review. The author should be able to quit their day job after a couple months of solid book royalties and movie rights are certainly just around the corner.

For most self published authors however, launching their book is akin to my story of a man pulling out into traffic with his brand new car. They (we) get crushed.

My first book was Heartless, and while it has been downloaded over 50,000 times (many of these downloads were when Amazon allowed me to price the book at $0) actual "sales" results felt more like getting T-Boned. My next few books, Those of the Margin, The Observer, The Devil's Snare and The Demon Senders were all launched with greater enthusiasm and haven't moved that much further down that road towards my desired destination.

But yet I keep writing.

The character in my first seven page book could have said, "Fuck this! I'm done with driving. I'm going back to riding my bike or walking everywhere." But he didn't. He walked back into the dealership and bought another car. This time, he chose more safety features and opted for a more powerful engine so he could get into the traffic stream more quickly. And each time he drove off the dealer's lot, his car (and his dreams) were totaled.

Each time I launch a book, sending it into the traffic of the book market, my dreams and hopes have taken a hard shot. But I walk back into the dealership in my mind, pick out a vehicle (story) that is way more likely to navigate its way through the traffic than my previous book and start dreaming all over again.

I just launched Still Heartless, the conclusion to Heartless. First day sales were 158! Not bad and based on my research, the book should have reached the top 5 in two genres. However, when I checked my Author's page and my ranking, I was met with a message telling me that Amazon was experiencing issues reporting my results and that they hoped to have the issue corrected soon.

Well, the issue was corrected but the correction happened a few hours after 151 of my 158 sales were made. And since Amazon updates rankings every hour, well, you probably have figured out that Still Heartless is not listed in even the top 25 in any genre.

Crushing? For a few seconds, it was

So now what?

Back to the dealership. I have my eye on an amazing looking SUV!