10 Years In

The eventual winner of several cover designs. We took this picture of me running and some Photoshop magic did the rest.

The Indie journey began ten years ago this week. I remember it well in that I had finished my first draft of Running with Vince. A long-awaited story that had been on my mind since my twin brother passed, I finally sat down and over a period of two weeks wrote the 40k word story. Admittingly so, I was too eager for my own good. I wanted to release the book as quickly as possible and figured that if the bones were strong, typos, grammatical errors, and even my homemade cover would be overlooked. I mean who didn’t want to read this twin inspired tale?
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I read over the book once and deemed it good to go. Within days, I released the book on Amazon in both paperback and eBook form. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of downloads. Granted, within days I was also surprised to see who was downloading it, especially from my place of employment. Pride turned to mortified, knowing the vulgar vocabulary my main characters used and the fact many students and faculty at this private school were reading this story.

Despite the rollout mistakes, the book was still received positively. We all experience loss, so reading a book that dives into that subject matter through these twin brothers and their final road trip together, was a success from my perspective.

I look back at the first release and marvel at the last ten years. There have been so many highs and lows. After the release of RWV, I got the rights back to A Lightworker’s Perspective and Our Place by the Sea. A few years later, after a second edition of RWV, I felt inspired to write a follow up book, Swimming with Angels and then the bug took over. SWA didn’t get as many downloads but the book itself was received more positively by those that read the book than the first book in the series.

Other releases would follow and while there were hiccups along the way and at times a love-hate relationship with Indie publishing, the road has been a worthwhile one. I’m glad that I have returned in force these past six months after a two-year break following the release of Lane.

Ten years in and there have been twelve releases (not counting the ALP and OPBTS) and at least two more on the way in the next six months. I have lofty goals in the years ahead, but the best one has already been accomplished. Despite the roller coaster and never breaking through commercially, readers continue to find my books, and many have enjoyed the stories that I wanted to share. We all have different measurements of success but knowing that I have been in the industry now as an Indie for ten years and in books for sixteen is pretty cool onto itself. Here’s to another ten and in the very least, tripling my output.  

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