Resolving to Be Published

In addition to the goals you'd expect to see on my 2014 list - get staffed, write and exercise more, eat less white cheddar popcorn - I'm adding one exciting goal that I'll be tracking step by step on this blog.

In 2014, I'm going to self-publish a collection of my short stories.

I have a handful of completed short fiction pieces that I've been submitting to a target list of literary journals for the last two years. Not surprisingly, every single journal has rejected me.

It's not a surprise because I'm a relatively new writer without a creative writing degree under my belt. I have much to learn and many more stories to write before my work is good enough to be professionally published. (10,000 hours, anyone?)

So I'm taking a step toward being a better writer by putting my work out there for critique. And since my primary goal is learning, I've already decided to give this book away for free.

That's right - FREE! (As the Junk Food Guy would say, "That's a deal, son!")

First step in this journey - learn how to self-publish a book!

A quick search returned an enormous wealth of information online and in print about the profitable world of self-publishing. After perusing the informative books, webinars, consulting services, Kindle templates, etc. that I can purchase, I've concluded that self-publishing is the most profitable for the people teaching us how to do it. Sheesh.

Hence my second decision - spend as little money as possible on this endeavor. I'm in this for the learning, not to turn a profit, so I'm going to focus on all the free resources I can find and do as much as I can by myself.

I've made a long list of ideas for creating and marketing this book that can all be executed for free, and I've reserved a few books at the library to get myself going.

And I created an email newsletter mailing list. Won't you please sign up? No spam, of course. In fact, no messages at all until I figure out how to use MailChimp. I'll deal with that later, but for now, you can sign up here.

And keep checking back on this blog for more updates of my self-publishing adventure. It will be interesting, to say the least!