It’s been a minute since I’ve written a blog. Life has, to put it simply been beating the crap out of me lately. Most of my artistic pursuits, which had been my primary focus (other than my wife and cat) for the past several years have had to take a back seat to things like making sure I can afford food and shelter and such.
BUT I HAVE GOOD NEWS!!!
I am officially a published author and my short story “Losing Sleep” is now available on Kindle for the low low price of 99 cents!
Before I say anything else I want to give a gigantic thank you to everybody who’s read it so far! Writing and publishing fiction has been a dream of mine since I was 15-years-old and the fact that anybody at all is reading my stories means a lot.
Ok thats enough basking in the warm glow of my accomplishments because self-publishing a single short story was simply step 1 in my multifaceted plan to take the writing world by storm!
I had to learn the game, you see?
I had to learn how to use Kindle Direct Publishing, I had to learn how to format the stupid thing so it didn’t look like it was written by a chimpanzee on bath salts, and I had to build up the nerve to ask you guys to pay for something I’d written. Because, one day, if the stars align and I trick enough of you into thinking I know what I’m doing, I’d actually like to make a living putting words on paper.
To that end I have more projects in the works!
In late August I will release a full collection of short stories and this time physical copies will be available! I’m neck deep in the editing process now and boy do I hate it. Still, I’m excited to show you guys actual polished and fully realized versions of the stories you’ve read here on Mindful of Madness over the past couple years.
Next, in November I’m releasing “Magic in the Holler” a dark novella that literally nobody but me has seen yet. I’m a couple thousand words short of completing the rough draft but dammit it’ll be done before thanksgiving and you can gift it to your weird nephews who spend too much time in their rooms for Christmas.
Finally in February I will release my debut novel “Sherwin, Indiana.” It’s been a long road getting it ready for public consumption. Hell, most of the process of writing this novel was learning my process for writing a novel. But it’s at about 90% and I’m hoping by the time it hits shelves I’ll have something of a following eager to check out my first full length effort.
After that, frankly I don’t know. In the current self publishing climate it seems like releasing projects every three months is the best way to grow an audience so I’ll try to get something else out around this time next year as well but frankly I don’t think I have the stamina or to put out quality work at that pace and I don’t have any interest in asking you fine people to pay for garbage so we’ll play it by ear.
Anyway, keep an eye out for more info on those projects and, if you haven’t already, check out “Losing Sleep.” All of the proceeds from its sale will go to providing professional editing and cover art for these upcoming projects. And while you’re at it why not leave a review. 5 stars would be nice but hey I ain’t going to ask you to lie for me. And if you don’t want to support Jeff Bezos but you do want to support me shoot me a message on Facebook, twitter or instagram.
And again, thank you so much to everybody who’s already checked it out. It means the world to me.
Mindful of Madness 