And Now For Something (Kind of, But Not Entirely) Completely Different

Something different for me and my writing/publishing game, at least.

---

As I’m sure you’re sick of reading by now – I started writing sci-fi when I was 9 years old. Wildfire is a 50-page, illustrated book you will never read.

After Wildfire, I started but didn’t finish a few other projects. Then, at age 13, I typed The Secret Computer World. (This was 1985, people. Typing a story on a computer was a bit of a novelty, still). You’ll never read this 36-page, single-spaced book, either.

In High School, I won a prize for a technothriller short story I wrote called Secrets Withheld. Like the above – you’ll never read this, either. Partially because I got over technothrillers after my teens.

Over the years. I’d go on to write in fits and starts. A few words here, a partial story there.

Then, bored during work one day, I wrote a scene. It featured a sorcerer doing sorcerer things – not too unlike many other sword and sorcery stories. Eventually, this would lead to Seeker, the first novel of my Source Chronicles fantasy series. For the record, the scene I originally wrote only appears – in part – in the finished novel as a flashback.

I tried for a very long time to go the traditional publishing route. I submitted queries to multiple agents, open-to-submission publishing houses, and the like.

Then I received a lot of form letter rejections.

Then I discovered CreateSpace. This amazing avenue to self-publishing – and putting your work on Amazon – led me to build and publish a dozen+ books for Kindle and paperback for sale on Amazon. CreateSpace no longer exists – but was folded into Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

Having my work available has been great. Yet as large as Amazon is – they are not the only game in town.

Recognizing this, I’m taking a step into a larger world.

Expanding my reach

I had the opportunity to start an eye-opening correspondence with another indie author. She mentioned to me how she noticed my distribution was not broad, and limited to Amazon.

Logically, I knew this. But it never quite registered that this limitation kept my availability to a limited audience – in addition to the hard-to-fathom Amazon algorithms and other indie authors out there.

Exploring this further, I also discovered an option outside of Audible for my audiobooks. Findaway Voices works much like ACX (you can upload your own audiobook recordings or seek a voice artist) but with distribution to many other audiobook retailers. Hence, I shared my fiction and nonfiction audiobooks with that broader audience and additional platforms.

There was, however, a slight obstacle I had to overcome before I could do the completely different (but not so different) expansion of my eBook and paperback reach. And that was working with KDP Select.

This program can be hugely advantageous. KDP Select opens the way for 90 days for you to create Amazon and Kindle promotions (like free books and discounts) and inclusion in Kindle Unlimited. This has served many authors with promotion and marketing tools.

The downside is that you must remain exclusive to Amazon while enrolled in KDP Select.

With that exclusivity complete, however, I’m now free to expand my reach and put my books out there to a much broader market.

As of today. I’ve begun that – with my Forgotten Fodder sci-fi series.

Kind of but not entirely completely different action

Forgotten Fodder is a complete, 4-book sci-fi series. It features clones, colonies across space, murder, a conspiracy, and a blend of other hard sci-fi tropes. This is the best-plotted work I’ve done, and I’ve even planned another 4-book follow-up to these.

Hence, this was the logical series to expand my reach.

In addition to Amazon and Kindle, all 4 Forgotten Fodder novels are now available on a wide range of other media platforms, including Kobo, Apple Books, Smashwords, and more. Now, more people can find and read this sci-fi series I’m so proud of.

I wrote about this not too long ago, but now that it’s not just “forthcoming” but actually here, I’m excited to share this journey further. As part of that, I’d like to share how I was able to expand my reach and do this completely different (but not really different) approach to self-publishing.

---

Tools of the trade

While I know that a lot of authors use Scrivener or another writing tool, I use MS Word. Much of that comes from using this software since college and utter familiarity with it. This isn’t all that important when it comes to creating an ebook.

Amazon’s KDP offers a downloadable tool you can use to get the formatting for your eBook setup. Kindle Create is pretty straightforward. It’s easy to upload an existing document to it, too.

For the broader distribution of my Forgotten Fodder series, I was introduced to Draft2Digital. Like KDP, they offer some useful tools you can use to upload and format your eBook or paperback. Which is pretty awesome, frankly.

Through Draft2Digital, you can set distribution across a broad and diverse range of outlets (this includes Amazon). They also offer tools for marketing you can use to help with your distribution.

Let’s say you are looking to create your manuscript for sale on your own website. There’s a tool for that, like the shareware Calibre. Calibre offers tools to turn multiple formatted books into ePub and PDF. Using these, you could manage your book for sale as an eBook on your own website (direct sales are all the rage).

There are also many new AI tools available to help you with story generation (like ChatGPT and Claude), cover art (like MidJourney), and marketing. Generative AI can be a bit intimidating, and many people are afraid of it. But the truth is that it’s just another tool you can use for your creative work.

There are many options to consider. Which can be a bit intimidating. If you’re serious about a writing career – like I am – this is super useful information to have.

Completely different mindset

Finally, the real kind of, but not entirely completely different thing I’m working on is a different mindset.

Writing as a hobbyist and self-publishing a book or two is different from writing as a business. You can do the former with little to no effort. But the latter requires approaching writing not just as an art, but as a business.

I’m always learning new things, and there are new tools on the horizon that will change the writing, publishing, and marketing world. But then, without new tools, self-publishing wouldn’t be what it is today. And that’s part of shifting my mindset – to be more of a “beginner” and approach my business from new angles.

I’m excited to see where this will take me. And I’m excited to have the opportunity to offer Forgotten Fodder to a broader audience.

Thanks for reading and being part of my ongoing process.

As I share my creative journey with you, I conclude with this – how are you inspired to be your own creator – whatever form that takes?

---

Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.

Feel free to explore the rest of the website. Also, check out my weekly podcasts.

Please subscribe to my NEW newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive your free eBook.