The shitty bits

Now comes the part I have to stop saying I hate, because what will that get me? Hives, boils, constipation - the writer's plague loosely called marketing.

I've decided (the calendar decided for me) that I'm going to self-publish Prophets Tango as a serial. Yes, something a little different.
I don't have time to query an editor/agent and wait six to eight months to get an email saying thanks, no thanks or whatever. Too old for that kind of waiting. Besides, there's another book waiting in the wings.

Feedbacking friends and beta readers have been worth their weight in gold, but the best I'll be able to do is spell their names right in the acknowledgments and signed copies. And let them ride in the limo with me.

Dear Ed. has given me a to-do list and I'm scratching things off one at a time, with varying degrees of success. One of the things I'm NOT supposed to be doing is imagining that I can do my own cover art. See?

There are two distinctly different brain countries involved in becoming a published author. The writing happens in the enchanted place all writers want to stay in, where stories are laid, lovingly brooded over, and hatched.

Editing and other pesky tasks like proofreading seem to be a bridge to (dum da dum) Production and Marketing Hell. A place I hold no passport for. Hardly speak the language.  Untamed and strange lands lie ahead. I will step in shit and hopefully figure out how to convince folks that smell is roses. Or at least patchouli.

I went through the steps of relocating my domain away from Register.com to Google.com. A deal dollarwise. Um...lack of understanding and expertise on my part has temporarily knocked lacativa.com into Limbo. I stumbled through a few Fill In The Blanks forms and will see what comes of it. WOW! I did it! 
Now back to making it look like a bookseller's website. That's right, I do the HTML boogie too.

 The internet and diddling it has gotten very complex since I put that IBM PC-XT together from a box of parts and booted it up with a series of 5" floppies in '92. Technology feels like a runaway horse and me with no carrots or rope. I'm willing to climb back onto that horse...if I can find it.

And wtf has any of this to do with getting a book into your hands?

Everything!

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