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Three-Part Perfect Player Post, Parsed and Pieced by a Persnickety Pest

PART THREE
IT ALL COMES FULL CIRCLE
(read the first and second parts here)


So, after months and months and months of in-depth studying, armed with my super-fancy, now-polished, brand-spanking new manuscript (having been numerous times thoroughly critiqued and beta-read) and a fine-tuned query letter I’d altered time and again to fit the individual needs of each agent and publisher, I submitted everything a second time, sat back to wait, and . . .

No—slam!

No—slam!

No—slam!

No—slam!

. . . it was the same damned thing all over again.

*sigh*

Well, at least no one called me a squeegee.

“Do it right, or do not do it at all,” my muse had said to me.

Of course. By all means. And we’re all familiar with that saying: “If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.”

So this, patient readers, brings me completely full-circle, back to my first post made on November 11th, 2012.

Only it hasn’t begun. It’s finally finished.

Once 365 days left, now none. Short story collections are all out and available.

And that ice-cold water I’d plunged into? It’s woken me up to things I’d never before considered: all those whatchamacallits, doohickeys, and whoozywhatsits concerning the publishing business, things I once believed were reserved only for agents, editors, and publishers.

Pfft. Well, dammit, I’m a writer . . . and an editor and a proofreader, and now a cover designer, a formatter (hmm, is that even a word?), a marketer, a publisher (the last four, fairly non-professional, mind you) . . . still learning things, of course. But already I have learned so much, and will continue to do so over the next decade. Period. (Or full stop.)

Whereas ten years prior, I would never have envisioned sitting and planning (and learning!) all that went with publishing my own work, I have now done so, and again, will continue to do so over the next decade.

Yes, I’m still determined. Yes, I’m still sometimes frustrated. Yes, I’m still occasionally perplexed. Yes, I’m still jittery, having drunk so much coffee over the year my eyeballs are now floating. But am I scared yet?

Nope. Wasn’t scared 365 days ago, not scared now. Publishing a novel is a far cry from a natural disaster, and is unlikely to cause personal harm, and it’s definitely not politics (unless you write political thrillers) nor a bunch of angry circus clowns driving heavy machinery through the woods. Trust me, if it were, I’d abandon it—post haste!

It’s indie [author] publishing . . . that ever-hopeful sliver of light shining through the publishing back door, beckoning just the right type of stubborn writer to crash through with a pissed-off war cry on her lips. No more near-impossibly high hoops held aloft by subjective gatekeepers, no more smacking my head against the brick wall of endless rejections, and the contract fairy has long since died, rest her sorry little soul.

Yes. Indie [author] publishing. Cut the middle. Reach the readers. Period. (Or full stop!)

Well, my hell-spawn demons may never overrun the world. But hopefully they will be enjoyed by my ultimate bottom line and true reason I’d plunged face-first into the ice-cold, now partially charted waters of indie [author] publishing: Dark fantasy readers.

So come, follow me. Mayhem awaits. And please, do mind the shards of fragile brains that I’ve left behind on the floor—you know, those parts poisoned by insistent, repeated claims of, “No, you can’t!”—and enter beneath the stone archway to the dark fantasy world that’s been caged up in my mind for so, so, so long.

Yes, The Perfect Player: Book One of the Caendorian World, is now available.

Please, I implore you . . . Enjoy.

Download via Amazon (Kindle - free to Amazon Prime members!)
Read the thoughts of those unwitting minds I’ve snagged (reviews)
Read the prologue and chapter one – for free! Click here.

Quote from Dr. Seuss

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