Sunday, November 25, 2012

A New Chapter...

Earlier this year I had a different outlook on the trajectory of my writing career. I thought things were moving to the next level. I had made a transition to writing books for clients and was moving away from the small time web content and SEO articles I had been doing for years. You know, I had always wanted to write books--especially novels.

It has been a productive year. I've written/published more books in 2012 than ever before. It looked to be a banner year,  profitable one. Unfortunately, I was wrong. There was a bit of early success, but then despite the novels and novellas I published, I wasn't profitable. My lack of success put tremendous strains on my household finances. The freelance work I had been doing was dried up and I couldn't find more. I had a few book projects that failed to materialize.

A working writer needs income generating projects, and didn't find any. It all kind of made me think I would have to look beyond writing for money.

Then something happened recently.

My wife's salary got a dramatic upward boost. It opened up the possibility of me not needing to write for an immediate financial return. I could focus on other things like building up my publishing company or building up a fledgling freelance book design career. I could help other authors wanting to self-publish by providing flat fee services to get their books into print and formatted for ebooks. On a more mundane level, I could concentrate on taking better care of things at home.

A new chapter arrived suddenly and now I have a flexibility I have never had before. The question is how I will use it going forward and what direction will my writing career take now that I have a legitimate chance to reboot and redirect it from the ground up. I'll probably comment further on any developments going forward.

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