Years ago, I decided to get more serious about my writing. I've since self-published two books. It was a blast, honestly. I encountered a recurring problem, though:
No matter how much I got myself out there, socialized, rubbed elbows with other authors, and participated in the indie horror community, nothing gained traction. For a long while, I remained optimistic. I decided this passion of mine could just be my expensive hobby, and stopped hoping to make any returns or profits. I started submitting shorts and whatnot, just to see. If something ever got published the old-fashioned way, I figured, surely I'd find myself with more readers!
Unfortunately, I had a pile of rejections, and still no readers.
I've been told, "just write for yourself!", but personally? If I wanted to do that, I'd keep a diary. I'm a storyteller. I don't want fame, per se. I do want to actually have an audience, though. And I already had that, for free. My biggest readers are my friends. I decided to stop publishing. I can just as easily send them PDFs of any new works and save myself the thousands (yes, it does get that expensive sometimes).
But morale was low. Constantly getting told your writing isn't good enough makes you believe it. As my Scrivener file of rejected shorts got bigger and bigger, I started thinking, well, I might just be a bad writer. Maybe it was time to find a new hobby altogether. As a weird, last-ditch effort, I decided to do some science and started writing in a wildly different genre (fanfiction), just to see. If I actually had an audience of total strangers, surely they'd tell me like it is.
I told myself: if anonymous readers flood my comments with "this is ass", I will hang it up.
Well, dear reader; they absolutely loved what I was putting out.
Moreover: they wanted my original fiction, too.
And so, here I am. Trying again, but in a weirder way. Due to Life(TM), I can't really afford to keep self-publishing. So, most of my work is going to be available for free, for now on. My Tumblr will be my short story compendium, my shop here on BuyMeACoffee will be my eBook hub, and the only things I'll actually be selling are my paperbacks over at Lulu.
eBooks of my novels will always be free. My paperbacks will always be cheap.
It is my hope that I will find enough support through Tumblr and this site to occasionally fund a new endeavor. Every 600 dollars or so, I can commission a new book cover (assuming I cannot just make it myself, of course). Every 1500 dollars, I can go to another AuthorCon.
My pipe dream, of course, is having enough of a following to nuke my student debt, hah. But I'm being realistic here. In the end, I just want readers. I want to make a thing and slide it under your door, then giggle at the muffled, "what the hell?!"
I write weird stuff. Here's hoping it finds weird people.