Life in the Fast Lane - A Fresh New Author

It may take me awhile to come to a decision, but when I do it, I jump in with both feet. No tipping a toe in to check the water, just dive in and swim for your life. The decision to become an eBook author was much the same. I wanted to create a tangible product that someone could hold in their hand and was a little nervous about having my hard work in a digital form.

I had tried to pitch my masterpiece to more agents then I could keep track of and fell flat on my face. My story was good, but it seemed to similar to other stories. Unfortunately, at face value "Skye Falling" does seem a little cliche until you get to know it; romance between humans and shapeshifter's (predominately wolves) screams the now famous TWILIGHT at you, but the only similarities... wolves are in the story. I let the weight of momentary failure overwhelm me and spent well over half a year refusing to write on any of the 6 additional works I had in progress.

Running across Smashwords.com was such a blessing,  they will publish you, market you and sell books for you. Smashwords link you to barnes & noble, Sony, Apple (iTunes), kobo, diesel, page foundry, Baker & Taylor and libraries. And when I learned I could publish through amazon.com at the same time (as long as you don't use the "KDP Select" option) I felt like I was on top of the world.... all for the awesome price of FREE. You select the price of your book and they (smashwords & amazon) take a small percentage WHEN you sell a copy. 

This month (October 2012) was my 1st month as a published author. I published four romance novels; Seemingly Invisible, Skye Falling, Wings of Darkness and Secret Isle of Crystoria. Within 1 month I am all over the internet. You can search for me on google, yahoo, bing or ask and find my books. I have sold over a dozen copies of my books in the US and UK. 

The real moment of triumph for me was walking into Barnes and Noble and speaking with the Nook Book clerk and discovering that not only are my books available online, but you could get a digital copy in a real "brick and mortar" bookstore. The lovely woman behinds the counter  pulled up my books on a display nook and purchased a copy of each of the 3 already on B&N and said they would all be available on every display nook in the store. She also took my cards to share with teammates in her home store, who read my kind of books AND she said that her store loves to promote local authors with book signings etc. I feel a love affair with B&N coming on ♥ 

I am currently working on several new books but I'm focusing on releasing my first literary love (started in 2006 under the title Xyrian Guard but now titled "Heart of the Guard" by the end of the year. My Momma always said start like you mean to go on and I'm here to be a well known author. Now I'm not rich by far; in fact I still work as a Resident Storage Manager. And you don't have to grease my ears to get me through the door, but I have a hard time not dancing around a squealing like a 13 year old girl at a Justin Beiber concert every time I think about it

Someone once said "Why dream in black and white when you can dream in color?" I have let that be my inspiration. If you are thinking about turning your dream into reality... stop thinking! Live in COLOR! Live life in the fast lane! Jump in and start swimming, if you drown a little it's ok. Just do what my favorite little blue fish says "Just Keep Swimming, Swimming, What Do You Do? You Swim, Swim." (Totally copy written by Disney.) ♥