Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Or in this case the crazy swirling, what-do-I-do-with-this-book road. Remember when Dorothy first starts her trek to OZ, and Glenda Goodwitch says, "It's best to start at the beginning," so Dorothy takes her literally and starts in the very center, placing her ruby-slippered feet on the yellow bricks and around and around she went until the bricks were straight and heading out of Munchkinland? Ever wonder where those red bricks went to? Here lately I'm thinking they lead to a land where self-pubbing is a really attractive idea and reports from the blogosphere say there are some people making some awesome cash out there doing just that in the ebook world.



Like most authors, I have more than a few stories sitting on a harddrive/disk/thumbdrive that hasn't seen the light of day since before Kindles ripped a hole in the ebook time-space continuum. They have been around the publishing block more than a few times. Sad cases of that much-frustrating phrase, "I love it, I just don't love it enough." - so what do you do with the flotsam and jetsam of your work?

Yep, you guessed it. You wander out of the poppy field where some witch put you to sleep and you take your file to the gates of the Emerald City. Now, I'm not going to pretend expertise at this venture as I've never done it myself, but will cop to seriously considering it. I mean why not? The flounder books aren't doing me a damn bit of good taking up space where they're at, the least they could do is to go out there and earn me a few dollars.

Personally, I think in order to make some of the crazy money I've heard bandied around lately in self-pubbed ebook sales, you have to have something that's pretty hot right now. Something that is perpetually profitable. And you have to strike fast and furious in an almost blitzkreig flying-monkey style explosion of stories coming, bam bam bam on top of each other. (This, I think, is more important if you don't have a backlist. If you do then you might not have to hit it quite so hard your first time out of the gate).

So, I think I'm going to take the plunge with a few books that were passed over for one reason or another. I'll take them out, shake them off and let someone else look at them to see what I can strengthen, lose, or improve.

And why not...I might find some fun and adventure along the way.

-Kat