Just keep writing

by Kami Cornwall

A few weeks ago I attended my 20 year high school reunion. (Yeay!) But I'm not going to blog about that. At the reunion I sat with a long-time friend, Candi, who has been writing the past 10 years or so and works at a book store. We swapped stories about our writing groups, conferences, and publishing.

Candi Norman self-publishes her short stories. *gasp!* And our conversation went like this:

Me: I'm afraid to self-publish. I feel like I should go with a major publishing company first who could get my name out there and then once I have followers I could break away and self-publish.

Candi: The problem is that hardly anyone is buying physical books anymore. The bulk of the readers out there are using their electronic devices to read books. So the more you write and put yourself out there, the more people will see your name when they do a search. You also will keep a higher percentage of the money since you don't give a huge cut to your publisher.

Me: But how do people find you if you self-publish?

Candi: You just keep writing. Your book will show up in the genre search and if readers think your story looks interesting, they buy it. Besides...a friend of mine self-published for years and then a major publishing company approached her with a contract for one of her stories and she has made a lot of money on that.

She's right, you know. It completely changed my mind about how to go about writing and publishing. I'm much more confident now about the idea of self-publishing. The idea of finishing something and publishing it is more important than ever now.

Just keep writing!