Ta-da!

Hello, there. Welcome to the new digs. Some people may know me from my "fun" blog, The Spectral Obelisk. The purpose of this new blog is to focus solely on the world of writing, specifically self-publishing, or as I would prefer to call it "publishing yourself" to wash it clean of any old icky associations that might be lingering in people's heads.

After some intense research and soul searching, and after 20 years of counseling people that publishing yourself was akin to being your own lawyer, I've come to believe that not only is publishing yourself a viable option for writers, but it's going to eventually drastically change the landscape of publishing. I'm not by any means predicting the demise of traditional publishing, but in the last 18 months or so the paradigm has shifted, and traditional publishing houses will eventually have to change and morph to accommodate that shift.

There are several excellent blogs about publishing yourself, and I'll be adding them to the blog roll as this site fills out. But I want to do something a little different. You see, I decided a week ago today that I was going to become my own small press. I have four novels -- two solo and two mysteries co-written with my talented friend Susan -- that we're going to publish over the next couple of months.

So what I'm offering here is an adventure that you can follow, if you're so inclined. From the spark of an idea, through the research, step-by-step through the nuts and bolts of all aspects of publishing your own work. I hope to have guest bloggers who can offer their own expertise on all aspects or writing, publishing, and marketing, and provide a clearinghouse of sorts for the bits and bobs of advice and tips and reliable information that's strewn all over the web.

You can watch in real time as we take our work and get it to market. Hopefully learn from our mistakes, and possibly have the inspiration to take control of your own art.