There are four main ways of selling your books online:
1. Your own website
2. Amazon
3. Smashwords
4. Booksellers
Selling via your own website can be more expensive than you think. Not only do you need the website, but also some way of dealing with the orders, which usually involves a shopping cart of some description, as well as a way of handling payments. The simplest way is to use Paypal for the payments, but to my knowledge they don't have 'shopping basket' software available.
Most basket software needs to be rented and the cost will range from a few pounds/dollars a month to over a hundred pounds/dollars a month depending on what you opt for. If you want to do digital downloads, then you'll either need a basket with online storage or email the book to the customer.
In short, unless you have some technical knowledge, or know someone who does, this may not be the best option for you.
Amazon are a far easier option for print or electronic books. I covered converting to electronic books last month, but did you know they will stock your print book too? You'll have to email their customer services team to discover the exact details as they will vary from country to country, but it's an option not to be ignored.
Smashwords are an ebook site that sell books for all formats. You'll need a Paypal account to receive your vast fortune (we all need dreams), but aside from that, they do the work for you.
Booksellers are a harder proposition. If you have a local independent bookstore, approach them and ask if they would sell your book. They can be very receptive to this and will rarely leave you with a flea in your ear, though they will probably want to read it first. For self-publishers, they are are a far better bet than the major chains.
The big stores are a different proposition altogether. In the UK, Waterstone's are fairly amenable to independent authors, but there are several stages you must go through first before they'll consider the book, of which having an ISBN number is the easiest stage. Your book also has to be listed on Nielson's and if it's a print book, available via Gardner's or similar before they will stock it. The process for US stores and other nations will be similar, but involve different companies. Check with each store's website for details.
If you are selling through a website not based in your home country, there will be tax considerations which should not be ignored or you could find yourself in legal hot water. That said, it can be easily sorted if there are tax treaties in place.
With that done, all you have to do now is promote it and persuade people to buy your tome, but that's for next month.
Martin Willoughby
Feel free to send questions and I'll try to
answer as many as possible next time.
Self-Publishing: Selling Online by Martin Willoughby
Once you win an award, be sure to get as much mileage out of it as you can.
1. Put award-winning book or award-winning author interchangeably with the name of your book or your name as the author. If you have won more than one award, use "multi-award winning."
Book Awards: The Gift that Keeps on Giving by Mary Greenwood, author of award-winning How to Interview Like a Pro
tips (tipz), Verb: To provide with a piece of confidential, advance, or inside information
news (n(y)oeoz), Noun: Newly received or noteworthy information, esp. about recent or important events
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First Monday of every month at the Felix Bar, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, Melbourne
We are now bringing you the Melbourne off shoot of the Cold Reading Series. Therefore we are seeking script writers who have something they'd just love to hear read out loud. We're seeking scripts ranging from 10 - 20 pages and if you wish to submit anything longer that's no problem but just be aware we can't guarantee we'll read past the 20 page mark. The idea is that you will hear your words read live in front of an audience, so not only can you hear what is working and what isn't, but you'll also be able to get an idea what an audience thinks of it.
HOW TO SUBMIT A SCRIPT: To submit a script please email a pdf to crsmelbourne. Include a title page with your name, address, phone number and email address on it. Please let us know the format of the script (as in short film, feature, play...) and a short summary. Also we will require a character break down so casting can occur on the night before the audience arrives.
Going from writer to author is no easy transition. First you need to write your novel. When you've got an idea this is pretty straight forward. The ideas just flow and the biggest problem is keeping up with your possessed creative fingers. Your story becomes like a secret affair where you tell lies just to sneak off with a pen and paper (or to be alone with your PC) so you can write.
Once you've written your glowing work of art you realise it needs to be polished up to shiny perfection. For me, this is where the real task kicks in. You can pay for an editor to look over your manuscript but this is costly, so you spend months trying to make your wrongs right. After pulling your story apart and putting it back together you want some confirmation that it's good and not just your imagination running away with itself again.
Every writer dreams of being read but finding readers isn't always easy. Providing constructive criticism is a skill not everyone can deploy. Some people will offend you; others will fill you with false confidence, but those that give you useful feedback will be a guiding light in the abyss of editing.
So, you edit the story again and again based on the feedback of different readers. You start to believe your work is good enough to be printed but publishers don't want to know anyone that doesn't have an agent.
Agents complain about people who don't follow their guidelines and poorly written query letters. They warn if you try to wow them with glitter and colourful paper then they'll throw your story straight in the trash without a second glance. Agents are cold for a reason; they don't want to waste their time on something they can't sell. They're looking for something that's sound and after your careful editing you have just the sort of diamond in the rough they're looking for in their slush pile.
There is a good reason though why querying goes wrong. Finding the write agent is like dating sites. You view the profiles and have to work out if you have what they are looking for or if you'll just be wasting their time.
- Are they looking?
- What are they into (genres)?
- What do they want (query, synopsis, 5,000 words)?
- What's their contact preference (post, email, online form)?
Many Agents like to be queried exclusively but take 6 to 8 weeks to respond (if interested); you could end up querying only six agents a year making this a slow drawn out process, full of rejection. You edit some more and develop a thick skin.
While you wait, for agent love, you enter competitions… usually offered by publishers who don't like unsolicited manuscripts. You draft a story, edit, find a reader for feedback, edit and submit. You hope it's good enough to win and then agents will want you.
You never give up! You never stop writing!
© 2012 Alison Aldridge
Alison Aldridge is a blogger and writer of fiction novels. Her short romance story was published in the Scribblers Anthology to raise money for the Children's Hospice. She maintains a website and blog on writing. Alison delivers courses to develop written English skills for students in work based learning. She's a member of Scribblers, a local writers group in Felixstowe and several online communities. Alison is currently working on Wipe-out, a sequel to Drift, a coming of age Young Adult novel about a mermaid and first love.
Struggle to Write by Alison Aldridge
2. Go through everything you write and change it to award-winning. This can include your profile on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Look at your blog and Website. If you have previously written ezines or other articles, update them with your new awards.
3. Use Google Alerts with the name of your book to see how much PR you are really getting. This will help you decide where to put your continued efforts. I like to google some key phrases periodically to see what Google alerts has missed.
4. Write a detailed Press Release every time you win an award. I like to tell the history of the award and even list the other winners in my category. I may even write some nice things about the other winning books in my category. Then I write an email to those other writers with a copy of the link along with my congratulations. Sometimes these other winners will reciprocate by putting something about me on their blog or website.
5. Send copies of the Press Releases to anyone who might be interested in publishing the information. For example, send to your current newspaper and other newspapers such as your home newspaper or a newspaper where you previously lived. Send to your alumni associations, your employer and your professional organizations such as the local bar association or Rotary. Send to your local writers' group newsletter.
6. Put book award information on your signature on your email account so that everyone who receives an email from you will see this information. This is sent automatically and often, I will get a response like, " I did not know you were an author," or "My daughter is looking for a job and could use this book on interviewing." If it is not relevant to your email, you can always delete the signature before sending.
7. Write blurbs or tips that people will want to share with others on Facebook or retweet. That will help your information go viral.
8. Send the information frequently. You don't want to be obnoxious, but sending something only once may leave out people who don't check Facebook or Twitter on a regular basis. Some things do bear repeating. You can always tweak the post so it is a little different from earlier ones.
9. Recycle your reviews especially if you won an award with the reviewer's book contest. For example, my books have won awards with Reader Reviews and Readers Favorites. When I share these links, I mention that I won a Reader Reviews or Reader Favorites book award.
10. Use your awards to get an interview or make a pitch. I have gotten many leads for articles mentioning my books about interviewing and negotiating as a result of (HAR0)) www.helpareporter.com. This is a free service and once you sign up, you will get several emails a day with the needs of journalists for future stories. If you see something related to your expertise, you can send a timely pitch which will be forwarded by HARO. My first sentence usually is "I am an award-winning author ..."
11. The list for promoting your book awards is endless and only limited by your imagination.
All of this may seem narcissistic, but if you don't not toot your horn, who will?
_____
Mary Greenwood, Author of How to Interview Like a Pro, winner of 11 book awards; How to Mediate Like a Pro, winner of 12 book awards; How to Negotiate Like a Pro, winner of 6 book awards. Visit Marygreenwood.org
Forget magazine pronouncements of the sexiest or most interesting. Award shows come but once a year. Rating systems and polls do not include me. And who decides must lists?? Here is the place to get the feel... think zeitgeist... culture. Rib knows what we should be excited about and what should drop off the radar. Just call it instinct or let me know I am wrong and perhaps we could have it out. What has us thinking this month? Here is the flavor of the moment, a page in time for...
_____
- The writer we should all be reading...Bob Woodward
- The talking head we need to listen to...Bob Schieffer
- The place to be...Topeka, Kansas
- The book you have to read so stop putting it off...The Beulah Land trilogy
- The hottest female on the planet...Angelina Jolie
- The hottest male on the planet...Kieran Culkin
- The thing to watch on television...Community
- The company to be...Gold and Williams furniture
- The most wonderful music to hear...Ronnie Wood
- The best thing on the internet...Gublerland
- The most missed...Davy Jones
- The movie you must see of you haven't or must see again if you have...The Great Buck Howard
- The yummiest drink...Grasshopper
- The food to munch...Carrot
- The most amazing actor...Johnny Depp
- The most fabulous actress...Sissy Spacek
- The voice to pay attention to in politics...Jimmy Carter
- The mother to admire...Hillary Clinton
- The funniest human...Bill Hader
- The thing we need more of...apparently it's ...Tide??
- The thing we should no longer have to endure...Rush Limbaugh
- The hottest dead celeb...Whitney Houston
- Best blast from the past...The Monkees ( though not for the right reason )
- The best guest...Will Ferrell on Jimmy Kimmel
- The scariest thing out there...ants
- Today's "IT"...Jonah Hill
- The WHY?...Why have A&E and BRAVO gone from great to something I never want to watch??
- Do not forget to support...PBS
The Strangling Angel by Elizabeth Tyrrell
Synopsis: Elizabeth Tyrrell's gripping debut novel, THE STRANGLING ANGEL is now available to North American readers at Amazon.com. Set in Ireland during The Great Famine, it tells the story of a young girl's escape after she witnesses her mother's murder at the hands of her cruel father. She survives near starvation and suffers many hardships before she is able to escape for America, but she is robbed on the quayside in Liverpool and plunged into another series of nightmares...
Honestly, I am to be envied, by peer writers, and some have expressed that feeling to my sorry face. I live in a self-built writers retreat in central NH, in the forest, no noise, no neighbours, all alone with my canine companion of many years. I have more gadgets; programs, soft and hardware and computers and a large print home library than I know what to do with, but none of it helps me get works published or into the hands of Agents and editors. I am one mile exactly from a small town center, 90 miles from Boston. I can be a hermit but I'm not, I do get out and about; but! Here's the rub, I am a twice published author, I write daily for hours, there are finished and unfinished manuscripts aplenty laying around to reinforce my identity as a polished writer. WTF then is holding me up on a book I've got nearly two years into. Writer's block it isn't, per se. The story is finished, all but the revisions, and more revisions, followed by; well you get the picture, I am struggling. Today as I sit and write this sad saga of not being able to complete a story, I hit upon an idea. It has to be this three thousand square foot shack that's holding me back. Someone or thing has to be blamed, it's never the writer at fault, --- is it?
Receiving my copy of this month's Poets and Writers magazine this morning I spent the past two hours reading up on writers retreats; seminars, and contests that award writers a place to indulge their muse and go on to become the greatest writer the world has ever read. My struggle may be over after all. Could I be seen in the farmlands in France, or on the Rive gauche with a bottle of wine this summer, or at Macdowells colony in Peterboro, NH, or if the gods play into my worthless hands, could I be downing a mug of brew in the Emerald Ilse in a town- house or farm whilst penning the tome the world has been waiting for? I'll be housed and fed, no interruptions, other than a bathroom break, unlike here at home, the dog, I loath calling him that, barks at each breeze or foot-fall of the forest critters, large and small. Of course, that's the reason for my not completing a viable manuscript, it's the darn dog, now I see what must be done, he has to go, he is standing in the way of my fame and fortune. So what if he has carried me on his tiny back for years as a kind and gentle writers companion, or that he has never complained about the odd hours this writer keeps lamps burning that keep him from a well-deserved slumber. All that means nothing now, he will be gone in the morning, surely there is a home for him out in reader land, and I'll get back to the struggle.
© 2012 Eric L. Marsh
MSG Eric L. Marsh U S Army (RET). Eric has been a writer of fiction and poetry for most of his seventy two years (and counting) on earth. Thanks to his quarter of a century in uniform and the world travels our Uncle Sam graced him with he has penned enough tales to fill a small town library. There are many more to be written yet. Eric is a wearer of many hats, he is an accomplished spoken word performer, a story teller, poet, thespian, and stand up comic. His tours in both hot and cold wars led to the penning of his latest as yet unpublished novel, titled; In Service to HER country. Two of Eric's books have been published and had sold quite well, but are no longer in print, used copies may be purchased now and then at Amazon.com. Mother Superior's Secret. This book was nearly banned in New Hampshire. Bobby's girl-the Diner followed it.
My Struggle by Eric L. Marsh
Secrets of an Old Typewriter: Stories from a Smart and Sassy Small Town Girl by Susie Duncan Sexton
Synopsis: Anyone who has ever lived in a small town certainly knows that secrets are sometimes not so secret. Susie Duncan Sexton has lived her entire life in a small town—indeed, in the same house where she grew up. As an adult, she taught at the same grammar school that she attended as a child, and many of the relationships she cultivated while growing up, including her marriage, have endured over the years. Always one to document the present and offer her sometimes unorthodox ideas and opinions, Susie Duncan Sexton has tickled the keys of her trusty old typewriter for nearly five decades, and now that venerable machine is ready to reveal its secrets. This book may be about small town life, but the ideas contained within it are expansive. The written accounts of the life of a ‘smart and sassy small town girl’ are as urbane as those of any city dweller. From ’50s and ’60s nostalgia to modern-day values, and from the drama and insight of America’s great books and motion pictures to politics, religion and animal rights, Susie Duncan Sexton’s ‘secrets’ always hit the mark with unexpected candor and a unique perspective. Order from the Susie Duncan Sexton's website
Holding True: Essays on Being a Writer By Susan Ioannou
Synopsis: As a writer, if you thrive on encouragement, this book is for you. From three decades of editing, teaching, and writing fiction and poetry, Ioannou knows well the thorns and honey of the literary life. "When we write, we are up against the wall. Who am I? What do I feel? What do I think? Writing forces us to be alone with our thoughts, to work through the wrinkles of our own living." At the same time, when the lines are flowing, there is no greater high-what keeps a writer addicted. These pages bring ample light and balm, support and inspiration. What's more, there's laughter too, as fable and satire poke gentle fun at foibles and absurdities on the literary scene, and remind all writers of the importance of holding true. Can be order from Amazon.com
An Essay on Muses and Why They Don't Matter
I am about to write an essay on Muses but I don't know what I want to write about.
I need to call on my Muse. That should help. But the question is "Where the hell is my Muse?" The Muse is nowhere near my computer.
That is a dilemma I face when I have to churn out new ideas for writing. Often, some writers call on the Muse, an entity that's supposed to bless a writer with some kind of idea. John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, calls on the muses to help him deal with blindness for his interpretation of the Bible's Genesis from good ol' Satan's point of view. And Homer also calls on the Muses for his works involving pre-Internet Trojan Horses and treacherous voyages. They call on their muses, they help create their works and their works are labeled as timeless classics that are taught in public schools and colleges worldwide.
Maybe I'll call on the Muse…screw that, I'm not calling the Muse. All the Muse does is waste my time. I won't be putting down a candle on the floor, light the wick and pray "O Sweet Muse! Bless my fingers with your Holy Jizz!" I'm not saying that the Muse is not useless, but the Muse is often misused. Even Stephen King, grand best-selling shlockmeister that he is, thinks the muse is not a helpful force at all most of the time: "There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer." It is the writer's job to come up with ideas to write about and often the writer needs to read other pieces of text. For me, I look around the world by walking the park, surfing the 'Net, and of course, write a lot.
When I do not have a clear idea, I just write the first thing that comes to my head. Then I would finish what I typed up and look it over. "Damn, I suck," I would mutter. "Why would I write this?" Then I notice a few ideas that might work for another draft. Then I work on another draft with that idea, slightly altered. It still sucks. Then I do another draft, and another, and another until I feel all the plot elements, composition mechanics, and character structure fits.
Did I call on some Muse? No, I did not. I kept working. A lot of the great and successful writers work, and they work their fingers raw without any of that Muse Jizz. They keep writing even when something is total crap. They work with what they have rather than what they are "given." That's what all writers need to do: they need to work with that they have, fingers included.
© 2012 Kristopher Miller
Kristopher Miller is a budding writer, blogger, and scholar who is currently working on his masters-level program in technical communication, but until then, he is working on his debut novella and scribbling drafts of other novellas, short stories, and poetry to keep himself from going crazy. He has also reviewed for Adventure Classic Gaming and he is also a writer on Helium.com. Apart from being featured in Writing Raw, Kris is also featured in the April 2010 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine. You can visit his abode at The Catacomb's Bookshelf
Where Are My Muses At? by Kristopher Miller
Announces 2012 Writing Contest
Every year, the Vancouver, BC-based West End Writers Workshop sponsors a writing contest to showcase the talent of writers around the world. In June, all contest finalists will read their pieces and the winners will be announced at a ceremony in the stately Barclay Manor in Vancouver's West End. This event is free and open to the public. The contest will offer three prizes in each of two separate categories - Prose and Poetry. $100 First Prize, $50 Second Prize and $25 Third Prize.
Screeners for the contest:
Jan Drabek: widely published novelist
Sue Nevill: well-established poet
Elizabeth Boyd: up-and-coming writer of fiction and poetry
Entry Submission Start - April 2
Online Submission Deadline - May 15
Mailed Submissions - postmarked no later than May 15
Short-listed Finalists Announcement - early June
Awards Announcement and Ceremony at Barclay Manor - TBA
Entries may be submitted online at wewriters.org with fees paid to Paypal.
All entries must be in the English language and must be accompanied by an entry form with Title, Category, Name, Email, Address, Phone, Payment Amount and Method, as well as the Date.
- Prose - or short fiction - word count is limited to a maximum of 1000 words.
- Poems are limited to one page each.
- Entry Fees are $10 Canadian per prose entry OR $10 for two poems.
Online entries must adhere to formatting requirements posted at wewriters.org/wp2/contest/rules, with payments made through Pay Pal. Via regular mail, entries should be sent to West End Writers Contest, c/o. #301, 1535 Nelson Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6G 1M2 - but no sooner than April 2. Cheques or money orders for the fee(s) should be made payable to West End Writers. Please do not send cash. Contest results will be emailed to the WEWW membership and contest entrants, and will be posted at: wewriters.org/wp2/contest/past-winners where past winners are posted now. All questions may be directed to WEWW through wewriters.org/wp2/contact or at westendwriters@gmail.com
Happy writing and good luck!
-West End Writers Workshop
My Literary Profile, A Memoir by Helene Pilibosian
Synopsis: Living with parents who were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, author Helene Pilibosian studies in Watertown schools and at Harvard's Division of Continuing Education. She includes an ethnography of villages in historic Armenia and also describes the study of literature with Howard Mumford Jones and Paul Engle with scenes of Cambridge in the 1950s. Achieving a degree in humanities in 1960, she gets married and travels to Europe and the Middle East with her husband. Health problems intrude, and Dwight E. Harken, M.D., an outstanding thoracic surgeon, saves her life with the best medical skill available in 1963. Theories of C.G. Jung lead her to a mystical experience, which fires her literary inspiration. She establishes Ohan Press and publishes a number of books, including her own, and in doing so makes peace with her past. Order from Ohan Press.
Call for Poetry
Following on from Unique Driven Determined’s successful fund raising event in April 2011 at Aldwinians Rugby Club, Audenshaw where we raised over £400, we are proud to announce our next fundraising event. The project involves a poetry anthology called “Unique Driven Determined” consisting of poetry about human differences and qualities, disabilities and impairments and how people deal with these challenges.
All poems accepted will be appearing in a forthcoming charity anthology due to be published by N Press end of Summer/Autumn of 2012 with a launch date to be confirmed. All poetry submitted may have been published previously and may be submitted simultaneously for consideration elsewhere. Please keep poetry to no more than 40 lines.
The deadlines for submissions of poetry will be 31st May 2012
and successful entries should be announced by the beginning of July 2012.
Please send all material for consideration to either to Katy Lisa @ katy.robinson3@tiscali.co.uk or Andy N @ aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk
All proceeds will be donated to Tameside based local charities – The Park Café Bailey Hall,Hyde which provides work based training opportunities for People with Learning Disabilities and Pennine Independent Voice – a new independent action group offering self help for people who care for or who experience Mental Health issues in the Tameside Community.
I hate the blank page. I find it paralyzing. The stark white of the paper almost daring me to mare its perfect surface with my imperfect words. I stop, lean my head back and close my eyes. Ideas pour out of my brain and trickle out of my mouth. So articulate in their free flowing form, that the words drip easily from my lips and lithely float away on the air. Like wisps of smoke, they hold their form only for a moment-a meaning at once there and spent, just as soon gone as realized; vanishing deftly in front of my lips. By the time my fingers grasp out for them the words have changed-transformed like smoke. They vanish as I reach to capture them. Clumsily I furiously attempt to cram them onto the paper in front of me. Haphazard and careless the words seem foreign and distorted on the sheet before me. The letters morph in a grotesque fashion, melting through my fingers and dissolving in front of my eyes. Ink runs down the page like black tears and ends in a smudged mess on my finger tips. As the ink trickles down my hands and onto my wrists, the black smudges seem to permeate every crease on my hands, magnifying them beyond recognition. My arms-like the letters-- begin to transform. The ink running in rivers over my life line, heart line and headline. I drop the pen which until now has been perched useless between my fingers. The nib tumbles down and stabs my palm. A small red crevice now opens and starts to ooze red liquid. The bubble of blood gets larger and larger until it spills over mixing with the ink and running furiously into my heartline. The ink and blood mix so thoroughly that I cannot tell if the blood is flowing into the ink or if it is the ink which is penetrating the wound. I appear to be bleeding ink. Fear strikes at my heart and I freeze; again. The genius of the words strung into long graceful flowing sentences which appeared in my mind only moments ago now gone for good. I get up and wash my hands. The page still blank on the table. The ink mixes with the water and flows like lost dreams over my palms and down the drain in front of me. As the rivulets of dark water fall I think to myself; try, I will try again tomorrow.
© 2012 Carolyn Blair
I believe in lifelong learning, never giving up and always being open and teachable. An accomplished epee fencer, aspiring pastry chef, beginning squash player and avid reader, I have been fortunate enough to have lived in Chicago, Seattle, France, Botswana, Tunisia and Philadelphia. Proficient in French I am currently studying ASL, Hebrew, Italian and learning to read Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
A Struggle in Ink by A Struggle in Ink
Yeh, right, the publication struggles….
Okay, I must begin this thing back in the sixth grade. There was this contest of who could write the best book, but not just write, but produce the book-you know, with a cover and jacket and all that jazz. I realize it was primitive but it was all in good fun, and I lost to this girl named Brooke. No, no, no, her book was not well written but rather very pretty. She won by good fashion sense. Okay, so that was my first rejection. My book was of poetry, by the way. I wrote a bunch of poems and my mother and I cut cardboard and used fabric and the like to make the hardcover-it turned out alright-my words were creative for my age, but fashion always wins over creative-art. Anyway, the struggle began back then, only I did not know that I would ever become a writer, it was just this thing, this gentle mechanism that flowed easily through my fingers to the paper with pen. I enjoyed moving my hand to make words. As the years waned onward and my life became more about curiosity than about words, I put down the pen and chased the girls, masturbated regularly, threw rocks through windows, caused trouble, got the shit kicked out of me everyday after school, read Nietzsche-you know, ordinary kid stuff. As high school approached, the craziness ceased for awhile and academia belted me in the teeth as I devoured books, but still managed a sweetheart-who later turned lesbian, but whatever. Then I got into music. Right, right, right. The Doors. I had found God… his name was Jim Morrison. I began to write again. I wrote crazy, filled the notebooks. People stole my notebooks. I continued to write. I used lysergic acid diethylamide frequently, while roaming in the woods or on the beach. Life had flare. But my poems were, Returned to Sender. See, I started submitting to the mags as a teen, but did not realize that I sucked. I put down the pen for another ten years. When I finally picked up the word, I had lived the lives of ten men. The experience was there, the lacking ingredient from my youth. I set a goal at the age of twenty-nine to write a novel before I turned thirty, and I succeeded. It took me eight months to complete my first book. I submitted to the agents. REJECTION. REJECTED. REJECT. I wrote short stories, those too got the boot. My studio burst with letters of declination. I took up painting and found that the brush cleared my mind and fueled my pen. I stopped submitting to the mags and the agents and just wrote-until about two years ago when I felt ready to handle the rejection again, and then I built my own website, blogs, and found ways to publish myself, circumventing the foolhardy snobs. All of my rejection letters went up in flames.
© 2012 Jake Sullivan
I am a 33-year old, struggling writer from Albany, NY attempting to defeat my dead heroes. Throughout this challenge, I realize the high possibility of non compos mentis but shall persist despite the obstacles ahead of me. I am sure to die alone of starvation and madness...an old fool whom battled and lost the fight. I am dedicated to producing Literary Art and refuse to fuel The Machine anymore than necessary. For The Machine continues to oppress its people. It continues to regulate and inhibit our rights, both naturally born and otherwise. We must never let art succumb to the degradation of the past. The pen/brush is and always has been mightier than the sword--artists must unite, stand united, and stay united. It has always been our duty to challenge authority, to battle the oppressors, to aid the oppressed and persecute the villainous cretins residing at the heart of social despair. I like wine and the old 1970 Smith Corona Galaxie II manual portable, typewriter.
The Struggle by Jake Sullivan
Ticket to Ride By Philip Scott Wikel
Synopsis: Ticket to Ride is a timeless tale of two writers coming-of-age. While it's set in the late 70s Ticket to Ride is as universal in it's message as Homer's Odyssey. Enriched with allusions to literary and rock 'n roll classics, readers of Ticket to Ride will see Morgan and Livy moving from being innocent 17-year-olds to becoming fully realized adults and, like America, anxiously redefining the ideas of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Ticket to Ride is comprised of two parts, subtitled Just Another Day and Got to Get You into My Life. Got to get You into My Life is the story of Morgan Blake who struggles with the fear of becoming like his angry, alcoholic father. Yearning to find a greater sense of peace and freedom, authentic love and his own voice as a writer, Morgan sets off on an odyssey, both internal and external. The second part, Just Another Day is the story of young Olivia Tinsley, a poor girl from East Finchley/London and her determination to raise herself from poverty and become a successful, self-reliant, and outspoken writer. Her journey includes meetings with hippies in Spain, U2 in Ireland and feminists in the extreme. Order from Amazon.com.