Becoming an author might be the easy part of anyone's journey to publish the thoughts, expertise or content in their head. Long I had wrote down my ideas and stories waiting for the opportunity when I could take the time to document them.
Traveling for my job in a high tech consulting firm gave the me that opportunity. Early in the morning before going to the office, I could write in the local Starbucks wherever I was. After the long day and dinner, I could relax at the hotel in the bar and either read or write. I chose to write and write I did, a lot. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to travel was significantly reduced. Our clients and our company realized we could get a lot done, often more by avoiding travel, and hence working from home or the local office was advantageous to our clients and our quality of life. I continued the tradition of writing every morning at 5:15 am for 1 hour, then a few hours on the weekend.
The journey to self-publishing is wrought with deep waters and a lot of sharks, the scams and vanity publishers that try to steal your work or they will charge you exorbitant fees to publish your works and then leave you in the breakers. Traditional publishing companies, you can query them, but expect to hear crickets, they will not respond most of the time, it's an elitist group, and unless your work is exceptional, you will have a hard time as a new author. I have opted for the hybrid route where I work with a reputable writing/publishing company where we share the cost of my work and they don't just publish anything. If my work is not good, I would expect to hear them to tell me so I can edit, change or abandon a project. As I work with these companies and become a member of ALLI and other writing associations, I will update my posts accordingly with anything I learn along the way.
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