How I became a published author

 

I believe fiction authors are born to tell stories. When I was a child, I was, and still am, a voracious reader, not only of genre fiction, but much else besides. As a youngster, I liked to make up stories in my head and act them out. I'd embarrass my parents by sword fighting or talking to myself while walking along besides them. I especially enjoyed the Oz books, sequels to The Wizard of Oz, and books about pirates and strange magical lands. I also enjoyed comic books. My favorites were Captain Marvel and some of the Disney characters. Around the age of twelve, I discovered the pulp magazines which featured science fiction, fantasy and horror. I also enjoyed such movies as The House of Frankenstein and the few science fiction films available in those days. .

I was not a very good student from the third grade up, although I did enjoy certain subjects such as math and science. English was not my best subject by far. My problem was that I was bored most of the time. What the teachers were teaching, I had read about long before attending the classes. In high school, I cut school quite often and had roaring battles with my mother.

After I graduated, for a short while, I worked in the printing trade because I thought I would be close to printed matter. I went from job to job for a while. After I met my wife to be, she encouraged me to go to electronics school to learn TV repair which was a trade that paid well. I finished the school in the summer, which was the slow season for TV repairs. As a result I found employment as tester in a factory that manufactured electronic devices.

At the age of 21, I was drafted into the army during the Korean War, which ended two weeks after I reported for duty. Because of my electronic schooling, I was placed in the Signal Corp to work in microwave communication. Sometime after leaving the army, I answered an ad by IBM to become a field engineer in the SAGE defense system.

When IBM lost the maintenance contract, a great opportunity opened up for me. I interviewed for a technical writer's position at one of IBM's research and development facilities. Finally I was doing something I really enjoyed – writing – even if it was only maintenance and customer manuals. I learned a lot as a technical writer, about writing and other things. For one thing, I learned to become thick-skinned as far as criticism goes.  In tech writing, many people have a say in your writing, engineers, marketing personel, your peers, quality control people, etc.

While I was still working, I never lost my desire to write fiction. As a result, I took a correspondence course in fiction writing. I'm glad I did. It gave me the basic knowledge I needed. I began by writing short stories with little success as far as getting them published. With four children and a full time job, I had little time nor a quiet place to write. Sometimes I would write during my lunch hour.

My chance came after I retired. Now I had the time, a converted recreation room to use as an office and a home computer. At first a few of my short stories were published in electronic magazines (e-zines). Very seldom was I paid for these. However, they acted as portfolio that I could refer to when submitting my novels to a publisher. Finally, a POD and e-book publisher picked up a science fiction novel I had written. The novel did not sell well mainly due to the publisher's lack of distribution. The only place it could be bought was on the publisher's own web site. I and this publisher soon parted ways. I found another POD publisher, but the same thing occurred.

Finally, I struck gold. My work was published by a strictly E-book publisher, who distributed my novels to all of the popular online booksellers such as Amazon, Fictionwise, etc. Soon my novels brought in royalties, not much at first, but the more novels I wrote, the more I sold. Not that I've ever had a best seller or anything close. But as a retired person, it is a source of extra income. It also gives me a few extra deductions on my income tax.

Of course, I soon found that just getting published is not the only thing involved with being an author. You must do research, promote your book, keep track of your sales, deal with problems with publishers, avoid getting writer's block, fight E-book piracy and write blogs like this one. Nonetheless, I love writing science fiction and fantasy. I even enjoy writing short articles such as his one. I love the idea that people are receiving pleasure from what I write.