I’ve taken some time away from blogging.

The reason?

I was never sure it was reaching that many people and I didn’t think that it had any import on my book sales.

I’ve been rethinking a lot over the last month or so. It started when my father passed away. I was numb, unable to concentrate on my stories, and too sad to find joy in the little things. Just as I began to get out of my own way, and gear up to finish my first book in my Women of Eden series, I hit another wall.

I’d hired a proof reader to go back and find all those little mistakes that had passed me by first time around. I talked to my formatter, and we were going to republish some of the books so they’d be error free. Seems even the proofreader missed some things and I wondered if I’d ever find a way to put things right. I’m discouraged, disappointed, and very frustrated. Enough so that I was ready to throw my hands up and walk away from the publishing process altogether.

Self-publishing is more costly than people realize. You pay an editor to make sure your work is solid and grammatically correct, you hire a proofreader to make sure any changes made in the editing process have been done correctly, you pay for a formatter to get it ready for KDP, and of course, a cover person to create your covers. On the other side of the balance sheet, I’m unable to generate more than a few dollars a month in sales.

A few months ago, I started working with a marketing person who I love. She’s given me some great tips and some good advice, taught me how to do reels on Instagram and she’s encouraged me to become more visible on social media platforms. I thought it might be the tipping point, but organic growth might be steady but it’s slow.

I’m at a three-prong crossroad right now. Do I continue to publish or do I wrote solely for myself like I started out doing? Do I continue to market my work, knowing that there are errors in the texts, hoping people won’t care, that it’s about the story and forgive the mistakes that have slipped through? Do I continue sharing my characters with anyone willing to meet them, despite the cost, the blips and the misgivings? Or maybe there’s another option. Try to get an agent, who’s able to sell my work to a publishing house. That takes time and I’m not sure that I want to waste it waiting.

In my struggle as an author, I’ll have to process the doubts, the vulnerability and the value.

I write. That’s who I am and I don’t think I’ll ever stop but I was quite happy when doing it just for me.

My last book in the EG series, Sweetwater Stables, will be out next month. What I do after that, is anyone’s guess but I’ll keep you posted.