seth1953

I am a retired lawyer who first thought about writing a novel as far back as the early 1990s. But I gave up on the idea after researching the topic and learning how difficult it would be to actually get published. Even if you got published few authors were actually successful at it. I remember taking an Internet writing course at Gotham Writers Institute which was taught by a man in his 50s who had six books published. Based upon the number of students in the class, the tuition paid, and the fact that Gotham was probably paid at least 50% of the tuition; I calculated that he was probably paid no more than $250-$300 for his efforts. He admitted that none of his books had sold even so much as 5000 copies. He lived with a successful female attorney, whom I very reasonably concluded, supported him in his writing hobby. Within the last year I became aware of the growing electronic publishing market. Through a membership at Barnes & Noble.com, I have downloaded about 350 free e-books. Most of these appear to have originated through Mark Coker's Smashwords.com. Mr. Coker offers self-publishing authors a wonderful venue to get their books in electronic print. The built-in limitations in books published there, become apparent upon reading. It appears that most of the authors have failed to avail themselves of any of the free books available on the self-publishing, much less Mr. Coker's excellent advice into promoting their own books. It is also evident that many have not read anything about literary style; and a few appear not to have even a spell checker on their word processor. The majority of the books are way less than novella length, or very cumbersome tomes. Many of the storylines are actually very interesting! It does limit some people's enjoyment of a book when they find one to two obvious errors per page. I keep writing, studying about writing, and doing research to make sure that what I eventually publish will be accurate. I plan to post some of it here with the desire to obtain constructive criticism. Bon voyage!