What was I thinking?

    Publish 5 books in 1 year?!?

     To be honest, this has all been in the planning stage for years. My plans to publish have been delayed repeatedly by 'publishers', all of whom promised to publish my books, and all of whom lied.

     Once I had gotten an agreement with a 'publisher', I always set aside my plans to self-publish, and then I was delayed by more than a year each time ... and never got published. This includes 3 signed contracts that I still have for The VIKINGS! Trilogy, so these were serious offers.

     Afterwards (after a lot of cursing at their incompetency), when I finally returned to my self-publishing plans, the sums of money required had to be saved, since life and fixing houses eats all financial reserves; so, if my income was not excellent, I had to wait yet again. All of this delayed me for more than 10 years.

     All the while I was waiting, raising sums and being delayed by the false offers of publishers, I was busy writing books: That's why I have so many finished books coming out so quickly - I was writing while waiting for publishers ... and getting disappointed each time.

     As I was getting ready to publish The VIKINGS! Trilogy, another new publisher contacted me, and this time I refused to even talk to them. As far as I am concerned, most publishers are obsolete, and soon to be out-of-business - new writers don't need them any more.

     Think I am fantasizing? On October 11th, 2014, I went to Nordic Days where I sat at a table and sold books - I averaged 1 book sale every 11 minutes.

     Unfortunately, the mark-up on books is not huge - even that could not get me into the Christmas Holiday Gift Fest at the Seattle Center - they want $600 fee and 20% of gross sales - even with the same level of sales I would lose money there.

     As to my first books, The VIKINGS! Trilogy, I think of them as one story, a great high-fantasy adventure into Norse mythology. After all, that is how people think of trilogies; when asked about "The Return of the King", can you really comment deeply on it without references to the other books?

     So, to my mind, I have published only 3 stories in 2014: VIKINGS!, Jeremy Wrecker, and The Magic of Play.

     You may have noticed that my books are very different...?

     This, too, was planned. One thing that identifies my stories is the areas of research that each story demands.

     The VIKINGS! Trilogy required the most research, requiring multiple readings of the Eddas and Sagas, studying equestrian arts, the construction of dragonships, and tons of cultural histories, as well as my decades of fighting in the SCA, which shows in the trilogy.

     Jeremy Wrecker posed a lot of problems; what year did it happen in? What type of guns were used then? How did they function? What type of ship did The Seahawk (my home football team!) have to be, and how was it constructed? What were Wreckers? What terms were pirates likely to use, and how could I use them in such a way as to convey their meaning without needing a Pirate Terms Appendix? What terms would ship-bound Pirates use that Wreckers would not?

     The Magic of Play required research in the the history of dolls, which is a lot more fascinating than it sounds, jump-rope competitions (you should watch the amazing videos on the internet of competition jump-roping!), and research into history of the primary villain (who will not be named here).

     Yet all of this research and writing had to happen before 2013, as the process of getting cover art and self-publishing (described here) consumed most of 2013-2014. Now, marketing consumes most of my time, but I am still working on future projects.

     Actually, Jeremy Wrecker was supposed to come out sooner, but funds were insufficient after the costly release of the trilogy. It was always my plan to publish another book right before Xmass, and my proofreaders overrode my original plans as to which book would be published, and I believe they made the right decision.

     So, why am I publishing books so fast? My explanation is that, if you look at how long it has taken to write and publish these books, how many decades I have been working on them, then you will see that these are not being published too fast. In truth, I have published far too slowly.


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