Four years in the self-published marketplace

Today, I realized that I have been in the self-publishing marketplace for four years (well, almost four years). My first ebook, Pizza Boxes on the Floor, went live on Smashwords on October 15, 2011. And my first dubious erotica self-published offering, CBM1LA (yes, that is code because I do not share my erotica pen-names with the public), went live on Smashwords on October 30, 2011.

Now, I had been thinking about self-publishing for a long time before I went the self-published route.

I started writing for profit in 1984 when I realized at a truck stop that someone had to be getting paid for writing dubious erotica. (I had written some extremely bad science fiction and fantasy stories in high school--based on The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and The Hobbit.) And my first check for dubious erotica was cashed in 1985, a whooping twenty-five dollars.

The first time that I considered going the self-published route was when a traditional occult publisher rejected one of my ideas, stating that my potential market for the idea was only a hundred people. At that point, self-publishing meant shelling out money to have a print shop (or vanity publisher) run off a hundred or more physical copies of your book---books that you then sold and shipped out of your basement. Working in food service, I never could scrape together the bank roll to make the initial investment.

The self-publishing market changed drastically on November 19, 2007 when Amazon released its first Kindle. While there were ebooks before this point (pdfs are ebooks), it was the creation of ereaders that made the current self-publishing environment viable. Smashwords, which went live on May 6, 2008, is a success because of ereaders. Without ereaders, the current self-publishing market would not exist.

Now, I will admit that I was a late adopter of the ebook market (late as in I missed the initial gold rush). When I became unemployed in October 2004, I tried to make a go at it as a full-time professional writer....but that was a complete failure.

There were (and are still) problems with the print market. For instance, the pay rate for short dubious erotic stories was twenty-five dollars in 2004---the same amount that was being paid in 1985. And acceptance and rejection letters were a long time coming. I once got paid two and a half years later for one story that got accepted---the first indication that the story had actually been accepted. Most of the time, one had (and probably still has) no clue if something was rejected or not (maybe a tenth of the erotic magazines send out rejection letters).

When the new ebook market started, I was in community college, and pretty much missed the news. It was only when I started to get ready to graduate that thoughts of getting back officially into writing occurred. Not that I ever really left writing, at that point I was writing for pay-by-the-view sites (most of which are now dead). Reading various blogs and websites, I became aware of the new marketplace.

Now, my decision to enter the new ebook market happened in December 2009. It just took me awhile to actually enter once I had made the decision. The article collection Pizza Boxes on the Floor, was from the onset of me deciding to write a monthly column for Hearthstone Community Church, meant for republishing in the ebook market. I didn't actually put the ebook of the 2010 HCC newsletter articles together until October 2011.

Of course, I also decided to put up one of my dubious erotic short stories up. It was a test. In the first quarter, I made a whooping ten dollars from that single story. And since then, I have collected some loot every quarter from that story.

Please note that the erotic ebook market has suffered several setbacks since then. Apple has removed almost all of my dubious stock, as has Kobo and several others. And let's not talk about the antics of Amazon.

But the decision to go self-published, despite the potholes that have developed in the market, still looks like a good decision. Even in a non-working quarter (I had mental health and personal issues), I make as much as I would have in a hard-working quarter in the print market.

Rite of the Magical Images of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year

My latest unsuitable for the traditional print market ebook is the Rite of the Magical Images of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year. It is a ritual that I created and performed at the June 2013 Hearthstone Community Church Open Full Moon ritual. It is available on Amazon. (As well as Smashwords, and (probably--I haven't checked yet) Kobo, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Scribd, Oyster, and a couple other outlets which names escape my memory at the moment.)

What is my occupation?

A couple of weeks ago, someone on Facebook asked me what my occupation was. And I have been kicking the question since then.


If you go by the idea of making a decent wage, I don't have a profession. Then again, even when I was working for someone else, I was not making a decent wage. And there is that whole, when was the last time I answered to a boss (which would actually be yesterday, if you consider a client to be a boss).


For those who care, my job history goes as follows: Apprentice to my father's business---construction at one point, produce sales and delivery at another point; burger flipping jobs (twenty years worth--ten as a restaurant manager); went to college and earned bachelor degrees in history and literature (some master level classes taken and passed); couple of years as a newspaper writer; astrology columnist; freelance Tarot reader; and though all my adult life (from the time I was 19), off and on, I have been a dubious erotica writer.


Currently, it is really hard to pin down a profession. I am basically doing odd jobs with several small income streams. So at the moment, I am a sorcerer, part-time accountant, pagan minister, esoteric teacher, blogger, occult writer, humor writer, astrologer, artist, erotica writer (hey, the income counts), science fiction and fantasy writer, and photographer. By themselves, none of these are currently a full time profession---I am bouncing from project to project as whim and client needs dictate. But each one of these categories is bringing in a little bit of money, so if you go by the rule of "if you are making money at it, you are a professional", then I am all of these things. If you go by the idea that an occupation is a forty hour workweek doing something, then I am none of these things.


So what the hell is my occupation? Be damned if I know. Creative odd-jobber? Freelance bum? Unemployed lunatic? I have no clue.


If you have any creative ways to describe my current profession, feel free to leave a comment.

All of my anti Book Pirate videos

Here is a list of all my anti-book-pirate videos.





This first one is short and sweet, and provides the same answer as the other videos without me rattling on for a painful amount of time.







This video is me talking about how to determine if it is actually the True Will of a writer to have their work pirated. For those who would prefer not to watch the video: If a writer (or other creative) puts a price tag on it in our "it is easy to make something free" world, then the writer's True Will is to actually make some money from it, which means that no, the writer's True Will is not to be pirated.







In this video, Mad Uncle Morgan foams at the mouth when someone argues that it is the True Will of occult writers to give away their works freely.







In this video, Mad Uncle Morgan rants about the lamest excuse that he has ever heard to justify stealing without permission the works of creative people. In the end, the logic is that if other professions make you pay for their services and products, then writers and artists also deserve to be paid for their services and products.











This post will be updated when I put up more anti Book Pirate videos.