Quitting is Forever…

Writing and Publishing Can Be Frustrating…

But quitting is forever.

I honestly have no idea looking back how I made it 51 years in this business. I went over (in a full 9-week class on WMG Teachable) about what I learned from my mentors in 50 years and another class I covered the mistakes I made in 50 years.

And I have failed at things in publishing more times than I want to count. I’ve had horrid days and great days. When I am writing, I love it and the feeling of writing. When I am not writing, I wonder why I am not writing.

Looking back on that first real Kindle Christmas of 2008, one year after it launched, I am stunned at how many books I have written and how many more I have published. Kris andI now have far over 1,000 different titles published.

So I can look back at the entire 51 years or at the last 16 years. Seems almost like two seperate lifetimes, and yet they blur together as my life in publishing and writing.

But I do know I have outlasted almost all of the writers selling stories in 1974. Not all, but most.

And I have outlasted almost all of the hotshot young writers who exploded in 2008 in the early days of the indie movement. Most are gone, burnt out, quit, leaving dead websites and books clearly dated to a time.

I looked at the speakers for this year’s Author Nation (I am not going, wasn’t invited…) and all but a few are bright, smart, and young. Clearly many of them are on the cutting edge of whatever is the cutting edge now in indie publishing.  I imagine they have a lot to teach about those specific areas.

Me, I do my best to keep up with what will help me in my writing and publishing, avoid what will hurt me when I realize it, and just keep on writing and publishing books.

I got a hunch that if I compare the pictures of the presenters this year to the pictures of the presenters in ten years, very few will be the same people. But I plan on still being here, still writing books for readers to enjoy, still having fun.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many hot, driven writers I have seen frustrated, annoyed, discouraged who just quit and vanish into the land of “Whatever Happened To…?”

I can’t begin to count the times I have been frustrated, annoyed, and discouraged, but I have always found a way to keep going and keep writing and keep publishing.

Quitting is forever. It is the only way you can actually fail in the writing and publishing world.