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Diamonds in the Rough: Life as an Indie Author in Coronavirus U.S.

Zombie apocalypse.

That was my name for the Coronavirus pandemic.

It was not too far off. People were running around hoarding up on towel paper. People were let go from jobs. People were stuck at home. People wouldn’t wear masks even if it meant that they were saving people by doing it, foaming at the mouth in some cases. People thought this whole thing was a hoax. Wait…WHAT?!?

Meanwhile…I went to work. Well, one of my jobs. It was nice to be an essential worker. Otherwise, honestly I might be out on the street. So for that I was grateful.

The zombie apocalypse also had another unexpected side-effect. A lot of free time. One of two things could happen. All that free time could be a case for someone to get introspective. Or…it could be a case for a person to finish/work on something.

I experienced both.

Works and Finishes: How You can Tell You Like Your Writing Group

I was so proud of our group.

I had been a member of a writing group. Calling our group The Authors’ Table (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2502021803151042/), we were a group of indie authors who wanted to have a message board where we tried to be different from other writing groups. How? By interacting with our readers and fans by just showing off our personalities. While we did mention what we were working on and sales, for the most part, our page was a no sale zone. Teasers, samples, and the like. In fact, the only time we had sales was when we had events. Then there were games, prizes, freebies from gift cards to books to even a Kindle tablet.

During the zombie apocalypse, I noticed something.

Everybody was finishing something. Glacia Cronk just finished a new book in her Clockmaker series. Carlie Yates had a new book coming out and a sale on her previous books. Ashley Greathouse was super excited about her latest horror novel LILY. And James? James Fuller is always out and about talking about his books. A pirate series here. A thriller over there. Getting new covers for his first fantasy series over here. Busy, busy, busy.

And to paraphrase Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder…what was I doing?

The pandemic had shut down my plans for DARKENED SOUL: THE BREAKING OF CIRCLES. The library still had not opened back up. They were not even taking back drop off books or cds. So there was no chance of me finishing my research over all the time periods that my short story collection involved. At least for now.

So what was a boy to do? Well a boy decided to focus on one of his other books. And while part of me wanted to start on my forthcoming CROSSOVER series, I figured since I had a LOT of free time now, I could continue to work on DARKENED TABULA, the latest in my THE DARKENED series. While it was finished for the most part. It needed a loooooooooong editing/formatting process. My policy was to do three sweeps before I seriously thought about publishing it.

Well…I did have time.

Meanwhile, memberships had grown over at the Authors’ Table. So much so, we decided to do another one of our events. You know…games, prizes, free books!!! Did I say free books? Haha!! Since I had been sending out a lot of invites while I was keeping my Facebook pages active, of course I was going to add in some free signed copies of one of my books.

I also did something else as well.

I started to post free sample chapters from DARKENED TABULA.

Are You or Aren’t You: The Pandemic and Perspective

It started when I was going through my editing/formatting process. I was ahead enough in my process that they were final drafts of my chapters. I figured that I should give my likers a taste of my forthcoming novel.

Boy was I nervous! The last book I released was DARKCHILDE. And that was back in 2016. I worried. Would anyone want to read chapters? Was it the right thing to do? How many chapters would I do? Should I do that? Would it take away from releasing DARKENED TABULA?

On the other hand, I was a writer. It had always been said that a writer should always be sure that new materials was consistently brought out. Let the readers have their supply to devour. Never let them go too long without.

I was also an indie author. I’ve been doing it since 2013 seriously. The emphasis on seriously. And that was hard work. There was the writing. There was the networking. The promoting. And if there was anyone who understood that and knew what the concept of hard work (2 jobs mostly) encompassed, it would be me.

Several of my friends had always had this saying. You are either working to live, or you are living to work? People who work to live were people who knew work was a means to an end, but knew also life was too short to not go after what you really wanted out of life. They never lost their focus. People who lived to work were people who did just that. They wouldn’t know what to do if they were not at work.

I wished I could say that I was the former. But most of my friends would say that I was the latter. Even when I was on vacation…true vacation…it would usually take me a day and a half to relax. I worked hard over the last year to get rid of that feeling. New eyes. New perspective coming into 2020. And then this pandemic happened. This zombie apocalypse. All this free time. With the Authors’ Table event around the corner, I made a choice. I made it this far because no matter what was going on in life, I knew what was important to me.

One thing the pandemic did for me was to remind me of that. When it hit, I found out that my sister and brother were both essential workers as well. So I immediately grouped us into a group text. While things had been a little less stressful since I did that, we were in regular contact in a way that we had not been since we were all young to be honest.

There were a lot of times I’ve laid in bed. My job was over for the day. And I just sat there. Depressed. Worries, fears, and regrets consumed me. It let up some when I returned back to my second job but, I found that I could not stay in this constant state of worry. Before this zombie apocalypse, I had started on a path of self-discovery for myself. I wanted better. I needed better. I deserved better. And no matter how bad it was out here in the United States, there was only one way to do it. And that was through hard work. But…not so much that I allowed it to consume me. There had to be a balance between working to live, but I had to…LIVE. Do what made me happy.

And what made me happy was writing.

I had an idea something was up when I pulled out my old list of potential agents. That grew as I was going over the formatting for DARKENED TABULA and I made sure to keep my old submission packages handy. Granted I had some drama with my residence like most people due to the pandemic, but I decided it was a way to have a fresh start. And with that in mind, I placed all of these items somewhere where I could easily retrieve them.

And…I started to work on them. All of a sudden, I was creating deadlines again. That formatting had to be done by here. This had to be a pdf there. I started writing short stories again. They were for the Book page (www.facebook.com/darkenverse). They dove deeper into things in my ‘Darkenverse.’ After doing nothing for a few years, here I was writing and planning when I would post them. And then there was the hunt for a cover. Rather than see my fellow authors working on things, I had joined them, my free time giving me a different perspective.

No.

Purpose. Direction.

And just like that, I was back in the game.

So You Got That Groove Back?

I could not believe it.

I had posted the sample chapters for DARKENED TABULA, and they were doing good. Better than I expected by the read count. My short story INTO THE WILDS (https://www.facebook.com/notes/darkened-soul/into-the-wilds-a-tale-of-the-forryn/3427837373902981/) was also doing well on the Book page. And it had all led beautifully into the Authors’ Table event…a Member Appreciation Event. It was perfect timing to a surprise of my own: I had the OFFICIAL cover to DARKENED TABULA. And it would be released July 31. Yes, it was a week after the event. But I had drummed up good buzz.

My patience had paid off. I set deadlines. I was flexible as I could be. But…I met the deadlines. I worked hard on that formatting. And researching covers. And creating buzz through INTO THE WILDS and my sample chapters. And now I would be entering a new arena: active promoting of a new book!!! To think that months ago, I had nothing ready. All I was worried about was surviving in a zombie apocalypse. Now I was planning out my schedule for the foreseeable future which would include more editing of submission packages, a new Darkenverse short story timed with another surprise I was working on, and at least TWO novellas. That did not even include CROSSOVER which I was still itching to get back to. Not to mention DARKENED SOUL: THE BREAKING OF CIRCLES.

While I did not at the moment feel I would be releasing anything else this year, life was full of surprise. And if the pandemic had done anything for me, it reminded me what was important to me and who I was. And I should be going after it, following the path that I started at the start of the year.

I am an author. And whether I was a rich one or just a modest one as long as I was doing what I wanted to do and it made me happy, it did not matter. And...I was happy when I was writing.

So...let’s see how far this path went.

DARKENED TABULA

US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08DMP47MK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08DMP47MK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i3

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