{"id":450,"date":"2011-08-24T11:26:49","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T11:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/index.php\/2011\/08\/24\/indie03\/"},"modified":"2011-08-24T11:26:49","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T11:26:49","slug":"indie03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/indie03\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I went Indie – Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Printing-Press-1\"Part three of why I went indie (if you missed it, here is PART I<\/a> and PART II<\/a>) focuses on the Indie writer and the small presses.<\/span><\/p>\n

I like to tell stories. I always have. When my partner and children suggested I finally start writing down my stories, well I laughed.<\/span><\/p>\n

See, back in the 80\u2019s I had delusions of being the next Tom Clancy, James Patterson or even Alan Moore. I have some of the coolest rejection letters from Penguin, Marvel and Dark Horse.<\/span><\/p>\n

But with this new encouragement to write, I realized something pretty important.<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to become famous. <\/i> I just wanted to tell a story.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between my change in writing purpose and the fact forty-year-olds tend to finish things they start (back in the eighties a \u2018writing session\u2019 turned into a \u2018beer session\u2019 very quickly), The Prodigal\u2019s Foole<\/i> developed very quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I was writing that first book, I began to look at how I wanted to get my story out there. The query process for both an agent\/large publishing house was arduous and frustrating\u2014having gone through that before. Oh, I went through the motions again, mind you. With similar results.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there was something new to a burgeoning writer out there. Technology, PoD and social media weren\u2019t around when I attempted to be a writer the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, the publishing world was very different.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I found is that there are a lot more \u2018wannabe\u2019 writers out there. And that\u2019s not a bad thing as long as what you are submitting to the world is the best quality product you can make.<\/span><\/p>\n

But quality<\/i> isn\u2019t always a part of the Indie and self-pub world.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I began to look for something I really wanted for my stories\u2014a collaborative group of like-minded authors within a small press environment. My criteria was pretty stringent for whom I wanted to work with: <\/span><\/p>\n