Welcome and Inkshares

Hello hello!

Welcome to this...whatever this is...enjoy reading my thoughts, if that's at all possible.

I want to get straight into it and talk about Inkshares.

Here's where my campaign to get published is right now.

I went into this completely unprepared, on a whim, almost.  I've never really tried to get published, other than send my manuscript to a few publishers and agents.  This is my first real attempt...and it's not a brilliant one at that, either.  After first getting over the immediate shock of the fact my work is up there for serious, real writers to see I then moved onto realising that to get this to happen I'd actually have to show faith in my work and ask people to support it.  I don't do that.  I've never done anything like that.  I used to hate the idea of anyone reading my work for fear of them criticising what is a very important part of my life, one that I have kept under wraps for a long time.  Still, I did it and here I am, talking about it.  

What I really wanted to say about Inkshares is how it's already done me a world of good.  For anyone reading who hasn't clicked the link above (how dare you!) or doesn't know me personally, therefore hasn't received one of a bajillion updates on the campaign already, you'd think that me saying it's been a good move is because I've gained loads of preorders already.
Well, I haven't.  Not really.
This isn't to sound ungrateful - please don't take it as that.  I am eternally thankful to my friends and those awesome people on Inkshares who don't know me for putting actual money in to support me.  What I mean is that Inkshares gives you this crazy chart of how many preorders you need to be generating a day or week or whatever to hit your goal and I am nowhere near that.  Not to say that it won't happen, that I won't have a late surge of support, but I have honestly (already) made my peace with the idea that I probably won't hit my funding goal.  I'm only a week in.  Chalk that up to whatever you like, realism or negativity or whatever.  In any case, that's where I am now.
So what I mean by "it's done me a world of good" is that I've had a chance to talk with other real writers.  People like me who probably don't have a hope in hell of attracting a publishing house to them and not because their work is bad, but because this area is just saturated with amateur authors and budding manuscripts and you need to already have x number of accolades against your name to even get noticed.  Oh, and an agent.  That helps.
Anyway, here I am having joined an awesome Syndicate (shout out to Break The Bechdel With Strong Female Characters!) and started chatting with some of its members.  I also paid money to support another author and intend to do more of the same, once I'm not so poor.  It's pretty awesome, actually.  I am helping other people achieve their ambitions (in a small way, admittedly) but it's lovely and I'm enjoying trying to help get some great pieces of work off the ground.  As I've said, I have made peace with the idea that I probably won't hit my goal but that's okay, because going forward I would have made some great connections with other authors and maybe have gained a readership, however modest.

So, go check out my book if you like, I think it's pretty good.  Going forward, I am feeling positive about another project I started a month or two ago.  It's a voyage into hard Sci-Fi and it's kicking my bum, but that's okay.  My brain feels like its pooling and dripping out of my ears some days, although that may be me feeling the effect of trying to write after having a giggling toddler wake me up at 4:30am.  Who knows?

Speak soon,
Sammy Bee