Fulfillment of an Author
I have to say my latest decision to publish my backlist in a newsletter is bringing back that spark of life I'd been missing. It makes me wonder what exactly is the ultimate fulfillment of an author?
Is fulfillment in sales and making a good amount of money? I can't deny that making an income on your work is fulfilling, but that's only a sign, not a goal. For me, anyway. A sign that people are interested in your work, that they are willing to pay money to read your stories, that you are "bonafide"!
But what if we aren't bonafide as authors? What if we are so indie published that we've never been tributed by the New York Times? What if our reach out there is so tiny that only close friends know about our stories? Does that make us any less of a storyteller?
I think not.
So money isn't my fulfillment, though it does help to pay a cover artist or an editor.
What fulfills me, personally, as a writer, author...creative...is putting my stories on paper, adding images, audio, video mixing it all up to make an experience and then...and this is the important part...and then SHARING it the way you mean it to be shared!
Because there's so little cash to be made for a small indie author like myself going through a middle man who will pay me pennies on the dollar, and then forbid me from creating the full potential of my stories, I've been frustrated.
Until now! Now, with this new-to-me forum called Substack, I can send out newsletters that include all those things I just mentioned. In my next issue of Pouraka, I will have the audio, imagery, and the story all on one page for my readers, and I'm anxious to see their response. If I can do this, then I can surely reach people with the story I want them to have on my own terms. I'm even considering taking all my books down from the giant retailers one by one and offering them myself in this format. I love it and I think you will too!
Read Pouraka and listen to the audio in one experience. Subscribe to Tuesday's Telling and Fantasy Friday.
