Award Winning Stories:
Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction,
William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and others.
Available in Hardback, Paperback, and E-book formats from:
Authorhouse, Amazon
Award-winning short stories of characters facing moral decisions that stretch their lives to mirror who they are and what they might become. And a novella, set in New Orleans, that pits and adulterous, deeply-in-love couple against society, family, and themselves as they struggle to regain self-respect and acceptance among threats of violent revenge,
Buy from:
Authorhouse, Amazon
I’m not a writter, and yet I got carried away on a pure fictional story of about 70K words or
about 105 pages on Word. If I thought perhaps people would enjoy it, or perhaps be infuriated
by it, is it worth the effort to have it published. It is sexual, which very much part of the story.
Need I go further?
Hey Lyle. Thanks for the question. I’ll make some comments to help you make your decision. If you are proud and confident in what you’ve written, no reason not to publish. To find a commercial traditional publisher, however, is a long, hard endeavor and a lot of hard work. You can self publish, on demand is probably best, and it’s a pretty easy process now. But if you plan to market, it’s almost all up to you. That means time and $$$. You could use the web–open a website, inexpensive–then publish your book online. You can market on social media often with satisfactory results, but as with everything that is available, it will take time.
Is your long range goal to become an established author, or do you see your career tied to this one book? Either way, it’s best to be sure you have written the quality fiction that you’re satisfied with. You don’t want to put work out to the public that would brand you as an unsuccessful amateur; it would make future works hard to sell. And you might up your confidence level. Find people you trust for straight-forward answers (family members are not the best for this), people who know fiction and understand what makes good fiction. Next, consider every contest that accepts your genre. They’ll charge you but acceptance or rejection is valuable insight as to how your work might be received. You might consider professional reviewers to make comments. And send your ms out to anyone who might read it for feedback. It’s really time consuming, but you could join writers groups to make contact with other writers who might comment on your work. And be sure your sex scenes strike the right tone and content. I’ve attended more than a hundred fiction workshop, matriculated in creative writing courses, and attended hundreds of academic lectures, I’ve found writers have the most trouble writing successful sex scenes for a mainstream audience. You might be sure what effects you scenes will have on the readers you want to reach.
And all the best. It’s a miserable market for fiction now, but I find fiction well written with solid story-features to be a most-rewarding career for writers. Don’t be discouraged. Make sure your work is what you want it to be. Establish goals and a strategic plan. And go for it. WHC