For my first post, I thought I would take a minute to tell you a little about myself. My name is JR Thompson, and I’m a Christian author and blogger who lives in Montana. If you don’t know much about Montana, that’s understandable. It doesn’t get a lot of visitors nor a lot of publicity, likely due to our small population.
Anyway, this post isn’t about Montana. It’s about why I decided to create this blog.
When I was in high school, I wrote a ton of short stories during my lunch breaks at school. After I graduated, I got my own apartment and moved into it within two weeks of turning eighteen years old. I was somewhat of a loner, and got bored rather quickly. I started looking through the old short stories I had written before, and one stood out to me. I began rereading it, and the next thing I knew I was adding onto it. Before I knew what hit me, I was absolutely addicted to writing. Before long, I had completed my first novel!
Not knowing any authors, I had no idea how to get my work published so I started skimming the internet, and I found what I now know is referred to as a vanity publisher. To make a long story short, they ripped me off, majorly, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it! I basically gave up my novel and can’t do anything with it now. Long story… not worth telling.
Over the years, I’ve written quite a few novels, and have self-published all but one. The other was published by a small publisher whom I believe is now out of business. However, they did treat me well and taught me how to go about self-publishing.
As I’ve written and published, I’ve done a lot of research and talked to a lot of people, and have learned a great deal through trial and error.
It is my desire, as I continue this blog, to share what I have learned in hopes that some new authors won’t have to make the same mistakes I did, and so they can learn from what I would consider some successes that I’ve had.
I hope you’ll follow my blog. I’m looking forward to being as helpful as I can be.
Best Self Publishing Talk 