Hello from OKC
Well, after more than six decades and almost two dozen published books, I'm ready (in my declining years) to enter the self-publishing world, and Dennis McCunney tells me I need to join here and take part.
I set out when in high school to become a top magazine photographer. It took only a couple of years of rejection slips to convince me that editors preferred my copy to my photos, so by the time I was a freshman in college I had achieved my first national publication sale -- in the March 1949 issue of Minicam Photography.
That led to my becoming a professional writer, though my degree said I was to become a newspaper reporter. After a couple of years military service, including 13 months of a shooting war in Korea, I came back to the news business and stayed in it until the economics of keeping a family fed forced me to move into industry as an electronics technical writer.
During that time I moonlighted enough doing tech articles for electronics magazines to become established, and to make contact with some recognized publishing houses -- none of which survive to the present day. After 24 years in the computer industry during which I helped develop what has become desktop publishing, I found myself about to retire -- and the proud partner of a literary agent who placed all my (extremely technical) books since 1990. However by 1997 those markets had soured.
So I've knocked around the publishing business all this time, and now am just having fun recalling the "good old days" like any other old geezer -- but I'm still learning, and that's why I'm here. I want to learn what's happening now. I'll probably lurk much more than contribute, but if I find a thread where I can contribute any insights or suggestions I won't hesitate to dive in.
My currently-favorite writing team, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, make a major point that writing is good only when doing so is fun. That's what I'm after. Let's have fun, folks!
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