I love writing stories and turning them into books. Metaphorically, writing stories is a trip to the playground where I can run as fast as I can, fall and skin my knees, get into arguments with any big bully who tries to shove me down, and climb to the top of the monkey bars to get a better view of the world.
Writing stories brings out my inner child. This may be because I’ve loved writing stories since early childhood. I was a self-publisher of my own books as early as the second grade when I stapled pages together in the classroom and passed my books around to friends and favorite teachers.
When I created my first website back in the 1990s, I featured stories (and artwork) for the world to enjoy for free. I designed tiny book covers on my computer to use as thumbnail links to PDFs of my stories, which was my introduction to book cover design.
I began self-publishing my books at Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform in January 2013, learning their exclusive book formatting and cover design parameters along the way. I also learned how to format and design my books for Barnes and Noble’s Pub-It and for the largest ebook distributor for indie authors like me: Smashwords. Getting my books to match each place’s idiosyncrasies took an enormous chunk of joy out of publishing my books, but it didn’t keep me from running to the metaphorical playground to write a new story every chance I got.
The first book I published via Amazon’s platform was a revised short story called “Night of the Hell Hounds.” I wrote the ebook for my grandchildren and featured a small group of young teenagers in a spooky setting that soon typecast me into the role of an author who “writes young adult paranormal fantasy.” My readers (and grandchildren) wanted more of the same, so I obliged by publishing seven more ebooks of YA paranormal fantasy at Amazon. Those books stayed in the Kindle Direct Publishing marketplace for a few years before I lost interest in Amazon’s ever-changing publishing and marketing regulations and pulled all my books from their sales outlet.
Years later, an author friend told me that Amazon had fixed a lot of their publishing and sales problems, so I ventured back and released a new ebook version of “Night of the Hell Hounds,” under the same ASIN (Amazon’s ebook numbering system), which lists the book as a 2013 publication and includes all the reviews for that first edition. However, the new book features several short stories that I have written over many years.
Therefore, I want to make it clear that the ebook on sale for free today and tomorrow is not the same book I wrote for my grandchildren in 2013. It still features Ridgewood and paranormal fantasy. Hauntings, sightings of ghosts and spirits, hell hounds, and magic of all kinds are a delight to write about as they continuously spark my imagination and desire to write more of the same. During the journey of rewriting this book, I rediscovered how much I love exploring supernatural themes, childhood friendships, and the sides of good and evil. So, if you enjoy reading that sort of fiction, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this book.
Here’s a link for the ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AY2K1H6/. You can also buy it as a paperback book. Should you get a copy and give it a read, I hope you’ll give it a proper review at Amazon when you’re done.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
Steve, 9/25/2022
This post “The Joy of Writing Books” copyright © 2022 Steven Leo Campbell at stevecampbellcreations.com – All rights reserved.
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