It takes a different kind of person to make their own dreams come alive.  Not everyone is prepared to put in the long hours and hard work it takes to bring a novel to the store shelves in non-traditional ways.  I’m one of those crazy, annal retentive, ego centric fools who just has to do things his own way.  I’m not content to let others tell me how my books are going to look or even if they get published.  That’s just not in my character.

As a youth, I saw the movie Star Wars.  Not the Jar-Jar Binks version, the Han Shot First version.  It captured my imagination and made me curious about how movies were made.  I was all of thirteen years old when I started making my own movies and finding creative ways to reproduce the fantastic special effects showcased in that film.  I didn’t just dream of being a film-maker, I rolled up my sleeves, inspired my buddies and together we made movie magic in Super-8 film.  Along the way, I learned quite a bit about how films are made, I even majored in Film Production in college.  In fact, you can find my name in the credits of some feature films I worked on.

Back when I was a teenager, blowing up cardboard models of space ships that I had designed, I also started writing a story that would languish in my mind for the next twenty years.  It was my homage to Star Wars and all the fun times I had making movies as a kid.  Eventually, I decided that the only way that story would get finished was to write it as a novel.  At least that way I could control the lighting, script, camera and special effects just like a Hollywood director does in a film.  After completing the novel, I shopped it around and was routinely rejected from everyone in the publishing business.  I felt like I was at the mercy of an establishment that was not really interested in fulfilling my dreams.  So I trunked the novel and went on with my life.

Eventually, technology started to catch up with my do-it-yourself attitude.  First came the Internet and I saw the potential in HTML to bring my story directly to the people.  So I created a website to showcase my novel and all the drawings of space ships and aliens my friends and I made when we were kids.  The novel was on display for many years until once again, technology caught up with me.  Through Print On Demand services, I could now make my own novel and sell it directly to the people without bothering to go through the traditional publishing process.  But there was a problem.  I didn’t know how to make a book.  I was well versed in screenplays, storyboards and film editing, but I knew nothing about interior design, cover art or copy editing.  So I rolled up my sleeves and started to learn.

I’ve now published two books on my own and each new book I write, edit and print; adds to my knowledge about the publishing business.  I don’t know everything yet, nor will I ever.  But I keep working at it and I keep learning as I go.  In a way, it’s no different then when I was a kid and spending my allowance on five minute rolls of film.  I was just an amateur back then, and I’m pretty much an amateur now, but I still have that desire to do it myself and make my own dreams come true.  My latest book is in the process of being forged into awesomeness with the help of my friends, just like those short films I made as a kid.  I have started my own press label to release my books and the books of my friends.  Together we will make our dreams come true by taking our publishing future in our own hands.  Will we sell millions of books and become house-hold names in the publishing industry.  Probably not.  But the one thing I have learned is that most of the fun in life is in the journey, not the destination.  As long as we have the means to follow our bliss, we should not be afraid of the journey.

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