Thursday, January 24, 2019

Writing Is Fun

That's me (with longer, darker hair) in 2002 with my first published book, Sea Of Hope, and the award I received for it. I believed that winning that award would send my book sales soaring.

That didn't happen. First of all, the company that published the book was small and focused mainly on ebooks. They were wonderful people and I enjoyed working for them, but back in 2002 few people knew about ebooks. The concept was completely foreign to the majority of readers. The second problem was promoting the book. I contacted newspapers and did get a few interviews, but social media wasn't then what it is today. Paying for advertising wasn't feasible since I wasn't making much of a profit. In fact, I made very little money at all.

Seventeen years later, I'm still writing. I have seventeen books available for sale (click HERE to see a list). Book #18 is in the process of being published and I'm close to finishing book #19. I'm still not making much money, despite the fact everyone knows what ebooks are now. Most of my sales come from readers buying books for their Kindles.

I love writing. Editing is tough at times, but I even enjoy that part of the process.

Promoting is a chore. Writing is a delight.

I'm always surprised when people ask me, "Are you still writing?"

I smile, say yes, and hand them a postcard or bookmark of my latest book.

How could I stop writing? It's too much fun.

4 comments:

Jenn Nixon said...

Awesome! I didn't know you got an award!

Penelope Marzec said...

Hi Jenn,

Actually, I have two of those trophies. The other one is for HEAVEN'S BLUE.

The awards are nice, especially because the contests were judged by other writers. :-)

Unknown said...

I agree. Writing is fun and something, for me, I just need to do. Congratulations on your two awards. May there be many more.

Penelope Marzec said...

Heather,

Thanks for the congrats. I'll have to enter a few more contests. :-)