Why I'm Going to Publish on Amazon/Kindle

In the next few weeks I'm going to upload to Amazon/Kindle a number of unpublished books I've written over the years.  Although I've had modest success with "traditional" publishers (Scholastic Press published Jack London: A Biography in 1997; the Univ. of Oklahoma Press published my annotated editions of The Call of the Wild in 1995 and 1997; Morgan Reynolds will publish my YA biography of Shakespeare this year), I've not had luck with everything.

I spent some years researching and writing YA biographies of Mary Shelley and Edgar Poe--but did not have much luck with the (few) traditional publishers I tried.  I don't have a lot of time now (let's face it: I'm 67) to dilly-dally around while dilatory publishers take their slow-ass corporate time deciding what to do.  (One publisher kept one of my books for more than a year before passing on it.) 

So ... typescripts are sitting on my floor; they've been sitting there for a while.  They're not earning me a penny, and I've avoided looking at them because, well, they seem to have grown large sad eyes that stare at me with a mixture of reproach, disdain, and pity.

So ... I'm going to convert them and upload them to Amazon/Kindle and see what happens.  At least they'll be off my floor and out in cyberspace somewhere.  I'm going to keep the price low, and I hope you will plunk down the plastic for some of them.

In the next week I'll upload Edgar Allan Poe: A Biography, a book I've aimed at YA readers--but there is plenty there for general readers, as well.

Next month (or sooner)--here will come The Mother of the Monster: The Life and Times of Mary Shelley.  Again--a YA title but plenty for everybody.

Both the Poe and the Shelley books consumed years of my life--and impressive chunks of my bank account.  When the titles are actually available on Amazon, I'll post on FB and elsewhere to let y'all know they're out there.

In subsequent months, I've got a couple of memoirs to upload.  One is Schoolboy, a memoir of my teaching career (mostly the very early years, though there are some recent experiences, too); another is Turning Pages, a memoir about my life as a "reader" and about the little Carnegie Library in Enid, Oklahoma, where, in a way, it all started.

And then there are those YA novels I wrote while teaching in Aurora--Bob the Slob, Mind-Boggle, Kicking and Screaming (I had the damn title first--before that bad kids' soccer movie!), and The Memoirs of Victoria Frankenstein ...  I'll probably put those up on Amazon/Kindle, too, at some point.

At any rate, it's "time's winged chariot hurrying near" that's urging me to pursue this option.  I hope some of you will hop on the chariot with me--and go for a ride ...