Welcome to AncientSeaKings.com!
I thought the decision I made in late 2021 to self-publish my fantasy fiction series was easy. In hindsight, it was no decision at all. The choice had been made for me years earlier, without an inkling of the repercussions. In January of 2019, I decided to write a book. Though I’d never published a word and hadn’t written anything in about a decade, the rocks were rolling around in the back of the truck, so to speak. As a kid, I loved to write. No one made me do it. If something struck my fancy, I’d bang out a terrible 1- or 2-page short story, save it on a floppy disk, hit print, and tear off the perforations on the side of the paper. Something of that momentum carried into high school, and I made the lucrative decision to major in creative writing.
Six years later, I was done. Done writing, and for the most part, done reading. My teachers were kind and supportive, and my peers became great friends. But something about the formal world of writing, with its workshops and industry buzz and Joseph Campbell left me with a dry well and a need to pay rent. This isn’t the post to get into my thoughts on education on creativity, though I have plenty. For lack of grit, or the confusion of “writing” with all the dogs and ponies of the professional selling of what’s written, I quit.
It took some years before that nagging voice first trickled back into my ear. But when it did, it rang as persistently as it was subtle. This wasn’t the one I recalled from my college days, pleading with me to just sit down and finish the assignment. It welled up from a deeper place, singing like a printer spinning through a long, perforated sheet. I decided I wanted to write again, for no other reason than the act itself.
I gave myself an assignment: write anything. Anything you want. The only rules are: write what you want to write, and finish it. I had no thought of publishing, because if I did, that would mean I’d have to do market research, make sure the work was enjoyable to someone else, and dust off those sneering hero’s journey books. I just wanted to want to write, and to like the effort, however selfish, strange, and indulgent it turned out.
A few years later, I had a book. One of many. As long as it was right there, I figured, why not just throw it out there and see what happens? Had I done that research ahead of time, I would have realized very quickly that there’s little market for a series debut that clocks in just under 360,000 words. Publishers won’t even read such a submission, even if it did fit neatly within a popular genre. That was the next mistake: if you don’t fit neatly within a genre and toe the trends, even a willing publisher has no idea how to sell it. The only choice that remained was to self-publish. All of those problems didn’t go away, but at least someone would print the thing. It’s a dizzying world for a new author, but such is the price for writing whatever the hell I want.
And had I done that research, I also would have learned that the best way to market your self-published works is through things like social media and online ads, something I don’t have, and never care to learn. Just as my initial decision to write whatever would keep me giddily typing day-in and day-out limited my publishing options, it also committed me to a blog I never knew I wanted. If you’re not going to run ads or make TikTok videos, you have to find some way of bringing eyeballs to your work, at the very least to offset the costs of cover design and the other expenses I didn’t realize were involved in self-publishing (e.g. webhosting). The best way, maybe the only other way, is to produce content on a website that people might want to read. A blog.
So an act of rebellion against “school assignment” writing left me with the assignment of blogging. That would be enough to make me throw up my hands in disgust and walk away from the whole project, except that it worked. I found out, or more accurately am in the process of learning, that I love to write. So let me apologize in advance for the trickeration. Maybe my honesty about the blog will earn me a pardon, and at the least, it’s better than looking at a Facebook ad. Easier to navigate away from. No obligation to buy, cancel any time.
And what will this marketing machine of a blog be about? The same thing as my books: whatever the hell I want, subject to change with the lunar tide. There may be fiction, philosophy, pseudoeconomics, idle speculation, semiotics, music, reviews and revulsions, manuals on air conditioner repair, knife sharpening, foot stomping, and mental flagellations. I do promise that it’s for me. That means rather than sharing a wisdom I don’t have, I expect to learn alongside whatever strange souls find themselves unable to look away. That means, of course, that if it does attract readers, a good many may have zero interest in reading a fantasy fiction series. It may end up as an exercise in futility.
But what I’ve learned over the past few years, working once again on something I felt like doing, is that the only real choice I’ve ever faced with my writing is whether to love it, or quit.
I hope you’ll find something here that sparks your interest.
Kyle