In case you missed it, Jefferson’s Road: Patriots and Tyrants is now available on Amazon.com for the Kindle. I don’t know if it’s simply a function of me being impatient, an effect of Amazon’s recent move to clamp down on Author self-promotions, or some other factor at play, but I find myself constantly checking the sales data, wondering when this book is going to take off. I’m not looking for a million copies sold, mind you (maybe I should be?), just more than one or two. Of course, it’s early yet, and I did just get the announcements out to Kindleboards and Mobilereads, along with a few posts in the remaining safe places on Amazon left to indie authors. It’ll be real interesting to see how well this works out for Amazon, and how long it’ll be before they decide whether it’s working or not. Already I’m seeing a number of authors saying things like, “Hey, my sales haven’t been so great, lately.” Enough of that happens, and Amazon may have to rethink their overall strategy here. Maybe we’re all together just a bunch of snowflakes, but if enough of them stick and move in the same direction, you can stop traffic. So I guess we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m reminding myself that this isn’t some six month, one year, or even five year plan. This is a ten to twenty year plan – an attempt to get as many of the stories swimming around in my head out on paper or electronically available so other people can enjoy them besides just me. Yes, I’d love to be earning my living solely through my writing, but that day appears to be a long way off. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, the end result of a long obedience in the same direction.

And it still remains to be seen what happens when a professionally published book of my hits the stands. The Lost Scrolls is still due next March, so we’ll see whether or not I’ve been able to build any credibility as an author at all before that time. All I can do, I suppose, is keep writing, keep telling the stories, and keep on telling people about the stories as often as I can.

[twitter-follow screen_name='AuthorMichaelJS' show_count='yes']