Congratulations! I had no idea you wrote. Well, maybe I did but y'know... my brain is like a
shcolamacarone (macaroni strainer
)... things go right through it.
It's fun, I need a creative outlet. Back at the turn of the century I self-published three books, not of the highest quality. That was therapy from teacher burnout. I sold around 1000 books at that. But, sheesh, marketing is a headache, totally. With the Amazon thing, it cost me $400 dollars and they print as they're ordered. In 1999, around when I did the other 3, it cost 2000 to get 500 books, and 1000 of that was for the first book. (Just the setup)
The downside is that anyone can publish a book, and we'll be bombarded with some low quality stuff. If it hasn't already, it'll take the place of all Vanity publishing. (Guys that you pay for them to do it for you, regardless of quality, no legit publisher would ever take money from you) Getting an agent or a publisher is nigh impossible. It's a secret club, often about who you know.
The other thing (reflecting on Sunstone's and mine) is that genre comes into play a lot. Just because people don't like your book, doesn't mean it is or isn't well written. It may be that it's just not their genre. So too with a poorly written book ... it might just be that somebody really likes that genre, so they like your book.
This time around I honestly don't care. Whatever happens happens. I'll hit up some former colleagues, and students to let me do a 'creativity' class. But more books in the making. Right now it looks like about 8 months between books. That's why I called this one 'Book 1'.
One of the characters invented a new word recently to describe his brother, who likes to think things are like people. He said that his kid brother has 'anthropomorphicitis'. Most likely been 'invented' before, but I've never read it.