New Challenges

For the longest time, my biggest challenge regarding my books was finding the time to work on them.  Typically, I spend an hour or so a day on my work, every day.  This is the biggest drawback to working full time.  I would rather not be so stingy with my time on the Tellest series.

Assuming my readers don’t grow tired with me, the pace that I’m working with doesn’t bother me too much.  It’s something that I’ve grown to accept.  As time goes on, I learn better ways to keep my appetite sated, while still giving the supporters what they need as well.

What I’m learning more recently, however, is that once you decide to move to paperback, a whole new slew of challenges show up.

Last month, I began setting up The Bindings of Fate through CreateSpace, one of Amazon’s partners.  Most of the work is done, since I’ve already written, editted and formatted the book for Kindle.  The drawbacks are resizing cover art, and adding back cover and spine matter.  Those tasks are easy enough to handle, especially considering how exciting of a prospect publishing your book in paperback for the first time can be.

The wall that I’ve suddenly hit is having all of these physical manifestations of my book available.  It is such an awesome concept, and I’m selling the copies I have on hand faster than I would have thought possible.  But, being that they are coming from me, I am in immediate proximity to write an autograph.  I’ve only autographed one other thing in my life, and that was a cooking tray that I used in a hardcore wrestling match in my childhood.  Somehow, I don’t think anybody really cared much for what I had to say back then.

No, the autograph in an intellectual property of this type is so much different than a dented piece of metal.  What am I supposed to do with these autographs?  It feels so impersonal at times, especially when I don’t know some of the readers as much as I like.  Is there a special kind of salutation that I’m supposed to employ?  Do I write everything in cursive?  What kind of pen do I use?  What about the cases when I can’t ask the recipient what they want written?

These are all such petty questions, I realize, but it’s a challenge nonetheless. 

This is the epitome of a first-world problem.

The following two tabs change content below.

Michael DeAngelo

Michael is the creator of the Tellest brand of fantasy novels and stories. He is actively seeking to expand the world of Tellest to be accessible to everyone.