Let’s start with that, shall we? FROZEN DREAMS is my first novel (also available as an audiobook): it’s a post-apocalyptic urban high fantasy pulp detective novel, complete with wizards, fantasy races, and at least one wisecracking private eye. It’s set in the far-future and remarkably-retro Cin City, capital of the Kingdom of New California – where life may not be cheap, but it ain’t exactly solidly made, either. Now, some might say that all of this is just an excuse for me to make all sorts of pop culture references in a fantasy story – but I couldn’t possibly comment.
The hero of this story is Tom Vargas, a Shamus pledged to Clear the tough Cases, no matter what. And there’s a lot of ‘whats.’ Evil mage ambassadors. Commie demonologists. Ken barbarians. And as many flying monkeys as my editor could force me to put in.
Which was honestly not hard to do.
Put it another way: Hi, I’m Moe Lane and I’m now a self-published author.
Yeah, it does sound a little like a confession that way. It is certainly an odd way to go through life, although in fairness I wasn’t self-published this last year, so there still may be a certain novelty value involved.
I got back into writing fantasy / horror / pulp science fiction in 2016, for reasons; and it took about three or four years before I could graduate from writing short stories on my Patreon to writing books on Amazon. My first book FROZEN DREAMS came out this spring: I followed it with a small chapbook (ANAGNORISIS) of horror fiction in late summer; my next book of short stories (set in the same universe as FROZEN DREAMS) is going to be Kickstarted in about a week; I have another novel in alpha reader stage, and the next novel will be started for National Novel Writing Month.
I mention all of this not to brag, but to do something between inform and warn: self-publishing requires steady action. Or, at least it does for me. I don’t always follow Bob Heinlein’s rules for writers, but I do try for the gist of them: keep writing, and keep working. Because, alas, if I had somebody to do the PR and the marketing and arrange for the covers and track down a copy-editor and all the rest of it, I wouldn’t be self-published.
On the bright side? I’m not particularly driven and slightly lazy, so if I can get a book self-published then certainly you can, too! But you do have to, all right, plug at it. Fortunately, you can learn to keep working and practicing.
Moe Lane
PS: There is nothing wrong with coming up with an excuse as to why you can’t write today. Just as long as you never, ever actually use that excuse. People will never read the books you choose not to write.