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WHAT DO YOU DO WITH DOWNTIME?

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Downtime!  Whether you’re on the road or at home, you have your favorite ways of filling time.  Mine are often reading or writing, and some fair amount of that is done on computer, nowadays.  Don’t watch much TV and don’t own a cell phone, so that free’s up more time for books, journals, and computers, in and around life’s demands.  The reason I bring this up, is that this solitary habit has made a writer out of me and I wouldn’t be surprised if that might be true of many of you in this BootsnAll community, because the lives you lead are “out there,” and interesting things surround you.  Perhaps, like me, you’ve learned a lot about human nature and you have philosophical thoughts about life in general.  But, where does one go with all that?  Mostly, I think, we store it away; either in memory or forgotten journals in the attic and we go on with daily living.  Sometimes, though, it explodes into a created work.  Now what? 

Well, aforetimes, if we couldn’t cajole a N.Y. agent or publisher to give us a break….and statistics are against us…..then, we had to either stuff it or rely upon a vanity press to take heaps of money in return for a garageful of books, which we then had to distribute, and usually didn’t.  Publishing had a built-in monoply.  But, not any more!  The digital age has literally made it possible for an ordinary Joe to publish a book, without a whole lot of money, and even get it out to the public.  If it’s dull or poorly written, it won’t get very far; but if it’s good, it has a fairly equal chance to fly.  Since blogs are supposed to be about one’s daily life, and since this is what fills mine at the moment, I’m going to share with you the pitfalls, pratfalls, and maybe the victory, of walking myself through the unknown country of Print On Demand Publishing, or POD.  Even if you can’t imagine needing this knowledge right now, perhaps someday you will……or maybe a buddy, whom you haven’t even met yet, will plant an exuberant kiss on your forehead for showing him the way to Writer’s Paradise!