The Black Ring is all the better for what I learned from editing and publishing my own books. It has taken more than ten years, but I feel that it was worth it. After all, The Black Ring, which has taken more than sixty years from first inspiration to final second edition, is why I started self-publishing in the first place. I know other writers who are far more successful at self-publishing than I am. 

I tried to learn promotion. I did some research, bought some books, got some help from a friend who knew how, but I did not understand it. It was like knowing the rules of chess but not actually understanding the game. I know the rules. I spent three years learning guitar chords, but I never figured out how to just sit down and play guitar. (Besides, I had something better to do…) It is said that one way to promote your books is to get a blog, and here it is. But I don’t understand  how to promote my blog, at least not without taking time away from my writing, and that takes me back around to now knowing how to promote in the first place.

I feel my time is better spent by telling my stories (which are all novels by now) than by struggling and failing at what I really can’t learn how to do. Getting someone else to do the promotion is expensive, and not always effective. I would like to have my books traditionally published, but that, too, sometimes doesn’t work out. And besides, I like having my books under my control. 

I like to sell them through dealers I know at conventions — which I hope will start up again. I like to sell them directly to people, sometimes at a discount. I can even give them away without too much cost to myself. And people buy them after looking at the covers, blurbs, essays, and first twenty pages in Allen Wold’s Books http://allen-wold.com. I guess my telling you about that is a form of promotion