Interview with CJ Hunnel
A question from Smashwords
What motivated you to become an indie author?
I have been writing with the intent to have my work published for five
years now. I sent out my first manuscript just over two years ago and
have been trying to sell my stories to a variety of publishers. There is
always waiting period of 8 to 12 weeks before you hear back from a
publisher, so you can imagine the number of times I sent my work out
over that amount of time. By February of this year I had three books
written with a word count of over 100,000 words. I discovered one of the
publishers I wanted to work with was looking for new Authors to submit
for their new digital program they were getting started. The catch was
that they wanted a word count of between 50,000 and 60,000 in the area
that I write in. I condensed my first two books, changed the titles and
submitted the one I was the happiest with. I was able to pull apart the
third on to make two more books.
On the 18th of June this year, I received another rejection notice and said to myself, there has got to be a better way to do this, I did my research on Amazon and found a how to publish for Kindle and downloaded it. I learned how to format my document for that avenue and became a published Author on the 24th of June with Matt's Summer. I honestly thought that was as far as I was going to go with it until I had an outcry from my friends wanting to have a printed copy of my book. I learned how to self publish in print and then I had people asking if I was going to have my book available for the Nook. I learned a whole new formatting to submit to Nook and am crossing my fingers that it shows in the next few days.
The next request was if I had it available for iBooks yet, and here I am. I am still confused by the formatting requirements for Itunes, but thankfully I found Smashwords and my have that issue resolved. So the true answer to my motivation to become and indie author is that after all of the rejection letters I went looking for an easier way to get published. Everything for the last month and a half has been learning how to expand on my original submission to Kindle Direct Publishing. I am still learning through the process.
On the 18th of June this year, I received another rejection notice and said to myself, there has got to be a better way to do this, I did my research on Amazon and found a how to publish for Kindle and downloaded it. I learned how to format my document for that avenue and became a published Author on the 24th of June with Matt's Summer. I honestly thought that was as far as I was going to go with it until I had an outcry from my friends wanting to have a printed copy of my book. I learned how to self publish in print and then I had people asking if I was going to have my book available for the Nook. I learned a whole new formatting to submit to Nook and am crossing my fingers that it shows in the next few days.
The next request was if I had it available for iBooks yet, and here I am. I am still confused by the formatting requirements for Itunes, but thankfully I found Smashwords and my have that issue resolved. So the true answer to my motivation to become and indie author is that after all of the rejection letters I went looking for an easier way to get published. Everything for the last month and a half has been learning how to expand on my original submission to Kindle Direct Publishing. I am still learning through the process.
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