/lit/ - Literature

I have spent the better part of three years stewing over what to do with this big story of mine.

Of course, I've also been writing it. It's grown to three books and one short story, and I'm working on a fourth book right now. I've submitted the first book to lots of agents and a few independent small presses. I've received favorable feedback from pretty much everyone who's bothered to GIVE feedback, but no one has been willing to pull the trigger.

I've gradually been leaning more and more towards self-publishing the first book. The thing is, I don't want to just punt it into the ether and have it get lost in the shuffle. I don't want to just put it on Royal Road or Kindle Vella because I'm worried it will just vanish in the churn of everything else out there.

I do own the .com domain of my pen name. I have thought about setting up a Wordpress-type site and putting the first book up there, maybe serializing it sections at a time and releasing it over several months.

I have a decent social media presence and maybe I can build a readership that way.

I am agonizing over this because this story is my baby. I've been plotting it out in some form or fashion since I was an undergrad in college. And the people who read it all tell me it's pretty good. One buddy of mine is convinced I'm a genius. I know that if I can get some momentum going on the story, if I can kick up a genuine readerbase, then the end result could be really good. I'm just paralyzed by the inability to figure out HOW to get that momentum going.

Ultimately some part of it is going to be left to chance, the whims of fate, and that's what makes my stomach turn the most of all. I hate things I can't control. That's part of why I write fiction in the first place.

>>18192717
>those hairy jew arms in the first picture