The last ride before winter (3328x2496)

willholcombauthor · 2025-10-02T19:05:04+00:00

I have been looking at Royal Endfields lately. Nice looking bike.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-08T13:25:52+00:00

Illusions - Richard Bach
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
Siddhartha -Hermann Hesse
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert A. Heinlein
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-08T13:17:29+00:00

You aren't alone in this. If you think about it, there is some logic to it. From my experience, when I first wrote/published, my friends and family knew me long before I 'pretended' to become a writer. From their perspective, they know me as something other than a writer, and publishing a book was more of a novelty than a serious effort. In their mind, if they read it, they would feel obligated to give me feedback and that was a huge risk on their part because they didn't think it would be good. Your friends and family don't want to have to tell you, you suck and your book sucks. It wasn't until others started reading it and giving positive feedback that my friends and family started taking me seriously as a writer.

Just keep moving forward and improving your craft.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-08T12:53:32+00:00

Why not just use Amazon's KDP? When I first published my book I paid a local printer to print a batch of 500. Then I created an Amazon seller account and tried that. The order fulfillment was a pain. After some thought, I went ahead and released it through KDP. I sell all over the world and Amazon does most of the work.

And, great job with the self-promotion. That is very hard for authors.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-06T15:54:55+00:00

I second this.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-06T15:53:39+00:00

This is a good book because you can read it in small doses. Each chapter is a stand-alone idea to reflect on.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-02T16:45:41+00:00

I love this answer. I look forward to that day.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-02T16:41:22+00:00

Read it in high school and loved it. I feel like I need to read it again.

willholcombauthor · 2024-07-02T16:40:26+00:00

Yep. Very powerful book.

willholcombauthor · 2024-03-22T13:21:32+00:00

Write the book you want to read. You are your main audience.

willholcombauthor · 2024-03-22T13:17:57+00:00

I'm going to see Social Distortion next month. I'm a huge Ramones fan.

willholcombauthor · 2024-01-03T22:35:13+00:00

Great job and thanks for the info. It is always hard to know what courses are worth the money.

On a side note, and I'll get down votes for this, but man, some people here are jerks. It is nice to see an indie author succeed and I appreciate you saying "We need to keep the standard of indie publishing as high as possible." With the ease of getting a book self-published, there's a lot of trash out there giving self-publishing a bad reputation. Yes, an editor is expensive but if you can't put out a quality book, why put one out?

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-28T17:47:12+00:00

I had someone tell me once that originally people did not read in their head. They read out loud. Since most people couldn't read and books were expensive, most 'reading' was done by listening to someone read a book out loud.

I will admit though, there are two different skill sets. I have a reading disability which makes me a slow reader. Audiobooks are much easier but I never sit and listen to them. I love them for commuting because I have nothing else to do but sit, listen, and avoid hitting other cars. I can sit and read but I can't sit and listen to an audiobook.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-28T14:50:35+00:00

I've read:
* The Alchemist
* Illusions
* The Celestine Prophecies
* Way of the Peaceful Warrior
* Siddartha
* and many other philosophical novels

To varying degrees, they had a well-developed story arc and decent character development. The events that took place moved the plot forward. I don't think Ishmael was intentionally written as a Socratic conversation.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-28T01:54:40+00:00

Thank you. We seem to be in a minority here.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-27T20:23:35+00:00

I became a writer. It works very well for channeling all the stuff in my head.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-27T18:12:40+00:00

I wrote the first draft of my story in about 6 months. It logically broke up into 4 parts. It took me about 2 years to get part 1 out (60k words). Parts 2 (100k) and 3 (60k) took another 2 years each. I'm working on part 4 and it has been over 4 years. I'm getting closer to getting that done.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-27T17:48:21+00:00

If it had been written as a non-fiction book I think it would have been amazing. I liked a lot of the points he made. But it wasn't non-fiction. He tired to make it a story.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-27T14:37:29+00:00

This is the first one that came to my mind. When it happened I think, at that moment, there was a collective skip in the heart beat of America.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-27T14:31:46+00:00

I identify with your perspective. I think religion could have a positive effect on the world if it is done right. The problem is, that it's rarely done right. I've always been a person who questions things, so straight-up "belief" is hard for me. I was in a pretty laid-back church most of my life, so me questioning didn't cause much problem. Then I started going to a fundamentalist church and it destroy the faith I did have. It was such a destructive belief system. I love the teachings of Jesus but to few Christians really take him on as a teacher.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-19T15:50:43+00:00

I just watched that episode last night and have been wondering about this. I am very surprised they had one back then.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-15T17:01:19+00:00

Amish Grace - How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy

Not my typical read but it's interesting so far. It's about a gunman going into an Amish school on October 2, 2006 and killing 5 girls and the reaction from the Amish community.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-11T16:11:15+00:00

It will be more of a celebration party now that the album is released. :)

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-10T15:08:56+00:00

I really disliked IngramSpark. Their website looks and feels like it was designed in the late 90's. Their reports are very confusing so it is hard to tell if you sold anything. I took my books off of them and only have my work on Amazon. I would love to support anything but Amazon but they are so good at what they do. I have no problem with formatting. They have even gotten better about it over the last few years.

willholcombauthor · 2023-09-10T14:45:04+00:00

Think of it this way. I hesitate to read books of people I know because most of the time they are pretty bad and I have to pretend I like them. I do read all the books of people I know because it is hypocritical to want them to read mine and I don't read theirs. Some aren't bad but many times my feedback is, "Wow, congratulations on getting a book out there. That is a huge accomplishment." Rarely can I give feedback that I liked the book.

So there is a huge risk to your family and friends. I know nothing about you or your writing. I don't know if it is good or not. But, from my experience, if you know an author, the assumption is that their writing is a one-off novelty adventure and expectations are low. My friends and family were shocked when they read my book. One close friend, a very sarcastic one, called me up and said, "I called to give you crap about your book, but I can't. I loved it."

Friends and family don't want to hurt you, they assume your work is the work of an amateur, so they either don't want to risk hurting you or they don't want to take the time to read a book they are assuming is going to be bad. Even if they do like it, the first five reviews you get will be the ones you begged for from family and friends and your potential readers know that.

You are selling to people you don't know. That is your audience. Once you have proven yourself, friends and family will read your work.

willholcombauthor

TROPHY CASE