Birthday for a Book

It’s been four years. Actually, four years and one week, but last week I was focusing on the last days of the Kickstarter campaign for Dragons of Londinium. So I’m celebrating a week late.

On March 1, 2021, Dark Owl Publishing released my first novel, The Keeper of Tales. I’m insanely grateful to Andrea there. She took a big risk. Sure, I had some short stories published, and more on the way, but an entire novel?

But on March 1, The Keeper of Tales was unleashed on the public. A relatively classic epic fantasy, with the twist that stories controlled the world. Stories forced people to take on the roles of archetypes, and punished any who resisted. In the end, stories themselves became the antagonists… kind of.

For so, so long, I’d wanted to be an author. Not “just” a writer. Not just someone who typed at a laptop and wanted to someday have a book. I had my own book! Look at it! My name’s on the cover!

It wasn’t enough. Of course it wasn’t enough. How would it ever be enough?

Andrea rolled the dice on me a second time and published Dragons of the Ashfall.

It… didn’t do well. Hardly anyone bought it.

By then, though, it was too late. I was writing and expecting my words to see the light of day. Yes, I knew that editing was necessary. Yes, I knew revisions were necessary. Rough drafting is hard work. It’s not the only work an author must do. No problem with that, though. My wife and I learned the tough process of self-publishing.

And now thirteen books later, and three more successfully crowdfunded, it seems so odd to me that The Keeper of Tales is only four years ago. Writing and publishing is just something I do now. It feels like my first novel was decades ago.

But it wasn’t.

I didn’t do anything to celebrate its birthday. I probably should have. Maybe next year? Half a decade of having books with my name on them? That seems like something good to do.

What do you do to celebrate a book birthday?

Oh, come on. You already know the answer.

You write some more. And then you go buy some more books to read.

Cause books.