RANDOM QUESTIONS
This page has generated some great questions from readers. When the questions fall into one of the already established sections I add them there. For everything else, I put here.
Q: What was your initial financial investment? Have you hit a break-even point yet financially?
A: Self-publishing through Lulu requires no money up front, so I had no initial financial investment. I was "in the black" after selling one book. The only thing that costs money is if you buy copies of your own book to sell in person.
Q: In Commodork, you admitted to breaking the law. Did you run into any legal issues?
A: None. I'm pretty sure the statue of limitations in regards to copying computer games 30 years ago has expired.
Q: What tools did you use to write? Word? GNU software? Specific author programs? Pencil on a restaurant napkin?
A: I wrote both of my first two books using Microsoft Word, and have switched to Google Docs.
Q: Any specific resource you used for your research? Google? Wikipedia? Your friends? Wife? etc. Did you also have any specific methodology for your research or did you just wing it?
A: The majority of my research was performed online. You nailed most of my sources: Google and Wikipedia. Whenever I quoted a source I was always sure to cite those references. Getting caught plagiarizing is just about the worst thing that can happen to a writer.
Q: When you finally got the book finished, where did you go to find a publisher? Did you start right away with self-publishing or did you originally have bigger goals?
Q: A friend of mine (though another friend) discovered Lulu. It was my plan all along to self-publish my first book, in hopes that if it got enough attention, it might help me sell my second book. Because I was self-publishing I decided to pick the most obscure book topic I was considering writing (Commodork is about old computer bulletin board systems) and do that one first -- that way I wasn't potentially "throwing away" an idea that could possibly be a billion seller later on down the road. I did check with a few small publishers and got an offer for a $1,000 advance with a royalty rate of $1/book sold, meaning I would have to sell 1,000 books before I began receiving any payment. As it turned out, by self-publishing I sold 1,000 physical copies myself and an additional 2,000 eBooks, so in the end I made the right choice. Then again, who knows how many copies I would have sold through a more traditional publishing house?