Writing a book

Many people have a book inside them. Some of us actually write one. Then the real work begins. Getting a publisher or an agent to even look at the manuscript much less actually read it is next to impossible.

I wrote a book titled Dreams of Death. It is a story of a young man's thirst for adventure and money and how that thirst was used by the government to seduce him into a secret mission fraught with mis-information, bad information and no information. On a routine mission that was supposed to be a walk in the park a group of highly trained military and para military people have every problem possible confront them, and the walk in the park becomes a run for their lives.

The story is fiction but has some fact in it. I was a Navy trained Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician (EOD) for about ten years. I used this knowledge together with some actual experiences and the experiences of other people who told me their stories to come up with this story line. I also use a precognitive dream or not) to set the stage for the entire book and then the ending is still in question right up until the last sentence.

Unable to find an agent or publisher I decided to publish the book myself. I started my own publishing company (Rivendell Farms Publications) and then went to a printer and had 300 copies printed. I then set up a webpage (http://www.vietnamdreams.com/) to promote and sell the book. I set up a paypal account and put a "buy now" button in the webpage.

It was only then that I realized that I needed some way to get people to navigate to the webpage. Not an easy task, i learned. There are literaly millions of webpages and even when you narrow that to a catagory or even a specific title there are many thousands of competitors for your work. I then found a way to list my book on http://www.amazon.com/ and sent them a box of books so that they could ship them upon purchase.

Then I waited for the money to roll in. I am still waiting. It turns out that even though Amazon lists pretty much every book there is, well... that they list pretty much every book there is. So I am listed on Amazon but so are over 28,000 other people who have books in my catagory. There are even 3 pages of books with the same or similar titles.

Then my son Ethan Ede, who works in marketing, gave me the idea to start a blog. So here i am on my 64th birthday writing my first blog. And since it is my first attempt i would appreciate any feedback from anyone who wishes to convey it.