Long ago, I wrote rubbish stories.  I loved writing rubbish stories and, in occasional fits of madness, I’d send them off to magazines in exchange for rejection letters.  On one occasion – and it was only once – a book publisher decided they’d publish one of my short stories in an actual book.  Obviously they’d made a mistake but I wasn’t going to tell them.  Millions of years later I was posted a copy of the book – Hurrah! I read it and spotted lots of inconsistencies – Boo.  I could do better than that, I thought.  And, funnily enough, three of my friends – yes I kid you not I have three – had recently self-published their own book (one wrote, one illustrated and one did the rest).

So I investigated and realised publishing was pretty easy!  I then spent a year putting together two volumes of early science fiction dating back two thousand years, before publishing them on the self-publishing platform, CreateSpace.  Then I just waited for the money to pour in.

I’m still waiting.  (But if you want to but the first volume…)

Daunted Undaunted, I decided to recruit authors.  Many authors expressed an interest, and as soon as I told them how little much I’d be investing in their books (around £0) and how many shops their books would be stocked in (approximately none) they told me, one by one, where to go.

So I published the works of long-dead authors where the copyright had expired and every idiot and his dog could – and seemingly did – republish popular works by deceased folk, who would probably be turning in their grave.  Unless they were cremated.

This method of publishing dead authors’ works made me hundreds of pounds a year.

Then I hit upon the idea of “differentiating” where I made my books different to other versions by publishing large print, dyslexia-friendly and other – less successful – formats.

These versions made me a few thousand pounds a year.

Then I noticed that on rare occasions certain books would suddenly sell a hundred copies.  These books, I realised, were being bought by schools.  So I researched which books schools used as part of their curriculum, and I began to email schools, and sometimes they’d email me.

By now I was earning just enough to quit my day job.  This took me six years (in my spare time).

So here I am, running my little business.  And what of the future?  Well, I’ll foist all that on you in another blog.