Self-Publishing Success Stories: Self-Publishing Success Stories: Theresa Ragan

Friday, March 23, 2012

Self-Publishing Success Stories: Theresa Ragan

Her website/blog is a good source for writers who are thinking of going into self-publishing. It's like a feel good story. It's a feel good story. She tried for 19 years to get a traditional publishing contract to no avail. With nothing left to lose, she tried something different. One year and 239,592 books sold later...........

Read about how she got started with self-publishing here: "How I Got Started"

Here's a very inspiring excerpt from her blog:
http://www.theresaragan.com/2011/06/talking-money-ii.html

Weeks before self-publishing, I was looking through the want ads for a job and trying to decide what type of work I was going to do now that my youngest child was going off to college. Financially, I had known the day would come when I would need to go back to work full time, but with the economy and other factors, the pressure was on more than ever. From the beginning, I wrote every day and I never stopped writing or learning the craft...because I wanted to be able to do this for a living. This was never a hobby to me. My passion was and is writing. It's all I want to do. It's all a lot of writers want to do.

But at the beginning of 2011 I truly thought my time was up. I had tried and failed...because as much as I just wanted to write…financially my husband and I knew that I had to go back to work. In February, 2011, thinking I was going back to get a "real" job, I decided to put my medieval time travels out there...I had nothing to lose at this point. I never for a moment thought about the $. It was more like, okay, the gig is up. Time for me to get a "real" job so I might as well throw the books out there and see if anyone else likes them as much as I do.

And then a miracle.

The books started selling and my life literally changed overnight.

19 years and suddenly...BOOM. I'm selling books, getting fan letters, and making $. For the first time in my 19 years of writing, I realize I just might get to WRITE for a living! How cool is that?

I'm still pinching myself.