On my LONG ride home today in our car which overheated so often that we needed to go without the air conditioner for the last few hours, I was putting my hand out the window riding the waves of the wind like I used to do as a kid.  As the wind whipped into the car, I remembered the old “wings” that the front seat of some of my dad’s old cars used to have. The wings were those tiny triangular windows that gave the driver or passenger complete control of the amount of air from outside that you could feel. By opening the wing at a certain angle, it was like having a huge personal air blower in your face. By angling it a different way, you could moderate the flow or completely shut off the flow by closing it. The wing put YOU in charge.  I sure wish I had a wing today for our long trip back.

Of course, this made me think of the publishing industry. For independent authors, this is the age of the “wing.” For the first time, authors are in the driver’s seat, able to use their ‘wing’ anyway they want to publish, promote, package, and sell their product as they see fit.  Between the giants like Amazon, the social media network, blogs, book sites, etc… it’s a great time to be an independent author.

There still are no magic bullets. Promotion is hard work as anyone will tell you, and you also must have a quality product. There is no substitute for a well-written book.  On top of all of this, there still are no guarantees about success for the independent author. But still, this is an amazing time to be writing now that we have our own personal publishing “wing” that we can adjust to meet our own needs.

I’m moving my writing career forward on a ‘wing’ and a prayer!

(Pardon the bad puns. It was a very long day of driving.)