Howard Max Space & Time Detective Book Series

Did you ever read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

When I was growing up, Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series was one of my favourite reads, which I re-read many times. If you haven’t read it and are a fan of sci-fi and/or humor then definitely something to put on your reading list. Anyway, the books are very famous and quite good, though re-reading them as an adult I will admit some of the magic is lost, however they remain entertaining.

When I got older and had nothing to do one evening (or afternoon), I decided that I would write my own tribute to Douglas Adams famous book series, which I did. Though (probably) not as good, though not bad, and still requiring a huge amount of editing, I did eventually manage to complete this rather daunting task that I had set myself. I wrote and edited three books in the same sci-fi/humor style as Douglas Adams and self-published on Kindle Direct Publishing. It took a lot longer than expected (maybe 4-5 years in the evening in my spare time), I gave up once during the process and then restarted, managing to find all my deleted work again in an backup I had forgotten to delete.

What did I learn?

It is difficult to write books and editing and correcting errors takes a long time. Whilst I have edited them myself once, this definitely requires at least one or two more revision edits and corrections and probably the input of at least one other person. It is even more difficult to sell books, I haven’t really sold one for actual money yet, only to family members who felt obliged to purchase. The books have been listed on Kindle Direct Publishing for a number of years and even when I run a free promotion deal only a few copies are ‘purchased’, and that is when it is completely free. When it is not available for free the Kindle (digital) version only costs $0.99 USD and not a single copy has been purchased in all the time the three books have been available. With the world having moved to consuming digital media in different formats on social media platforms, the desire to purchase and read a book seems have been lost. Though I am sure this is not the case for popular authors, I would not recommend it to anyone thinking that they will be able to write a few books and retire from the profits. That said, I do find it understandable as, if I want to read a book, I would much rather go to a book store, browse and buy a physical copy than sit reading it on my phone or tablet, hence this might account for my dismal sales figures. Added to this, whilst Amazon is great to offer the Kindle Direct self publishing program, it creates another problem, you are competing against a huge amount of other self-published titles on the platform and it difficult to ever get noticed.

Write a book anyway

If you like writing, write a book (or something else) anyway, for yourself as a project. I think, in retrospect, I should have pursued some form of physical publishing as perhaps then people would have actually read my books. I would assume it would be fairly difficult to get physically published by an actual publisher though if I did it all again I would think this would be the preferred option. It is something I may consider in future, when I have more time, approach publishers to see if anyone would be interested, though the chances are most likely incredibly slim. If you do want to read the books I wrote, they are regularly available for free on Kindle Direct Publishing - read Howard Max Space & Time Detective Book Series or email me (look in the menu) if they are not currently free and I will let you know the next dates of the free offer.

Self publish a book online