A word of advice. If you are going to self-publish, do not get an ISBN number. My publisher would not have been able to publish my book if I had one since that number said, “already published.”

So, bottom line, self-publish if you want, but be ready to work your butt off promoting it. I would rather spend the time writing. Truth in advertising: I’m 76 years old. So I don’t feel like I have all that much time to give away. Maybe self-publishing a la Steve Almond is a young person’s activity.

“An arrtifact that commemorates a particular human gathering, not a commodity.” I’ll have one of those too, please.

And yes, making your own book IS fun.

After that I stopped writing but the idea never went away. With 3 kids and 7 businesses to run I coudn’t think about sitting at type writer. Time wasn’t on my end. Forward to 1995.

The idea was restless in the back of my mind to write books and selling zillions and becoming free from the whims of economic crap. I never forgot that little crappy booklet and how it made me a “fortune”. Restlessness covered me over until I found a lost copy tucked away in a pastic storage bin that had been all but forgotten. Amazing that it was kept in tact and stayed in the family what with maybe 10 moves. Divine.

So I pecked away at my new Acer computer whcih had some kind of home pub program. I went off the deepend and expanded it into a 200 page “How to Start an Automotive Business” manual. I self-pub’d that one too having them printed for about $15 bucks apiece at Kinkos. I sent them to national magazines. In about 3 months the first press release came out and my manual was mentioned in several car publications with my address and ordering info. In a year I sold over 12000 at $125 bucks a piece. This was a “How-to” manual specifically about starting and running a successful auto biz so that pretty much gave me the power to ask lots of money. That’s was was the “mail order” biz back then.

In ’97 I wrote another auto specialty type book with 100 pages and basically did the same routine, type, self-pub and freebie marketing sending out press releases. I had 3 mags giving it positive praises. I did all the edits, artwork, labor and suffering that goes into a book. That one sold over 20,OOO at 19.95.

But that’s not all. That un-professionally published 100 page book also got me a mid-six figure consulting gig with a major automotive aftermarket company. Which I really hated. Man talk about corp politics.

After that I decided that I would focus on writing my way or kill over trying. I have 10 manuscripts every kind. Mostly business related with some of my strange pshycho crap trhwon in. I have to so them or else dry up and go away.

In 2002 I discovered the fun life of Diabetes. I have severe Diabetic neuropathy and have since slowed to a crawl in my main business which is auto related. Now it is time to take what I have written and get serious.

My mindbending behind those crude publicatiuons have taught me that you, anyone with the “get off yer ass and go” attitude can do this. You can free yourself from the ass draggers and rude F’kers at trad publishers and the lazy bums who tell you it is dumb idea.

I am doing what I preach…IRDGAF…that is my mantra…”I really don’t give f#@k” the attitude which keeps me motivated no amtter what the rest of the universe is doing. It serves me well. because anything artsy like writing, to make it, or not, you cannot feed off the a#%holes of society.

Screwed up health and physical disabilities and all, I’m working on my two books now. One is focused on CEO and business owners called “Kingpin Confidential.” In an advisory roll I’ve dealt with every type of Big Biz Kingpin you can fathom from drug dealers to politicians and let me tell you this; from my lessons in Kingpindom I’d rather hang with a bunch of tatted well armed bikers who will tell me to my face I’m gonna get hurt than suits who stab you after you turn your back. The other one is about my business trippin’ for 35 plus years and how I’ve survived the streets of business hell and lived to tell all about.

Yes, I’m probably the most reluctant writer, rebellious entrepeneur on earth but I gotta say this, I really have done it my way, not theirs.

Thanks for your explicit inspiration allowing me to tell lies. Now gimme an Almond bar. Oh, sorry ’bout the ‘typhoes’ I freely install in my writing. That’s reality wording and if the smart asses don’t like my misspelling and screwed up thinking well come on down and let’s rock. I gots the tea and beans! Mikey…Not Perfect…Real.

But the musicians who self-publish are actually people who do other work in order to pay their rent.

Technology has indeed changed the equation…but all it’s really done is change the costs around obtaining copies.

The MUCH HARDER WORK of publicity and marketing are barely touched…and are probably much more difficult now.

Vanity publishing is STILL vanity publishing.