I was talking with a writer friend recently who was feeling down in the dumps. She had seen her first book published, but the experience with her publisher had not been ideal. Inadequate communication, a lack of a cohesive launch and promotion plan, and ultimately a company that fell apart left her fighting to regain her rights.

A prolific writer, she ended up self-publishing a book that had been committed but not yet published. But that hasn’t been exactly what she hoped for either. She learned what many of us discover: It’s difficult to shift gears from writer to publisher. Frankly, there are different skill sets involved, and it takes a while to develop new skills. Moreover, it’s frustrating, especially when you feel like you’ve failed somehow even though you grabbed hold of the brass ring.

Or to use a different metaphor, imagine discovering that you’ve been set adrift on a raft without a motor. You have a couple oars and you know the basics of setting the raft in motion, but it’s a big ocean and you have no sign of land on the horizon. In my friend’s case, she has some advantages. She has an agent who is providing guidance. For sure, it’s better to have direction and a compass than to attempt to rediscover how our ancestors navigated by the stars, but guidance is not propulsion. Wherever you are on the journey, one thing is clear: Publishing takes energy.

The discussion I had with her reminded me of when several friends of mine and I created the From the Write Angle blog. The idea, formulated by EBP author R.S. Mellette, behind that blog was to help other writers up the same publishing ladder we’re climbing. Mind you, we weren’t that much farther up the ladder, so they could still hear us and reach us. So, to a degree I aim to build on the Write Angle blog idea here and share what I can with other writers who are on the writer’s journey. And I hope to learn while I’m doing this, too, because I’m still rowing my oars also.

If you’re up for it, please join the journey by clicking where it says “Get your elephant updates.” If you subscribe before the end of summer, I’ll send you an ebook version of Summer’s Edge, which recently celebrated its fourth anniversary.