After sixteen months on the road, I still don’t feel much like a king. But then again the “King of the Road” was anything but. He was a hobo who hopped freight trains. A beggar. Nowadays I’m begging for a literary agent. Wish me luck.

Finding a literary agent is like trying to catch a spy. They are hidden away somewhere in NYC. There must be hundreds of them - maybe thousands. But I can’t find a single one. Oh, woe is me. What is an aspiring author to do?

Anticipation. It’s what keeps every author up at night hoping their new book will be a hit. It’s what we wait for every day. I have all but given up on my first book, and am now focusing on my second book, which I anticipate will do much, much better. LOL

Like country singer Eddie Rabbitt, I’m drivin’ my life away, lookin’ for a better way. The best way would be to give up writing, which is like drug addiction. I don’t make any money and I know it’s bad for me but I just can’t stop. At least you can’t be arrested for writing, unless you’re really awful, so I guess I’ll keep trying.

Most of my blog posts feature theme song from the 60s or 70s, bu this week as I was driving back from the DC area to Asheville NC I heard the song “Unstoppable” a 2016 hit by Sia. It seemed appropriate to describe my attitude during the 48-state book tour, when I would not allow anything to get in the way of my goal. Sometimes in life we just have to grit our teeth and do it.

I spend a lot of time thinking about why I wrote the first book. Was it for fame and fortune? No. Not really. On the other hand, everyone who writes a book wants people to read it, the same way a musician wants fans to listen to his music. Art is not just for the artist. Art is meant to be shared. But do people really care?

I’m on the cusp of starting to write my next book, and am having a hard time ginning up the courage to go through all of the hard work, the rejection, and the discouragement all over again. It was easier the first time because I had no idea what to expect. Now it’s like fighting Mike Tyson a second time. You know how hard you’re going to get hit and you realize there’s almost no way you’re ever going to win.

Most of us prefer to play it safe in life so that people will not think we are fools. But if playing it safe means giving up your dream, then maybe the fools are sane and the rest of us are crazy. I wrote a book that does not sell. Now people want me to write ANOTHER book - and believe it or not I’m going to do it.

The young think that time is on their side, because it’s mostly in front, but the old folks have a lot more of it behind them. I have time on my side. Nothing to do but write another book. Hopefully, one that people will actually read. I learned from the first book that you have to imagine your audience first.

So many ways to get fooled when writing a book, and so few ways to write a good one without making any dumb errors. I am eager to start on my second book, but the first one is failing to launch, like a kid who won’t move out of the basement and find his or her own place to live… I am caught between a rock and a hard place, in literary terms…

It’s time to switch from the first book to the second book. This blog is about rolling and having no direction home, but enjoying the journey so much that it doesn’t matter. What will happen next, I have no idea. It doesn’t really matter to me. I am open to whatever life holds for me. Enjoy the ride!

I suppose people are still thinking about the tragedy of the Titan submersible, which imploded and sank this week. I am thinking about my book, which is sinking fast on Amazon into the icy depths of “the ocean of unread books.” In my mind, I had unrealistically hoped that, by now, it would catch on.

While waiting to hear back from ACX about approval of my audiobook master tapes, I thought of the rock opera Tommy by The Who: “Tommy can you hear me?” I wish that I could hear the audiobook and I wish you could it hear it, too!

Nowadays, you need the print book, the eBook, AND the audiobook. Something for everyone. And who gets to make all those books? Why, the author does! I hope to get the final audio file back from the engineer and release the audiobook this weekend. It will be on the ACX platform. Stand by.

So, the paperback is published, and now the ebooks are up on Amazon, too. Ebook One is live and eBook Two will go live by the weekend. Five bookstores have already decided to order the book, and now I have to help them sell it. This is the hard part, according to other people who have written books. And, it is a risky business being in bookstores, because they have to right to return the book and charge you for the cost of doing so. I could lose a lot of money!

Sometimes the bastards get you down, but when that happens, you have to jump right back up and show them they can’t even ruin your day, much less ruin your life. I had to part ways with the Harvest Hosts group after a small-town bully insisted that my minivan and I did not belong in HH. It turned out to be a good thing because I quickly found a group that insists on INCLUSIVITY and I no longer have to buy mediocre bottles of wine for the price of good wine. I am moving ahead with my effort to plan to launch the book.

Where do I go next after completing my national book tour to the 48 lower states? Book festivals? Book signing events? Amazon sales are falling off fast, and it’s a huge gamble to front the money to put consignment inventory into lots of bookstores. It seems like everyone in the book business has their hand in my pocket. Too bad there isn’t any money in it.

The national book tour to all 48 lower states is over, and the print book is now available on Amazon, and as the saying goes, “in a bookstore near you soon.” The e-book is in the works, so please stand by with your Kindles. The author is a bit tired after driving 30,000 miles in six weeks, and is facing the painful gauntlet of book marketing activities and events where few people show up and he doesn’t even break even. But fear not, our plucky author (his last name is Henn after all) will soldier on no matter what. Leave a review on Amazon!

Here we are, where the rubber meets the road. The book is done, and now I have to convince people to read it. The first step is persuading them to buy a book and next to read all of it. Third, they should post a short review, preferably a positive one. Reviews are vital to the book’s success. Then it would be nice if the book got a major review and finally I would like it to sneak onto the NYT bestseller list. Yay! It is available on Amazon and to bookstores via IngramSpark.

This week’s blog is a departure from the established norms. Instead of using a song title as a theme, this week the author presents a parody of the Beatle’s 1966 song, Paperback Writer. Apparently, Paul Lennon got the idea for the song after reading a story in the Daily Mail about a writer who was struggling to make a living and wrote a song about him. It reminded me of another author I know who struggles…