An inspiring piece from Kealan Patrick Burke on how self-publishing kickstarted a writing career he’d thought dead.

“In September of 2010, I put The Turtle Boy and some short stories up for sale. I followed it with The Hides, and eventually the other books in the Timmy Quinn series. By the end of the year, I’d managed to sell a grand total of 101 books, and made $134.00. And I was pleased. My expectations going into it had been grounded and realistic, because if my almost a decade in the small press had taught me anything, it was that lightning in a bottle is usually something that happens to other people. Try to duplicate it and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. And this was alien territory for me. So when I started, I expected nothing to happen, that my books would remain just as forgotten in their digital box as their physical counterparts had. When the books started to sell a copy here and there, I was delighted. The sales were just enough to cover the gas bill every month, and I thought that was pretty damn cool.”