The Decision to Self-publish

For most of my life - I have been a writer. For some of that life I actually got paid for it.

But it was always in me - it has always been a way I have defined myself to myself. It makes sense to who I am. The ultimate dream for me has always been, and I think shall always remain, to write for a living.

That is danged difficult though.

My first book, "The Hand Behind the Mouse" was a 'successful' book by most qualifications. I got paid a nice advance, it sold a fair (if not huge) amount of copies, it got mostly favorable critical reviews (minus a couple of fellow animation historians with their own competitive and contrary books to sell) and it even won a pithy award (voted on by animation professionals and beating out one of my heroes - the legendary John Canemaker for that wonderful honor). But it was certainly not successful enough in any of those realms to make it a full-time gig.