Wow! It seems to me the, most interesting thing you write about is you, yourself.

Hi Kenna, I wish you well on your journey and would like to invite you to visit my blog The Business of Being an Author at https://www.businessofbeinganauthor.com because I write about things that may help you along the way.

Thank you, friend Judi, you are most helpful cheerleader to me in my journey. I don't believe I'm that interesting but am interested in the world around me, so that world intrinsically is interesting to me and others, I suppose. I myself am a very ordinary human being, somewhat of a dreamer yet concrete realism, I suppose. Thanks again.

Marquita, I will visit your blog definitely and make a comment. Thank you for leaving this comment and wishing me well. Growth is not exponential I've found, it's like a graph of Wall Street that sometimes crashes!

All very relevant questions, Kenna; and questions most every author asks themselves as they develop. I know I do.

It seems the self-publishing movement has been somewhat disappointing to many novice authors who expected to "publish" a book and reap instant fame. Very few actually succeed in this. Most of us trudge along learning that the brass ring comes with strings. Marketing and promotion are evermore challenging when there are millions of new authors entering the ranks through self-publishing.

It seems you are doing just what you need to do: persist. Keep writing, submit a variety of works to a variety of outlets, watch for promotional opportunities (interviews, book signings, readings at the library, etc) enlist qualified professionals to help, and so on. I wish I could give you a magic key to success, but I haven't found it yet myself. I just persist and hope.

Thanks, Doug (one of my fave male names next to Steven, Ward, Kenneth, and Ryan)-- you're obviously a serious author as well, and persistence is probably the key, as you say. A radio interview is being aired tonight on World FM 101.7 and the moderator has been announcing my book giveaway all month, as well as announcements on her Facebook page. Her name is Naz Uppal and she hosts a radio show on Friday nights 10 pm-midnight called Naz at Night. I don't know if it's streaming but my little interview will be on there and she offered to send me an MP3 file of the interview as well. It's only about 3 or 4 minutes long. I've been in touch with my local library without much success but have heard stories like yours often enough, and so don't feel so alone. Publishers, of course, want the author to succeed and sometimes push the pore soul too hard, I think. What do you think about that?