replicate post
replicate post
Well, let your email service know about the situation if you think you're being hacked. A shorter term solution would be to clear all your writing off of your email. And as a last resort, you could always get a more secure service. Hope it works out for you.
Is anyone using KDP to publish their own books?
Yes, I have just started writing seriously. Why do I do it? It's an interesting question, and one every writer should ask himself. Deep down, many writers (and painters, musicians, singers, actors, etc) do it in the hope of fame and success. They dream of being praised and admired, of appearing on high-brow arts shows, winning awards, and so on. In realty, of course, that's very unlikely. The competition is insanely fierce, and there is always someone better – probably in the same village!
And not only is it unrealistic, it's also self-destructive. If you write because you want to be nominated for the Booker, or have your poems studied by college students, etc, then you are setting yourself up for failure – and pain. I once heard someone say she was working on "a great modern epic". I mean, god, how arrogant can you be! To hear her talk, you'd think she was about to produce the new Ulysses. No doubt she clogged up publishers inboxes for the nest five years. In fact, writing any novel is arrogant. It takes an average reader at least a week to get through a 300 page book. When you think how many great works there are, and how short life is, you'd need an ego the size of Manhatten to try. You are effectively saying, "spend a week reading this instead of Dickens, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Vonnegut, DeLilo, Conrad, Nabokov...and so on.
In general, I'd say write poetry, essays or short stories. Those can be read quickly, both by the publisher and reader. They can also be published alongside dozens of others. That's another thing about writing a novel. You are suggesting that your work ought to take up the space of an entire book!
As for why I do it. Well, it certainly isn't for fame and praise. I am realistic about that. And I'm sure it wouldn't bring the happiness people imagine. Even if, by some miracle, I produced a great novel, had it published and praised, then what? At first I'd be thrilled, but soon the praise would die down and I'd be expected to follow it up. So I sweat blood for a year and the publishers say "meh, not as good as the first one – maybe we made a mistake"! The main reason is a love of language. The older I get, the more overwhelming this love becomes. I am obsessed with language, and the thought of creating a beautiful paragraph, or even sentence, thrills me. Then there is the burning need for a creative outlet. The feeling you get when you create something is orgasmic – even if it's no good. Plus, I like the feeling of getting better each time I try. Finally, I guess, there is the hope that, some day, a poem or story or play will be published, or even praised, by someone whose opinion I value.