How often have you thought of writing your own book - that is right - being an AUTHOR of your OWN work!? I would imagine that most people have at some time in their lives had this wonderful thought. The only problem is that most of these people did not go the next step - BEGIN WRITING.

I found the most difficult step was actually BEGINNING!

In my case I got to the point where I knew I had something beneficial to offer others and that the time was now right. I locked away a four week block of time, moved to a quiet island near my residence and reflected and reflected and reflected... Put pen to paper for basic introductions and outlines, did drawings and sketches which would hopefully help the process, exercised, paddled my surf ski through mangroves and observed turtles and sea hawks, day after day - until I realized the theme I had planned on was not to be. My book of reflections and retreats would have to wait another day!

But! When I sat down to my computer that night of realizing that it was probably all over, and that this whole experience was going to be either a waste of time or just a fantastic quiet holiday, another theme surfaced. And before I really grasped the significance of this new direction, I had actually written almost a chapter on this new theme, over the first couple of days of this new session. From then on, as they say, the rest is history.

The first book was a hardcopy. It was written in two major sessions - the first three week block on the island, followed by over a year's break and then a four week Christmas holiday break. All up the final addition took eight weeks of intense work over a fifteen month period. This was followed by another couple of weeks of proof-reading, final editing and deciding how best to market and sell the book.

I eventually decided to change my hardcopy book into an e-book. I believed that this was the easiest and cheapest way to enter the world of the author! Since placing my first e-book online, I now realize that there are a variety of ways to sell e-books, each with varying costs, benefits and disadvantages.

The commercial online e-book store on the internet is still developing and is the new and probably best approach. It will in some cases allow for both the sale of the e-book and of the creation and then sale of this as a hardcopy through their online store - a double whammy! This is my main avenue now, which is combined with my own professional website.