Got my first royalty check from Redhawk Publications! On second thought, let’s forego the champagne. Truth be told, it’s a modest figure. How about a chili dog and an RC Cola? Still, this is a big moment for me, a long time coming.

My first earnings as a writer began in my junior year of high school. As a reporter for my hometown weekly, the Howell Booster, I earned five dollars an article covering high school sports, board of education meetings, and court proceedings.

I imagined myself as a hard-boiled journalist, equipped with a leaky Bic pen, a note pad, my not-so-trusty ’54 Chevy Bel Air, and a pack of Marlboros. I thought blowing smoke rings was charismatic. I figured I had found my calling in college when I became editor-in-chief of the campus literary and arts magazine. I’d become a writer of note—a novelist, a poet—not an ordinary working stiff. But I lacked the necessary conviction. There was that fork in the road.

Rather than an MFA, I got an MBA. I applied my writerly skills to convince people to become part of the virtuous circle which supported the cultural, educational, or social service organization that I worked for at the time. The saving grace was that my employers, like me, had worthy intentions.

Along the way, I wrote notes about my life, and those notes evolved into stories. When I retired in 2014, the stories began to coalesce into a memoir. Ten years later, I finished Sayonara Cowboy, and got it published. In that way, the two roads that diverged in the wood reconverged as one. The thing was, it was always one road, and it was mine.

For me, writing the book was the hardest work ever, and the most gratifying.

But now, I’m confronting the task of elbowing Sayonara Cowboy into the crowded marketplace of book selling. Consider these daunting metrics:

• An estimated three million new titles will be published in 2024.
• The average book sells less than 300 print copies over its lifetime.
• Less than five percent of new titles will sell one thousand or more copies.
• Most publishers have sloughed off marketing responsibility to authors.

Ironically, I’m still writing to advance a worthy cause. If you haven’t already, consider ordering my book. I think you’ll find it good company. Should we ever meet, the chili dog and soda are on me!