Want to be a writer? Start a blog. After a few hundred blogs, self-publish an ebook. Keep editing and improving that ebook and after a year and several major re-writes, self-publish a print version.
How much will this cost? Nada. In fact, I do it all day long and have over 30 self-published books in print covering a huge variety of platforms, although Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords and Nook are my biggest.
I recently combined a dozen of my top ebooks into five print-on-demand paperbacks. Of those my best-seller is Hip Hop: The Complete Archives, and a significant number of copies are being purchased in Great Britain, which makes me happy because that’s a cool place to get recognized. In the case of ebooks and print-on-demand, you should keep updating and improving constantly, and take instant advantage of the feedback. Your audience always has access to the latest version via the cloud so they have an incentive to help this process of constant improving. This process is a huge game-changer in the world of publishing and a lot of people have yet to realize its power.
Meanwhile, I plan to publish my Art After Midnight as a color photo book sometime, as well as updates on The Bitcoin Revolution and Cannabis Cures Cancer, both of which are drawing global sales but are in need of updates.
So don’t sit around waiting for some publisher or agent to discover you. Just blaze your trail and keep moving forward.