Author Videos
J.R. Gonzalez
Author J.R. Gonzalez Self-Publishes His Horror Novels with Xlibris
Gonzalez Self-Publishes with Xlibris
My name is J.R. Gonzalez. I write horror fiction. I like to scare people. I like to tell people to sleep with the lights on and to blame me for the nightmares. Horror has always fascinated me, but I’ve always liked the old monsters. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy. Those are my guys. When I think of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee—awesome guys, awesome characters. I just liked that genre. I liked the way they made me think. Somebody said that if you write a story where it’s all, you know, “Lah dee dah dah dah . . .”—in five years, no one will remember it. But if you write a character and you kill him off, and they’re like, “Why?!”—five years later, they’ll still be talking about it. I want to be talked about in a hundred years.
Finding a Self-Publisher
I decided to self-publish for a number of reasons but the main one, the most telling reason would be because it was the easiest way to go. No one knows who I am, no one believed in me. I saw an ad and I was intrigued by, first of all, by the name Xlibris, and then by the things that they offered initially. And then the experience with them, dealing with them directly, talking to people, and having them come back to me. I had a question, they got back to me right away. And they helped me a lot, and they’ve done a lot for me, and I will always tell people that. I will always say that my experience with Xlibris has been amazing, has been a lot of fun.
Holding His Book for the First Time
When I first saw my book in print, I was excited, I couldn’t wait to open it. I was so excited, I just ripped it open, and I took out the first book, and I cried. I just felt so . . . like I’d finally done something.
Xlibris Author J.R. Gonzalez Shares Writing Advice to New Authors
When people ask me about my experience as a writer, or what I do, I always tell them: if you right now think you’re a writer and you have a story in your head, that’s your story. So who do you want to tell it? Someone else? Because someone else is eventually—it’s going to pop into their head. Do you want them to tell your story, or do you want to tell your story? And they always get real indignant, “No! I want to tell my story.” Well, then, get on it.
I would recommend—at least if you’re starting off—self-publishing, because it’s the best way to find out what’s going to happen when you put your stuff out there. I saw an ad and I was intrigued by, first of all, by the name Xlibris. And they helped me a lot, and they’ve done a lot for me, and I will always tell people that. I will always say that my experience with Xlibris has been amazing, has been a lot of fun.
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