Supporting Writers

Here at Vigilant we believe that a great book is just a few thoughts away, and we want to help you on your writerly journey! We have a collection of writing books available and plan to have writing centric events.

Self Publishing tips

About a million books are published each year; most are self-published because it is very difficult to come to the attention of an agent or a publisher.

I was lucky to have my first books published by major presses (Cam- bridge, Elsevier and Sky), but I self-published my 5th book. I decide to try self-publishing because I was dissatisfied with the editing, layout and marketing by some of my earlier publishers, and I wanted the experience of doing it all. I learned a lot and created a great book that was picked up and republished by the West Virginia University Press. The book has sold a few thousand copies and still sells a few hundred each year twenty years later.

Chuck's background as a writer

I am a writer, having written five science books, two fictions, a monthly column for a national astronomy magazine (for 23 years), a daily blog about the Moon (for 11 years), and more than 200 scientific articles. But writing fiction is much harder than writing nonfiction, even though I can invent every character, event and spoken word.

I wrote a 50 page historical short story (Our Phillips House) about the 192 year old house we live in and its builder. Buoyed by the pleasure of that project I have written two historical mysteries set in Wheeling, Virginia in 1850 and 1853. The first, Wheeling 1850 was published in 2021, and the second, The Body in the Mound, was published in 2023. I am half way through the third story, set in 1855, and plan on continuing through the Civil War when Wheeling was the capital of the new state of West Virginia. Momentous times, and lots of things to write about!

My fiction books didn't find a publisher so I published as paperbacks with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publication, which I recommend. But you do have to promote your books personally if you want anyone to find them! We feature books about/set in the Ohio Valley and by local authors in the bookstore so let us know if you have a good book to add to 'Wheeling' section!

Supporting Writers

Self Publishing tips

Chuck's background as a writer

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