The fourth reason (although not in any particular order) which I list for self-publishing is that about fifteen years ago I had a vision — not a goal, not a dream, but a vision, a reality so vivid that it woke me right up from my sleep. This is what happened:

After I’d died, my grandson in his 20’s found my floppy disks and went to a “working museum” to look at them on an antique computer. He discovered hundreds of my stories on them, from picture books through adult novels, nonfiction articles to retold folk tales. My grandson reworked some of the stories, revise them, if you will. He then published them under both his name and mine.

I woke, feeling very peaceful. The pressure to be published was gone.

At the time of this vision, my own children were in high school, so there were no grandchildren in sight. What it did was free me from the fear of not being heard. Someday, I knew, my grandson would read my stories. My imagination and dreams and storytelling would be passed on, at least to him.

I have no grandson to date, but I still have lots of stories, many of them revised and rewritten many times over.

So, reason #4 for self-publishing — not only do you readers get an opportunity to share some of my stories, but they are sitting there, waiting for a like-minded descendant to pick one up and say, “Hmm. This is good. I can make it even better.”