Richard Blount typed away at the keyboard in his office overlooking the Pacific Ocean and knew where the protagonist of his first ebook would live: 1918 Strand, exactly where Blount has lived on and off for most of his life.
That’s where the similarities end. Blount’s character, Sean Riley, is a 20-something skipper of an 82-foot Coast Guard patrol boat. In his novel, Black Water, Riley is tasked with chasing down an oil tanker taken over by terrorists off the Southern California coast.
“I almost want to believe I’m the lead guy, the macho, strong guy, who can beat up everybody,” Blount, 58, said outside his home last week. “That’s the type you want to see when you look in the mirror. Everybody is that type of fellow. Maybe he’s my idol, doing all the things I’m not capable of doing.”
Though he’s written for a range of publications, literary agents weren’t interested in Black Water. He received about 150 rejection letters, which is not unusual for aspiring authors. Blount kept the letters in a file and used them as motivation. He decided to self publish.
Blount is part of a digital publishing revolution happening online. Although universally accepted statistics of ebook sales are difficult to find, the publication and sales of ebooks continue to grow.
There is no paperback copy, only a pdf online. Blount chose to use the BookBaby for the Kindle, one of a number of self-publishing platforms that have recently proliferated to accommodate demand and make stories available for distribution. His ebook retails for $2.99 and he will earn a 70 percent royalty.
Blount has done his research and understands he probably won’t make any money self-publishing his first book, or maybe even a second. Successful authors that self-publish typically build a following with a first book, and capitalize on sequels. Blount is already writing his sequel.
“You’re not looking for a killing on the first one. You’re hopefully building for a groundswell type effect,” Blount said, adding, “Whether I make a nickel or not, I enjoyed it.”
Blount enjoys his day job, too, teaching health sciences, weight training, first aid, and coaching the men’s volleyball team at El Camino College. He also sails and used to coach volleyball at Mira Costa.
Self publishers are responsible for everything, including self-promotion, creating their covers and editing their story. Blount had some inside help with trimming the fat. His father, an English major and former public relations director for Rockwell, who bought the family’s Strand home in 1964, read through the manuscript and had his say.
“You can’t have an ego about it,” Blount said. “He read every word. We would go through rounds and rounds. He was great. He really helped.”
Blount also received help from a fellow volleyball player at 19th Street who is in the oil business and took Blount to an oil platform off the coast where he heard how they speak and watched them work on the rig. “It was priceless,” Blount said.
Blount wrote ten pages a day to get the book done, which meant trashing three to four pages and building back up, he said. The story is set 15-20 years ago in a world without cell phones. In the Black Water sequels, Riley is transferred from Long Beach to be stationed in Marina Del Rey, so he is closer to home in Hermosa. Blount said the home and hometown may figure more prominently in future books.
Blount knows his success is up to him and no one else. “It avoids the middle man,” Blount said of self publication. “I’m persistent and that helps. If you want someone to hold your hand, it isn’t coming.”
