As CEO of this company and the Mars Rising Network Family of companies, I was interested in getting involved with the self-publishing business because of the opportunity it represented. However, it was much more than that.

My mother, Lucille Benson was a writer, Author and published Author. From 1985 to 2005 she wrote 19 short stories and 2 books. She was working on her novella about the civil war, much like Gone with the Wind in its scope and research. She never finished it as she passed away in 2007.

I remember when she told me she was going to be a writer and she began studying about writing and educating herself about the writing process. It was a pivotal moment in her life and one that gave her much joy. She was a happier person with something to look forward to each and every day. She took her writing very seriously and wrote almost every day to constantly improve. All of that hard work paid off to some extent as she sold numerous short stories for small amounts of money, but one of her short stories inspired a major TV movie in 1993 named “Liar Liar”. She did not get any royalties or even any recognition for the movie but she did get a $7500 payment for the short story to be published in True Story Magazine and it went from there. She had no choice but to give up all rights to the story for the $7500.

I remember we talked about it and at that time she had no other choice. This was before computers and before the internet. There was no opportunity other than submit to the publishers of that time and the way they did things. Unless you were an Author that sold a lot of books you were basically left with no other choice than what they offered you. Even with all of that my mother was always positive and felt she had succeeded in her writing career before she died.

I was always happy of that and seeing the opportunities writers have today it makes me wish she could have had the same opportunity. Life goes on as they say, and that is a big reason I wanted to enter the publishing world. To be able to offer to others today what my mother and other writers did not have in the past.

This is for all writers and Authors, you have a great opportunity today and if you want to succeed, take your work seriously and it will give you fulfillment and happiness. I can only hope you will be as successful and happy as my mother was. I wish all of you the best in your writing experience.