Community Corner

Galveston's R.S. Grey Has Her Fingers On The Pulse Of Her Fans

Rachel Grey, who is a master of romantic comedies, worked in the medical field before she took up professional writing.

GALVESTON, TX — Not too many people know that one of the most prolific ebook writers around lives in the Houston area. R.S. Grey has 18 books published through Kindle Direct Publishing and Amazon, and she will likely publish a lot more before she runs out of ideas.

Grey was a medical assistant before she embraced her literary passion and jumped feet first into her writing career.

In 2012, she was working in a doctor's office and had thought her calling was in the medical field, but that was before the writing bug bit her hard.

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Although not a writer in the least, Grey set a goal in her mind to consider writing a book some day. She started writing at night, after her shift and she did what many budding authors do.

She wrote about what she knew best, with some of her plots focused on young women working in a doctor’s office.

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“It was really easy to just put it down on paper,” she said.

It was the spark she needed to get the ball rolling on her writing career, she said.

She published her first ebook late one night in 2012, and recalled breathing a huge and victorious sigh after hitting the send button.

She laughs when she reveals how she sat in the moments after sending off that first book and wondered how long it would take for her life to change.

“It didn’t. Not right away at all, but it did enough to where I wanted to keep going with it,” she recalled. “It definitely lit a fire.”

She did much of her creative writing while living in the Heights, but has only recently moved her family to Galveston Island when her husband decided to pursue his Master’s degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

“I think a lot of people assume that a novel must take years and years to write,” she said during an interview with Patch. “I know what my readers want and I know what like to write at this point, so it comes a lot easier than it did four or five years ago.”

In 2007, Amazon launched Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to make it easier for authors to fulfill their dreams. KDP offers a free, easy, and fast way to self-publish eBooks and paperbacks. With KDP, the power of publishing is accessible to authors worldwide, allowing a more robust and diverse set of voices to share stories with a wider audience than ever before.
Benefits

  • Keep Control: Authors maintain creative control, retain their rights and set their own prices.
  • Get to Market Fast: Authors can set up their books in minutes, and it will appear on Kindle stores worldwide.
  • Make More Money: Authors can earn industry-leading royalty on sales, up to 70%.
  • Reach More Readers: Authors can publish eBooks and paperbacks, distribute them in multiple languages, and access free tools and services to find their readers.

Impact and Reach

  • Hundreds of thousands of authors have self-published on KDP.
  • In 2017, independent publishers and authors earned more than $220 million in royalties from their participation in Kindle Unlimited alone.
  • In fact, in 2017 thousands of independent authors earned more than $50k, with more than a thousand surpassing $100k in royalties.

With 18 books to her credit, one thing still has not changed; Grey still writes what she knows. Her last book centered around an orthopedic surgeon, and was modeled after her brother.

"These are just normal characters living day to day lives," she said. "In some ways I push the boundaries...but I never push it so far that I delve into a world that’s going to take me three years to wrap my head around. That's not what my readers want."

You can visit her at RSGrey.com or on Instagram: @authorrsgrey.

You can find all the books to Grey's credit here.

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Image: Courtesy, Rachel Grey

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