Hopefully, in a few months, one of you will write this about ME.

I am rarely jealous... okay, I'm jealous a LOT, but I rarely acknowledge my jealousy.

Today, however, I'm going to go ahead and not only admit that I'm jealous of someone, but I'm going to acknowledge it publicly.

The guy I'm jealous of is a guy by the name of Gang Chen, who is an architect and author. Mr. Chen is the author, most recently, of "Planting Design Illustrated," and another book, the "LEED AP Exam Guide." And Gang Chen earned over $100,000 in royalties on those two books.

In six months.

That's amazing enough -- six figures in six months. But what really gets me is this: Mr. Chen did it through self-publishing his books.

Apparently, Mr. Chen got himself a publishing contract for one of his books and then didn't like all the changes the publisher was insisting on, so he canceled the contract and decided to self-publish through a company called "Outskirts Press." Six months later, he's gotten two royalty checks: one for $33,679.56, and one for $77,611.88, all earned between October 2008 and March, 2009.

Mr. Chen himself said that part of the reasons for his success was that Outskirts Publishing helped him so much. He said that with Outskirts, “Their services do not end after the book is published,” Chen stated. “They continue to provide excellent marketing advice, as well.”

Outskirts' CEO Brent Sampson said that “Successful authors have the potential to separate themselves from the pack by publishing with a full-service, custom publishing company that provides support before, during, and after publication.”

So I'm jealous, and I'm happy, because if Mr. Chen can do it, then I might be able to do it, too -- and as we all know, I'm heavily in favor of breaking into publishing, making a lot of money, and settling in Hawaii -- and I like the idea of doing it in a nontraditional way, controlling the outcome myself, and not being bound into a publisher's view of what my work should be.

If you're interested in Outskirts for your own work, you can visit http://outskirtspress.com/marketing.php and see what they offer. I'll probably bump into you, internetically speaking, there.