After the birth of our second child, my husband and I decided that one of us should be an 'at home parent'. Since his benefits were better and I could work free-lance, we decided that he would continue working. About this time, we purchased our very first PC a Delta Gold, with a 10 mg hard drive. We thought it had more space for data than we could ever use.
Yeah, we laugh about that, too.
Anyway, while I was an at home mom, I wrote policy and procedure manuals and computer user manuals, but I was also frustrated and needed an emotional outlet. So, I started 'playing' with fiction. The first book was dreadful, but I had fun writing it, so in between freelance contracts, I studied and practiced writing fiction.

My first novels (suspense-romance) were originally published by a regional publisher, then in 2004, the publisher chose to change their guidelines and imprints plus several other things were going on in my life. I decided the only reasonable thing to do was cancel the four publishing contracts and get my rights back. It took a while, and I was eventually successful but it was very stressful.
In 2005, I declared that the only way I would ever return to publishing fiction was if I didn't need an agent and could self-publish. With that, my husband and I moved aboard our brand-new ocean-going catamaran and headed for the deep blue sea.
Upon returning to the US in 2012, a fan asked if I would return to writing, now that I no longer needed to worry about salt water corroding my computer or the supply of electrical power... I repeated that the only way I would ever do that was if I could self-publish. And for a very brief moment, I thought that was the end of that topic, instead I was introduced to e-readers and indie publishing.
Imagine being able to have a device no bigger than a book, yet have access to thousands of books through it! I'd been limited to 3 books on the boat, and could really have enjoyed one of those.
I checked self-publishing out and decided to do it. First, I republished the original four I was having a lot of fun so I finished writing the Chatterre Trilogy and began The Sea Purrtector Series, where Xander, Catamondo's Sea Purrtector lives aboard Whispurring Winds, a catamaran which bears a striking resemblance to the floating home I once took an extended sabbatical aboard,

Smashwords seems to be set up to help authors succeed, which only makes sense because when their authors are successful, so are they.
Suggestions like embedded links to make it easy for fans to find the next book make a lot of sense, as do preorders, box sets, etc.

I love the books by J. R. R. Tolkien, James Clavell and Judith MacNaught. While none of them were particularly prolific, they all wrote books that would keep me up all night.