Why I Started Mind’s Edge Publishing
Someone once asked me why I didn’t publish my novels under a publishing company’s name.
My question was simple.
Why would I put someone else’s stamp on books I’ve spent decades writing?
What would I gain?
Nothing
It didn’t make sense.
“Why can’t I use my own trademark?”
“You can.”
So I did.
That’s how Mind’s Edge Publishing was born.
I’ve been writing novels for decades. It’s in my blood. I launched my website in 2014 and use it to sell my books.
People ask, “Don’t you want to sell more books?”
Sure. I’d like to make some money. But I really don’t give a damn about chasing bestseller lists or building some carefully manufactured author brand. I don’t do book signings. And if I give someone one of my novels, I don’t come back a week later asking, “Well? What did you think? Huh? Huh?”
The book belongs to them now.
Making money is fine—as long as it doesn’t become an obsession or leave people bruised along the way. Publishing can be a game that’s more expensive, more artificial, and more ruthless than Monopoly.
Talent is a gift from God.
So God gets His cut.
I give back to charities whenever I can.
Do I want my writing to earn money?
Of course.
But that’s never been the reason I write.
Writing is an addiction.
Cut me, and I bleed ink.
It’s also therapy.
When I write, I disappear into another world. I climb inside my characters’ heads. I walk their streets. I hear their conversations. Sometimes that’s hard as hell.
It’s also one of life’s greatest joys.
When I sit in front of a blank computer screen, I don’t see an empty page.
I see a movie.
The characters start moving. They begin talking. I simply try to keep up.
Music helps.
A chase scene demands one kind of soundtrack. A love scene demands another. Before long, the music and the words take over, and your fingers start dancing across the keyboard.
The funny thing is that I often think I’m taking my characters somewhere.
Instead…
They take me somewhere else.
I can’t explain it.
No, it isn’t ghosts or goblins.
It just is.
Maybe it’s a little like quantum entanglement. Scientists struggled to explain it for decades. Even Einstein questioned it. Yet in 2022, three physicists won the Nobel Prize for proving key parts of it.
Look it up.
Some things are simply real before we completely understand them.
That’s what writing feels like.
So what is Mind’s Edge Publishing?
It isn’t some company promising you’ll become a bestselling author for $19.99.
Noooo.
That’s the kind of nonsense sold by dream merchants and scammers.
If someone asked me how to become a writer, my advice would cost exactly zero dollars.
Read novels.
Then read hundreds more.
Write.
Then write some more.
Research everything.
For example, while writing Crusher’s Funeral, I discovered the word crackhead didn’t exist in 1970. So I couldn’t use it. The correct slang was junkie. One word. One small detail. But getting it right mattered.
Research isn’t a chore.
It’s an adventure.
You’ll learn history, language, culture, publishing, contracts, formatting, marketing—and you’ll probably get burned once or twice by people selling shortcuts that don’t exist.
There aren’t any.
Dickens wasn’t created overnight.
Neither was Shakespeare.
Creative mastery is earned one page at a time.
I write four or five hours every day because I love it.
Not because I have to.
Because I can’t imagine not doing it.
If you’re dreaming about writing a novel, don’t wait for permission.
Don’t wait until you’re “ready.”
Start.
Write one page.
Then another.
Ask questions.
Accept criticism.
Keep improving.
Most importantly…
Keep going.
There are no shortcuts.
Who’s Behind Mind’s Edge Publishing?
I’m Raul Hernandez.
For more than three decades, I worked as a newspaper reporter in four newsrooms across two states, chasing real headlines before turning to crime fiction and dark comedy. Journalism taught me to listen, observe, question every
thing, and never waste words. Those lessons found their way into every novel I’ve written.
Today I still publish the news through my federal courthouse website, CJNotebook.com, while spending four or five hours a day doing what I’ve loved for decades—writing fiction. When I’m not behind a keyboard, you’ll usually find me in the gym, rowing like a man trying to outrun his own deadlines.
I’ve written several novels, including Crusher’s Funeral, Stepping on the Devil’s Tail, The Dead Sea Bar and Grill, The Rivera Girls, and The Serape Notebook.
Mind’s Edge Publishing isn’t about building an empire.
It’s about building stories.
It’s about creating the kinds of novels I would have wanted to read when I was a kid.
If those stories make you laugh, make you think, or keep you turning pages long after you should have gone to bed, then Mind’s Edge has done exactly what it was created to do.