Just Keep Typing #IWSG

After a fun stint of troubleshooting a 403 error this morning (yay for corrupt .htaccess files), I finally have my site up and running so that I can actually post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Thank you Raimey Gallant for catching that for me!

If you saw my post last week, you know that I’m celebrating finishing the first draft of Isto, the second book in my epic fantasy series. I converted it through text-to-speech and listened to the whole thing, finishing it off yesterday. I caught over two dozen missing or wrong words! Sheesh. I guess my mind fills in what my eyes glance over, and it takes me hearing it to realize it’s not there. And yet, even having corrected all these little mistakes, my critique partner has already found two other wrong/missing words in the first two chapters. *sigh* At least she’s got a keener eye than me! (Thank you, Aldrea. ^_^)

But that’s not why I’m insecure today. I know I’ll be going over the drafts several more times before I call it finished. What makes me insecure is that I like this story, I want people to read it… but for the best experience, they should have the background acquired in the first book. And the first book has tension issues. How can I market this second book, when I’m terrified that people won’t make it through the first one?

There are four books in this series, plus a companion novel, and I have no intention to return to revising the first book before the series is complete, mostly because I know of no easy way of fixing the tension without rewriting everything. And at my rate, it’ll be another twenty years before I finish the series.

It’s depressing and discouraging, believing people aren’t going to read this second book because of issues with the first one.

But I will finish writing this series. I will continue to improve. And then, maybe someday, I’ll come back to the first book and make it better. Until that time, though, I’ll just keep typing.

IWSG Question of the Month: What publishing path are you considering/did you take, and why?

I became an indie author for multiple reasons. I know myself. I don’t want a career as an author. I’m a perfectly happy programmer. In my job, I build solutions specifically crafted for the users and consumers. I tailor everything to what they want. My books? My series? They are for me. They are what I want, and I had no desire to go through the query-and-wait process just to hear other people don’t want it. I do enough building for other people, this story is for me. I just want to share it with others who might be interested, and self-publishing made that possible.

Plus I’m a habitual DIYer. I enjoy figuring out formatting and analyzing what works and what doesn’t. (Programmer, remember?) I can format my own print layouts, create my own ebooks, and I’ve done studies on what is visually attractive in a cover from typography to color schemes. I have all the skills to pull off indie publishing, save for the need of hiring an editor. Therefore, if I’ve got the skills, might as well use them.