June's Writing Progress and a Retrospective
I finished the first draft of Racing the Storm, which came in at 8900 words. Most of this month has been taken up with editing the other stories in the short story collection. I suppose I should start looking for beta readers soon...
I appeared on the June episode of The Weekend Write-In podcast. The hosts interviewed Fox Universe creator Jason Greenfield, and several writers, myself included, read excerpts from our Fox Universe stories.
Saturday 3rd July will be the tenth anniversary of the publication of Death & Magic, when I decided I'd had enough of playing guessing games with literary agents, and I'd try this newfangled Amazon KDP that all the cool kids were talking about. I've now got ten books on sale, with an eleventh coming out later this year, along with various short stories and novellas that are available free online. My published work totals just over a million words.
I won't say I've never looked back, but overall I don't have many regrets. I haven't sold as many books as most traditionally published authors (nor as many as some self-published authors, for that matter). But you have to set that against the fact that if I'd continued to try for traditional publishing, I wouldn't have sold any unless I was one of the 1% or 0.1% who manage to get representation.
Would I have got there if I'd kept trying and kept learning? Of course, I've no way of knowing, but seeing as people who don't know me have bought my books, and some of them have been kind enough to post positive reviews, I'd like to think it would've happened eventually. I might not have published as many books as I have (traditional publishing works very slowly), and the books might've been subject to what TV Tropes calls "executive meddling," where someone from the marketing department insists on changes to fit with what they've decided the next big thing is going to be. The first two or three of my published books suffered from my being torn between writing the book I wanted to write and writing a book that (I thought) an agent (would think he or she) could sell to a publisher. The later ones are much closer to "the book I wanted to write." They're not necessarily better by anyone else's standards, but I'm happier with them.
For the month of July, I'm taking part in the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale. All my books there are 50% off. Go to https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi... and bag a bargain!
I appeared on the June episode of The Weekend Write-In podcast. The hosts interviewed Fox Universe creator Jason Greenfield, and several writers, myself included, read excerpts from our Fox Universe stories.
Saturday 3rd July will be the tenth anniversary of the publication of Death & Magic, when I decided I'd had enough of playing guessing games with literary agents, and I'd try this newfangled Amazon KDP that all the cool kids were talking about. I've now got ten books on sale, with an eleventh coming out later this year, along with various short stories and novellas that are available free online. My published work totals just over a million words.
I won't say I've never looked back, but overall I don't have many regrets. I haven't sold as many books as most traditionally published authors (nor as many as some self-published authors, for that matter). But you have to set that against the fact that if I'd continued to try for traditional publishing, I wouldn't have sold any unless I was one of the 1% or 0.1% who manage to get representation.
Would I have got there if I'd kept trying and kept learning? Of course, I've no way of knowing, but seeing as people who don't know me have bought my books, and some of them have been kind enough to post positive reviews, I'd like to think it would've happened eventually. I might not have published as many books as I have (traditional publishing works very slowly), and the books might've been subject to what TV Tropes calls "executive meddling," where someone from the marketing department insists on changes to fit with what they've decided the next big thing is going to be. The first two or three of my published books suffered from my being torn between writing the book I wanted to write and writing a book that (I thought) an agent (would think he or she) could sell to a publisher. The later ones are much closer to "the book I wanted to write." They're not necessarily better by anyone else's standards, but I'm happier with them.
For the month of July, I'm taking part in the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale. All my books there are 50% off. Go to https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi... and bag a bargain!
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