I’m not always sure what this blog is for. Is it for posting achievements and trying to make myself look like a rock-solid professional author? For ruminations on the world of self-publishing? Random digressions, thoughts, and asides? I’m not sure. Feel free to speak up and mention what you would like to see more of, but tonight I’m going to post a list of updates so that you know where I’m at.
- It’s been an incredibly frustrating past three days. Editing Book 2 has turned into a roller coaster ride of ebullient highs and face-clawing lows. I’ve spent hours trying to get Selah and Cloud through the first three chapters, but even though I know where I want them to go and how, I’ve not yet written it in a manner that convinces me. And if I’m not convinced, why should you be? So I’ve taken tomorrow off (not a holiday in my office), and decided to dedicate the entire day to editing.
- My publication schedule for Book 2 is as follows (for those of you that have been asking): finish editing by 1/24 (ha!) and send it to my beta readers. They will hopefully get it back to me by the 2/1, giving me three days to work on their suggestions before delivering it to my editor on 2/4. Jenn has a wicked turnaround time, so I think I should get it back from her by 2/10. Five days to go through her edits, and with any luck I’ll be publishing Vampire LA on Feb 15th.
- Just read Hugh Howey’s WOOL. I’m sure you’ve all heard of Howey by now – his WOOL series have taken the world by storm, and his Omnibus collection always ranks in the 200′s on Amazon (which, gentle reader, means he’s making a fortune). So I decided to check out his first book, which it turns out is actually a short story. I read it in one go, and rather enjoyed it. It’s the kind of well written tale you could find in a high quality SF anthology. Except for one distinction: Howey is a master of conveying emotion. The plot is great, but it’s your immediate investment in his characters that sets him apart. He takes his time portraying his main character, gets you right in his head and heart, and then continues to turn the screws. I’m fascinated by his technique, and plan to reread WOOL soon to examine just how he pulled it off.
- I finished doing some research on twenty very successful self-published SF/F authors. I wanted to see what they were doing and try to extrapolate a formula for self-publishing success. Do they all blog? Use Twitter? How many followers do their Facebook pages have? Do they price their books in some way? I’ll post my conclusions soon.
- I also thought through a tentative publishing schedule for 2013 while driving home from Boston. Vampire Books 2, 3, & 4 by April/May. Then take my time with a stand alone novel set in 19th century Istanbul before moving onto a last novel by the end of the year. Grind Show II? A rewrite of Blood From the Mountain, perhaps? Try my hand at Unreal City once more (it’s been 5 years!)? So much to write, so little time.
What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London 375 Unreal
Just grabbed WOOL. I’ll be interested in your research, although I wonder to what extent you can draw causal conclusions from the social media stuff — I know that if I suddenly got a lot of readers and responses to my blog or my Twitter feed, I’d get more engaged with those because it would be more rewarding. OTOH, there’s no reason that there couldn’t be a positive feedback effect there (more responses -> more posts -> more responses -> more posts…)
Currently trying to pump out a lot of words on the long weekend, since Shin-Yi and Una are away visiting friends. Haven’t managed 8000 words in any given day yet, but I should be on track for 5-6000 today, and tomorrow’s a holiday…
Let me know what you think of WOOL.
My attempt at a rigorous scientific approach in determining a self-publishing ‘success’ formula was flawed, I’ll admit, but I was curious to see if I could detect a pattern of any sort. Whether it was in social media usage, pricing strategies, the necessity of webpages/blogs, etc, I wanted to see if there was at least one common factor. Turns out there is. More anon!
As for the 5-6000 words: bravo! That is a formidable amount. Perhaps we should compare notes tomorrow evening and see how productive we’ve both been with our time off…
Oh, I don’t know if a rigorous approach is possible. I think it’s a lot like spending money in politics — it doesn’t hurt, and it can nudge a close race, but a lot of times both victory and spending are independently down to how much the voters like the candidate, with no direct relationship between spending and victory. And the explanations are hard to tease apart with data unless you look pretty carefully at a lot of individual races. I agree with you, I still think any pattern would be interesting.