fans – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Writing and Publishing Plans moving forward

Over the past few months, I’ve been spending a lot of time experimenting with AI writing and finding ways to incorporate it into my writing process. The goal so far has been twofold:

Develop the ability to write one novel per month.
Get to a level where I can write 10k words per day.

I’ve accomplished both of those things, but I can’t hit them consistently without burning out. Writing with AI has proven key to both of them, but I feel like I need a lot more practice with AI-assisted writing before I’ve achieved any level of mastery. Once I have mastered AI-assisted writing, however, I should not only be able to achieve both goals consistently, producing a much higher quantity of work, but should also be able to maintain or exceed the current quality of my writing as well.

However, I was thinking about it from a reader’s perspective on my morning walk last week, wondering what I would think if, say, David Gemmell was still alive and writing Drenai books, or Roger Zelazny was still alive and writing Amber books. What would I think if either of them announced that they had found a way to incorporate AI into their writing process, so that they could produce a new Drenai/Amber book once every month, instead of once every year? Better yet, what if Andrew Klavan—who is both still alive and still writing Cameron Winter books—announced that he would start publishing new books monthly. As a fan of all these writers, what would I think of that?

Assuming that there was no drop-off in the quality of these new, AI-assisted books, I would find this really exciting, and would probably become a much bigger fan, simply from the fact that I’m reading so much new stuff. However, after a while this might become too costly to me to keep up, leading me to fall away and not be quite so current on what they’re producing. I would still love them as authors, but if they published too quickly, I might have to take a break after a while—and if they continued to publish at that rate, I might never catch up. After all, there are lots and lots of authors that I love, and I can’t dedicate more than a fraction of my reading time to any particular one of them.

So there’s probably a sweet spot, between publishing too much and publishing too little. Most authors are probably on the Patrick Rothfuss / George R.R. Martin side of that line, where fans wish they would write more and write more quickly. But at a certain point, it is possible to overwhelm most readers by writing too much. Of course, there will always be a core group of fans who will read everything much faster than you could ever possibly write, even with AI assistance, but if that’s the only group you’re catering to, then you probably won’t ever have more than a cult following, because you won’t be able to convert casual readers into superfans.

With all of that said, I feel like I’ve gotten to a good place right now, where I’m publishing a free short story every month. I think that’s actually been a really effective way to turn casual readers into fans, and to keep my name fresh in the minds of my readers. And if Gemmell, or Zelazny, or Klavan were producing a free short story every month, I would definitely subscribe to their newsletters and drop everything to read it.

So keeping up the free short story per month is probably a good idea. But for novels, it might be better to release a new one every two or three months instead. Free short stories are much less of a time and money burden on the readers, and thus are effective at turning fans into superfans. But with the novels, which do take more time and money to read, it’s probably better to throttle that back a little bit.

The interesting thing to me is what that means for my creativing process, especially once I’ve reached the point where it takes less than a month for me to produce a novel. If I’m only publishing a novel every 2-3 months, that means that I can—and probably should—take a break between each novel WIP. Which means that the thing I should be shooting for isn’t to maintain a writing speed of one novel per month, month after month after month, but to hit that speed in creative bursts, taking some down-time to replenish the creative well and prepare for the next project.

It’s a very different writing paradigm from the one I’ve been following for the past decade. Until now, I’ve basically always had a novel WIP that I’ve actively been working on, and whenever I feel like I need a break, I usually move on to a different novel WIP. From time to time, I’ll “take a month off” to work on short stories, but the goal there has always been to write X number of stories in no more than a month or two, once again making writing the focus instead of recharging the creative well.

How would things be different if instead, I told myself “I’m taking a break in order to prepare myself to write my next novel,” with a plan for books and other media to consume in order to get things ready for it? And then, instead of taking several months or even years to write the project, to produce it in just a few weeks of white-hot creative heat, afterwards necessitating a break for a while just to cool down? Until now, I’ve never tried anything like that, because I haven’t thought myself capable of producing work that quickly. Indeed, the very thought of taking an extended break from having an active writing WIP has struck me as being lazy. But now that I know I can produce that quickly, perhaps this is a new paradigm that I ought to at least explore.

For my current WIP, Captive of the Falconstar, I’m not stressing out about finishing it in less than a month. But I am following all the benchmarks that I developed, and watching closely to see what takes more time to write than I thought, and what takes less. And it may very well turn out that the best way to improve quality is to get into that white-hot creative heat that comes from producing quickly, so that’s something that I’m watching closely as well.

Response to Correia’s awesome rant on fans vs. authors

So Larry Correia wrote an awesome rant the other day about fan entitlement and writing professionalism. The thing that set him off was a discussion on his author Facebook page where a bunch of readers were castigating Patrick Rothfuss for taking 6+ years to write his next book. A bunch of them started arguing that authors have a moral obligation to their readers to finish their books, and Larry called bullshit.

Do I have opinions? Why, yes, thank you for asking.

For the most part, I think Larry is spot on, especially about how free market capitalism is the best solution to this problem. Basically, books are just a product—nothing more, nothing less. Readers buy the product, and authors create it. When a reader buys a book, that’s all they’re buying. When an author writes a book, that’s all they’re creating. The free market works things out. The problems only arise when readers think they’re entitled to something more than what they’ve bought, or when authors think they’re entitled to more than what they’ve earned.

As a libertarian sci-fi writer, I could go on and on about the virtues of the free market and how capitalism is the best and most righteous economic system ever invented by man, but for now I’ll save that zeal for my fiction. In particular, there’s a short story recently I wrote for a $12,000 writing contest that is sure to lose because it shows just how evil and destructive a universal basic income would actually be. But I digress.

I know people mean well. I know people think they are helping. I know that you think it is a compliment. Maybe the first couple hundred times, but then after that it becomes a continual droning whine.

If a writer still bothers to post on social media to interact with their fans, and they post about them doing anything, literally anything other than writing, somebody inevitably is going to jump in and say “YOU SHOULD BE WRITING!”

…

The really sad part you helpful entitled types don’t get is that other stuff non-writing stuff is a vital part of the creative process. Since most of what authors do is in their heads, they never really stop working. So when I’m shooting guns, or painting minis, that is the activity that I do to uncork my brain, so that I can go put in another day of creating imaginary stuff tomorrow.

Authors either have a life outside of writing, or they burn out. Or, alternatively, they just check out and don’t interact with their fans anymore. Because even though there are a hundred cool fans for every entitled whiny douche, the entitled whiny douche is the one that sticks out.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I’m not at a point in my career yet where I have thousands of rabid-at-the-mouth fans screaming at me constantly to get back to work, but I can definitely see how it gets old.

Also, writers genuinely do need to refill the creative well from time to time. To an outside observer, it might look like we’re dicking around, but in reality we’re noodling out our next story, so that when we do sit down to write, the words actually come.

If you think that writing is as easy as sitting down at a keyboard and mashing out words, you might as well kidnap your favorite author, break his legs, and chain him to a typewriter in your basement.

To My Fellow Authors

Get your shit together.

Seriously, act like a professional. In any other job in the world, if you wasted all your time fucking around and didn’t get any work done, you’d get fired. Writer’s Block is a filthy lie. I couldn’t have Accountant’s Block. Oh, woe is me, I can’t make these spreadsheets because I’m just not feeling it today—FIRED.

But if you’re honestly working, and you’re doing the best you can with what you’ve got, you don’t have to take shit off of entitled douches.

The trouble with writing is that it isn’t always clear when the work is done. I’ve had multiple award-winning author friends tell me at conventions that they’re impressed with how prolific I am, and yet I never—NEVER—feel like my work is done.

I totally agree with Larry that if you want to write professionally, you have to treat it like an actual profession. Right now, I’m retooling my writing process so that I can put out two or three times as many books. “Writer’s block” is not an entitlement or a badge of honor. It’s a disease.

This YouTube video is the best take I’ve seen on the subject. I watch it over and over again, sometimes every day. Whenever I don’t think I can meet my next deadline. Whenever I feel like there’s something repelling me from sitting down to write. Rewatching this video gives me a burning desire to finish my WIP, look that resistance in the face, and scream “rest in peace, motherfucker!” I swear, I should get that woodburned on a plaque and hang it over my desk. Best motivation ever.

Screw writer’s block. Screw all that artsy fartsy crap. There’s nothing quite so awesome as looking at your name on a book cover and thinking “yeah, I wrote that.” It never gets old.

I remember a couple years ago when I ran into a really successful author, dude was on top of the world, just got home from a successful book tour, latest book was a huge hit… and he was bummed. I’m talking super depressed. Why? Because Lone Douche in the Wilderness had just ripped him apart on Facebook, and that negativity was enough to screw up all his previous happiness.

Do not give douchebags power over you. Don’t ever let people impose their arbitrary and capricious rules onto you.

To be frankly honest, this is one of the reasons why I don’t do social media anymore. Not because I have a thin skin or can’t take criticism. Not because of a specific instance where someone was a douchebag to me, either. Rather, it was more of a recognition that if I didn’t change course, I would become that douchebag—if indeed I hadn’t already.

There’s something about our current iterations of social media that seems to bring out the worst in people. Twitter in particular is insanely toxic. Future historians (and historical fiction writers) are going to have a heyday writing about all of the online meltdowns of our most prominent cultural and political figures, right up to President Trump himself. It’s a daily occurance at this point, sadly. And yet, the more I look at it, the more it seems that the only winning move in social media is not to play.

Which is not to say that I don’t want to keep in touch with my fans. That’s what this blog and my email list are for. But speaking as a reader for a moment, when I buy a book, I’m not trying to strike up a friendship with the guy who wrote it. I’m just buying a book. Neither am I particularly interested in hearing about whatever social or political cause set them off on a rant today. I just want to read the damn book.

It’s called free market capitalism, and it makes everything so much simpler. If a book looks interesting, I’ll buy it. If I like it, I’ll buy more from the same author. It’s cool and all to feel like we have a connection, but at the end of the day, it’s just books. And readers. And the free market.

Anyways. That’s my take on Larry’s epic rant. Writers and readers, be excellent to each other. That is all.

Things I want to learn in 2015

I was going to follow up my retrospective 2014 post with another one, but instead I want to look ahead at the things I hope to learn in 2015. Of course, I’m sure that many of the things I’ll learn are things that I couldn’t have foreseen, but it helps to have some direction to start out with. Here goes!

How to consistently sell books outside of Amazon

If I learn nothing else this year, I want it to be this. In 2014, about 90% of my sales were through Amazon, and when they came out with their Kindle Unlimited subscription service, my income took a big hit (Amazon requires all books in KU to be exclusive, so none of my books qualified). If I can grow my non-Amazon sources of income to more than 50% of my total revenue, that would be fantastic.

So far this year, I’m off to a good start. I have a book featured in Apple’s ongoing First in a Series Free promotion, and that’s given my books on iBooks a huge boost. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I sell more books on iBooks this month than I will on Amazon. But the key here is to sell consistently on the other platforms. Right now, I have no idea how to do that—but I definitely want to learn!

How to turn readers into lifelong fans

I’ve been publishing for the last four years now, and I’ve picked up a few fans along the way, but I get the sense that most of the people who read my books are just casual readers who find my books interesting but tend to move on after they’ve read them. Perhaps this is normal, but I would like to take things a step further and build a strong fanbase around my books.

Up until now, I’ve mostly focused on writing books, not in connecting with the people who actually read them. But I want to do a lot more of that next year—not only in order to sell more books, but also to connect with the fan community in general and make a more lasting contribution to the genre.

How to write (harder) better faster (stronger)

If I could write 10,000 words a day—good words, publishable words—that would absolutely fantastic. So far, the most I’ve managed in a single day is about 5,000. Right now, I’m lucky if I hit 2,000. It’s aggravating, because I feel like I’m so ridiculously slow, and the stuff that I do write usually needs some cleaning up before it’s publishable … basically, I just want to be a robot unicorn who farts rainbows and writes a bestselling novel every 72 hours.

Barring that, I’d just like to learn how to overcome some of the things that get in the way of writing.

How to write memorable characters that readers fall in love with

Of all the areas of craft that I’d like to work on, this is the one that probably needs improvement the most. I’ve had lots of readers tell me that a particular story resonated with them, but I’ve never had a reader tell me that they were crazy about a particular character. I think I’m reasonably good at writing characters that are complex and three-dimensional, but that’s a separate thing from writing a character that readers fall in love with.

I think I’ll stop here for now. There are other things that I’m sure will be good to learn, but these are the ones I especially want to learn in 2015.

T is for Thousand True Fans

How many fans does an independent artist/creator need in order to make a living? That’s the question that sparked the idea of the Thousand True Fans. As the original blog article mentioned, the basic idea is that

a creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

Sounds fair enough. But what’s a “true fan”? As the article describes it,

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

The article goes on to crunch the numbers, showing that if each of these thousand true fans spends, on average, $100 per year on the creator’s stuff, that this adds up to $100,000 per year. If the creator is able to produce all that stuff independently, cutting costs and keeping a large cut of whatever it is they sell, then that can very reasonably add up to a living (or so the theory goes).

So how does this apply to writing? I doubt there are many readers–even true fans–who spend $100 a year on their favorite author. Maybe for the ridiculously overpriced hardcovers, but even then, most readers are so voracious that they can’t afford to spend that kind of money very often, even on their favorite authors. Also, most of us indies tend to price our books pretty low, to the point where we probably don’t publish enough books in a year to add up to $100.

Still, the basic principle of the theory still applies. Lindsay Buroker has an interesting take on it:

The gist is that you don’t have to be a mega seller. You just need X number of true fans (people who love your stuff and will buy everything you put out), and you’re assured that you can make a living at your art, so long as you to continue to produce quality material.

I believe, for an indie author, the number is probably around 10,000 rather than 1,000 (we only make a couple of dollars on a sale, after all). This is a large number, but, given that we can so easily get our work into Amazon, B&N, etc. where millions of eyeballs await, finding this many loyal readers isn’t infeasible, especially when you realize you can collect them over years, maybe even decades, so long as you’re in this for the long haul.

She crunches the numbers like this: if you publish two novels per year and price them at $5, at the standard 70% royalty you will make $60,000 per year if you sell at least 10,000 of each of them.

Lindsay Buroker has more experience with making a living on her writing than I do (she’s basically been doing it since 2012 or so, whereas I’m almost there but not quite). However, I think it’s possible to make a living with a lot fewer than 10,000 true fans, and perhaps even less than 1,000.

True fans are the key, but not because they’re the only ones who buy your books. For every true fan, there are lots of casual fans, and perhaps even more readers who buy one of your books but don’t necessarily go on to buy all the others. However, the true fans are the ones who will rant and rave about your book to all their friends and help to generate word of mouth. Thus, your true fans will help to bring in a steady stream of new readers, some of whom may become fans themselves. It’s this constant process that keeps a book selling for years and years, even after all the true fans have already bought it.

I doubt that I have more than a hundred true fans right now. I’ve met a few of them, so I know that they’re out there, but there’s only about a hundred people on my mailing list and only about a third of them click on the links in the new release emails I send out. However, I’m definitely more than halfway to making a living off of my books. It’s not just the true fans who are making that possible, but everyone between true fans and casual readers.

However, I do think that the Thousand True Fans theory is a useful way to think about things when you’re an indie author. For one thing, true fans make your income more predictable. If you know how many true fans you have, you can guesstimate how many books you’ll sell in the first couple of months after release, which helps to make your earnings more predictable. It also helps to give you a way to measure your career.

And let’s be frank–a thousand true fans is not very many. Even ten thousand is still a pretty low number when you consider how many hundreds of millions of readers there are. Perhaps the most encouraging thing about the Thousand True Fans theory is that you don’t have to be a rockstar mega-hit bestseller to make a living–you just need a modest but dedicated fan base. From there, it’s just a matter of consistently producing new stuff and connecting with the fans well enough that they know when you’ve got something out.

O is for Online Presence

When you’re an indie author, your business exists almost exclusively on the internet. Chances are that ebook sales make up the bulk of your revenue, and those are entirely online. And without the backing of a major publisher, you probably aren’t going to get many books into bookstores (although it is possible). Most of your print sales are going to be online as well.

So if the bulk of your business is online, it only makes sense that you should maintain an online presence or persona of some kind. But what sort of presence should this be? Do you need to be on social media, even if you don’t really enjoy it? What about blogging? What are the dos and don’ts of maintaining an online presence?

Honestly, I don’t think it really matters which platforms you use to build your online presence, so long as you’re accessible in some way. Marketing gurus say that you have to be on social media, but my Star Wanderers books took off when I was living in a developing country with very limited internet access, and hardly ever posted to Facebook or Twitter at all. Even now, my Facebook author page is kind of a ghost town–I post links to each blog post, and I respond whenever a fan drops in with a comment, but that’s about it.

In my opinion, the most important thing to keep in mind when building an internet presence is to do the things that feel the most genuine and authentic. Facebook has never felt very authentic to me, except when I’m interacting with people I know in real life. Twitter, though, had an in-the-moment format that I really enjoy. Even then, I don’t feel nearly as authentic on Twitter as I do on my own blog, where I can post my thoughts and observations without restriction. For that reason, the core of my online presence is my blog, and I use my social media accounts to funnel people here rather than using social media as an end destination.

Besides being authentic, I think it’s important to be gracious to your fans and to not insult or repel them. A handful of authors (such as John Scalzi and Larry Correia) have developed personas that are highly opinionated, controversial, and crude, but they do it in such a way that it draws a following and keeps them. You don’t have to be liked by everyone–indeed, if you’re being authentic you certainly won’t–but you need to be careful to show respect and basic decency toward your fans. They are your bread and butter, and if they find your online behavior repulsive, you’re going to have a very hard time making and keeping them.

When it comes to politics and religion, I try not to be too divisive. Those are certainly important parts of my life, so it wouldn’t be very authentic of me to ignore them completely, but I don’t want my political opinions or religious beliefs to get in the way of my fans enjoying my stories. I don’t write stories just for Mormons, or just for libertarians, or just for white men–I write stories for people who look up at the stars and wish that they could go there. For that reason, I try to be mindful that the people who enjoy my stories might not (indeed, certainly do not) all look or act or believe like I do. I may disagree with them on some issues that I personally find important, but I don’t have to let that come between them and my stories.

The author-reader relationship is a fascinating thing that I have much still to learn about. Right now, my approach is basically to keep from getting in the way as much as possible. Occasionally I’ll get a piece of fan mail that will gush about something they loved about a story but criticize something they didn’t. I never argue back against it, since arguing isn’t going to change the experience they had when they read the story. Instead, I thank them as graciously as I can for reading.

My goal as an author is to stay out of the way of my readers enjoying my stories. For those who do enjoy the stories and want to connect with me, I write author’s notes at the back of all my books and keep an online presence on my blog where they can reach me. But if they don’t want to do that, that’s fine too. I try to be as authentic as I can without alienating anyone who enjoys my stories, and the key to that is to always be grateful for my readers. Writers may create stories, but readers bring them to life, since without anyone to read them, stories are basically dead.

M is for Marketing

Whenever indie writers get together to talk shop, the discussion almost always turns to marketing. How to sell more books and get more readers–that’s what everyone wants to know.

Honestly, I’m not much of a marketing expert. My approach to marketing can basically be summed up in one sentence: “figure it out later.” That is not a good long-term strategy! And yet, in a weird and crazy way, it’s actually kind of worked.

A lot of people say that you have to market your books–that if you don’t spend XXX amount of time on it, or do XXX number of things, or hit XXX goal, that you’re doing it wrong. And because most writers have this weird sort of guilt complex built around how we work, we absorb these “rules” into the list of other things we feel guilty about and beat ourselves up for not doing it–or worse, spend way too much time and effort doing things that aren’t really working, simply because we feel that we have to.

Right from the start, I figured that that mindset was just silly. Good marketing isn’t about following rules, it’s about doing things that bring results. When I first started out, I figured I didn’t have enough books out to warrant any sort of a marketing push. What good is it to bring a bunch of people to your store if the shelves are all empty? So for the first several years, I focused almost entirely on writing more (and better) books.

That’s not to say that I didn’t do any marketing at all. Here are some of the things I’ve tried out so far, and whether I decided to keep them or not:

Putting sample chapters at the end of each book — I eventually realized that doing this pads the end of your book and makes readers feel cheated when they hit the 85% mark and realize that the story is over. Instead, I now put a short teaser and a picture with the cover.
Exchanging short blurbs with other writers — I tried this out with my friend Kindal Debenham, where we both inserted book teasers for each other at the end of our books. I have no idea whether it’s worked or not, but it’s something I’d do again with my fellow author friends.
Making a couple of books permanently free — Free is an awesome way to move a large number of books very quickly, but in order for it to boost the sales of other books, I’ve found that 1) it has to be a complete story, 2) it has to be its own unique story, not just based on an excerpt, and 3) it has to be directly connected with the other books in some way, such as the first book in a linear series. Of course, that’s just my own experience–I’m sure there are people who manage to make it work doing it differently. Free is great because it takes off a lot of the pressure and makes your book a much easier sell, not just for you, but for your fans to share with their friends.
Going on blog tour — I did a couple of small blog tours for my first couple of books, and while I didn’t see a huge explosion of sales from it, it’s something that I would do again. In general, though, I think that blog tours are better for retaining existing fans and keeping you fresh in their minds than it is for acquiring new ones.
Ending every book with an author’s note — I’ve found that this is a great way to build relationships with your fans–to become more than just another name on a book to them. The fan mail I’ve gotten from readers who mention the notes is great, and I think it’s converted at least a few casual readers into genuine fans. That said, I have gotten some negative feedback too, so these days I try to keep them short and unobtrusive for those who don’t care to read them.
Being active on social media — When my Star Wanderers books first really started to take off, I was teaching English in a developing country where my internet access was limited. Consequently, I’m extremely skeptical of any marketing advice as it relates to social media. That said, I think it’s a great way to connect with your fans if it’s a platform that you enjoy. I’m not really keen on Facebook, but I do enjoy Twitter, so that’s a good place to find me (my handle is @onelowerlight).
Keeping an email list for new releases — This is one thing that other successful indies seem to encourage the most. My list is only about a hundred strong right now, which is not enough to lead to a huge explosion of sales, but the results are direct and measurable. It’s definitely something that I’ll continue to do.
Participating in a group promo with other authors — I’ve had mixed results with this. In 2012, I did one that resulted in several thousand downloads and boosted my Star Wanderers series to a whole new level. But in 2013, I did another one that completely fizzled. In general, if the group promo seems pretty well organized, I’ll participate in it, but if it seems that the organizers don’t really know what they’re doing, I’ll back out.
Advertising on a site/newsletter like Bookbub, Kindle Books & Tips, Ereader News Today, etc. — This is something I’ve just started to try out, and the results have been astounding. Some sites will give a much bigger boost than others, but the ones that do work can work extremely well. Of course, I’ve only tried this with Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I), which is free–I’m not sure how effective it would be at moving paid books.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that marketing doesn’t have to feel sleazy. In fact, when you’re doing it right, it almost never does. For every book that you write, there is someone out there who would love to read it–good marketing is about connecting those people with your books, helping them grow into their natural audience.

Marketing is definitely important, but it’s not something that you have to guilt yourself over or treat like a chore. In fact, it can actually be a lot of fun! I’ve certainly made my own fair share of mistakes, but I’m learning from them and trying out new things. So long as you base your marketing decisions off of measurable results and not a particular dogmatic position or someone else’s opinion, you’ll be in good shape–even if your plan is to figure it out later.

New! Email newsletter

Just a quick post to let you know about a new feature:

I just started an email newsletter for my ebooks, to keep my readers up to date with the latest releases. I also plan on doing some giveaways, discounts, and exclusives, so if you’re at all interested, sign up by filling out the form in the sidebar just below the featured ebook!

My goal with the newsletter is to establish a channel where I can connect with my core readers, those who are interested in everything I release. Hopefully, this will be a good way to cultivate their interest and build a tribe of followers, who will then be excited to go and share my books with their friends.

Of course, I’ll be sure to keep any personal information confidential and not share my subscriber’s emails with any third parties. I’ll also keep the newsletters sparse, so as to keep from cluttering people’s inboxes. This blog is for regular writing updates; the newsletter is strictly for announcing new releases, giveaways, discounts, and exclusives.

As a reward to everyone who signs up over the weekend, I’ll be giving out a free copy of Sholpan via the newsletter on Monday. I’ll do that through Smashwords, so it’ll be available in multiple formats.

That’s just about it for the newsletter. In other news, I received my first royalty payment from Amazon today! I celebrated with my roommates by breaking open a bottle of sparkling grape juice that I’d been saving for the occasion.

As of right now, I am a professional novelist. Weird, huh?

Writer’s angst & post-convention ennui

In spite of the title of this post, I’ll try not to get too emo. Not sure how well I’ll succeed, but at least I’ll try.

Worldcon was great, but it put me into something of a writing slump and I’m not sure where to go next. I was planning on writing the as-yet untitled New Rigel novel, but I want to get Desert Stars published before Christmas, and that would involve doing another major draft before sending it off for edits.

The trouble is, it typically takes me at least two months to do a rough draft. I can probably finish Desert Stars in about a month, but I’d still want to start that project somewhere around the end of September. Since I don’t expect for my first readers to get back to me until then, that leaves me with a single month to fill.

To further complicate matters, the place I’ve been temping at for the last two months wants to hire me full time. In some ways, that’s awesome; work is work, after all, and even though I won’t exactly be saving the world, it’s not a bad job either. On the other hand, 40 hours of warehouse labor per week is going to make it very difficult to do everything I want with my writing career.

Now, don’t get me wrong–I’m not complaining. This seems to be the dilemma that every aspiring writer faces at one point or another, and most of my friends have understandably chosen the stable paycheck over the ever-elusive lucky break. But with where I’m at–young and single, without any debt or obligations to pay off–and my long term career goals, I worry that I’ll end up settling if I take that path. Besides, I’ve gotten used to “starving” over the last year and a half, and it’s actually not that bad.

What would REALLY be awesome is if they would hire me part time, and I think I might be able to negotiate that. In the meantime, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to write in September. Here are my options:

Untitled (New Rigel)

This is the project I was most excited about before Worldcon, but now…well, I’m still excited, but post-convention ennui is not a pretty thing. Basically, it’s a full-length novel set within the Gaia Nova universe, and an indirect sequel to Bringing Stella Home.

I’ve already written the prologue and I like where it’s going, but I’d have to really bust my butt to get it done before October. Then again, I usually drop the first draft somewhere in the middle, so allowing for that, it might still be good to go ahead. However, it’s generally a bad idea to plan on screwing things up.

Edenfall

This is the sequel to Genesis Earth, and the second book in a planned trilogy. Since it’s YA, I could probably pull it off in a month–YA is generally shorter than adult fiction, and Genesis Earth took me about a month to pound out once I knew what I was doing. I’ve already got the story outlined and ready to go, so no problems there.

The big reason to do this project is that the first book is starting to have some success, and that’s naturally going to drive reader interest in the sequel. I’ve already gotten some scattered emails and comments about it, asking when it’s going to come out. Also, since there’s less pressure on me right now, bumping it up the queue might be a good idea. There’s a reason some people are afraid of success.

Desert Stars Companion Novella

Now here’s an interesting idea: I could spend the next month working on a companion novel to Desert Stars, much like I spent the last month working on Sholpan. The advantages to this plan are obvious: not only would I have another full-length novel ready before Christmas, but a $.99 novella to go with it–that is, if all goes well.

This is a project I haven’t given much thought to, but it wouldn’t be too hard to come up with something. It would also get me excited for the revision of Desert Stars in October. The main disadvantage is that I don’t know how well this “companion novella” concept will work out in the market–if Sholpan tanks, I might have to scrap it altogether. But as Dean told me at Worldcon, you can’t let thoughts of the commerciality of a project get in the way of the creative process.

That’s what’s on my plate right now. Preferably, I want to choose something I can finish within a month, while juggling work and the publication process for Sholpan. Oh, and I also want to throw in a blog tour for Bringing Stella Home–more on that later.

So, to open it up to my super-awesome hardcore fans (all three or four of you), what do you think? Of these projects, what do you most want to see?

Quick update

Just an update before I go to bed (and hopefully don’t sleep in like this morning).

My writing’s tapered off a bit this past month, partially because I’ve got a lot on my plate (Worldcon, online TEFL course, moving apartments, working full time, etc), but also because I’m between projects and not totally absorbed in any one.

I’m hoping to finish Sholpan by the end of the week, but that isn’t going to require more than 8k words total. At the same time, I’m finding it hard to keep myself engaged with that project. Today, for example, I rebelled a bit and worked on the next Gaia Nova book instead, which doesn’t yet have a title. Had a blast, but only managed about 800 words.

My writing productivity took a huge dip in the end of July as I got Bringing Stella Home ready to publish, dropping down to between 500 and 1,000 words per day. I probably won’t be able to raise that significantly until after Worldcon, and even then, I’ll have to juggle a full-time job for probably another month or two (but hey, a job’s a job; I’m not complaining).

Thing is, I really, really, REALLY want to work on this untitled project–so much that I’m treating it as procrastination when I have other stuff to write. I’m also worried that if I leave off on that project for too long, I’ll lose sight of it. That’s why I’m juggling it with Sholpan right now, but I think I can handle it, especially since Sholpan should be finished in just a week or two.

I also got an email from a fan (a fan!) asking about Edenfall. Right now, I don’t have any concrete plans, but I’m hoping to finish the first draft sometime in October/November (after polishing Desert Stars), and have it ready for publication sometime in 2012. If enough people ask about it, though, I may bump it up in the queue; it all depends.

Other than that, I had a great idea yesterday for a blog series. It came while I was thinking about my dreams for the future, and the thought came that I should blog about them But I don’t want it to be just about me; I want to share my thinking about the future and how I’ve come to develop my goals and plans, so that my many friends who are in similar circumstances can glean something useful.

I’ll probably start that in a day or two. But now…sleep.

Travel writing + Gemmell + Sanderson signing = awesome

Today was an awesome day, which is weird considering everything that happened. Woke up at 4:45 am to catch an early morning flight back to Utah, took public transport back to Provo, and ran around on errands until attending the midnight Way of Kings signing at the BYU Bookstore.

Yet it was awesome. Why?

First, I got a lot of writing done on the plane. Normally I can’t write much while traveling, yet today it was really flowing. Maybe it’s because I love revising, maybe it’s because the chapter I was working on was already pretty decent to begin with. Whatever the reason, writing was fun and productive.

Second, I started an AWESOME book by David Gemmell. Holy crap, I love David Gemmell! It is my life’s ambition to acquire a signed first edition hardback copy of his debut novel, Legend. I just started In the Realm of the Wolf, and it’s even better than the first Waylander book. It’s got all the standard awesomeness you’d expect from a Gemmell book, plus some very interesting plot turns at the beginning that widened the scope beyond what I was expecting. Very awesome.

As a side note, I think these Gemmell books are influencing my writing style for the rewrite of Mercenary Savior. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but I tend to think it is. Gemmell’s style is very terse, very blunt, and cuts right to the action without much description. I’ll probably have to watch that I don’t skimp out on descriptions too much, but the other elements seem to be helping. I hope.

Third, I had lunch with my grandparents. That was great. I don’t see them all that often, even though they live up in Salt Lake City–maybe once every other month or so. I need to visit them more. Anyway, it was good to see them.

Fourth, even though it took about two and half hours to take the public transit to Provo, those two and a half hours were quite productive. Read more Gemmell and made some satisfying edits to a pivotal scene. I also discovered that I only need to charge my netbook for one hour to recover 50% of its battery capacity. Sweetness.

Fifth, while running errands after I got back, I talked with my sister over the phone and solidified our vacation plans. Looks like we’re going on a road trip! Yay! Also, while chatting with my new roommate, whom I barely know, I found out that he’s written a fantasy novel. How awesome is that?

Sixth, the Way of Kings signing at the BYU Bookstore. I’m currently too poor to buy it in hardcover (still need to find a steady job), but it was still a ton of fun to hang out and see friends. Brandon did a Q&A before the signing, and there was this stunningly attractive and generally awesome fangirl…whom I chatted with…briefly…didn’t get her name or contact info…hope I see her again.

Besides heckling Brandon, which is always good fun, I chatted with another local writer going to World Fantasy 2010, and found out he’s got room in his hotel room if I want to split it. That’s great–I need to figure out my travel and accommodation plans for that convention, since it’s coming up quick.

So yeah, it was an all around awesome day. Now I need to take a shower and crash before the lack of sleep catches up to mmzzzzZZzzzZZZzz…