indie publishing – Page 12 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

STAR WANDERERS: HOMEWORLD is now available on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords!

That’s right! Part IV of the Star Wanderers series is available for $2.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. You can also find it listed on Goodreads here. Newsletter subscribers should get the Smashwords coupon code in an hour or two.

From the book description:

THEY’VE FINALLY FOUND A WORLD TO CALL HOME—BUT FIRST, THEY HAVE TO FIGHT FOR IT.

For years, Jeremiah has wandered the stars in search of a home. With his wife Noemi about to have a baby, he thinks he’s finally found a place to settle down. The Zarmina system lies on the edge of the Outworld frontier, but together with their friends, they hope to establish a thriving new colony. The only problem is that the system is already inhabited—by pirates.

The colonists no sooner arrive than they fall prisoner to Captain Helena and her band of rogues from the New Pleiades. She gives them an ultimatum: live like slaves on the planet’s surface, or breathe vacuum. With all their dreams about to be shattered, they have to find a way to fight back. But to do so may endanger everything—including the lives of the ones they love most.

This one was a lot of fun to write. Everything from all the previous parts came together wonderfully, and the ending just blew me away. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

This novella concludes the main series arc for Star Wanderers, but I still have a lot of stories that I want to tell in this universe. I plan to write a few stand-alone novelettes and novellas from the other characters’ points of view, perhaps expanding the series to include another arc. Part V, Dreamweaver, is already written, and if all goes well, I should write Part VI (Wanderlust) over the next couple of weeks.

That’s just about all for now. Thanks so much to everyone who has liked, shared, or reviewed the other Star Wanderers stories! I think you’re going to like this one. Enjoy!

Oh hey! Happy Thanksgiving!

Funny how holidays creep up on you when you’re in a foreign country.

We have Friday off here in Georgia, due to an Orthodox religious holiday. I’ll probably head east and check out the Stalin museum, maybe Mtskheta and Qazbegi depending on the weather. A friend of mine in Tbilisi said she’d get me a Svan hat, so if that works out, I’ll be sure to post pics.

In school today, we made the hand-traced turkeys from construction paper, with “I am thankful for…” on it. I got to tell the kids the thanksgiving story, too. I’m not sure how historically accurate it was, but they seemed to enjoy it. They also enjoyed all the stickers I gave them for their finished projects. The Nintendo stickers were the most popular.

So what am I thankful for this year? Let’s see…

Delicious homemade Georgian food. Beans, cheese, bread, potatoes, peppers, chicken, borscht–almost all of it grown right here in the village where I live. It’s awesome.
My students. Seriously, some of the awesomest kids I have ever known. Every day when I get to teach them, I feel like a rockstar. I’m going to miss them when the semester is over.
My friends and family. Even though I’m literally on the other side of the world and hardly ever have internet, I’m glad that we still keep in touch.
My readers. Seriously, it’s awesome that you guys are reading and enjoying my books. I just wish I could put them out faster.
My first year of running a profitable business. That’s right–with last month’s sales reports, I’m on track to run a modest profit for 2012. Let’s hope that this growth continues well into the future!
The changing face of publishing. Seriously, it is so awesome that for a very little upfront cost, a guy like me can sell his books across the world and find fans in places as far away as Singapore and the Czech Republic. There are so many choices, so much freedom, that it’s staggering to see how different things were just a couple of years ago. Kris Rusch said it much better than I did, so be sure to check out her most recent post on the subject.

There’s more, of course, but those are the big ones off the top of my head.

I know I missed Trope Tuesday again this week, but I wrote up a long post and then got dissatisfied with it just as I ran out of time. We’re on the magic flight stage of the hero’s journey, but I’m having trouble finding a page on tvtropes that really fits it. It’s not really a stage that I’m all that familiar with, either, so it’s going to be a bit of a challenge to figure it out. But I will, don’t worry–hopefully next week.

As far as Star Wanderers goes, I’m working on the final revisions for Homeworld (Part IV) right now. It’s going really well so far, so I expect to be finished in a week or two. After that, I just need to get it copy edited / proofread, and then it should be good to publish.

Just to tease you all, here’s the cover:

So yeah, definitely look out for that soon!

I’ve got to go, but I’ll post again when I get the chance. Happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you around!

Some new thoughts on productivity

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and productivity, mostly because I seem to be struggling a lot with it lately. With nanowrimo just starting, this is a pretty topical thing to blog about, but I also want to look at it from a long-term career perspective, since that’s what I’m personally more interested in.

As writers, when we spend all our time procrastinating or fail to meet our word count goals, we tend to beat ourselves up and frame the problem in terms of a lack of self-discipline. If only we had greater will power, we could buckle down and pound out five or ten thousand words a day like those super-prolific authors.

While there’s definitely something to say for raw self-discipline, though, I think there’s another dimension to writing productivity that we tend to miss. Not all writing-related activities are productive–and not all non-writing related activities are totally unproductive. In order to make the most efficient use of our writing time, I think it’s more important to understand and respect our individual creative process than it is to merely force ourselves to produce more words.

To better understand my own creative process, I took a little time to group every writing-related thing I do into four different categories:

Writing activities
Fill-the-well activities
Publishing chores
Procrastinating

WRITING ACTIVITIES

This should be pretty self-explanatory. It’s basically all the stuff that leads directly to a finished manuscript. It requires the highest amount of energy and produces the most important content.

Activities in this category include:

Writing new material
Making substantial revisions (putting in and taking out)
Updating chapter and scene outlines

FILL-THE-WELL ACTIVITIES

This is the non-writing stuff I do that helps me to be more productive when I switch back to the writing activities. Basically, it’s the stuff I do before and after I write that helps me to maintain a creative momentum.

Activities in this category include:

Reading
Blogging
Catching up on blogs
Listening to podcasts
Doing mindles chores
Going on walks
Exploring new places
Watching movies
Playing RPGs
Talking with friends
Reviewing first reader feedback
Writing character outlines
Making book soundtracks

PUBLISHING CHORES

This is all the professional stuff that I have to do, which may feel productive while I’m doing it, but actually takes time away from the stuff I should be doing. I still have to do it, but I should waste as little time doing it as possible.

Activities in this cateogry include:

Ebook formatting
Producing cover art
Writing blurbs and book descriptions
Writing author’s notes
POD typesetting
Handing financial stuff (royalties, invoices, etc)
Researching the publishing industry
Processing copy edits
Sending out email newsletter

PROCRASTINATION

Again, pretty self-explanatory. This is the stuff I shouldn’t do, but end up doing anyway in order to avoid stuff that feels like work. It’s all the stuff that I need to cut out entirely if I want to maximize my productivity.

Activities in this category include:

Minecraft
Alpha Centauri
Any other game that I can’t stop thinking about
Checking ebook sales numbers
Dicking around on Facebook and Twitter
Browsing the Kindle Boards
Watching TV and Youtube
Minecraft

So now that that’s done, what next?

I’m still figuring this part out, but I think the best thing to do would be to put as much distance as possible between the stuff that boosts productivity (writing and filling the well) and the stuff that doesn’t (publishing chores and procrastination).

The way I see it, there are basically two ways to do this:

Physically separate the activities. Do all your writing on a machine that’s disconnected from the internet and doesn’t have any games installed, and do everything else on a separate computer.
Set aside blocks of time specifically for writing. Organize your schedule so that writing is a priority, while acknowledging the need to take breaks and refill the creative well.

I can’t really do the first one while I’m here in Georgia, but I definitely can do the second. So far, I’ve found that waking up early to start the day with an hour of writing helps me a ton to build and keep momentum. However, I need to do a better job setting time aside in the afternoon, both for writing and for refilling the well. If I don’t, I usually end up procrastinating by default without realizing it until it’s too late.

So anyhow, those are some of my latest thoughts on writing and productivity. What are yours? Does this square with your experience, or is there a better way to think about it that I’ve missed?

STAR WANDERERS: SACRIFICE is now up!

Hi everyone! So I got the proofreads for Star Wanderers: Sacrifice (Part III) back a little early, so I formatted the ebook yesterday and published it just an hour or two ago!

It should be up on Kindle and Kobo in a couple of days, and Nook as soon as I can get a better internet connection (for some reason, the internet at the village center keeps logging me off of Pubit). But it’s up on Smashwords right now, so if that’s where you like to get your ebooks, feel free to pick up a copy!

From the book description:

SHE GAVE UP EVERYTHING TO WANDER THE STARS WITH HIM. NOW, HE MUST DO THE SAME.

When Jeremiah found himself alone on his starship with an accidental bride, he had no idea how much his life would soon change. Now, with Noemi’s quiet confidence supporting him as she carries their first child, it’s hard to imagine life without her.

But life in the Outworlds isn’t so simple. Good men are hard to come by, and Noemi’s friends expect her to share. As part of a colony mission bound for an unsettled star, Jeremiah can’t say no without causing a rift in the community. But if he says yes, his new-found happiness may soon come to an end. One way or another, he will have to make a sacrifice—one that could tear their starbound family apart.

The next installment Star Wanderers: Homeworld (Part IV) should be coming out in about a month. It’s already written, but I want to run it by my first readers and do another revision before I get it ready to publish. This will conclude the main arc of the Star Wanderers novelette series, but I still plan to write more stories with the same characters–perhaps even a follow-up novel, eventually. Who knows?

That’s all for now. Thanks for everything, and I’ll see you guys around!

Still here, wherever that may be

Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve been active on this blog. I guess living in the developing world will do that to you.

It’s not that I don’t have good internet access, it’s that the places where I can get it are often noisy and crowded, with a fair amount of cigarette smoke. By the time I’ve checked my email, caught up on all the blogs I follow (or at least the interesting ones), and generally ~~finished screwing around~~ done everything else I need to do on the internet, I’m pretty wiped out.

I’ll try to write my future posts offline, like I did in Jordan, so all I have to do is copy and paste. I can’t really do that with Trope Tuesday posts, but for everything else, it shouldn’t be a problem.

In any case, I’m still here–wherever “here” is. Currently, it’s Tbilisi. I came out for the weekend to pick up a package from the USA…I was hoping to get the new kindle paperwhite, but instead got the case and adapter. Turns out the actual device is shipping out next week–I’d say it’s a disappointment, but I’m actually just relieved to know that it wasn’t lost in the mail.

Things are going well out here in Georgia. The village kids are a lot of fun to teach–I basically feel like a rockstar whenever I’m at the school. It certainly helps that I give out stickers left and right every time someone actually does their homework. Whenever I pull them out, the kids say “smiley!” and go crazy.

But yeah, even though I enjoy being out here, I figure it’s time for a change. Like I mentioned in the last post, I’ve accomplished just about all my goals for coming out to Georgia, which mostly had to do with trying out a TEFL career and seeing if it’s a good fit. I think it is, so I plan to go out again after a few months, but I want to come back to Utah for a while to see some old friends, spend time with family, and recharge before the next big excursion. That’s the plan, anyway.

As far as the writing goes, things are going, but slower than I’d like. I’m only in chapter two of The Sword Keeper, which is kind of frustrating, but I think I’ve overcome most of the hurdles and now it’s just a matter of buckling down and doing it. I definitely think I can have this novel finished before the end of November, which would make it my second novel for the year (third, if you count Star Wanderers I-IV).

In terms of publishing, though, things are looking great. I found someone to proofread Star Wanderers: Sacrifice, and she should be getting back in the next few days. If all goes well, it’ll be up on Amazon and Smashwords by Monday the 29th. Star Wanderers: Homeworld is also getting close–I just need to get the feedback from my first readers and figure out where to go from there. If there aren’t any major issues, it should be up by the end of November.

I’m debating whether to splurge on the cover art for the omnibus, and if so, who to ask to do it. This series have a very different feel from my Gaia Nova series, even though they both take place in the same universe. Not sure what to do for the illustration, or who to ask to do it, but that’s still a few months down the road.

That’s about it for now. I’ll end with a few shots that my friend took in Prometheus Cave, one of the coolest sites out here in Imereti province. Imagine about a mile of caverns, brimming from floor to ceiling with formations like these:

Later!

Update on STAR WANDERERS and other projects

So I’m back in Kutaisi again, recharging my netbook battery due to some chronic electricity problems out in the village. Seriously, I think I heard a transformer explode this morning. Anytime it rains, you can prettymuch expect a blackout here in rural Georgia. Hope for the best, plan for the worst–but that’s the subject for another post.

Anyhow, here’s where things currently stand with Star Wanderers:

Part III: Sacrifice is almost ready for publication, and will hopefully be up in a few weeks. I’m just waiting for some feedback from my first readers, to make sure there aren’t any major problems. I made some pretty big changes to the story after getting some helpful feedback I got from my friend Laura, so I don’t want to put it out until a few other eyes have seen it in its current form. Of course, I’ll need some help with proofreading, so if anyone wants to exchange services (proofreading or formatting), just shoot me an email.

As for Part IV: Homeworld, I’m currently wrapping up the 2.0 draft and should have it finished by the end of the week. I’m really excited about this story, especially the ending I have planned and the way I want to bring together all the threads from the first three parts. You know that moment when a story just comes together naturally, without being forced or anything? Yeah, that’s what I’m experiencing right now. It’s awesome.

So the plan is to publish Star Wanderers: Sacrifice (Part III) sometime in mid-late October, and to publish Star Wanderers: Homeworld (Part IV) sometime in November. As with parts I and II, they will both be free via Smashwords for the first two weeks to subscribers of my email newsletter. To sign up, fill out the form in the sidebar ——–>

This isn’t the end of the Star Wanderers series, of course. I’ve already completed the first draft of a parallel novelette to Part I: Outworlder from Noemi’s point of view. I’d also like to do stories with the other characters, like Samson or Mariya. And of course, there’s the omnibus for parts I-IV, which I’ll probably release early next year. If you’d like to see a story from any particular point of view in this universe, let me know–I’m always open to new ideas.

In the Gaia Nova series, I’m hoping to publish Stars of Blood and Glory by January. I’ve been in touch with my copy editor, and things are looking good for a 2012 release. I need to make another quick revision pass first, which I’ll probably finish in October, and then we’ll see about getting the ball rolling.

So that’s where things stand right now. I’m happy to see that sales are trending up on all the platforms where I’m published, which means that I can reinvest more in new titles and put them out more frequently. And my teaching schedule here in the village is pretty light, which means I have lots of time to write–that is, when we actually have electricity. And even when we don’t, there’s always pen and paper.

That’s just about it for now. My battery’s almost at 100% and it’s starting to get dark, so I’d better go. See you all later!

Summer recap and new goals

So back in June I made a to do list of things I wanted to accomplish this summer. I’ve only got a week left before I go overseas again, and I’m happy to say I’m on track to finish most of them. A couple of them (such as doing a blog tour and submitting aggressively to book bloggers) I decided weren’t worth my time, and dropped them, but these are the major things I’ve accomplished:

Release print-on-demand editions of Genesis Earth, Bringing Stella Home, and Desert Stars through CreateSpace.
Redo cover art for Bringing Stella Home.
Redo blurb/description for all titles.
Put proper copyright page in all titles.
Publish all titles on Kobo Writing Life.
Find a better way to build an ebook and reformat all titles.
Finish the second draft of Stars of Blood and Glory.
Finish and publish parts I and II of Star Wanderers.

The only major thing I haven’t accomplished is figuring out how to sell ebooks directly from my website. I figure I can set that up later, though, when I’ve got a large enough readership to justify it. If it’s all online, I can probably do it from anywhere.

While I was vacationing with my family on Cape Cod, I had a chance to step back and take a long look at what I’m doing with my life, which helped me to set some new goals and get a renewed sense of direction. I stopped tracking my daily writing word counts in July, which threw off my productivity a lot more than I thought it would. After setting some long-term goals, though, I think I can find a better way to structure my writing.

In ten years (2022), I want to…

have 25+ published novels.
earn a solid middle-class income through my writing.
be married and have kids.
own a house.
live in the United States.

My lifetime goal is to publish 100+ novels, which is actually a lot more doable than it sounds. It means writing a minimum of two novels a year, though, so I’m going to have to follow Heinlein’s rules a lot closer than I have been in the past. That’s the trouble with keeping a daily word count: it made me look a lot more productive when I was in revisions, so I spent more time doing that than writing new work.

In three years (2015), I want to…

have at least 10 published novels.
make enough with my writing not to need another job.
be married or engaged.
have lived for at least three months in 3+ countries (not including USA).

I want to settle back down in the States eventually, but before that I want to get around and see the world a bit. The absolute coolest thing would be to marry another world traveler and make enough on the writing to have a bunch of adventures together. I’m not sure if I’ll find her in Georgia, but I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open.

As for short-term goals, I’m still trying to work them out. Here’s what I have so far:

Quarterly Goals:

Start at least 2 new projects.
Finish at least 2 first drafts.
Publish at least 2 titles (print and ebook counts as two).

I think this is enough to stretch me while still being doable. By my count, in the first quarter of this year I did 2-2-1, in the second quarter I did 2-2-0, and in the current quarter, I’m at 2-0-5 so far. Of course, this includes all the Star Wanderers novelettes and novellas, which I hope to expand in the future.

I’m not going to count revisions as progress, except as part of the publishing stage. Some stuff needs a lot of revision, other stuff, not so much. What I really want to do is train myself to produce high quality work on the first or second write-through. Of course, I’ll still use test readers to gauge my work before publishing anything.

Monthly Goals:

Finish at least 2 projects (first draft or revision).
Write at least 15k words of new material.

I can write a lot more than 15k words in a month, of course, but I figure this is a good starting point. The key is that this is for new material. When I looked back at my word counts, I found that months of revision would go by before I actually worked on something new. I want to change that, but I still need to allow for longer projects that might require several weeks of revision (while emphasizing the need to produce new material, of course).

Weekly/Daily Goals:

Keep all project deadlines.
Start each day with writing.

I’ve found that if I don’t start off each day with writing, I keep putting it off until I’ve spent more time and energy angsting about it than actually doing it. For a short period of time this summer, I put my butt in the chair and my hands on the keyboard first thing after waking up (even before getting dressed). It was amazing how much of a difference that made.

Beyond that, I’m not really sure what other goals to set. I want to plan things out on a project to project basis, but beyond that I haven’t yet figured out what kind of a daily structure I need to build.

It’s probably a good idea to keep things flexible at this point, though, since I have no idea what my schedule is going to be like once I’m in Georgia. I do know a little bit about my next placement–more on that later–but for the first half of September, I’m going to be all over the place. Ani, Tusheti, Kars, Akhaltsikhe, Tbilisi, Baghdati, and Istanbul–it’s going to be crazy!

For this next week, my goal is to finish the revisions for Star Wanderers: Sacrifice (Part III) and send that out to my beta readers. I’ve been struggling with it all month, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of where I need to go with it. I’m going to finish chapter 3 tomorrow, then rewrite chapters 4 and 5 from scratch.

After that…another Caucasian adventure! 🙂

Star Wanderers: four novelettes or a novel in four parts?

So my plans to publish Star Wanderers have run into a little snag…Part II was rejected for distribution to iTunes, Sony, and other retailers, with an order to unpublish both parts and republish them as one work. The order probably came because of this clause in the Smashwords Terms of Service:

9d. You further warrant the book represents a complete work:
• this is not a work-in-progress;
• the uploaded file is not a partial sample or sample chapter, or is not a collection of sample chapters, or not simply a catalog advertising other books
• the uploaded book represents a complete story with a beginning, middle and end; not a short serial

Now, I do not believe that I have knowingly violated any part of the agreement. Each installment of Star Wanderers is a complete 15,000 to 17,000 word novelette with its own arc, including a beginning, middle, and end. I have finished all four installments and only need to revise them before publishing, hopefully in a couple of months. None of them contain sample chapters from any other work.

However, up until now I have seen this story mainly as a novel published in four parts, kind of like how Tolkien originally intended Lord of the Rings to be one giant book, published in three parts. In my mind, “a novel in four parts” and “a series of four novelettes” are not mutual exclusive. Apparently, Smashwords doesn’t think so.

All this makes me wonder, though: should I just drop my plans to publish this as a whole novel and instead keep it as four separate novelettes? I intend to write a parallel series of the same events from Noemi’s point of view, and may expand that to include other viewpoint characters. Maybe I should wait to novelize this series until I can include other scenes and chapters, turning it into a substantially different work.

This kind of puts me in an awkward position, though. I’d originally planned to drop the price of Part II to $.99 after Part III comes out, and Part III to $.99 after releasing Part IV. The idea was to keep the total price of all four parts below $4.95, the price point I’ve chosen for all my other novels. But if Star Wanderers in its current form remains a series of four novelettes, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to drop the price of any one of them below $2.99 (except for the first one, which I still intend to make permanently free).

If I have to make a choice between unpublishing parts I and II of Star Wanderers and publishing it as one novel, or simply repackaging the parts that are out as separate and distinct works, I’d much rather do that. It seems a truer reflection of the overall story structure, and gives me a lot more flexibility to add more in the future.

This is a pretty big shift, though, and I worry it may offend readers who expected me to drop the price according to the previous plan. I really don’t have any excuse for that: it’s entirely my fault for misreading the Smashwords TOS, and I apologize.

For newsletter subscribers, though, I still plan to make each subsequent release available for free for the first two weeks following publication. That’s a promise I made to my readers, and I’m not going to go back on it, no matter what I end up doing. And if I do repackage Star Wanderers as a series of novelettes instead of a novel in four parts, I’m not going to make any substantial changes to the actual story of Part I or Part II–just the titles, and possibly the author’s note at the end.

All of this is still in the air, though, so if you have any ideas or suggestions to offer, I would very much like to hear them. I still have a lot to learn as a writer, and the publishing landscape is changing so quickly that I really have no idea what I’ll be doing even a year from now.

The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll still be writing.

Star Wanderers: Part II is now published!

The next installment of Star Wanderers is now up on Amazon, Smashwords, and Xinxii! In a couple of weeks, it should be up on Kobo, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble as well.

This continues the story of Jeremiah and Noemi, a boy and a girl from completely different worlds who end up married by accident after a deadly famine drives her away from her home. Neither of them speak the same language, but they eventually come to an understanding of each other and figure out how to make things work.

In Part II, though, all that is put to the test.

It’s available right now for $2.99, but if you sign up for my email newsletter in the sidebar, I’ll send out a Smashwords coupon code at the end of the week that you can use to download it for free. Part I is already free on Smashwords, and should be free soon on the other sites as well.

Part III needs a lot of work, but I should be sending the rough version out to my first readers pretty soon. Once I’ve gotten their feedback, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get it finalized and ready for publishing. After that, it’s just a matter of finding proofreaders and formatting it, which doesn’t take long at all.

That’s about all for now. I hope you enjoy it–and if you do, please share!

New print proof and an update on Star Wanderers

So the proof for Desert Stars came in the mail today, and it looks great!

No matter how much I do this, it never gets old. 🙂

It’s available now from CreateSpace, if you want to pick up a copy. If you’d rather buy it on Amazon, it should go live there in a few days. And if you want to buy an autographed copy of this one or Genesis Earth, let me know ASAP: I can order author copies and ship them wherever you want me to, but I’m leaving again for Georgia at the end of August, so I can only do that for the next two or three weeks.

As for Star Wanderers: Part II, I finished the major revisions just yesterday, and plan to go through it again this next week before publishing, mostly to fix typos and get it ready for publication. There weren’t too many story issues, but my first readers helped me to see a couple of areas where things were unclear (especially Laura–thanks for the awesome feedback!).

After going through this latest draft, I’ve got to say I am way excited to finish Part III and Part IV. It’s going to take a little more work, and it’ll definitely need some feedback before publishing, but I think I can have the first round of revisions done before the end of August. A couple of scenes are missing, and there are some key elments I need to change, but I definitely know where this story is going and I’m excited to tell it!

That’s about it for now. I’ve gotten some initial feedback from my first readers on Stars of Blood and Glory, and so far it’s been surprisingly positive. I may post the prologue here for you guys, or release it as an extra through the newsletter. The unpublished prologue for Bringing Stella Home would also make good newsletter content too, come to think of it…

Electronic publishing is like playing a really awesome video game. Once things get going and you really start getting into it, you just don’t want to stop!