indie publishing – Page 9 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

A is for Advice

For this year’s Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I’m going to write about self-publishing. I’m not a huge bestseller, but I have been a self-published indie author for the past three years, and I’m more or less making a living at it now (it’s still touch and go from month to month, but writing is my primary income now and it looks like it’s going to stay that way for the foreseeable future).

To start off this blogging challenge, I’d like to say something about publishing advice. I’ve heard a lot of it over the years, nearly all of it controversial in some way. The book industry has changed so much over the past few years, with so many publishing paths opening up to writers, that any piece of advice is bound to be contradicted in some way by another that sounds equally valid and well-reasoned.

So how do you know which advice to follow and which to discard? I don’t have easy answers, but I can point to a few things that have helped me to refine my crap-o-meter.

First, if the person offering the advice can’t back it up with a demonstrable level of success, then it’s just their opinion and should only be regarded as such. Good advice is backed by data, especially in today’s digital world.

Second, even if the person offering the advice does have a high level of success, if they present their advice as the Only True Path, they’re probably dead wrong on some level. Every writer is different, every book is different, and every path to success is different. Writers have so many options in this new world of publishing that anyone who takes a binary view is bound to be blindsided.

Third, just because a large number of people believe something doesn’t make it any more valid. This is something to be especially wary about when trolling online communities, since those tend to become echo chambers over time. No matter how many times a piece of advice is repeated, if it’s crap to begin with, it will still be crap when it gets to you.

Ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that no one in this industry knows anything with any degree of certainty. With the way the book world has changed over the past few years, decades of publishing experience don’t count for much anymore. And even if someone knows what’s worked for them, it’s impossible to know whether it will work for you until you try it.

So how do you know if a piece of advice is good? By trying it, of course! One of the nice things about being an indie writer is the flexibility to reinvent yourself as often as you want. I’ve got twenty books out and I’m still re-inventing myself–still trying out advice and learning new things. There’s a lot of uncertainty, yes, but with uncertainty comes opportunity, as long as you don’t get locked down.

Over the next few blog posts, I’m going to share a lot of my own personal opinions and experiences, with a bit of advice thrown in just to be helpful. None of it should be taken as gospel. For everything that’s worked for me, I’m sure that the opposite has worked just as well for someone else.

What I’ve been up to lately (besides short stories)

It’s been a while since I did an update post, so I figure I should do one of those to let you guys know what projects I’m working on. There are quite a few of them, and I’m happy to say that the writing is going quite well! If I don’t post on this blog very much, it’s probably because I’m busy writing.

Anyhow, here’s what I’m working on (and what you can expect to see in the coming months):

Sons of the Starfarers
Book II: Comrades in Hope

This is the project that’s been taking most of my attention. What started out as a novella has grown and morphed into a short novel–I expect it will top out at just under 40k words. I’m just past the 2/3rds mark now, where it’s still a slog but I can just about see the end. I was hoping to finish it this week, but now it looks like I’ll be pushing it back into April.

That’s okay, though, because my second big project is:

Sons of the Starfarers
Book III: Strangers in Flight

I’ve been itching to start this one for a while, and last night I finally opened up and started it. In the first book, Brothers in Exile, the two starfaring brothers Aaron and Isaac find a beautiful girl covered in henna tattoos and frozen in a cryotank on a derelict space station. In this, the third book, the girl finally wakes up and we get to see things from her point of view.

With the way I’m writing Sons of the Starfarers, it’s going to be structured in a series of three book arcs. Since I want to release the books in each arc fairly close to each other, I don’t want to publish Brothers in Exile until Comrades in Hope and Strangers in Flight are both complete. So even if I end up taking a break from Comrades in Hope for a little while, if I’m working on Strangers in Flight, it’s not putting things off since I’d have to write that one first anyway.

I am really, really excited about these books, and when you read them, I think you will be to. I’m trying to think of ways that I can share them, since it’s hard to talk about something if it’s not actually out there for you to read. Maybe if I posted a series of short excerpts from the first book, no longer than 400-500 words each? I generally skip over blog posts where authors sample their own books, but maybe if they were shorter excerpts, that wouldn’t be as much of a problem. What do you guys think?

So that’s what I’m working on writing-wise. Here’s what I’m working on publishing-wise.

New Star Wanderers covers (and print editions)

So the cover designer I’ve been working with for Star Wanderers told me this week that he’s overextended himself by taking on more work than he can handle and that unfortunately he has to drop some clients. That’s unfortunate but understandable–we all have limitations, and things come up in life that we can’t always plan for. We’ve parted amicably, and he’s promised to get me the files I need to pick up on the cover work where he left off.

I’m really anxious to get the new covers done, though, and would like to find a good cover designer as soon as I can. If you guys have any recommendations, please let me know. Ideally, I’d like to find someone who I could work with long-term, since there definitely won’t be a shortage of work anytime soon!

Because of this, though, I’ll probably keep the original space art covers for the POD books at least for the foreseeable future. The omnibus editions will feature the new art, though, and I’ve just bartered with a friend of mine to do the typesetting for those. I’m not sure when they’ll be out, but it will probably be sometime in the late spring / early summer.

As for the print edition of Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII), that should be out approximately whenever I get around to it, which would be sooner except that I’m so busy writing Sons of the Starfarers. I’m not sure how many of you are waiting on that one–the print versions for the individual novellas have been selling better than I’d expected, though still at a trickle, so that’s not quite at the top of my priorities right now.

Blogging A to Z Book

Last year, I did the Blogging from A to Z challenge and had a lot of fun with it! The topic I blogged on was science fiction, with a new post each day in April starting with “A is for …” “B is for …” etc. Well, I’d like to do that again this year, but first I’d like to put together last year’s posts into an ebook. It shouldn’t take too long–probably no more than a week at the longest–so I’ll probably take care of that next week or so.

For this year’s challenge, I’m going to blog about publishing. I already have the first few posts planned out: “A is for Amazon,” “B is for Big 6 (now 5),” “C is for Contracts,” etc. These posts aren’t meant to be advice, more just sharing my perspective and experience, since hey I’ve been indie published for 3+ years now, which might as well be 3+ decades what with the way the industry is changing. So even though there’s a lot I’m still learning, I do have a few things to share.

That’s just about it. Better grab some lunch now and head out to write. See you!

My current publishing to do list

This is what my current writing space looks like. It’s hard to see, but there’s a board taped to the wall with the label “Publishing To Do.” Even though that board is right next to me whenever I’m working on stuff, I hardly ever look at it, and the tasks just keep piling up. So to put a little pressure on myself to get them done, I thought I’d list them here.

For those of you who are just curious, consider this a look behind the curtain of a working self-published writer.

Publish Star Wanderers: Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus V-VIII) — I actually haven’t bothered to write this one down, but since it’s the top priority task, it’s the one most likely to get done. Everything is finished except the book cover, and I’m finalizing that with the designer right now.
POD Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII) — “POD” means “print-on-demand.” All the other Star Wanderers books are out in print now, except for this one. Coming soon!
Optimize keywords — There are a bazillion things I need to do to optimize my keywords on Amazon, as I learned just recently. Better get on that.
Optimize categories — Same as above. Starting here.
Upload books to DriveThru Fiction
Figure out how to format PDFs for DriveThru Fiction — I hear that customers at DriveThru Fiction like to buy PDFs that they can print out and bind as books themselves. I have no idea how to format that sort of thing, so I need to find out from someone more knowledgeable than me and figure out how to do that. For all of my books. Blargh.
Upload books to ARe/Omnilit
Upload books to Xinxii
Upload books to Google Play — The main reason I haven’t uploaded my books to these sites is because I’m going to be getting new covers for all the Star Wanderers books soon. Why do something twice if you only have to do it once? But yeah, I should probably just take a day or two and upload all the current versions anyway.
Update Amazon Book Descriptions via Author Central — This is made complicated by the fact that there are separate Author Central pages for each Amazon store. AARGH.
Figure out Amazon Affiliate Program — I am probably leaving a fair amount of money on the table by not putting those affiliate tags on each of my Amazon links, so yeah, better get on that.
Donate books to the Provo Library — I’m not sure if they’ll take them, though. My roommate says they won’t, but my brother-in-law’s father works there, so maybe he can help me find a connection.
Donate books to the HBLL — Since I’m a BYU alum, I’m pretty sure I can convince them to take my books. I’ve seen other self-published stuff in there.
POD Star Wanderers Omnibuses — Since I need to get new covers for all the individual ones first, this one falls kind of low on the list.
Figure out distribution on Xinxii — I heard from somewhere that they do free ISBNs now. Then again, that might have been a holiday deal. Either way, it’s something to look into–after I upload all my books there, of course.
Fill out Smashwords interview — This will probably be the funnest thing to do on this list.
Add books to Find Read Love — As well as any other book sites that are awesome.
Get active on Goodreads — If there’s any social media site that isn’t a waste of time, it’s probably Goodreads. I should try to be a more active user of that site, not just as a writer but as a reader. For starters, I should transfer all of the stuff from my book review section and join some groups that look particularly interesting. I’m already a member of Sword & Laser, but I haven’t done anything more than introduce myself on the forums. I listen to their podcast, though, and really love it.

That’s the list, more or less. I would absolutely love it if I had an assistant who could take care of this stuff, but I’m not currently making enough to hire one, and it would just be weird to take on an intern. Besides, the main reason I haven’t done any of this stuff yet is because I’m lazy. If I did a bit here and there, I could probably knock it all out in a couple of months. Maybe if I made a new personal rule to do something from this list before logging on to Steam? Hmm … that might actually work.

In any case, that’s what the publishing side looks like around here. When you’re self-published, you more or less have to do all of this yourself. It can be a chore sometimes, but it still beats writing personalized query letters. 😛

Resolutions and such for 2014

Yes, I know this post is a couple of days late. Yesterday I was busy publishing Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII), though, and the day before that I was on the train, and today I had to renew my vehicle registration … enough! On to the resolutions.

1. Publish something every 6 weeks.

One thing I really need to get better about is publishing new work. So this year, I’m going to do my damnedest to follow a regular publishing schedule. I don’t know what I’ll be publishing, exactly, but I have a pretty good idea, and surprisingly enough it actually works out to a lot less work than you’d think:

WEEK 1: SW-VIII: Deliverance (already done)
WEEK 7: SW V-VIII: Tales of the Far Outworlds (the second STAR WANDERERS omnibus–basically, I just need to write the Author’s Note and get a cover, since the stories have already been written).
WEEK 13: Science Fiction from A to Z (a book version of last year’s A to Z blogging challenge, released just in time for this year’s A to Z, for which I’ve already thought of an awesome theme).
WEEK 19: Heart of the Nebula (rough draft already written, just need to rewrite/revise).
WEEK 25: Sons of the Starfarers Book I: Brothers in Exile (already written).
WEEK 31: Sons of the Starfarers Book II: ??? (this one I still have to write).
WEEK 37: Sons of the Starfarers Book III: ??? (also need to write, but both of these are novellas so they shouldn’t take too long).
WEEK 43: Open slot–maybe I’ll publish Lifewalker in this slot.
WEEK 49: Sons of the Starfarers Omnibus I-III (just in time for Christmas).

Of course, this is all just a tentative schedule–I could definitely change it depending on which stories you guys want me most to write. The point is that it’s doable–surprisingliy doable. I might even break the schedule once or twice to release a surprise project, depending on how things go.

Then again, I might need the extra writing time in order to finish my second resolution, which is:

2. Write at least 2 short stories per month and submit them to traditional markets.

In other words, Operation Short Blitz. Since I’ve already outlined my goals and objectives for that one, on to resolution 3:

3. Read a book every week

Or at least 50 books before the end of the year. This is a recurring one that I’ve never quite been able to do, but I really need to read more, so I figured I’d bring it back. It’s also a good excuse to get more active on Goodreads, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

Now for some non-writing related resolutions:

4. Keep a detailed weekly personal journal

I’ve kept a journal off and on since 2nd grade, but in the past few years I’ve been really lax about it. My excuse was that the blog counts sort of as a journal, but that’s not really true, because there are things in my life that I would never want to talk about publically on this platform. At the same time, I’m not a teenager anymore–I don’t need to keep a super secret diary stashed beneath my mattress in order to cathartically vent my hormones and thus maintain my sanity.

So for this year, I’m going to completely redo the way I do journal writing. Instead of free-writing, I’m going to keep it deliberately structured. Instead of writing it only for myself, I’m going to write it for the benefit of my future kids and grandkids. I’ll include some private stuff in there, but nothing I wouldn’t mind being read years later.

Honestly, I still haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to do for this goal, but I plan to at least write in it every week. In any case, it makes for a good Sunday project–not just writing in it, but figuring out exactly where I want to go with it.

5. Get to the point where I can run a mile ever day.

Writing is a sedentary activity, and I definitely need to get out and be more active. My grandpa got fit and lost a lot of weight later in his life, and one of the things he told me that was key was to run a mile a day. Currently, I can’t quite do that–I tried that about a month ago, and I pulled something on the third day that put me out for about a week. But it’s definitely something I can work up to.

My brother-in-law is a runner, and he advised me to start by walking. Walk at least a mile a day for a week, then the next week walk two, then the week after that walk for most of the days but throw in a running day somewhere in there. Gradually work up until you’re running more than walking, then soon enough you’ll be running every day.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m starting out with the two-mile walks, since the one-milers are way too easy. Maybe I’ll hike the Y a few times before I start running, just to build up muscle strength. And when the snow melts, I’ll definitely be climbing some mountains.

What I’d really like to do is get a treadmill desk. Those things are expensive, though, and there isn’t much room for them where I’m currently living. In any case, the best resolutions are the ones that don’t require a huge monetary investment or a massive shift from your current lifestyle, since those are the ones that are most likely to get done.

And just for the heck of it, here’s a crazy impossible stretch goal:

6. Finish hiking the 7 peaks.

Those of you who have been following me for a while probably remember that last year, I made only one resolution, and that was to climb four of the seven peaks here in Utah county. Well, I only got to two of them: Spanish Fork Peak and Santaquin Peak. And guys–they were amazing! Real adventures. Santaquin peak especially was just spectacular–without a doubt, the most perfect hike of my life. But then things got busy and I never got around to hiking the other two, blah blah blah lame excuses.

So this year, I want to revisit that goal, and since four is a lame number to stop at, I figure I’ll just shoot for all seven of them. It’s going to be tough–Cascade Mountain is a beast, and from what I’ve heard, Lone Peak has some cliffs that are especially harrowing–but by golly, I’m going to do it!

And if I hike Mount Timpanogos this year, maybe I’ll finally break the curse that is keeping me trapped here in Provo.

In any case, those are my resolutions for 2014. What are yours?

SW-I OUTWORLDER is #1 on Amazon’s Space Opera subcategory!

Check it out! 😀

With the new cover, Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I) has been bouncing around the #3 / #4 slots, with the top slot taken by books with holiday weekend promos. But now that it’s Tuesday, it’s right up there at the #1 spot! This is without any kind of extra promotion on my part.

Outworlder has been kicking around on this list ever since it went free in October of last year. With the old cover, it hovered somewhere between #10 and #15. I’m not sure if this is the new cover, the holiday weekend, something else, or some combination of the three, but I’m happy to be riding the wave!

#1 on Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera translates to #41 on Kindle Ebooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction, which is not bad. This is for free books, not paid books. I haven’t cracked any of those subcategories yet, though the other Star Wanderers books are selling at a pretty decent rate.

This is for the Amazon.com store. Here’s how it currently ranks at the other stores:

Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom): #13
Amazon.ca (Canada): #18
Amazon.fr (France): #2
Amazon.in (India): #14
Amazon.com.au (Australia): #6

I may have a problem with checking my sales numbers too much. 😛

Not a new book, just a new cover!

So a couple of weeks ago, I got an email out of the blue from Derek Murphy over at CreativIndie Covers. He’s a cover designer who periodically does cover makeovers for indie writers, as a way to bring in business and build his own reputation. He wanted to do an experiment to see if he could double my sales in a month by making over the cover for Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I).

Well, I’ll be the first to admit that the original cover isn’t all that great. The book was a bit of an experiment, to see if writing in a more serial format would be more effective than writing and releasing full-length novels. I’d spent a fair amount of money to get Bringing Stella Home and Desert Stars up, and sales were too low at that time to justify another huge publishing project. In order to cut costs, I did the covers myself, using public domain images from NASA and Hubble. They aren’t super great, but they do say “space!” which is better than a gray box with a question mark.

If anything, I’m surprised that the series has done as well as it has with the current covers. Each book in the series sells in the double or triple digits monthly, and Outworlder has been in the top 20 on Amazon’s Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera and Kindle eBooks > Romance > Science Fiction subcategories for over a year. The consistency with which these books have been selling has really surprised me, so anything to push these books to the next level and put them in front of new readers will hopefully yield some awesome results.

So Derek and I went back and forth for a while, and this is what we came up with:

Pretty sweet, huh? 😀

I am extremely excited about this cover, and I’d love to see what he can do with the other ones. First, though, we’re going to put this one up for the month of December to see if it has a noticeable impact on overall sales. I’ve got data from last December as well as the last few months to compare it to, so we’ll see how it does. And if there is an appreciable increase, I’ll probably go ahead and have him redo all the other covers as well.

Since this is still just an experiment, though, the covers for the print editions will remain the same as the old ones. I don’t anticipate keeping them forever, though, especially if this experiment works out. Even so, I’m still going to release them as I’d planned, so if you want the print versions, you can get them.

And who knows? If these books take off, or I become a well-known author in the future, the original print versions of the Star Wanderers books may be worth something someday. Maybe. Who knows?

So far, it appears to be working. The new cover went live on Amazon last night, and Outworlder has dropped about 700 rankings to #1,705. That’s without any sort of advertising or promotion, except for the also-bots of course. Last year around this time I participated in a fairly big group promo, so I’ll try to get this book listed in a couple of places to make up for that. Or maybe we can extend the experiment through January, in the interest of ~~keeping a really cool cover~~ getting more accurate data? We’ll see.

Man, it’s so much fun to be a self-published indie writer! 😀

Publishing is as easy as the Irish Tinwhistle

David Gaughran has another excellent blog post up, this time about publishing in general and something that most newbies don’t realize when they first start out. From his post:

I’m saying that when a newbie has been convinced that self-publishing is hard or expensive the chances of them falling into the clutches of a third-party which will result in a poor outcome increase exponentially. Because they’ll take any kind of deal, or sign up with any fly-by-night outfit, or engage one of the vanity presses masquerading as a self-publishing company.

So we need to get the message out. Yes, writing is hard, but these third parties will give you no help there. And yes, marketing can be tricky, but that’s probably going to fall on you no matter what path you choose.

Publishing, on the other hand, is easy.

I’ve found this to be exactly the case, and it’s one of the reasons why I’ve decided to stick with the indie publishing path.

Publishing is easy. Publishing is fun, in fact. There’s a lot of hair-pulling when you first start out, but once you get over the initial learning curve, it’s a blast. These people selling “self-publishing packages” are almost all scammers, especially if they’re charging more than $1,000.

Marketing is an aspect of this business that currently eludes me. Even so, I’m still doing all right. I’ve been making a profit since 2012, and I’m currently about halfway to making a full-time living at this. With the whims of the market, that could change at any moment, but there’s still a lot of room for things to go up so I’m not too worried.

As for writing, well, that’s probably always going to be hard. I tend to self-edit a lot as I write, so hopefully nanowrimo will help me out with that. Once you’ve found your voice and gotten the basics of your craft, you have to learn to let go and let the story happen, which is something I struggle with.

Right now, I’m having a hard time with putting out a consistent word count. That’s probably the hardest part of taking the indie path–keeping yourself from getting spread too thin. I’m trying to get print versions of the Star Wanderers novellas out on Amazon (Outworlder is already out! Get it here!), so that’s taking a fair amount of time and energy, even though I’m taking it slow. Really, though, I wonder how much of it is just fear or self-doubt or other writerly angst that pops up from time to time. It’s a constant struggle.

But publishing? Publishing is easy. Give me a manuscript, and I can turn it into a fully functional, well formatted ebook in less than an hour. For a print book, I can do the typesetting and cover design over a long weekend if I’ve got nothing else going on. Easily. And from there, it’s just a matter of uploading to Amazon / Smashwords / wherever, filling out the metadata fields, and clicking the button that says “publish.”

There is nothing about the technical aspects of publishing that a writer can’t learn how to do for himself. If you can publish a blog, you can publish an ebook. The only reason to pay someone to do it for you is if the opportunity cost of taking the time to learn is too high, which is only really the case if you’re a highly paid professional at something else and writing isn’t your main career. Even so, it’s not hard to find someone (like me!) who can do a good job for $50 or less.

It’s kind of like the Irish tinwhistle. Sure, you can pay through the nose for a limited edition collector’s piece (which probably has a very generic sound), but the best ones cost less than $20 and look like they’ve been used as a doorstop for a while. The quality of the sound does not correlate at all with the price–in fact, you’re more likely to get a better instrument if you don’t pay through the nose. You can even make your own!

In fact, there are a lot of similarities between self-publishing and playing the Irish tinwhistle. You can teach yourself how to do it, pick up tips and tricks by hanging out with other unwashed, self-taught musicians, learn all sorts of tunes or make up your own, and play it any way you like. You can play for pennies in the park, beers in a pub, or go for gold and hit the big time.

Dang–now I really want to get back into Irish music again! One dream at a time, Joe–one dream at a time.

But yeah, publishing is easy–not to mention, fun!

SW-VII: REPROACH is now out!

If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to lately, I’ve been busy publishing a new book! Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII) is now out on Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo as a $2.99 ebook, and should be up on Barnes & Noble and iTunes in a couple of weeks.

This now brings the total number of books I’ve published to 17. Part VIII: Deliverance should be out in early- to mid-November, and if things go well, I should be able to put out at least one more ebook before the end of the year.

My main publishing goal, though, is to get print versions out of every Star Wanderers story before Christmas. I got the first proof of Outworlder a few days ago, and fixed the issues with it over the weekend. Just have to order another proof and make sure it looks good, then it’s just a matter of clicking a couple buttons and it should be up on Amazon. Because it’s a small book, it should sell for between $4 to $6–I know there are a lot of books in this series, so I’ll do what I can to keep the prices low!

Speaking of print editions, the trade paperback of Stars of Blood and Glory is now out on Amazon and the CreateSpace store! If you prefer to read in paper or just want a copy for your bookshelf, you can pick it up now. I’ve gotten some requests for signed copies, so I’m going to order a few from CreateSpace and try to get those sent out in the next few weeks. If you’re interested, shoot me an email at joseph [dot] vasicek [at] gmail [dot] com, and I’ll see what I can do.

That’s just about it. So much publishing–when am I going to get a chance to just write? It’s been a lot of fun though, and I’m happy to get these books out to you guys. Next week, I’ll turn my focus back to Sons of the Starfarers and hopefully make some good progress on the first book of that series.

Thanks for reading!

Quick update and a funny thing

First, just a quick update on my latest writing projects. I got the feedback from my second round of test readers for Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII), and while I think the story still needs work, it’s getting closer. I probably won’t be able to get it out by the end of September, but first or second week of October it should be ready.

It’s funny–I sent it to a guy and a girl, and while the guy thought it didn’t need any changes (and he’s studying to be an editor), the girl pointed out a few things that need a little more reinforcement and development. It’s mostly just minor changes I think, getting more into Noemi’s viewpoint and figuring out exactly what she’s going through, and making that clear to the reader. So yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard.

In some ways, writing this book has been like writing myself out of a corner. The story in Reproach runs parallel with the events of Sacrifice, and some of the stuff that happens there is pretty complicated. For example, it’s got a sixteen year old girl who feels like her only hope at happiness is to convince her best friend to share her husband, and the best friend actually kind of comes around to it by the end, though the whole ordeal is almost unbearable for her.

Writing about monogamous relationships is hard enough when you’ve always been single–it’s doubly hard when you’re writing about polygamy. But I’m actually fairly pleased with the way it’s come out so far–even though it’s not quite ready to be published, everyone who’s read it has really gotten into it, even the readers who haven’t yet read the earlier books in the series. It’s been a challenging book to write, but it’s been a gratifying one, and I think you guys are going to enjoy it.

Of course, all of this is yanking me away from Sons of the Starfarers, which is really kind of aggravating. On an interview I listened to recently, Jim Butcher said that writers are either writing, thinking about what they’re writing, or thinking about what they’ve written. The way my brain is wired, I can only really do one of those things at a time, and I’d much rather write or think about what I’m writing than think about what I’ve written. But yeah, Reproach is more important, so after finishing the current chapter I’ll put Sons of the Starfarers on hold for a couple weeks.

Also, I’m working to get print editions out for all of my Star Wanderers books before Christmas. Part of this is because of the new Matchbook program from Amazon, but mostly it’s just because … well, why not? For those of you who want paperback versions of these novellas, that will soon be an option. I’m having a little trouble figuring out the cover art (RBG vs. CMYK, getting the covers to print attractively instead of turning out way too dark, etc), but that shouldn’t take longer than a few weeks to iron out. Expect to see parts I-IV out by November.

Finally, a funny thing happened to me at Leading Edge. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a student-run science fiction & fantasy magazine where student volunteers read every story submission and write a critique for the author. Well, while sitting in the slushpile, one of the editors came in and showed me a story that I’d critiqued … twice! The first time, I’d given it a rejection. The second time, I’d actually recommended that the editors buy it!

Well, I racked my brain a little bit to figure out what had happened, and as close as I can tell the only real difference was in how distracted I’d been when I’d read it. The first time, it had been fairly noisy and there’d been a lot of distractions. The story had some good parts to it, which I mentioned in the letter, but I didn’t really pick up on the character motivations well, so I rejected it based on that. The second time, though, it had been quiet enough for me to really pay attention to the story, enough to really get what was going on. I finished it, and the ending moved me so much that I knew I’d have to recommend that we publish it.

The editor wanted to keep the rejection sheet anyway, but I tossed it in the garbage since really it wasn’t all that helpful anyway. And the moral, if there is one, is to pick up every story with the idea firmly in mind that you’ve got a potential gem in your hands. Too often, I think we read stuff flippantly, as if we already know that it’s not worth our time and attention. Well, don’t do that! Who knows but what you’ve got your new favorite story of all time sitting right in front of you? Give it a chance!

And on that note, I leave you with this:

See you guys around!

Novella woes and farmers markets

Today I wrote about 2.6 words in my current WIP (Sons of the Starfarers), which didn’t really feel like it because I was constantly getting distracted. Still, 2.6 words is pretty solid–it’s about mid-range for me. If I can hit that every day from here on out (which is doubtful, but hey), the rough draft should be finished before the end of the month.

The crazy thing is that I just hit the inciting incident at the end of today’s writing session, after passing the 6k word mark. For a mid-sized novella, that’s pretty late. In the classic three act structure, the inciting incident usually hits between the 12%-15% mark, but this one is well past 20% for a 30k word novella–and just barely at 16% for a 40k.

So in layman’s terms, how long is this book going to be? Probably longer than any of the Star Wanderers stories, but not quite as long as Genesis Earth. It probably won’t turn into a full-fledged novel, since there’s only one viewpoint character, but I can already tell that it’s going to flirt with the line between novella and novel.

We’ll see how it turns out. I’m still really excited about this story, and even though I don’t have a clear idea how to write the ending, I do know exactly how it’s going to end, if that makes any sense. I’ve got a clear idea of the series arc that this book is going to set up, but I don’t yet have a clear idea of the book’s self-contained arc. Once I figure that out, maybe I’ll be able to trim it down to a 30k novella after all.

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I visited the Stadium Farmer’s Market in Provo for the first time today. It was pretty neat–lots of great produce, a nice community atmosphere, and a few quirky things like Jalapeno Jelly and tie died baby jumpers that you can’t really find in a mainstream grocery store. I came away with some excellent peaches and a hankering to come back next week for more.

Anyhow, the trip got me thinking how indie publishing is kind of like a farmer’s market. You’ve got everything from the guys who sell their produce out of unmarked paint buckets (writers who toss their books up to amazon with hardly a thought) to the local farm operations with pretty banners, pretty baskets, and laminated fact sheets drilling down on every possible difference between Elberta and Briscoe peaches (writers who go to great lengths to organize their own small presses and become Facebook/Twitter/Blogging personalities).

Almost everyone gives away free samples, which actually does a lot to drive sales. In a similar way, most indie writers either have a couple of perma-free titles or free-pulse their books. Everyone at the farmer’s market tries to be friendly and reach out to the customers (kind of like authors on Facebook and Twitter), but for me personally this kind of drives me away. A good entertaining sales pitch, though, can be quite interesting. I listened to the guy selling honey for almost twenty minutes, going on and on about his wares. It’s clear he’s in a business that he loves.

Even though the fruit in the farmer’s market tends to have more blemishes than the stuff you find in the mainstream store, it is WAAAY more fresh and delicious. Similarly, the stuff from the mainstream presses might be a lot more edited and polished, but the true innovation and formula-breaking stuff is happening in the world of self-publishing. Publishers want things to be more predictable and formulaic so that they can have a better idea how something is going to sell, but indies are free to try almost anything.

Those aren’t the only parallels, either. The more I think about it, the more it seems that being a self-published indie writer (or “author-publisher,” a newer term that I think I actually prefer) is a lot like being a local small farmer. I’m sure there are differences, but the similarities are quite striking.

And now I’m really wishing I’d bought some of that honey.