Things are seeming to go along and I am within a week or so of being back in my office and writing like crazy again. I’ll talk about life rolls like the one I am in and what you can do with your writing goals after I get back. Stay tuned.
We had a great week of workshops here, with the last four days Scott William Carter and I working with 25-30 professional writers at all levels on all the aspects of being an indie publisher. From the start, to how much money you can make, to actually putting stories up, to promotion and beyond. Great fun. Kristine Kathryn Rusch stepped in on the first part of the promotion part for half a day and let me rest, which helped a ton as well.
Everyone left after a huge lunch yesterday (Sunday) and this afternoon (Monday) I’m mounting the trusty steed of a U-Haul truck and heading to Eugene to finish packing Bill’s apartment. (Part of his estate.) Two young professional movers and their large truck arrive on Thursday and we will clear the apartment and herd the two large trucks back here to the coast and get their contents into the new offices of WMG Publishing.
That’s right, instead of putting all this into storage, Kris and I rented a 2,500 square foot office complex for WMG Publishing and for the workshops starting next year. It’s a mess, but I hope by the end of February for the next workshop I will have it in some sort of order.
Over the winter I will also be working on Bill’s house, but no rush there unlike the apartment he lived in. Yes, he had a three bedroom house he used as storage, filled completely, and a large one-bedroom apartment downtown. Even with all the estate issues themselves and the court stuff, the mass of stuff is huge and all has to be cleaned out and tossed or organized and brought to the coast. In case you haven’t caught on, my friend Bill was a hoarder. He could make a penny scream and never tossed anything away in decades and decades. I think I can feel him shuddering every time I toss out an old book catalog or an invoice from 1988. (grin)
I will be back here for the last part of the week and until November 1st when I head to Reno to track down Bill’s van and do everything down there where he died, then head for Boise for a fun visit with my family and friends, then home to write. So gone more than here over the next few weeks, then I get to settle in for a long winter of writing and having fun.
I’ll post recommended readings and a guest blog by New York Times Bestselling writer K.W. Jeter on his new books and the new world of writing while I am gone, so stay tuned.
And speaking of a page worth going to, Passive Guy, on his blog ThePassiveVoice has a number of really, really interesting articles today and yesterday. One about covers, another from a small publisher showing how sales varied between paper and e-books. Some great stuff. Check it out.
Dean,
Glad to hear things are slowly regaining some sense of normality for you.
As the small publisher who posted two consecutive blog articles about our print and eBook sales over the last seven quarters, I keep hoping that doing so will encourage others to share similar data. I’ve shown everyone ours…
Good luck with all the moving and relocating challenges!
Dean, I think you have an indie publishing tip hidden here:
“Two young professional movers and their large truck arrive on Thursday and we will clear the apartment and herd the two large trucks back here to the coast and get their contents into the new offices of WMG Publishing.”
I think a good thing for an indie publisher to assess — and re-assess from book to book — is the difference between “What CAN I do myself” and “What SHOULD I do myself”. You likely could do all this moving work by yourself; but it would take you longer and leave you more stressed and tired.
Sometimes when you’re independent-minded and have a willingness to learn, you can go overboard with the Do It Yourself approach. I love playing with cover art. I can spend hours and hours tweaking it. But your essays on covers taught me: that’s going overboard.
So you set a good example by hiring movers so as to save your time and energy for stuff that really needs your personal attention. And of course, you didn’t pay them 15% for life for the work! Flat fee in everything!
Thanks for the props, Dean.
My sympathies are with you as you deal with all the different aspects of the estate.
Sometimes when you’re independent-minded and have a willingness to learn, you can go overboard with the Do It Yourself approach. I love playing with cover art. I can spend hours and hours tweaking it. But your essays on covers taught me: that’s going overboard.
This is me. What brought me to my senses was when I saw a pre-made cover that I thought was perfect for the 3rd in my novella series; I then thought, why not give the other covers a similar look? So I contacted the artist, we agreed on the amount, and voila!
The covers look so much more professional. (Lesson learned.) But I’ll still do my own covers for short stories.
You have to know when to pay. My GEEK decided to go incommunicado just as my webserver decided to roll over and play dead, killing sixteen websites.
I wasted most of the last two weeks trying to:
a) get it running
b) find someone who I could trust who could get it running
I have a new Geek. Not everything is back up, but the major stuff is.
Wayne