After what has been a wild and crazy-busy few months of deadlines and more work than someone my age should be asked to do, it is all finally coming to a slow close. Tomorrow (Saturday), the fun starts with twenty professional writers showing up to study POD publishing.
I’ve been looking forward to this workshop for three months now. It’s going to be fun, with a lot of talking and ideas and creating cool books.
After that, with luck, things settle down and I will be back at the short story writing challenge. I do have the four online workshops going on, but considering what I have managed these last three months, that’s going to be heaven. And I have another novel deadline for a traditional publisher (yes, I took another) in December, but that one will be easy, maybe ten days of fun writing.
So watch out, I’m almost back. I warned people when I started the short story challenge in July that I should have waited until the end of September because of all the work facing me, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to get going, and honestly I’m glad I did. I got some stories done, some of which will be up here as part of the challenge. And I got six books out in July, eight in August, and it’s looking like another six in September. I’ll talk about the short story as paperback experiment in a couple of months.
Also, I have three different articles in progress for here, one of which is about promotion. But I’m going to wait until after the POD workshop to finish that one and put it up because I have a hunch my views will not be popular with the myth-believers out there.
So stay tuned. I’ll write a couple of posts here this week about things in the POD workshop and what I’m learning.
Wow, it feels great to be almost in October. Sleep is in order as well. (grin)
I’m looking forward to the POD Workshop just as much as you are, Dean! See you tomorrow!
Coincidentally, I just received the proof copy of my first POD effort in the mail today. Much faster than I expected, as the estimated delivery date from CreateSpace was next Thursday. It’s a 34-page 5×8″ short story booklet, and it looks pretty snazzy if I do say so myself. Composing a front and back cover and formatting the interior were quite a chore, but mostly because it was my first effort. I’m sure it’ll get easier with practice, just like epublishing on Smashwords, Amazon and PubIt.
The next one may have a slightly smaller font. This one uses 12 point Times Roman, but I think that 11 point would work just as well and make a little shorter. I don’t know if or how well it will sell once it’s available on Amazon, but I’m hoping the paper vs ebook option will encourage some folks to give it a try.
I love the fact that you consider running five courses and all the other stuff you have in the pipeline to be almost relaxation!
I’m looking forward to the Cliffhangers course on Monday.
Enjoy the sleep.
Now, I’m off to sort out my ebook formatting, as your productivity shames mine!
Oh, trust me, Zelah, it is relaxation compared to the last two months. As Ty said, writing does seem to be either buried or dead. I like the dead times more because I can write more.
Awesome. Good on you, Dean!
So far I have really enjoyed the short stories. It has give me the push to write more shorts and put them up on Amazon.
I love it when you talk about promotion. Looking forward to that article.
Wild and crazy? I had to laugh. For me, as a writer, everything is either wild and crazy or dead. Seems I either have 500 projects going at once, or nothing. Right now, I’d enjoy one of the “nothing” periods.
As for promotions … I’ve given up. Oh, I do a blog post every now and then, maybe tweet something every once in a while, but usually not about my writing. After a year of my sales going down and down, a year in which I did two blog tours and more than 50 writer interviews on my own blog, I eventually gave up. Guess what? Since giving up on promotions, my sales have turned around. Though admittedly not to the levels I had a year or so ago. At least not yet.
Odd that you might say this. I’ve stopped most of the promotion stuff that I used to do a year ago. Okay, I’ve only been in this for just over a year now (the actual indie publishing bit), so that’s no time at all, but when I started out I spent half of my time plugging my books in various places. Now when I have a new book I do a blog post and hit the social media sites once, but that’s about it.
Have I done more writing? No, but I’ve done a whole lot of other non-writing stuff as well as about the same amount of writing. I’ve also started to get a grip of the business side of publishing, bit by bit. I’m still a long way from a well run business of writing and publishing, but I’m learning fast and I’m taking small steps regularly.
My book sales are up with every new release. Nothing dramatic, but my five (ish) year plan is still very much a possibility.
My next major barrier is “finish what you start”. I have a habit of running far too many projects at once (currently 30+ unfinished works). I think my compromise will have to end up being “finish something that you started”.