July 24, 2013

I had such plans for this summer. The time has gone by so quickly.

I had an interesting conversation last week, too. The book I'm currently writing... well, so far it's not fitting neatly into the usual genre conventions as I understand them. I'd like to hope it will find an audience, but I'm also wondering how big that audience is.

But then, maybe five people are meant to read it, and maybe those five people will find it.

Writing with the intention of publishing is a little different from writing and then deciding to publish. I know that I will publish what I'm working on right now, if I'm able to complete it to my satisfaction. But I haven't done the thing that scares me. I haven't studied bestsellers on the Amazon charts and broken down the books into a sort of algebraic equation, tried to follow it, and hoped that the end result would be enough money to help me retire in my mid-thirties. There is a difference between art and commercial art. No one's begging me to publish my books. No matter how long I write, I can't shake the feeling that if I were to stop writing, no tears would be shed over it. Oh, my unfinished fanfic series stories might be granted an unofficial ending by other authors, possibly... but otherwise, it's a little comforting to think that I could safely vanish beneath the surface, unmourned.

My mental state might be informing my writing a bit more than I should want, but for this story, I think that probably works.

Once I have it finished, I'll post the beginning, because I think readers will know fairly quickly whether they're interested and will want to read the rest or not.

And now I'm going to try to get a bit more done before I go to bed... although the book I'm currently reading is really absorbing my attention.

July 14, 2013

I have a website that I use to hold adult-rated versions of my fanfic that can't be posted on fanfiction.net. That's pretty cool, in a way. If someone wants to read my fanfic, it's a good centralized location. It's pretty bare-bones, though, and I haven't updated it in over a year. I've written a bunch of fic in the meantime. All that fic, or at least 95% of it, is at AO3, where I can post full adult-rated versions of stories without any problem. Everything at AO3 exists elsewhere on the internet as well, so it's not like I have all my eggs in that one basket; I generally post all my fic at my writing LJ and use AO3 as a backup.

I think I'm going to let the domain for my personal site expire and buy a new one for my original fic endeavors. This seems like a better use of the money. I could post sample first chapters there, and character bios, and fun things like that. And I suppose I could always use a corner of that website as the fanfic archive... but, eh. Happily, the majority of the reasons I needed to get a website have been met by AO3.

July 13, 2013

I'm close to finishing my rewrite of a 16,000-word segment of the story. That's just under 30 single-spaced pages on my word processing document. The current version is just over 36,000 words.

I'll be so happy once I've finished rewriting that segment so I can start on the part that I haven't been able to write yet.

July 5, 2013

I came up with an idea over a year ago. I wrote the first scene of the current incarnation a little less than a month ago. A story needs a good catch or hook, and I like the catch for it.

It's at 25k words right now, most of which has been done over the past week. I have a name for it. I even have possible covers for it.

I don't think it's going to be that much longer, but a part of me wants to get it finished before I post any of it for feedback... even though that's a hell of a lot to read in one sitting. For a piece of fanfiction it is, anyway. As a paper book, that's less than 100 print pages. Pshhh. Novella!

I have another idea I want to work on... and yet I just can't stop working on this one. Any time I have to write, I'm working on it. I didn't outline it, either. It's just happening. And it's been pretty clearly influenced by all the Mary Balogh historical romance novels I've read, just in the present. With less-tight pants and fewer (read: no) horses.

So far, anyway.

Paper?

I need to look into this in a little bit more detail, but I thought I'd check out the interest first.

The series I have listed for sale on Amazon right now (which has just dropped in price! Helpful link!) is for the Kindle only, i.e. electronic book format only. You don't need a Kindle to read the books, but you do need to be able to buy the books from the Amazon store and use a computer/phone to read them. Amazon also has an option called createspace that would allow me to upload the books, and they would be printed on demand for those who ordered them. I believe there is a small setup fee (I think I have to buy an ISBN for each, for instance), and considering the number of ebooks I have sold so far, I'm not sure that the setup fee would be worth the cost, but a part of me does like the idea of the books also existing in physical copies. I know that Amazon apparently doesn't have a Kindle store in every country (which surprises me), so createspace might be a good option for people who can't buy Kindle books or would prefer a print version.

So, if you're interested, let me know in a comment here - whether you're interested in existing books being published that way, or future ones being published that way. Or if you're a Kindle reader who wouldn't take advantage of paper versions being available, let me know that too. :)

June 12, 2013

I made myself a goal before I started this little adventure. After all, goals are good.

I decided that my goal would be to make $20.00 from sales of my books. (That's not the sale price; that's from the royalties on the books themselves.)

The good news is that I am almost there, which is really neat. The books have been available for just under a month. I'm not really expecting them to sell much more unless I do something else; I can't run another free Amazon promotion until the current promotion period is over, which is in August. I was very pleased with the number of downloads from that promotion. But the July 4 weekend is coming up, and I like the idea of having a sale over that weekend. I think making the first three books available for $0.99 each would be pretty awesome.

So if you know someone who might like the books, promotion time! I'm trying to consider possible promotion methods that won't make me feel like a total jerk. Maybe boosting Google presence is a good thing to do... but my instinct tells me not necessarily. Availability on platforms other than the Kindle isn't a bad idea either; I would need to prepare the books before the middle of August, though, because preparing them might take a little while.

Anyway. Something to ponder.

Right now, though, I'm working on one of the Nancy Drew fanfics I've had in progress for a bit... partially because I'm almost finished with the story, and partially because I have the instant gratification of feedback on it, which is very valuable to me.

May 25, 2013

The first ebook in my series is available on Amazon for free this weekend, for Memorial Day. (I suppose that aligning these free days with American holidays is a bit strange, since it's available in every Amazon Kindle store worldwide, but it just seemed most convenient.) I'm happy that I've seen a lot of downloads for it. :)

A link, if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Never-Always-Unbroken-Book-ebook/dp/B00CS5G4NC/ref=la_B00CS8Q7RW_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369493808&sr=1-1

I've put up a poll, and it seems that the preference is for me to work on the next book in that series instead of working on something wholly original - yet, anyway. I think that once I figure out how that new idea will go, I might work on both, but I'll focus more on All the Stars Afire.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, regardless! :)