Lately I've been toying with the idea of starting a new book review site. It's another big project, I know, and I have to consider how it would fit into my schedule. For anyone else considering the idea, themselves, here's how I see it breaking down in the preparation stages:
- I'll write several reviews in advance, to have them ready to go,
- I'll organise several pages of book recommends without reviews, and
- I'll arrange a time in my weekly schedule to post the reviews.
I've already done two things: I've drawn up a list of books I've read recently that I could review, and I've drawn up a list of categories I could put together lists of books for. The scheduling part is the bigger problem. Right now, my weekly posting looks like this:
Monday: a diary-entry story on ParagraVerse, from Andrew McCourt
Tuesday: a new poem, written especially for ParagraVerse
Wednesday: a new blog post here
Thursday: an older poem, perhaps one that's been on YouTube in the past (as is currently the case), on ParagraVerse
Friday: a new flash fiction story on ParagraVerse (currently working on writing prompt stories)
Saturday: a new blog post here
Sunday: a new article on my website
The only way I can see this working without posting too much every week is to remove one of those seven items. I know that the Sunday article will remain, as well as the diary entry and the Friday flash story. Most likely, I'll only post one blog post here per week, unless I have something to say.
However, this still leaves a problem. I have to actually read a lot of books for this, and reading series books just isn't going to cut it. Why? Because if I liked one, I'll probably like the others, too. Then, every review will end up looking similar. The reason my last attempt at a review site failed was because I became overly aware that everything was getting five stars.
That's just praising everything. That's not doing a good job.
So, I need to read more widely. That's the only way to avoid only reading the really good books. Obviously, I'd love to only read good books, but I think that might get boring for the reader.
Basically, I'm really considering, but I have my doubts. I don't want to come across as boring for liking so many books and really disliking anything. The fact that I very rarely don't finish a book doesn't so much say a lot about the books I read; I just don't like leaving them unread.
However, it's an idea. What do you think? Did you enjoy reading my book reviews when I used to post them here?
PS I managed to release 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block on time! You can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HYMVZJ2
Showing posts with label ebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebook. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
I'm Releasing a Book!
Remember all those times I said I was working on an ebook? It was a project that began before Christmas, before I was working full-time under a part-time contract. Then, it stopped. In December, I stopped writing the book because I no longer had the time to write much. I wrote The Ice Queen & The Legend of the Winter Folk, and I wrote the poem The Winter Folk, and the flash story Snow Day, but I didn't write much else for all of December.
Recently, with the way things have been moved around in the house, I've been in a position to use my time more freely throughout the week. I've been able to write more often, and for longer, and I managed to get myself into a pretty good routine of writing different things several days in advance. I was able to return to my ebook.
Last week, I told you its name. 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block (While Improving Your Writing Skills). This week, I can show you the cover. In a few days, I'll be releasing the book.
Recently, with the way things have been moved around in the house, I've been in a position to use my time more freely throughout the week. I've been able to write more often, and for longer, and I managed to get myself into a pretty good routine of writing different things several days in advance. I was able to return to my ebook.
Last week, I told you its name. 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block (While Improving Your Writing Skills). This week, I can show you the cover. In a few days, I'll be releasing the book.
Keep in mind this is a low-resolution image. I like it, though. I like the vibrancy of the colours. I like the simplicity of the design. I like how it looks when I print it on photo paper, and I like how the thumbnail is still identifiable when I see it from afar. I really, really like this cover, and I really love the book.
The actual release date has not been set. Nor will it be. I'm hoping to publish it on Tuesday, but that's not a guarantee for a couple of reasons.
1. I don't know if anything will get in my way as I put the finishing touches on formatting and all that jazz.
2. I can't tell in advance how long it will take Amazon to actually publish the book once I hit the "Publish" button. I window of 12-48 hours is all I ever get, and sometimes it's even quicker than that.
However, all things going according to plan, and Amazon keeping up with its track record, Tuesday 21st.
This book wasn't just fun to write. It was educational. It was a benefit in and of itself. It allowed me to overcome my own problems in productivity in the very writing of it. I'm very excited to actually be releasing it. It's been my first big project of 2014, to complete this book that I think can benefit a lot of people in many ways, and I really want to get it out into the world for it to have a chance to prove itself.
If you've been following me on my writing journey from early on, since before the Balor Reborn days, you know I'm taking this seriously. You know that when I publish something, it's because I really love it. This book is no different. It's the start of something big for me, not just because it's a new type of book, but also because it sets a new standard for covers. I'll be re-doing my older covers, re-branding my books to make them look more vibrant and alive.
I needed this book. I needed to write it. I know other people will need to read it. A lot of what I've learned over the past ten years is in this book, from my very beginnings as a writer to one who's received an Undergraduate Degree and published several books of his own. From reading, from listening to mentors, and from trial and error, I've picked up a lot of different tricks along the way. This book, I hope, will help people on their own writing journeys.
Let's leave it there before I start getting too preachy about the book. It's coming, people, and I can't wait, and I think that should say a lot about how much I believe in it. Peace out!
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Daily Content and a Publishing Schedule
While reading The Millionaire Messenger (and yes, eventually I will stop mentioning that book), it occurred to me that if I really want to sell books, I need to do more than just write books, or writing articles or stories when I wanted to sell a book. Having brought up the book so much, and thought about it a lot, I got the idea to publish The Winter Folk over the period of December.
It was a no-end-in-sight plan. Not that it had no end, but that I wasn't doing it for a particular reason other than: (1) I wanted to do something nice in the run up to Christmas and (2) ParagraVerse has been awfully lonely, lately. So, I wrote it as twelve-part poem, to help make it last longer while my work schedule picked up.
As it happens, the poem created its own end.
In the writing of it, I began to think about how interesting I might find the story to write. In particular, I wanted to write the story of the Ice Queen. The world has seen Jack Frost. The world knows all about Santa Claus. But the Ice Queen... well, any time there's a queen or a witch who dresses in white and surrounds herself in ice or snow, she seems to be a villain.
Not for me, not this time.
So, that's what I'm writing now. The Ice Queen. It's a short story. I'm hoping to publish it for Kindle later this month. I'll need to design a cover, soon. And write the two flash stories I want to publish this month on ParagraVerse, too. All of this, out of a little wish to write a poem and make it last.
I hadn't even been set on writing this, until yesterday. And even then, I only thought about it. It wasn't until I actually sat down to plan a schedule that I also decided to plan the book. The schedule was for daily content online this month. I know I missed December 1st, but from then on out I've got things in mind. The Winter Folk helps by taking up half the days between now and Christmas. Thankfully, the poem also sparked a book which sparked a couple of other pieces that need to go online.
Somehow, the poem created a published schedule around itself.
It wasn't the practice I had in mind, but that's fine. At least I know in January, when I get to work on a campaign towards launching another book, I'll have an idea of how best to follow through on my ideas. Scheduling is definitely of benefit to me. It's basically the only way I'm managing this right now.
Anyway, my original plan for daily content, now fully completed, is seeing the following going online:
- 8 blog posts,
- 9 videos,
- 2 flash stories,
- 2 poems - one in 12 parts, and
- 1 ebook.
How much of this is written or prepared? Less than half. How much will be prepared in advance and pre-scheduled? More than half. And how much of it is going to be fun to put together?
I'm going to go with just about all of it.
What this all boils down to is releasing a lot of content that I find interesting, setting new challenges for myself on a regular basis, writing about what I know and, with the exception of the ebook, making it all free for anyone to look at. I think it's a fair deal, getting all of that for nothing and having no obligation to buy the story in the end. And if you enjoy yourself along the way, all the better. That is the point of this sort of stuff, after all, to provide some entertainment.
If all goes well, I'll keep up this sort of thing in 2014, and not just because I'll be releasing new books in the future. This is the essence of The Millionaire Messenger, I think, or part of it at least. The best way to reach an audience is to give people something for nothing, and tell them that there's also something they can buy if they want. The point, though, is that the "messenger" is passionate about what they're talking about.
I think in this case, that goes without saying.
(P.S. If you want to keep up with everything I post this month, Twitter is probably your best bet. You can find me @writeranonymous.)
It was a no-end-in-sight plan. Not that it had no end, but that I wasn't doing it for a particular reason other than: (1) I wanted to do something nice in the run up to Christmas and (2) ParagraVerse has been awfully lonely, lately. So, I wrote it as twelve-part poem, to help make it last longer while my work schedule picked up.
As it happens, the poem created its own end.
In the writing of it, I began to think about how interesting I might find the story to write. In particular, I wanted to write the story of the Ice Queen. The world has seen Jack Frost. The world knows all about Santa Claus. But the Ice Queen... well, any time there's a queen or a witch who dresses in white and surrounds herself in ice or snow, she seems to be a villain.
Not for me, not this time.
So, that's what I'm writing now. The Ice Queen. It's a short story. I'm hoping to publish it for Kindle later this month. I'll need to design a cover, soon. And write the two flash stories I want to publish this month on ParagraVerse, too. All of this, out of a little wish to write a poem and make it last.
I hadn't even been set on writing this, until yesterday. And even then, I only thought about it. It wasn't until I actually sat down to plan a schedule that I also decided to plan the book. The schedule was for daily content online this month. I know I missed December 1st, but from then on out I've got things in mind. The Winter Folk helps by taking up half the days between now and Christmas. Thankfully, the poem also sparked a book which sparked a couple of other pieces that need to go online.
Somehow, the poem created a published schedule around itself.
It wasn't the practice I had in mind, but that's fine. At least I know in January, when I get to work on a campaign towards launching another book, I'll have an idea of how best to follow through on my ideas. Scheduling is definitely of benefit to me. It's basically the only way I'm managing this right now.
Anyway, my original plan for daily content, now fully completed, is seeing the following going online:
- 8 blog posts,
- 9 videos,
- 2 flash stories,
- 2 poems - one in 12 parts, and
- 1 ebook.
How much of this is written or prepared? Less than half. How much will be prepared in advance and pre-scheduled? More than half. And how much of it is going to be fun to put together?
I'm going to go with just about all of it.
What this all boils down to is releasing a lot of content that I find interesting, setting new challenges for myself on a regular basis, writing about what I know and, with the exception of the ebook, making it all free for anyone to look at. I think it's a fair deal, getting all of that for nothing and having no obligation to buy the story in the end. And if you enjoy yourself along the way, all the better. That is the point of this sort of stuff, after all, to provide some entertainment.
If all goes well, I'll keep up this sort of thing in 2014, and not just because I'll be releasing new books in the future. This is the essence of The Millionaire Messenger, I think, or part of it at least. The best way to reach an audience is to give people something for nothing, and tell them that there's also something they can buy if they want. The point, though, is that the "messenger" is passionate about what they're talking about.
I think in this case, that goes without saying.
(P.S. If you want to keep up with everything I post this month, Twitter is probably your best bet. You can find me @writeranonymous.)
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Day 16: The One with the Publication
Publication day was fun. I had to add in a couple of things to the file before uploading to Amazon, but it's finally done: The Hounds of Hell has been published!
I had planned to do a couple of things for publication day, but that didn't quite work out the way I wanted to. I'd forgotten that the actual publication process took a while when using Amazon, so it wasn't until a few hours ago (and much later into the day) that the book was actually available for purchase. Anyway, I've sorted those little extras out for tomorrow. (So keep an eye on the social media sites!)
In the meantime, I kept to one of my plans: I released a new flash story! Entitled The Poet and the Bride, it's available to read on the Modern Irish Myth site here: http://modernirishmyth.com/the-poet-and-the-bride/
I have three more planned that I need to write that will be going live over the next three days. I think it's a fun way to celebrate the release of a book, to publish a few short stories for people to enjoy for free. Naturally, I had to start with Ogma. He's probably my favourite character to write about in the series.
The writing today hasn't even begun, unless you count the flash story. I should count that, right?
Anyway, I'll be getting on to that. In the meantime, you can check out the little details about The Hounds of Hell below.
Dogs are going wild in Galway, unable to be killed. Gathering around a black hound, they put Ireland at risk.
In the aftermath of Balor’s attack on Dublin City, Fionn Murray and Michael Curran travel back to Fionn’s hometown in Galway, to visit his sickly parents. With the help of his childhood friend, Emily Shanahan, Fionn hopes to nurse his parents back to health. At the same time, he hopes to find some answers about his birth parents.
With the local hospital filling up with victims of dog attacks, and a superhuman neighbour to deal with, Ireland’s chosen hero has another evil to stand up to. The hounds of hell are on the roam, and no one living is safe.
I had planned to do a couple of things for publication day, but that didn't quite work out the way I wanted to. I'd forgotten that the actual publication process took a while when using Amazon, so it wasn't until a few hours ago (and much later into the day) that the book was actually available for purchase. Anyway, I've sorted those little extras out for tomorrow. (So keep an eye on the social media sites!)
In the meantime, I kept to one of my plans: I released a new flash story! Entitled The Poet and the Bride, it's available to read on the Modern Irish Myth site here: http://modernirishmyth.com/the-poet-and-the-bride/
I have three more planned that I need to write that will be going live over the next three days. I think it's a fun way to celebrate the release of a book, to publish a few short stories for people to enjoy for free. Naturally, I had to start with Ogma. He's probably my favourite character to write about in the series.
The writing today hasn't even begun, unless you count the flash story. I should count that, right?
Anyway, I'll be getting on to that. In the meantime, you can check out the little details about The Hounds of Hell below.
In the aftermath of Balor’s attack on Dublin City, Fionn Murray and Michael Curran travel back to Fionn’s hometown in Galway, to visit his sickly parents. With the help of his childhood friend, Emily Shanahan, Fionn hopes to nurse his parents back to health. At the same time, he hopes to find some answers about his birth parents.
With the local hospital filling up with victims of dog attacks, and a superhuman neighbour to deal with, Ireland’s chosen hero has another evil to stand up to. The hounds of hell are on the roam, and no one living is safe.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Day 10: Procrastination
I find that with one of three books written this month, I've begun procrastinating a lot more. Fun, right? Not for my word count. The exact level of progress on The Blood of Leap is... non-existent.
However, I did manage to finally upload the trailer for The Hounds of Hell!
It's a thing, now. I can be happy about that. I can also finally stop focusing on that aspect of the book and start focusing on other aspects of next week, including:
1. The flash stories I want to publish next week.
2. The publication of The Hounds of Hell.
3. The completion of The Blood of Leap.
Yeah, that has to happen, and soon. I think tomorrow, in between the make-over of my bedroom and the occasional descent into madness, I need to write a lot. An awful lot. Thankfully I have no social life to speak of for tomorrow, or for Friday (most of the day, anyway), so I can work on getting a lot of the book written in the next couple of days.
If things go my way, I hope to have 10,000 words written by the time I leave for the cinema on Friday night. That's a bit ambitious, but I'm going to make a start on the writing tonight. This is partially to avoid going near my room, which I have reason to believe is still a furnace. (I learned from yesterday not to spend all my time in my bedroom, and commandeered the kitchen.)
I imagine I'll have approximately three hours to write tomorrow, not including blogging time. That's the potential for 4,000 words, I think. Which means, by those calculations, I'll be writing for a bit over five hours on Friday. Thankfully, writing is fun. Even if going out and buying comic books, and making trailers, and drinking a ridiculous amount of water, is also fun. (Wait, drinking water isn't fun... I just needed to survive this unbearable heat.)
So, there's that. Me being behind, me planning on catching up, me going insane, possibly being over-hydrated and bound to face the consequences tonight... good times, am I right?
However, I did manage to finally upload the trailer for The Hounds of Hell!
It's a thing, now. I can be happy about that. I can also finally stop focusing on that aspect of the book and start focusing on other aspects of next week, including:
1. The flash stories I want to publish next week.
2. The publication of The Hounds of Hell.
3. The completion of The Blood of Leap.
Yeah, that has to happen, and soon. I think tomorrow, in between the make-over of my bedroom and the occasional descent into madness, I need to write a lot. An awful lot. Thankfully I have no social life to speak of for tomorrow, or for Friday (most of the day, anyway), so I can work on getting a lot of the book written in the next couple of days.
If things go my way, I hope to have 10,000 words written by the time I leave for the cinema on Friday night. That's a bit ambitious, but I'm going to make a start on the writing tonight. This is partially to avoid going near my room, which I have reason to believe is still a furnace. (I learned from yesterday not to spend all my time in my bedroom, and commandeered the kitchen.)
I imagine I'll have approximately three hours to write tomorrow, not including blogging time. That's the potential for 4,000 words, I think. Which means, by those calculations, I'll be writing for a bit over five hours on Friday. Thankfully, writing is fun. Even if going out and buying comic books, and making trailers, and drinking a ridiculous amount of water, is also fun. (Wait, drinking water isn't fun... I just needed to survive this unbearable heat.)
So, there's that. Me being behind, me planning on catching up, me going insane, possibly being over-hydrated and bound to face the consequences tonight... good times, am I right?
Monday, June 17, 2013
How Many Ebooks Does It Take?
Every day, I do two things: I check my ebook sales through Amazon, and I update a file that keeps track of my monthly earnings, and my earnings per book. But how many ebooks does it take to match my monthly earnings in work?
Let's break this down a bit:
- A $0.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €0.30.
- A $2.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €1.70.
- I earn, on weeks in which I don't have extra hours, roughly €90 from work. We'll call it €360 for the month.
With those figures in mind, I would need to see 1200 ebooks at $0.99 per month to be matching my earnings from the bookshop. You read that correctly.
I currently have three books with that price tag stuck on them: Planning Before Writing, Old Gods Returned, and Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring.
Similarly, I need to sell 212 ebooks at $2.99 to make the same €360 per month. It's considerably less, as you can see. Right now, I only have one book published at that price: Balor Reborn.
I'm under no illusion that this is an easy task. Selling even a tenth as many books as I'd need to just to match my bookshop earnings is difficult. If a writer planned on making a living from writing, they'd need to: (a) have a massive readership and/or (b) earn money from different sources.
I would recommend the latter. Ebooks, as I think I've said here before, are not the goldmine people seem to think they are. Unless you become a bestseller, you're probably not going to put food on the table three times a day every day of the month from ebooks. (Unless you can feed your whole family on €1.70 per meal and sell only 90 ebooks at $2.99... and even then, that's a challenge.)
Considering the fact that rent for most people is at least as much as I earn per month, most likely more, there are obvious obstacles to overcome financially. Believe me when I say this, I would much rather be able to earn from ebooks than mop up a shop floor on a Sunday afternoon. But that's just not possible at the moment.
Why the honesty about the figures? I guess because I want to make it clear to myself why I'm not just packing in the job every time I feel like I don't want to be there (mopping up floors with people walking on them at the same time, or carrying out rubbish bags that are torn in several places...) The reality is, I don't currently have another way of making money than working in a shop that isn't getting enough business to keep me constantly busy. I wouldn't mind if there was something to do throughout the entire day. I would prefer be nearly run off my feet in the shop keeping the till going or replacing stock on the shelves. I wouldn't feel like I was just waiting for the next person to show up with a book to buy or a complaint to make about how we don't, as a small bookshop, have the out of print book they're looking for.
Part of me had these high hopes that when college finished up, I'd be in a position to change my life drastically. That just isn't so. Sure, life is different. But I didn't make that change. Maybe I'm afraid to do something about it. That seems very likely. I'm going to try challenge that fear this week (Thursday's going to be my Face Up To Fear Day) by doing something different, by breaking out of the mould I'm in. While I'm still going to keep publishing ebooks (and I'm working on getting Planning Before Writing available through Smashwords, but the site is giving me some trouble), I'm not going to pretend that it'll be easy to even match my income from the bookshop any time soon.
It take a lot of ebooks to make a difference in a life. The best way you can help an author is to buy their books and recommend those books to friends. It can help pay food bills, or make life more meaningful, or help save for education, either their own or their children's or their partner's. How many people does it take to change an author's life?
Let's break this down a bit:
- A $0.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €0.30.
- A $2.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €1.70.
- I earn, on weeks in which I don't have extra hours, roughly €90 from work. We'll call it €360 for the month.
With those figures in mind, I would need to see 1200 ebooks at $0.99 per month to be matching my earnings from the bookshop. You read that correctly.
I currently have three books with that price tag stuck on them: Planning Before Writing, Old Gods Returned, and Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring.
Similarly, I need to sell 212 ebooks at $2.99 to make the same €360 per month. It's considerably less, as you can see. Right now, I only have one book published at that price: Balor Reborn.
I'm under no illusion that this is an easy task. Selling even a tenth as many books as I'd need to just to match my bookshop earnings is difficult. If a writer planned on making a living from writing, they'd need to: (a) have a massive readership and/or (b) earn money from different sources.
I would recommend the latter. Ebooks, as I think I've said here before, are not the goldmine people seem to think they are. Unless you become a bestseller, you're probably not going to put food on the table three times a day every day of the month from ebooks. (Unless you can feed your whole family on €1.70 per meal and sell only 90 ebooks at $2.99... and even then, that's a challenge.)
Considering the fact that rent for most people is at least as much as I earn per month, most likely more, there are obvious obstacles to overcome financially. Believe me when I say this, I would much rather be able to earn from ebooks than mop up a shop floor on a Sunday afternoon. But that's just not possible at the moment.
Why the honesty about the figures? I guess because I want to make it clear to myself why I'm not just packing in the job every time I feel like I don't want to be there (mopping up floors with people walking on them at the same time, or carrying out rubbish bags that are torn in several places...) The reality is, I don't currently have another way of making money than working in a shop that isn't getting enough business to keep me constantly busy. I wouldn't mind if there was something to do throughout the entire day. I would prefer be nearly run off my feet in the shop keeping the till going or replacing stock on the shelves. I wouldn't feel like I was just waiting for the next person to show up with a book to buy or a complaint to make about how we don't, as a small bookshop, have the out of print book they're looking for.
Part of me had these high hopes that when college finished up, I'd be in a position to change my life drastically. That just isn't so. Sure, life is different. But I didn't make that change. Maybe I'm afraid to do something about it. That seems very likely. I'm going to try challenge that fear this week (Thursday's going to be my Face Up To Fear Day) by doing something different, by breaking out of the mould I'm in. While I'm still going to keep publishing ebooks (and I'm working on getting Planning Before Writing available through Smashwords, but the site is giving me some trouble), I'm not going to pretend that it'll be easy to even match my income from the bookshop any time soon.
It take a lot of ebooks to make a difference in a life. The best way you can help an author is to buy their books and recommend those books to friends. It can help pay food bills, or make life more meaningful, or help save for education, either their own or their children's or their partner's. How many people does it take to change an author's life?
Monday, January 21, 2013
Unexpected Results
It is with some excitement that I find myself writing a book on planning. That seems weird, mainly because planning can so often seem like a boring process.
Oddly, I don't think so. I think it's an applicable process that can save time and effort in the long run, especially when the plan is detailed enough to cover all major areas of a project. In my case, my plan almost doubled in size from when I first drew it up, so that rather than write ten articles on planning (which was initially supposed to be one), I'm now working towards eighteen short chapters of an ebook.
I'm pretty damn happy with it. Obviously it'll need some editing before it's ready for publication, not just to change the word article to plan, but to make sure the whole thing flows correctly. However, I am confident that what I am creating, while sticking to my New Year's Resolution, is a book that can be used by writers no matter what project they are picking up.
Even better, the book looks to be ready by mid-February. It's not the quickest turnaround, but with my teaching placement taking up most of my time, I'm happy with it.
How did I manage this? Simple: I wrote every day this year so far. Half of this time was granted to the planning book, and the other half to poetry and blog posts. The end result is that I have been able to keep in touch with the online world to some extent, get creative with my poetry and still manage to produce something I think is worth selling.
It's also helping to make writing something more manageable in the process. Because I'm writing the book on planning, I'm having to think about my own plans. I'll need to get the sequel to Balor Reborn out soon, obviously, and keep working on that series, but now I'm in a position where I can easily keep up with my various projects by using my own advice on planning. Planned project: unexpected results.
So, excited. I have lots of other stuff in the pipeline, too, though I haven't yet announced most of it. I literally told my Unofficial Board of Directors about my next big announcement, the one that will change my life, I think. Them, and my brother. But not my parents or any of my friends, or anyone else for that matter. I've kept most people in the dark, because I'm excited about this, but partially afraid of what will happen when I actually go public with the details.
I'm waiting until placement is over before I do much more else with it, so I at least know where my head is at for the project, and I have some time to put in some serious work on it ahead of public intentions being announced. I have a lot of background work to do on it.
I guess I had better start planning it all properly soon. But then, I should be used to that at this point.
I'm pretty damn happy with it. Obviously it'll need some editing before it's ready for publication, not just to change the word article to plan, but to make sure the whole thing flows correctly. However, I am confident that what I am creating, while sticking to my New Year's Resolution, is a book that can be used by writers no matter what project they are picking up.
Even better, the book looks to be ready by mid-February. It's not the quickest turnaround, but with my teaching placement taking up most of my time, I'm happy with it.
How did I manage this? Simple: I wrote every day this year so far. Half of this time was granted to the planning book, and the other half to poetry and blog posts. The end result is that I have been able to keep in touch with the online world to some extent, get creative with my poetry and still manage to produce something I think is worth selling.
It's also helping to make writing something more manageable in the process. Because I'm writing the book on planning, I'm having to think about my own plans. I'll need to get the sequel to Balor Reborn out soon, obviously, and keep working on that series, but now I'm in a position where I can easily keep up with my various projects by using my own advice on planning. Planned project: unexpected results.
So, excited. I have lots of other stuff in the pipeline, too, though I haven't yet announced most of it. I literally told my Unofficial Board of Directors about my next big announcement, the one that will change my life, I think. Them, and my brother. But not my parents or any of my friends, or anyone else for that matter. I've kept most people in the dark, because I'm excited about this, but partially afraid of what will happen when I actually go public with the details.
I'm waiting until placement is over before I do much more else with it, so I at least know where my head is at for the project, and I have some time to put in some serious work on it ahead of public intentions being announced. I have a lot of background work to do on it.
I guess I had better start planning it all properly soon. But then, I should be used to that at this point.
Monday, January 7, 2013
How's That New Year Coming?
We're on Day 7 of this great fabrication known as the New Year. Personally, I love it. It's not so much that the concept of a New Year's Resolution is so revolutionary that it shouldn't be ignored, so much as I love the idea of so many people deciding to make a positive change in their lives. Naturally, I join in, and it's one of the few times in my life I will consciously conform to a particular standard (I'm okay with conforming if it happens by accident!).
My aim to write every day is going quite well. It has, so far, produced half of what may well become a short ebook. That, or a section of a longer book. It's all on planning, which fit in nicely with my teaching placement and the need to produce 80 lesson plans in four weeks. Surprise surprise, that's not as much fun as it sounds.
Okay, I jest. I don't mind actually having to do it, and I'd be screwed in class without a lesson plan, but that doesn't mean 80 of them are a lot of fun, when you throw in resources for every lesson, too.
Anyway, back on track. That planning craic. So far, it's five connected articles that need to be drawn together and reworded, but they're essentially half an ebook focusing on some considerations for planning. The other half of the book or section would consist of methods of planning. If there's one thing teaching college has taught me it's that everyone learns and thinks in different ways, so no one method will suit every person who could potentially read the book.
So, there's that. I've also managed to write myself a couple of poems. One has seen the light of day, the other hasn't, but I loved doing them both an awful lot. I consider poetry a project, because every one I've written recently has been accompanied by an image, an audio track and, eventually, a video. This has meant that rather than simply writing the words and posting them online, there's a whole added experience of performance and mood-setting music and the search to find a new means to share an ancient art form.
I don't suppose I will ever grow tired of writing this way. The articles are refreshing every time I come back to them, the poems always requiring a bit more work than just writing, and I've got an unreal amount of fiction to write my way through over the next year.
Would I have done it without the New Year? Possibly, I would have begun. But the social dimension of New Year provides the additional kick everyone needs when tired or busy to ensure they stick to a change in their lives.
Of course, writing isn't the only thing I'm doing. Every day, I keep note of something good that has happened, and writing them on a little piece of paper, I store them in a jar on my bedside locker. Why? Because New Year's Eve has been reserved for false bitterness for far too long, and at least this time I'll have something positive to do: 364 positive messages to look at from things that happened throughout the day.
Could I ask for anything better on New Year's Eve 2013?
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Smile
When you download Stepping Forward, it puts a smile on my face. This doesn't seem like very much, but imagine what a smile can do.
That smile on my face will be passed on to someone else. Maybe the girl at the shop having a hard time today because she's stuck there while other people come and go as they please. She sees my smile, nothing about it to say anything but 'I'm happy', and it puts a smile on her face. I leave, the smile stays there.
An old man walks up to pay for his bread and his milk. He sees her smile and decides to pick up a chocolate bar for the grandson he has coming over. He smiles as he walks out of the shop, goes home and waits for his daughter to arrive with his grandson. He smiles when he sees them, hands over the chocolate bar with a childish grin on his face and watches as mother and son start to smile.
She brings her son to the park, where he shares his chocolate bar with other children there. They walk back to their mothers smiling, all of them filled with sugar, and four couples of mothers and children walk off to run their errands.
In every shop, the children are happy and smiling and the mothers are happy for seeing them that way. Everyone smiles: there's nothing like a smiling child to make people happy. The innocence of it, and the excitement at being out and about, rubs off on the shopkeepers.
They continue serving customers long after the children have been brought away, passing along the smile to every person they meet. When they go on a lunch break, they go back to that first shop, pass on the smile again, and make sure that someone's day is a little bit better.
It all starts with one little thing: downloading my ebook for free. And remember, when you go out today, to smile.
That smile on my face will be passed on to someone else. Maybe the girl at the shop having a hard time today because she's stuck there while other people come and go as they please. She sees my smile, nothing about it to say anything but 'I'm happy', and it puts a smile on her face. I leave, the smile stays there.
An old man walks up to pay for his bread and his milk. He sees her smile and decides to pick up a chocolate bar for the grandson he has coming over. He smiles as he walks out of the shop, goes home and waits for his daughter to arrive with his grandson. He smiles when he sees them, hands over the chocolate bar with a childish grin on his face and watches as mother and son start to smile.
She brings her son to the park, where he shares his chocolate bar with other children there. They walk back to their mothers smiling, all of them filled with sugar, and four couples of mothers and children walk off to run their errands.
In every shop, the children are happy and smiling and the mothers are happy for seeing them that way. Everyone smiles: there's nothing like a smiling child to make people happy. The innocence of it, and the excitement at being out and about, rubs off on the shopkeepers.
They continue serving customers long after the children have been brought away, passing along the smile to every person they meet. When they go on a lunch break, they go back to that first shop, pass on the smile again, and make sure that someone's day is a little bit better.
It all starts with one little thing: downloading my ebook for free. And remember, when you go out today, to smile.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Free Book Out Tomorrow!
We're literally hours away from Stepping Forward going live on the Internet. Hours. I plan on staying up to sort out getting it available as early as possible on December 15th (local time, of course...). The best part, of course, is that the book is free to download. This has a number of advantages:
- It means that you, the reader, do not have to pay to read a longer work of fiction that I have written.
- It means that there is literally no point in anyone pirating this e-book: all someone has to do is go to the Smashwords page and download themselves in whatever format they want.
- And yes, I did say in whatever format. This is keeping in mind the available formats from Smashwords, but what it boils down to is that most, if not all, e-readers will be able to support the file.
One thing people haven't asked me is why I'm releasing the book for free. For a start, it helps me get my name out there. I plan on editing Meet Sam a lot over the next few weeks to get it ready for submission to a publisher, and this will be something I hope people can enjoy in the meantime.
There's also the fact that I've wanted to give a Christmas present out for a very long time: this is that present. Free for me and free for you. Simple.
I enjoyed writing the book, and the few people who have read it have enjoyed it, so with any luck it will appeal to the wider audience of the whole of the Internet. (I jest, of course...).
And why Smashwords? Aside from hearing a lot of good things about them, I wanted to get the book away from the little corner on the Internet I call my website. While I love my website, and while I loved the idea of having the free chapters there to download, it wasn't practical. While the server would have been able to deal with the traffic, I had no way of knowing how many people were actually downloading the book. Smashwords should fix that problem, while also putting the book in the market.
Mostly, though, I just want to have fun with this, and I want to have a book available for people to read. So many people in college have heard me say I'm a writer and aside from the website, there's nothing there for them to really base that on.
I do have a request, however: I want people to read this book. I want honest feedback on the book. What did people like? What did they not like? Would they recommend it to a friend? Is there a glaringly obvious typing error I missed in my edits? (That one's a joke... I've done everything I can to make this as perfect as possible in terms of spelling and grammar!) Mostly, I want to know if people enjoyed the book. Reading should be fun.
Remember, though, that this isn't the last book I'll be releasing. I have a project in mind that I have told people on various social networking sites, and I aim to publish things to do with that in the same way, while aiming towards the traditional publishing route with other books. I don't believe authors should restrict themselves to one or the other, especially not today.
Readers who still buy paper books should be given the option to read something extra by an author if they really want to. At the same time, readers who have only read the e-books might be encouraged to go for a paper book if they liked the author enough. This isn't just me I'm talking about. This is how I believe the publishing industry might survive in an age when e-books are getting stronger. Readers need more options, but not authors shouldn't be restricted to one market or the other in order to give a reader these options.
With that said, this is my first step into the publishing world. This is the first, but not the last, free book I publish. I can't say for sure what's coming next or when, but I will do my utmost best to ensure that there will always be new material out there by myself for people to read. This is a lot for myself as it is for people who genuinely love to read, and given the economic climate, I'd like to offer something for free to make sure that, so long as people have Internet access, people always have options of books to read.
So, quick recap, back to where this started: Stepping Forward is out tomorrow, December 15th 2011, for free. The first step of the longest journey of my life begins then.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)