Black Wolf and Yin-Yang

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So… yeah.

I’ve been madly and obsessively working on a heavy-duty edit of Black Wolf roughly since my previous blog post. First a detailed comb-through by myself and repairs on all the things I flagged, then reading it aloud to my patient Jackie and repairs on all the things we noticed that way. It’s now reached the point where anything else I try to do myself will be more harm than good, so I’ve sent it off to my wonderful test readers. Based on their feedback, I’ll make whatever further changes are needed, and I’ll release it this summer – in July sometime, if all goes well. While its in their hands, it’s time for me to switch focus to other things. Writing-related things, of course. Housework? Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t get a massive creative adrenaline high from housework!

Something interesting happened in the process with Black Wolf, but it’s long enough and sufficiently different from the rest of this post to deserve its own, which I’ll do in the next couple of days.

Several other books are clamoring in my head to be the next on the list for “official” release. I believe Renegade gets that honour. Even though I originally wrote it rapidly and simply as an experiment, I’m actually too pleased with it to leave it to languish in the shadows. I’m already working on editing that, and finding that it’s relatively easy to do compared to the older works. Why? Because it’s all new and clean and shiny, written based on an old-old idea but otherwise entirely with my current skills. There’s much less repair work to do because, well, it’s put together properly the first time! That’s making me feel rather optimistic, actually, that perhaps the process of editing will be less exhausting once I get the old ones cleaned up and released and can move on to newer ones. Continue reading

Self-publishing updates

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It’s been a tiring few days, but I think it’s been reasonably productive. :-)

I’m happy with Smashwords and the response so far. At this point, the combined sales and sample downloads have doubled what I had through this blog alone. The sample downloads of the first 30% are at least giving it a chance; if someone tries that much and dislikes it, fair enough, but I’m hoping at least some will get that far and want to see what happens. Whether I make any money off it is irrelevant; the whole point is simply to be more visible. I do find it interesting and amusing that a number of friends and family who had no interest at all while it was simply here and on my other site, suddenly want copies of exactly the same text that has now been uploaded to a self-publisher. Continue reading

Here we go: It’s Official!!!

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So… as I mentioned in a recent previous post, it’s a tough balance between writing for yourself and wanting an audience. After all, once you’ve put hundreds or thousands of hours into something that holds a slice of your soul, there’s an urge there to have people actually share it with you.

While I’m not particularly good at social networking to begin with, let’s face it – having my work available via two sites only, one a WordPress blog and one an independent site, really doesn’t help.

So, I’ve finally decided to take the steps into official self-publishing.

I decided, partly on the recommendation of a trusted friend who uses it and partly on my own research, to go with Smashwords.  While I’m not entirely happy with a few limitations as far as file types I can upload as (although they do say they’re going to be expanding that), it otherwise looks to have a lot to offer. Rather than my trying to summarize, I suggest you check the link for yourself and get the full list. Among other things, they make it clear that you retain all rights to your work, they distribute to a variety of major ebook retailers, and they don’t charge any up-front costs, only a small percentage of what you make (if anything). Continue reading

Not abandoned!

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I haven’t abandoned this blog, despite the gaps between posts. Since a few days after the previous post announcing a new novel, a series of extremely difficult life events (including the death of one of my beloved cats) have made it impossible to concentrate on writing anything at all. Normally, writing is my best way of coping with stress, but too much at once can overwhelm that particular mechanism.

Fortunately, it’s normally self-repairing, for me. There’s a delicate balance between giving myself some time to recover and letting it go on too long. Thus, I’m trying sporadically, without pushing too hard. This one involves hitting subjects that currently make me deeply sad; that one involves frustrating flaws that need to be hammered out before I can get any further… they get put aside until a better time.

Why do I bother with anything but playing, when the audience for my writing is as small as it is? (Combining downloads via this site and my non-WP-hosted one, there’ve been a total of about 40 downloads of Yin-Yang and less than 10 each of the new Jordans one, Moonblood stories, Lamia, and BlackWolf – with only a small percentage of those ever leading to any feedback.) Because, despite all logic, I do. :-)  But then, I did a recent post on that whole subject, so there’s no point repeating it. I would like to have more readers, obviously, but not at the current prices.

For the moment, I’ll let my mind rest a little the way I’d let my body rest after repeated injuries, and be back to writing something in no time.

New Novel Posted!

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A less serious work, this time, that was completed with record speed – but I’m still rather pleased with it. It’s the first of the Resurrection Project experiments, in fact, and I believe the first anyone has seen my Jordans family since I was in high school, or thereabouts.

Click here for the RP page on this site, or here for Renegade itself. :-)