Sunday, October 9, 2011

Quarterly report Numero Two

Quick update on how the writing "plan" is going.

Completed novels - None. Still not getting traction on long form fiction. I did make it into novella territory with one novel. I am going to do NaNoWriMo next month, with a goal of 2k a day. So maybe I will be close to finishing a novel for real in December.

Completed short stories - Basically about 24. A few of those are still in editing, but they are basically done. That is twice what I had finished last quarter, so I am doing a good job there, staying on track. I credit the day off story challenge for really helping with momentum. I have a number of partials as well, and a ton of idea bank treatments.

Other stuff - I have been voice recording less, mainly because I have been writing less overall. Yep, stopping the blog to have more time to write did nothing to help my production. Several days spent futzing with typewriters haven't helped. Also, I seem to be writing slower since Dillocon. More thought going into what I'm writing means a longer time to finish. I'm hoping I pick back up as I internalize all the stuff I've been learning. Nearly everything I'm writing is shorter now, too. Funny, that.

Sales - None. I just put a new cover on Tes-Nin to see if that helps get any sales, as well as bumping the price on Smashwords up to .99 cents. I have just shy of 100 free downloads in two months, so I am not really worried that I will be losing exposure. Whether I sell some now or not, the real deal is that I need to get more stuff up. But...

Submissions - I have sixteen stories in submissions now. Nearly everything I have that is finished and edited. Some of those stories are coming up on five or six rejections, so I am contemplating putting them up myself. If I can keep writing new stuff to sub, I will have to put the old stuff up, since I will already have something in with every market already.

Questions - I am not sure I'm not completely wasting my time subbing to paying markets instead of just putting my stories up myself. If I had a longer backlist or more time writing I wouldn't have to make that choice. I really need to get a better business plan going this quarter, x-mas is going to be huge for new ereader sales. Also, was I doing better just writing and pushing ahead? I've been doing a lot of revision lately, time which might be better spent on new stuff. Hopefully I will have more progress to report on at the end of next quarter.

2 comments:

Tahlia Newland said...

I gave up submitting to magazines. I decided my stuff was just too different. Now I'm about to stick them all in an anthology & self epub. I suggest that's what you do. I'm buying your story by the way. It sounds great.

Silver Bowen said...

Tahlia,

First off, thanks for commenting.

The ideal plan for short fiction goes like this: Submit, sell, get check, rights revert, self epub. That way I get paid both ways. That's the theory.

I am on track to have more stuff to submit than pro-paying markets to submit to very soon. As I write new stuff, I will be putting the older, unsold stuff up myself. No sense letting anything just sit on my hard drive.

The plan of just straight-up self epubbing as you finish stories is a valid one, though. If I had known six months ago where I would be now, I might have done so myself.

Thanks for buying my story, BTW. I hope you enjoy it. More stuff set in that universe will be available soon.