I received this email from a friend this morning, and thought I’d share it with you:
Dude… where’s the writing/publishing updates?
I need to know what’s going on with my writing friend’s authoring endeavors (perhaps because I may somewhat slightly a teensy bit be living vicariously through said endeavors?) 🙂 🙂
Anyway … why is it so quiet on the website?
Hope all is well. And that you’re still selling many books.
And finishing the third book in the Jefferson Road series……….
🙂
Greg
This is what I sent in reply (slightly edited for personal content):
I’m still plugging away at stuff. Concentrating mainly on Topheth (Coppersmith sequel) and previously mentioned JR. Just figured out a major plot point in JR this morning (I do my best writing in the shower for some reason).
The book sales have petered off since the first major push of September. I’m needing reviews on the next two books (Spilled Milk and Eye of Darkness) before I can do any more formal promoting (something about five reviews needed minimally, though my publicist wants ten for the next one we promo. Yikes!).
So I’m just concentrating on getting something new finished. I’ve also been helping a friend with his book covers and formatting. He’s leaving his publisher and going indie, so I’ve been commissioned to assist. It’s good for a couple hundred bucks.
I plan on NaNoing this year (from NaNoWriMo – National November Writing Month and the attempt to crank out 50K words in 30 days), so I’ll use that time to get one or both of these books off my plate.
Other than that, I’ve been doing a lot of home repair. Just finished reinstalling a sump pump in the basement. The seal on the previous pump’s motor broke, and the entire motor housing got contaminated with water. Electric motors and water don’t mix. Anyway, they had an older pump down there that the motor still worked, but the pump fan was damaged. I repaired it with JB Power Weld and reinstalled. Hope it works!
So between housing repairs (washer, dryer, sump and vacuum cleaner), and overtime, I haven’t gotten a lot written. But I am still writing!
How ’bout you? What’s new on the homefront?
– Michael
Yes, it’s true, I’ve been somewhat absent from the site for a while. I should add that I’ve also begun the next installment on The Dragon’s Eye Cycle. Spending time with that when the main projects are just getting a little too frustrating. The advantage of fantasy is that I don’t have to do that much research as with other books.
The other thing I’ve realized – and this is essentially true of the Jefferson’s Road series, is that every new book gives me less and less freedom than the book before. The previous works constrain me in ways that a new novel doesn’t. I have to ensure that I’m maintaining consistency throughout, and the more I write, the harder this gets. My hat goes off to others who’ve done this and done it well (JK Rowling comes to mind – radically different genre, of course, but still: seven sequential books that have to remain consistent with the previous installments, or there’s hell to pay!)
At any rate, I hope to have some new material for y’all soon!
Glad I could inspire a blog post. 🙂
And thanks for the update. I thought you might actually use the NaNo thing to write a NEW novel. (You’re slightly crazy like that…) Finishing things up is fun/rewarding, too. (Even if it’s harder, more constraints. Right?)
Happy writing!
Oh, believe me: I thought about writing a new novel. In fact, several candidates have offered to take the slot. I have the next Jonathan Munro Adventure to write, the sequel to Spilled Milk, as well as a spy thriller I’m anxious to begin called In the Plain of Shinar. I even thought about writing the sequel to Eye of Darkness, but since I know that book will be about twice as long as the 50K goal, I had to dismiss it pretty quickly.
I followed your link from IndieAuthors over to your site. I got curious about your book titles. 🙂 You have had such great success with your titles! With my release of my book I feel like I’m slowly getting sucked into the black hole of indie author oblivion. Promoting my book seems hard to impossible at times! Anyway I just thought I’d say hi!
Hi Sherri and welcome!
Indie Authoring is a whole new experience. It’s true, we are in a black hole trying to climb up. As an indie author, we are now in competition not only with the “professionally published” authors out there, but with every other indie author at the same time, all competing for a slice of the pie. All I can recommend to you is to study, learn the craft not only of writing, but of publishing as well, and learn how to promote effectively (I’m actually designing a course for my writer’s group here that teaches a bunch of this stuff).
The other thing I recommend is to write and release as much as you can as fast as you can. The more books you have to sell, the more those sales will feed into each other. Remember, this isn’t a one year “get rich quick” plan. This is at least a ten year plan. After ten years of consistently writing and promoting quality fiction, I believe any writer should be able to be earning a decent buck from his or her craft. It may not be “quit your job” money (that kinda depends on how much you make at your day job), but it well could be.