I am really close to being done with Vanished. I am the first to admit that it is a bit messy in the second half. But that is because I hadn’t quite figured out what should happen. In other words: it is a first draft, with room to improvement. The plan is to finish it tomorrow, or on Monday since I don’t think I will have time today.
Anyway, I look forward to let you read it sometime in 2017. Along with something fun that me and my friends are planning. 🙂
Normally, I write 1000 words per day when I am not working. Not this time. This time, I am writing 500 words per day. And that is ok. Because every story is different. So stories are easy to write, the words just flow. Some stories isn’t. This stories is one of the latter. Oh, the first part was easy to write, but this part isn’t. But I am in no hurry. I should be done in July sometime or August. It all depends on how long this story is. And that is pretty much in flux. Right now the estimated wordcount in Scrivener is 18000 words, but that is Part 1 and 2. I can say that it will be longer than that. I think part 2 alone will be 15000 words. And then there are there fact that there might be a part 3…
Anyway. I have written 5000 words on part 2, and it feels right that I have another 7000-10 0000 words to go.
And yes, I am trying to not freak out over the fact that my short story is going to be a novella, if not a novel. If it turns out to be a novel.. Well. I will think about that when I am done with the draft.
So I have been thinking about my release schedule for 2016. Oh, don’t worry. You are getting Daughter of the Dark, the sequel, and the collection. But you are also getting all the separate short stories, since I changed my mind about just doing the collection.
So what does this mean? It means that in March or April, I will begin to release the short stories, once or twice a month. Then, in June or July, Daughter of the Dark will be released. Then in Sept or October, the next novella, then the collection in Dec or so. And then, we begin it all over again. Except instead of short stories, there will be bundles and print editions coming in early 2016.
So why am I doing this? Because, I have looked at some successful romance authors, and noticed that this is what many of them are doing: They release the first 3-4 books in a series really close to each other ( in some cases, that IS the series), and then market it heavily ( like first book in the series free or discounted). Then there are also the fact that I am a slow writer. Or that isn’t quite true. I am a writer of the slow and steady kind, but what takes time for me is revising. Especially since there need to be several rounds of revising.
So by doing it this way, I get to maximise the impact of the releases. Or at least that is the plan. Oh, I am also giving myself deadlines,since I really need to begin revising the second book. Ahem. And write two of the short stories. That said, nothing is set in stone. It might turn out that some of the short stories gets pushed back, or a novella. You get the idea.
But 2016 will be an exciting year!
I have been frustrated about my lack of sales, despite dropping the price
.So I have spent the morning tweaking my keywords.
Why? Because while cover and blurb makes a reader click on the buy button keywords tells them that your books exist.
Before I tweaked them they were something like this: military fantasy adventure, bronze age Celtic fantasy Elf.
After 20 minutes of free writing and some Amazon searches,the keywords have changed to war warrior witch quest undead curse sorcerer.
One the surface it might look more generic which is the point, but the combination makes it specific. Oh, and I haven’t listed all keywords.
Now I want *You* to take a pen and paper or open an empty document and write down 7-10 words that boils down what your book is about.
Don’t think too much about it, just write
it down.
Once you have written them it is up to you what to do with them. You can use them as a basis for an elevator pitch. If the story is selfpublished you can log in to KDP or Smashwords and enter them there. One note: If you want to get into subcategories, you have to add commas. Also while it says 7 keywords, one keyword can be made up of several words.
The proofread manuscript arrived in my inbox last night/ early this morning, so I have spent the morning proofreading Exile, and fixing the issues that Lillian had found.
Then I spent the afternoon fixing the formatting. 🙂 There are some final touches needed, like adding the cover, a link to my newsletter, etc. But I am almost ready to upload it and hit publish! In fact, if I had been at home, this post would probably have been about that Exile was released. 🙂 But since I am at dad’s, it will be out… later this week. It will definitely be out before I go to Shamrokon, though.
Exile will be a available as a free read on my webpage until Sept 1st. Then I am uploading it to other places, and raising the price to 0.99.
I finished the prequel story last week, and since I don’t have the time to start writing something new, I spent Friday and Saturday writing notes about gnomes, shifters and Vampire on my tablet. It was an experiment, to see if I could actually do something writing related on a tablet without getting a headache. Today, I decided to do something else. And, since I’m planning on Editing Daughter of the Dark in February, I decided to read through A Shadow of Love, the sequel. Which turned out to be such a hot mess, that I had to ask myself if it had been revised at all. If it was revised, I did an crappy job at it. To be fair, the plot is rather solid. Too bad nothing else is…
The draft is at 19000 words, and at the moment, it is more like an very detailed outline. That means it should be doable for me to rewrite it before I get Daughter of the Dark back from the editor. If nothing else, it will be a challenge. And I like challenges.
I finished the first draft of Cauldron Born today. It isn’t perfect, but I’m proud of it. Cauldron Born was originally written for an anthology, as a historical fantasy short story featuring undead. Except as I finished the first draft of that story, I knew I had left a lot of the story untold. So I let it sit, with the vague plan of rewriting it, and change the setting to Ireland or the British Isles.
Fast forward, a couple of years. I’m revising the Daughter of the Dark, when I have a lightbulb moments. Set the story during the Clan Wars. Which I decided to do.
And this mental journey is a sign of how I have grown as a writer. When I started writing, setting was set. It was the thing that I couldn’t change, or the story would be gone for me.
To be honest, I’m glad that has changed. Since sometimes, stories need a different setting. And that isn’t the only thing that have changed. When I outlined this story, I outlined it in less than 1 hour. More, I trusted myself to write the portions that I wasn’t sure about. And I succeeded. Granted, this was a straightforward story, and not as complex as some of the stories I’ve written previously.
But I’m happy with it. And I’m especially proud of the fact that I wrote it in 3 weeks, despite the fact it was christmas and New Years. I also feel ready to tackle some of those more complex stories later this year. First on the list is the sequel to The Demonlord’s Escape, previously known as Angel among Demons. .The new title fits beautifully, since a big part of the plot is pulled by Lucifer’s wish to escape from Hell. I’ll probably start writing the Heaven and Hell #2 some time this summer, since I have Cauldron 2 to write first, and also a prequel to Daughter of the Dark. ( Which will hopefully be a short story.)
But now, I’m off to enjoy my weekend off, since I’m not even thinking about writing until Monday.
This teaser is much further into the book, but it is being cut, since the vampire is far away, and she doesn’t have that good nose :).
I took a deep breath, and froze. Hidden beneath the smell of freshly baked bread, were the metallic scent of vampire.“ By the Moon. Why are vampire males so stubborn?” I hissed under my breath. I had no doubt that the vampire was Rocha, had decided to follow me. Despite being told that I didn’t need his company. I knew several ways to lose him in the crowd. If I wanted to.