Tag: indieauthor

Posted on

Bah. Socializing.

Hi guys!

Last week was a hell of a week. I got Soul Bearer up and going, despite a shit ton of technical problems. It’s officially up for pre-order, in case you didn’t know from me posting all over social media about it. Lmao.

The official release date is October 22, 2019. So close! I’ll have information about the giveaway soon, I promise. But it won’t actually take place until closer to release day, anyway.

I’ll be honest, it doesn’t feel real yet.

I also started contacting ARC readers, and powered through a SHIT TON of editing on Salt and Silver (WIP in preparation for beta readers).

I also realized just how much I’m working on. Lol. I don’t know if you’ve looked at my works in progress page, but damn.

I never really think about it until I talk about one of my stories with someone, and they mix it up with another, and I have to stop and say, “no, that’s a different one.”

I can’t wait to get all these books out.

I’m gonna need help maintaining my sanity over the next year or year and a half. Which brings me to the topic of the day.

The importance of finding a writing group.

I’m lucky enough to have a supportive husband and family, but a lot of writers don’t have that. From what I’ve seen in various groups, a lot of people have the opposite.

Which sucks because…writing isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Whether you struggle to write, or to edit, or to market (*cough cough* me + marketing = nightmare), there’s always some part of it that trips people up. I’ve yet to meet a writer who loved every single aspect of being an author.

And that’s fine.

It can be frustrating, at times.

Not to mention the drain of imposter syndrome. Feeling like you aren’t good enough, or like you’re not a real writer can really drag you down. Any creative profession is rife with self doubt.

On the one hand, it’s what tells you to keep learning and improving. But it also has the potential to stop you in your tracks.

And that’s why you need a group of people around you to keep you going.

And coming from me, that’s saying something. I AM NOT a group oriented person.

At all.

I’ve briefly touched on my social anxiety in past blogs, and how it dates all the way back to preschool. I’ve mentioned how I started preschool a year early to socialize, then didn’t talk to the teachers for a year and a half. Then, when it was time to do testing for kindergarten, I wouldn’t talk to them either, so they thought I needed special ed. My mom asked me their questions, I did fine, and they said, “just go to kindergarten.”

So I did.

But I didn’t talk to the teacher there for like…9 months.

So I don’t typically like groups or socializing or talking.

But writing groups are a necessity.

I’m in several. Lol.

The friendships I’ve built (with people who know the struggle of misbehaving imaginary friends) and the things I’ve learned from them…they’re definitely worth the initial awkward feeling of, “Oh, god! New people! What do I say? What do I do? Have I gone too long without saying anything? Did they forget I’m in the group? Are they glad I’m not messaging? Do they talk about me when I’m not in the group?”

Because when you push that aside and get past it, you get so much out of a writing group.

If you’re looking for one, I’m in World Indie Warriors. There’s a page on IG and FB. They’re wonderful, and super supportive. Not only are they amazing friends, they’ve talked me through a lot of tech problems (because I’m garbage with computer anything) and helped me with cover design and all manner of other things.

There’s also Fiction Writing on FB. It’s a huge group, so anytime you need a lot of opinions, that’s a great place to go. It’s also great for getting questions answered. With 90,000 members, there’s bound to be someone who knows the answer. Lol.

I recently joined Writing Bad on FB, but have been working, so I haven’t gotten to explore that one yet.

There’s also Fellow Creative Minds on IG and Women Writing Fiction on FB, but I’m not in either of those as much as I should be.

Even if you just join a small group, maybe five or six people, it can be super helpful.

Especially when it comes to writing quality. You NEED to have other people looking at your work. You’re too close to it to pick out every flaw. You know the scenes and the characters, so you don’t always see when you need to elaborate more. Maybe it’s the opposite. Some people over-describe.

If other people are looking at your work, they can tell you these things (in a constructive manner) to help you grow as a writer.

You need people to push you, to challenge you. You need people to help you become the writer you’re meant to be.

And that means…*dun dun dun*…reaching out.

Because even the most antisocial among us…sometimes just need someone we trust to say, “You’re good enough, you can handle this, and you deserve this.”

So, go join a group. All the ones I mentioned above are very welcoming.

I’ll stop screaming socialization, though. Lol.

For now…

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Later.

Posted on

Decisions…

Hello, all!

Since I know the aforementioned announcement is what likely brought most of you here, I will, of course, keep you waiting.

Lol.

After all, what writer in their write (see what I did there?) mind would give away the goods at the beginning?

None. Not a single one.

So, I’ll start with a progress report. The rewrite of the first half of Salt and Silver is done, and I have officially moved forward into writing the rest of the story. This supernatural romance has taken a lot of twists and turns that I did not see coming. But I love it.

When I started the rewrite, I had roughly 40,000 words across 100 pages (ish). Now, I have 49,547 words over the course of 128 pages. 🙂

I’m pretty happy with how it’s going, and I’m super excited to keep pushing forward.

I also managed to do the alchemy photo shoot I mentioned last week. If you haven’t seen it, head over to my Instagram or my Facebook author page, and check it out. (Links for both are at the absolute bottom of any page of my website.)

Anyway, I really like how it turned out. It took so long to do, but that’s okay. The sigils on the necklaces (which I sculpted and painted) took about an hour and a half to make, and turned out awesome. Set up for the shoot took about an hour and a half, maybe two hours, and the shoot itself took maybe an hour?

But it really brought Ness’ potion making livelihood right into my living room (literally). It brought her to life even more than she already was. In doing so, it contributed to Salt and Silver in a more…ambiguous way. Because now, I’ve been in her “home.” Lol.

Now, though, to bring this around almost to the main topic.

Over the past week, I’ve been doing more research into the differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing, as well as the pros and cons of each.

Some of these things are obvious.

Traditional publishing means you have teams of professionals doing some of the work for you, which is nice, especially when it comes to marketing (which I suck at). It also means unbearably long wait times.

The query/submission stage of any book project is maddening. Each agent or publisher has their own list of things they want you to write about the book to send along with the manuscript, and they all have their own formatting requirements.

Some want a one sentence summary, including the ending, of the story you’ve just spent 70,000 to 120,000 words telling (which is incredibly difficult), along with a query letter, and the first three chapters of the manuscript. Another might want a three page synopsis, a cover letter (yes, this is different from a query letter, though in very small ways), and the whole manuscript. Others want all of the above, as well as market research, and five year plans.

And every single submission item, be it a one sentence summary, a query letter, or a synopsis, is both an art and a science, in and of itself.

Needless to say, submitting to one agent or publisher can take hours. And all of this is after you’ve compiled a list of people to submit to who are, at that exact moment in time, accepting unagented submissions in that genre, with no theme or subject matter restrictions which would eliminate your work.

Then, you get to wait.

Anywhere from two weeks to an entire year.

Some of them require that you submit nowhere else while they consider it.

So a manuscript can just be placed on hold in someone’s inbox for a year, and you can’t do a thing with it.

Then, there’s the fact that offers are only made on 1-2% of submissions at any given publisher…

All told, the submission process is riddled with grueling hours in front of a screen and waiting and rejections and waiting and heartache and yes…more waiting.

Then, more rejections…

And, for a while, I thought it would be worth it.

Not for the prestige of being picked up by a traditional publisher. Don’t get me wrong, getting an offer for a book deal would be fantastic. The validation of it would be magnificent.

But I just kind of assumed it would be better. I assumed that my work would do better with a traditional publisher, and that the money would be better, thus I’d be able to be a full time author much faster.

Over the course of my research this week, though…I discovered that this isn’t really the case. I was watching a video on Youtube by Alexa Donne called Traditional Publishing Book Money 101, and learned some rather shocking things about the publishing industry.

Apparently, advances (predicted royalties paid ahead of time in good faith) are paid out over the course of a couple years, not all at once. As of 2017 (when she made the video), the average advance was between $1,000 and $10,000. Sounds good, right?

Except, that it’s then halved by agent fees and taxes (which are 40%, because Uncle Sam treats it as freelance/contractor work). So…$500 to $5,000…over the course of a couple years…

Not quite quit your day job money.

And since it takes so long to get a book deal, often years, there aren’t going to be many of those small checks coming in.

So…it seems…far less worth it to wait out the submission process.

Now, self-publishing can work very well for people who write quality books quickly, and who can market themselves.

I suck at marketing, but I learn fast.

And I write quickly, with high standards.

So, if you haven’t guessed where this is leading, I’ve decided to stop putting time into submissions. Instead, I’ll be focusing on the final rounds of edits, formatting, arranging cover art, and self-publishing.

I’ll be re-releasing The Gem of Meruna (likely first, because it needs updated and I can assign a lower price on kdp than that assigned by the original publisher).

Then, I have three standalone novels to release. Where Darkness Leads is dark fantasy romance. Soul Bearer is sword and sorcery/fantasy romance. After is post-apocalyptic, and a bit of a roller coaster.

By the time all that is done, I hope to have Salt and Silver done, as well as The Regonia Chronicles. And the thriller I got an idea for over the past week, tentatively called Second to None. Plus all the other ideas I have, and the stories I’ve begun, but haven’t had time to finish just yet.

So, long story short, the decision to self-publish is a very exciting one.

After and Soul Bearer are each still submitted to a couple agents and publishers, so, of course, I’ll await their responses before moving forward with this. It wouldn’t make sense to throw away the work of submitting, my time, and the time of the people reading through them.

But, given the 1-2% odds, they’ll likely be self-published. Lol.

Anyway, the future looks rather promising. I’ve got a lot to do, and I can only hope that my day job doesn’t mandate me for too much overtime. :/

But, for now, I’d better be going. I’m off work tomorrow, but I have an unfortunately early morning calling my name.

So…

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Later.