I finally finished re-reading my rough draft and editing as I went along. Now I’m finishing the remaining scenes to get the book completed. I want to get the rough draft completed this week and get it to the editor. This is a shorter book (probably going to end up around 35k-40k in length). It’s a free book that will be added to my mailing list.
I switched to Mailerlite
I got off MailChimp and installed Mailerlite. I like the simplified interface much better. MailChimp is archaic to work with. Don’t get me wrong, it works great, once I can find the right screens, but it was painful to use every time. Fortunately, my mail list is small and Mailerlite had an import from MailChimp function. I’m going to try to get a schedule together to send emails at regular intervals. That’ll keep people up to date on the books that I’m working on without blasting them with sales ads (’cause nobody wants that).
Artwork
I’m practicing my art skills. Going to have to bring them out of retirement. So far, it appears that drawing with a calligraphy pen and India ink is like riding a bicycle. I still got it. I tried to use the acrylic inks, but they dry so fast, I can’t focus on what I’m drawing. Anyway, I have to come up with five temples that I’ll hand sketch, then go over with ink. Those will appear in the Tome of Revelations. I might do some additional drawings for that book, but I’m not sure yet.
Desperate Action – The Traveler Series
If you’ve been following this blog, you already know that the first book (Desperate Action) is out on Amazon. My next task is to publish to Draft2Digital and Kobo. I have a rough set of notes for book 2. I’m going to let that percolate for a few months while I write The Demons. Alternating between two series is a bit hazardous. Once The Demons is complete, what happens next depends on a lot of factors. If Desperate Action takes off, then the second book will be my first priority. The Demons probably won’t have time to get traction by then, so I won’t know how that series will look until I’m well into the next Traveler Series book. If I end up with two popular series at the same time, I plan to alternate books (keeping my fingers crossed that I run into that problem). If only one series takes off, I’ll have to reanalyze my long-term plan for the series that has little to no interest. I could let it hang out there for some time and then pick it up if it takes off. That has the risk that people will not read the first book because it was published a year ago and no further books are written. I could just slow-walk them and produce one book for the series not doing well then write two or three books of the series that is taking off. If that happens, then I’ll shorten the not-so-popular series to fewer books and cap off the story. I think it’s better to finish my work than to let something unfinished hang out there. Of course, there’s always the option of pulling the one book not selling… Nah!
It’s too bad that there is no way to determine how popular a series will be before writing the first book. It would certainly be nice if an author could write a quick short story and test how popular the story is. Then base a series from that. However, short stories are tricky. They don’t sell like books and it’s impossible to judge by the number of downloads of a free version (how many people actually read it and how many of those enjoyed the story). It’s always possible to take a vote, but then you have to drive potential readers to the site where the voting takes place (and get them to read the sample).
So, I just do what all the authors do… roll the dice. Write a book and see how it does.
I remember when the reimaged version of Battlestar Galactica came out. I was so geeked about the miniseries when it aired on TV. I kept my fingers crossed that it received enough viewers to merit a series because the original series died rapidly (it really wasn’t as good as it could have been). Of course, it’s all history now and everyone knows that BG turned out to be one of the most popular SciFi series on television. The producers of that show took a risk, but they technically had a stand-alone movie/mini-series that could have been tossed out there on its own. It would have been a bummer though because they left so many open threads at the end of the mini-series. But, that’s the idea behind writing the first book of a series. Make it somewhat stand-alone, then work from that if it takes off.
Unfortunately for Desperate Action, there are a few loose ends hanging by the end of the book. They’re not cliffhangers, but they are head-scratchers. The central questions of the story are not answered as well: will they survive and who are these aliens that are attacking Earth? Fortunately, that story could be turned into a trilogy if necessary. I hope I can produce the full 5-10 books in the series and make it into something epic. Only time will tell.
Escape from the Abyss
This series is going to be much more challenging. The first book (The Demons) is going to kick things off and there will be many more threads hanging. That’s because the character count is much higher than in Desperate Action. The story is much more complex as well. And just to make my life more difficult, each book will be larger than the books I’ve written in the past. I finally have the skills to pull it off and I’m determined to do it. If you’re looking for a series that you can just crawl into for the long haul, this is going to be one of those. If the first book turns out to be a dud (for whatever reason), I still have the option of turning this series into a trilogy. Unfortunately, a trilogy will end up cutting out a lot of fun that I have built into the story. The characters in that story have a lot to experience along the way and there is the possibility of a follow-on series where they successfully arrive at their destination but still must battle the demons. That is so far down the road that I don’t really have time to think about it. I’m just trying to get through the first 20 books.