I’m in the final phase of editing Supercomputer. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it should be completed this week.
During the week, I’ve spent most of my time on the rough draft for Desperate Action, the tentative title for the first book of The Traveler series. I’m trying to transition my writing to use a technique called “Writing into the Dark.” It’s a technique that allows a writer to write one clean draft by looping. I’m in the middle of a couple of fo stories, so I’m kind of half writing into the dark and half using a rough outline that I jotted down. When I start the next new book, I’ll use “writing into the dark” for the whole book, from start to finish. It’ll slow me down at first, but I’ll come out ahead in the end.
I’ve written 307k words this year, so far. I’ll probably end the year with around 400k. For 2023, I’m planning to up my game and write 1 million words in a year. That’s Pulp speed 1 and I know I can do it. Even with a full-time job. The number one thing that is killing my productivity is the time it takes to outline and edit. If I can incorporate outlining and editing into the process of writing the book (aka “Writing into the Dark”), then I can just smoothly produce one book after another. Notice that I’m not talking about writing faster. I’m just going to be more productive. That’s why I’m willing to take a hit now to learn the technique, even though it’ll temporarily slow down my process.
The MacKenzie Steele Series
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at those books. I spent a little time re-publishing the short stories (volumes 1-10). I had taken them down when I combined them into a one-book collection. After reading what other authors do with their short stories, I stumbled across an article where Dean Wesley Smith publishes his short stories AND he publishes the collections. He also recommends creating a paperback version of each short. So I did that as well. For the first time, stories 1 through 10 are available individually as paperback or eBooks.
I also have plans to add more short stories to my collection. Not just for the MacKenzie Steele universe, but for other series as well as stand-alone stories. To get warmed up, I started a short story involving Sergeant Swift and his band of space marines. I’ll be adding that one to the MacKenzie Steele series. The timeline is after the last novel (Terminal Society). So far, I’ve been utilizing time slots in my day that are outside my normal writing time. I hope to use this technique to write additional short stories without taking up any of my novel writing time.
I have plans to break apart volumes 11 through 20 from the collection called Storm Clouds Gathering into individual short stories with paperback editions to match volumes 1-10. The only thing slowing that down is that I have to create a cover for each book. Once I do that, it’ll only take me an afternoon to set it all up.
I’m ending my use of Kindle Unlimited
I’m analyzing my business and have decided to attempt going wide. What that means is that I will be selling my books on other sites, like Kobo, Smashwords, etc. Maybe even right here on my own site (I haven’t made up my mind on that yet). In order to do that, I have to end the KU offering on Amazon, because the contract requires me to be exclusive to them. I love Amazon, but I have to keep my options open.
For those who use KU (like I do), and you’re in the middle of the Daphne series, I will be offering Supercomputer as a KU book for the first 90 days. By the end of the year, all of my books will be off KU. The reason for the delay is that KU renews every 90 days and I just went through all of my books and turned off the renewal. The last books will be off KU on December 3rd. Supercomputer will be after that, depending on the publish date (so it will be on KU for 90 days from the publishing date). The first book that KU will expire on will be The Nav Computer (on October 8th).
This Blog
If you’re reading this on Facebook, that’s because this article originates on my blog (Galactic Core Books). Then the article is whisked off to Facebook and reposted automagically. The blog is someplace I created to post updates and announcements, but I want to use it for more granular updates of progress on books and short stories. The banners that are required for this theme make the blog attractive, but they can be a hassle to deal with. I might change the WordPress theme to use one that doesn’t have the headers. I will probably also rearrange the layout of the website itself so that the blog is a part of the website instead of the whole thing. The landing page will be my list of books and series with information on what is available for purchase. Right now, there is a book page that lists my books (most of them), but I would like to expand that page and it would best serve new readers if that was the first thing they stumbled onto when they arrived.
But… (OK, no buts), I’ll still maintain a blog. So if the theme changes and you think you’re in the wrong place, just explore around and get familiar with the new digs. I promise it’ll be better. I’m planning to do more posts but keep them shorter. I also want to do some challenges to push myself. One challenge that I have my eye on and might do at the end of this year, or the beginning of next year is a short story a day for a month. What I’ll do is use “Writing into the Dark” to create each story, then create a cover and post the eBook and paperback book on Amazon. If I get the flow going, I can get them posted on other sites as well, factory-style. When I’m done with the challenge, I’ll create a collection containing all of the short stories with a new cover and publish that as well (for anyone that wants to buy the whole she-bang at once).
Changes to Daphne Series
I did a minor change to the series setup on Amazon. I changed it to allow the books to be read in any order. Technically, they are a chronicle. That means that they are not linked together. I wrote each book specifically with the idea that the story would be closed off at the end. There are some references or foreshadowing in some books about future stories, but they are kind of minor, so I changed the ordered series into an unordered series.
AI Patch
I’m getting ready to release this book under wide distribution. That means it will never be KU (and future books will probably never be KU either unless I decide there is a compelling reason to do KU). It’s about ready to go, but Michelle wants to read it, so I want to get her opinion of what I created. She thinks it could be a larger story (she read the first few scenes when I started writing it), but it came out to 18.6k words. Which is technically a short story (almost a novella). If she has an idea that sounds intriguing, I might expand the story and publish it later. Otherwise, I’ll just publish it as is.
So, hang tough. I have to get busy and get some of these things wrapped up.