Holy crap, is it the end of July already? I guess it is.
So I’ve been making progress on my current WIP, A Queen in Hiding (Sons of the Starfarers: Book 7). Not quite as much as I would like, but it’s coming along. As usual, of all the stories I could have written, I’ve chosen the hardest one to write, but that’s okay because it’s going to turn out quite well. And if it doesn’t, I’ll put it aside and come back to it later.
I haven’t been writing as many short stories as I would like, but I’ve got a couple in the works that should open up some interesting new universes. Also, my thoughts on short stories are starting to change. There aren’t very many markets for original fiction that are really worth it, once you factor in the wait time and the circulation along with the payout. However, there are a ton of places that pay only token amounts but take reprints and simultaneous submissions.
I still think it’s a bad idea to self-publish first, but I may only submit to three or four markets before publishing my stories myself and moving on to the reprint markets. If I can flood the smaller markets with a bunch of my stories, that might be better than waiting for them to trickle through the submissions pipeline one at a time.
On the publishing side, the next big project is The Sword Keeper. I just got the edits back. Haven’t gone through them yet, but I’ll do that as soon as I’m finished with my WIP. The big holdup is finding a cover artist. This is my first fantasy novel, and I really want it to be awesome. Need to get the ball rolling on that real soon.
Ideally, I would like to get to the point where I’ve got a new short story coming out every two to three weeks, and at least one novel on pre-order all through the year. The idea is to put another novel on pre-order before the latest one is fully released. The short story end shouldn’t be too hard, as long as I can keep writing them. The novel end is a bit tougher, as it requires publishing four novels a year (maximum pre-order length is 90 days).
It’s not impossible, though. I’m scheduling the last four Sons of the Starfarers releases so that the next one is up for pre-order before the latest one comes out. That will hopefully buy some time to line up a few full-length novels in the queue. Just need to keep up a solid writing schedule for the rest of the year.
And on that note, I’m going to get back to writing. Take care!
