Daily life: Editing and publishing and marketing, oh my
"UK booksellers are not yet reduced to the condition of their American cousins, who have gone beyond firing staff and are now using their bodies for food and heat. They fear the Kindle like it was the breath of the devil's cock on their shoulder - despite the fact that Mr Bezos's clever little board has probably not sold a million units yet. Because, as any American bookseller will shriek at you while gouging their own forearms open with Stanley knives, only 34 Americans actually buy and read books."
--Warren Ellis: The Kindle is a mewling, crippled pining thing.
For newcomers: Background to my writing entries | Background to my mentoring entries | Background to my simplicity entries | Background to my home entries.
*** 6 June 2009. Simplicity and Writing: Mapping out my publishing time.
I think I'm beginning to get a hang of this "be terse" bit. (Okay, so it only took me forty years.) Here's my summary of a thousand words' worth of entries that I'd written earlier:
1) My examination of my schedule-keeping statistics show that the biggest factor in how much writing-related work I get done is not (as I'd assumed) my Internet usage, but rather how many non-writing-related activities distract me. For example, I got more writing-related work done in December 2008 than in April 2009, even though I spent less time on the Internet in April. I'm most distracted by non-writing-related activities in the spring/summer, so I get less work done then.
2) My "no acquisitions" policy, while it hasn't stopped me from acquiring new possessions, has stopped me from acquiring as much as I did in the past.
Now you don't have to sit through the remaining nine hundred words of my babbling. Aren't you relieved? :)
Well, actually, I'll give you a snippet of my "no acquisitions" entry, because it's the only part worth keeping:
o--o--o
I'm also going to try to focus my attention more on the items I already own. This requires some training of my brain. At the moment, my mind works like this:
Me: "Let's see: I have several thousand books in my house to read, and several thousand e-books, and hundreds of articles, and dozens of boxes of papers--"
Mind: "Oo, shiny!" (*Wanders off to download 137 new files.*)
o--o--o
Speaking of minds not focussing on their work, I really need to finish up my paperback template this week (if only because my library books on InDesign - which have been renewed twice - are due back at the library next week). I no longer have the excuse that I'm worn out after editing The Eternal Dungeon, because I've gotten into the groove of doing that now. In fact, I'm halfway through editing Transformation, so I'm going to go ahead and finish that volume all up before I start serializing it. Doing the layout all at once is much easier than doing it four times.
What this means is that I may get the editing done by the end of June for the first three Eternal Dungeon volumes (which is all I'm planning to post this year; the fourth volume is in progress). Wow.
Not that you guys are going to see the installments that quickly. :) I may be egotistical, but I'm not egotistical enough to think that most of you would be willing to read my thirty-thousand-word novellas if I was posting them every day or two. (Though I know that a few of you are gluttons for punishment.) At any rate, I'm going to take time off now from online serializations in order to work on my first paperback.
Aside from giving me time to work on publishing some other fiction this summer, my sped-up editing schedule will also give me the time I need to devote to print publishing and marketing. Heaven knows that I'll need that time; it looks as though I'm going to go with Lightning Source after all, because I'm hearing horror stories about customer service at CreateSpace. I'll try one book with Lightning Source; if the publishing process turns out to be too time-consuming, I can always fall back on CreateSpace for my next book.
Oh, and I'll also have more time this summer for being with Doug and my apprentice. I really need that.
Meanwhile, I have a new idea for a category name for entry titles . . .
*** 6 June 2009. Reading and viewing: Oo, shiny! Closer v. 2.
Closer v. 2, an unofficial sequel to the original Closer Star Trek slash vid. Am I the only one finds it frightening that it's so very easy for vidders to find "violence = intimacy" clips? That speaks volumes about what professional film-makers consider to be an intimate scene.
*** 9 June 2009. Writing: GLBT Bookshelf (wiki for GLBT literature folk).
My newest playground is the GLBT Bookshelf. Started by author Mel Keegan, the bookshelf provides pages for authors, artists, and publishers; articles and forums; and a listing of GLBT books, divided by category. Because it's a wiki, anyone can contribute entries.
I'd stumbled across Mel Keegan's blog a while back and had posted a couple of comments there; when we fell into an e-mail exchange about accessible books for readers of gay fiction, Mel told me about the wiki and encouraged me to take part. As a reader, I like the Bookshelf; it's an easy way for me to find GLBT books at the same time that I find information about the authors. And as a writer, I like having my books listed somewhere besides Amazon and Lulu. :)
--Warren Ellis: The Kindle is a mewling, crippled pining thing.
For newcomers: Background to my writing entries | Background to my mentoring entries | Background to my simplicity entries | Background to my home entries.
*** 6 June 2009. Simplicity and Writing: Mapping out my publishing time.
I think I'm beginning to get a hang of this "be terse" bit. (Okay, so it only took me forty years.) Here's my summary of a thousand words' worth of entries that I'd written earlier:
1) My examination of my schedule-keeping statistics show that the biggest factor in how much writing-related work I get done is not (as I'd assumed) my Internet usage, but rather how many non-writing-related activities distract me. For example, I got more writing-related work done in December 2008 than in April 2009, even though I spent less time on the Internet in April. I'm most distracted by non-writing-related activities in the spring/summer, so I get less work done then.
2) My "no acquisitions" policy, while it hasn't stopped me from acquiring new possessions, has stopped me from acquiring as much as I did in the past.
Now you don't have to sit through the remaining nine hundred words of my babbling. Aren't you relieved? :)
Well, actually, I'll give you a snippet of my "no acquisitions" entry, because it's the only part worth keeping:
I'm also going to try to focus my attention more on the items I already own. This requires some training of my brain. At the moment, my mind works like this:
Me: "Let's see: I have several thousand books in my house to read, and several thousand e-books, and hundreds of articles, and dozens of boxes of papers--"
Mind: "Oo, shiny!" (*Wanders off to download 137 new files.*)
Speaking of minds not focussing on their work, I really need to finish up my paperback template this week (if only because my library books on InDesign - which have been renewed twice - are due back at the library next week). I no longer have the excuse that I'm worn out after editing The Eternal Dungeon, because I've gotten into the groove of doing that now. In fact, I'm halfway through editing Transformation, so I'm going to go ahead and finish that volume all up before I start serializing it. Doing the layout all at once is much easier than doing it four times.
What this means is that I may get the editing done by the end of June for the first three Eternal Dungeon volumes (which is all I'm planning to post this year; the fourth volume is in progress). Wow.
Not that you guys are going to see the installments that quickly. :) I may be egotistical, but I'm not egotistical enough to think that most of you would be willing to read my thirty-thousand-word novellas if I was posting them every day or two. (Though I know that a few of you are gluttons for punishment.) At any rate, I'm going to take time off now from online serializations in order to work on my first paperback.
Aside from giving me time to work on publishing some other fiction this summer, my sped-up editing schedule will also give me the time I need to devote to print publishing and marketing. Heaven knows that I'll need that time; it looks as though I'm going to go with Lightning Source after all, because I'm hearing horror stories about customer service at CreateSpace. I'll try one book with Lightning Source; if the publishing process turns out to be too time-consuming, I can always fall back on CreateSpace for my next book.
Oh, and I'll also have more time this summer for being with Doug and my apprentice. I really need that.
Meanwhile, I have a new idea for a category name for entry titles . . .
*** 6 June 2009. Reading and viewing: Oo, shiny! Closer v. 2.
Closer v. 2, an unofficial sequel to the original Closer Star Trek slash vid. Am I the only one finds it frightening that it's so very easy for vidders to find "violence = intimacy" clips? That speaks volumes about what professional film-makers consider to be an intimate scene.
*** 9 June 2009. Writing: GLBT Bookshelf (wiki for GLBT literature folk).
My newest playground is the GLBT Bookshelf. Started by author Mel Keegan, the bookshelf provides pages for authors, artists, and publishers; articles and forums; and a listing of GLBT books, divided by category. Because it's a wiki, anyone can contribute entries.
I'd stumbled across Mel Keegan's blog a while back and had posted a couple of comments there; when we fell into an e-mail exchange about accessible books for readers of gay fiction, Mel told me about the wiki and encouraged me to take part. As a reader, I like the Bookshelf; it's an easy way for me to find GLBT books at the same time that I find information about the authors. And as a writer, I like having my books listed somewhere besides Amazon and Lulu. :)
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