How to sell books without spending money (I don’t have the answer btw) I have self-published two books (Daughter, Disappeared in Nov 2016 and Glasdrum in April 2017) and sales have been better than I expected. However… those sales have cost me. I have used facebook targeted posts and they have been effective (I’ve sold […]
“Life is short, and so is our fiction.” The staff at Cease, Cows publishes rare flash fiction and prose poetry and looks for strange literary, magical realism, speculative, slipstream, utopian and dystopian, bizarro, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, and just plain weird fiction.
Many of us have that moment when we commit ourselves to a goal that feels impossible. For me, that high goal is publishing books. I decided that I would pick one of my books in progress to publish by fall of 2018. The Dark Prince is my pick. I will share regular updates on my progress and thoughts. Right now, The Dark Prince has 11,297 words. I have to produce roughly 20,000 words a month to finish a rough draft of approximately 150,000 words by January of 2018. My goal will be broken down by the week. Every week I need to write at least 5000 words.
Along the journey of publishing my first book, I am working on solidifying my author identity. What genres do my books fit in? How long will I continue to write The Alter Mysteries: Death Shadow? What are the common content and grammatical issues my work exhibits? How can I improve my product? I am following fellow writers who give tips on how to improve your writing, like Joanna Penn at her blog, The Creative Penn. Even the use of programs like Grammarly can help with honing the writing craft. With every question, I search for a solution. We might not get all the answers we seek quickly, but patience is a huge component of passion. Sometimes what we pursue is not easy, but by doggedly pursuing our goals we achieve knowledge that can help us along the way.
Whenever I feel confident about my work I go back to edit it again. In my opinion, a dose of humility goes a long way toward improvement. Criticism can be used to make our craft better. Few people would be amazing right out the gate with their craft. Perfection is an impossible result, but making things the best we can is within reach. A part of my process is holding myself accountable by doing research, listening to feedback, and posting my goals publicly. Maybe you can work towards your goals too by breaking them down into simpler steps day-by-day. Asking yourself what you can do to improve is a crucial part of making your dreams reality.
If you have any questions or tips, feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for following my blog.
Writing is a lifestyle, in keeping with that premise, this is the first post of many. You can expect to find periodic updates on my stories and some personal opinion posts. If you are interested in Paranormal Adventure stories, my book in progress is listed here. There is also a free weekly fiction story, The Alter Mysteries: Death Shadow, that I post on my Patreon. Most importantly this is a space to engage in our passion for Supernatural and Science Fiction. Look for more posts surrounding that topic for weeks to come.
Thank you for being a part of making my dreams a reality!
