2017 challenges…
New Year’s resolutions never work for me. I have the same problem most people have: making them impossible to keep. This is the time everyone reassesses their goals and priorities, though, so I’ll jump on that bandwagon. Although I do that continuously, and make choices I often follow to completion, sometimes to my detriment, call this my writing plan for 2017. (Don’t writing gurus tell you to always have one, and that will guarantee you a bestseller?)
First, I want to do a bit more socializing on the internet. I’ll confess I get lost in my writing and forget about Goodreads (GR), my favorite social media site, and Facebook (FB), where I mostly post small things on my author page, hopefully of universal appeal to readers and writers. I’ve adapted to the censorship on LinkedIn (LI) a bit more and hope to start participating in their writing business-related discussion groups again, even though I get spammed with everything from writing job offers to guarantees from some geek that s/he can make this blog the most read on the internet! I don’t socialize much anymore, so social media seems the way to go in order to meet interesting people.
You might have noticed that I’ve been writing a lot more short stories recently. I went through a period where most story ideas turned into novels. I like the short story and novella format, though, so, instead of leaving them hidden (and often unfinished) on my hard drives, the second part of my 2017 plan is to either post them to this blog or send them off to ezines (where they might languish too, but that’s fate). The few remaining magazines (Ellory Queen, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and so forth) just aren’t worth my time or trouble (and the editors have always seemed like clones of Robert Goodell).
This segues into the third part of my plan: more free stuff. While I’d like to be in the black for once in my writing life, I give away a lot of free material (this blog included). I’ll probably do more of that in 2017. I’m even thinking of giving away a complete novel as a PDF. Here’s a Bishop Berkeley-type of philosophical question: if I offer a PDF of a complete novel and no one wants to read it, is it published? It would have a copyright, of course, but published? I don’t know. Same question for short story collections and novellas, of course (I already offer those). A novel in PDF format as a freebie can clearly be turned into a published novel (example: The Martian), so I’m thinking that’s an alternative to explore! Maybe I can even figure out how to add downloadable stuff to this website (does WordPress have an app for that?).
The flip side of “free” is part of my plan too. I want to reassess pricing. I’ve held constant for the most part these last few years, but my costs are rising, especially on the marketing end (even though I don’t do much), so that ever present goal of sometimes being in the black seems more elusive all the time. Of course, I could solve that problem by making everything in the future free and stop pumping royalties back into new books. A conundrum…and I have to give some thought to this. In a previous post, I wrote about my continuing program of adding my ebooks to Smashwords. That can help. Even if I raise prices, I can offer coupons there. (Because my ebooks are no longer exclusive on Amazon, don’t look for deals there. But .mobi or Kindle-formatted ebooks are also available on Smashwords.)
Another part of the plan is to do more PR and marketing. None of the expensive stuff—you know, the “give us $2k and we’ll make you famous” variety” that many marketing “gurus” offer—but I’ll target some specific books a wee bit more, especially new ones. Most readers don’t realize the costs involved here, even for a small ad campaign, but there’s no other way to tell the world you have stories they might want to read, discounting the proverbial word-of-mouth, even via the internet. Which reminds me: If you read one of my books and like it, tell your relatives and friends. Better yet, write a review on Amazon and tell readers (and me!) why you liked it. (I’m no longer chasing book bloggers for reviews. I’ve tried most of them in Simon Royale’s famous list who read my genres. The rate of return is about 10% even AFTER I send the book, so groveling for reviews from book bloggers is now a waste of my time too. To not grovel IS a New Year’s resolution that will be easy to keep!)
In spite of my negative experiences with reviewers, I’ve always felt I could acquire some good karma by helping other writers, and that includes my own reviews. If you’re an author reading this, please remember I do my official reviewing at Bookpleasures—I no longer accept direct review queries. (I won’t do formal review exchanges either—that seems like a slap in the face to readers.) I’ll also keep doing author interviews (query me and I’ll send a list of questions) and guest blog posts, especially from authors and about the book business (query me to see if I like your topic). There are so many good books and good authors, why not get the word out about them? I’ll continue to offer on FB short mini-reviews of classics and books I plan to add to “Steve’s Bookshelf,” with more “Modern Publishing Daffynitions” (apologies to that wacko Looney Tunes character).
I’ll probably still be derelict about informing GR members what I’m reading—why would that matter to them anyway? (FYI for anyone who cares: I’m currently reading three books now—The Pope of Physics, a book by Bernie Sanders, and Dark Secret. This isn’t unusual—can’t let my speedreading skills get rusty!)
Of course, I could just summarize all the above by saying my reading and writing activities will continue. The challenge is to do more of it. Unlike resolutions, that shouldn’t be hard because it’s the most fun I’ve had in my life (besides things non-mentionable in a PG-13 blog). And you, the reader, writer, and social networker, can reap the benefits.
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More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. A trilogy in one book: ETs send a “gift” to humanity, a virus contained in a probe that crashes in South Africa and modifies human genetics. But is it a gift or a prelude to invasion? Colonizing Mars speeds up as a way to have an outpost farther out in the solar system and increase our chances for survival. When humans discover the ET ship in the far reaches of the solar system, one woman fights to have the ETs’ offspring accepted as our partners for the exploration of the galaxy. “I found the characters well developed and the plot fresh. I was reminded at times of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy.”—Debra Miller, in her Amazon review. (Also available in all ebook formats via Smashwords and its retailers.)
In libris libertas!
