I’ve been reading some books about marketing lately, because I am attempting to become more savvy in that direction. One of the books Mike Stop Continues suggested to me for a variety of reasons was 10 Step Self Publishing Boot Camp: The Survival Guide for Launching Your First Novel. It was a good book with a lot of material in it not only for the self-published, but my biggest takeaway from the book was the concept of big levers and small levers.
Levers are essentially Quinn’s analogies to what you can do to leverage sales of your book. I bet you’ll never guess what the biggest lever was. It was…
WRITE ANOTHER BOOK
Yes. Okay. There are many small levers too. Connections are important. Social media is important. Advertising is important. But note, the most important thing.
So, that might explain why I haven’t been posting here quite so much…:D
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With this in mind, I have been thinking about my approach to publishing. Some time ago, I decided my focus was to try to move forward, and my goal was to get an agent. Long time readers might remember my three-pronged attack: publish short stories, send out a novel, and ultimately self-publish something. Happily, I met that goal even though I never made it to the self-publish stage.
My current goals are working on two manuscripts: the sequel to The Vessel of Ra, called The Pawn of Isis, and working on a new middle grade book, Abigail Rath Versus Mad Science. I am deep into the second rewrite of Pawn, and half way through the first draft of Mad Science. My word count for the year, including revisions of Vessel a couple of short stories and a start on a YA Troll novel has been about 100K, my most productive year ever.
What does 2018 hold? I can tell you already that I have a short story appearing in a collection that a couple of friends are putting together as the first endeavor in their small press. It has always been a life goal to share a table of contents with Edgar Allen Poe, and they are going to make it a reality.
And for those of you who have been waiting for my werewolf Southern Iowa novella patiently, Paper Golem tells me that The Ground is Full of Teeth is going to be published in the first half of the year as part of Alembical 3. So that’s good news.
My new angle of attack will be three-pronged again. I will be giving up writing short stories. I will continue writing The Klaereon Scroll Series, as I want these books to all come out eventually. Abigail Rath will also be finished. If I can find the time, I would also like to write something for readers to access: maybe some Klaereon novellas, or a serial, something to tide them over during the wait for publication. Obviously, the two manuscripts are happening first.
So, I’m going to predominantly focus on the large lever. I will write here occasionally, post and update about events going on, and continue to have a blast with the other Unreliable Narrators. And I must admit that I am spending more time in real time with dear friends and hitting the gym and cooking well, getting in shape. Honestly, the only thing I would like is more devoted writing time and more energy left over when I have finished my professorial work for the day, but I hope getting into shape will help with some of that.
And…this is as close to New Year’s resolutions as you might get.