Posts Tagged ‘smashwords’

Winter Wolves Redone

Posted: December 8, 2011 in winter wolves, writing, writing update
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I have finally finished the re-edit of Winter Wolves.  In addition it has received a new cover as well, in keeping with the others of the series.

In addition to trying to fix up all spelling and grammatical errors that I could find, I also re-wrote the last 10,000 words.  I had never been entirely happy with the ending, given I felt it had too much in common with the ending of Tears of the Mountain.  And there was a good reason for that.  I had started work on Winter Wolves first, plotting it out and writing about half of it.  Then, as is my way, I switched projects and starts on Tears.  This time I actually stuck through to the end and finished Tears.  However I had never had an ending for Tears planned and in the end borrowed the one I had planned for Winter Wolves.  When I went back to Winter Wolves I found myself without an ending and tried to cobble one together, one that I felt had too much in common with the ending of Tears.  The re-edit gave me a chance to re-write the ending into one not so similar, and one that I fell makes more sense – at least for me.

The new versions are kicking around at Smashwords and Amazon.

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Re-Editing Update

Posted: September 8, 2011 in Dawn of Wolves, fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing, writing update
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Just an update on the process of re-editing all the old stories – so far two have been done. The Tomb of the Tagosa Kings and The Adventures of Ray the Robot have now had a go over trying to fix any errors that fell through the cracks previous times. I also gave The Adventures of Ray the Robot a new and slightly improved cover.

The other stories will slowly get the same editing process.

Also, the next two Nhaqosa short stories are getting close to being finished, and after that it will be time to finish Dawn of Wolves.

March Report

Posted: April 2, 2011 in fantasy, General, writing update
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Here we are, a quarter of the way through the year already. Where does time go?

Output fell again, down to around 40K last month, though there were a number of reasons for that. For half the month I was dog-sitting my brother’s dog while he was overseas and that tends to chew up time. Also looking for work.

Output wise saw work on various short stories/novelettes, cleaning them up and re-releasing them on Smashwords, and putting some of them up on Amazon for the first time. More on that in a latter post. I also, finally, finished off Cara’s Choice; it is currently in editing when I can find the time and I hope to have it released in April at some stage.

Against my better judgement, I started work on two new stories; the Tirhanium novella I mentioned previously and a pure sword and sorcery pulp idea that I will post about later.

Sales dropped from February, down to just five, but as I’m not actually pushing it at the moment that can be expected.

Not setting any real goals for April – will just see what pans out.

February Report

Posted: March 1, 2011 in fantasy, General, Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, writing update
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And here we are in March already – two months of the year gone.

The output was reduced a lot compared to January, only around 50-60K done, but a lot of time was spent finishing Winter Wolves, proof-reading it and publishing it on Amazon/Smashwords.

The givewaway of Winter Wolves has slowed down some, but has now hit 101 people having acquired it. No reviews yet but three people have said that they will at some stage.

Sales wise, between the two novels I managed 15 sales for the month. Not a huge amount, but it is a start. Of those 6 were of Winter Wolves, so I’ll have to calculate how much goes towards supporting my sister – that one of them was on Amazon.uk and is listed in pence makes it more challenging.

I didn’t hit all my goals – a fair way off it actually, but it was a decent month still.

Aims for March. Work on He Stands Between, Dawn of Wolves, Hammer of the Skies and a novelette for another project. Aim is to try and finish one of the first three and the novelette.

Supporting My Sister Through Winter Wolves

Posted: February 25, 2011 in winter wolves
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My sister is currently working overseas in a third world country that, for security reasons, can’t be named. It isn’t the worst around but still isn’t exactly safe – the school she works at requires armed guards 24/7. The work she does is entirely voluntary and all the support she gets has to come from home in the form of donations and pledges.

As a poor starving writer there is not much I can do to help, until now.

I have decided that all the profits from my new novel, Winter Wolves, will go towards supporting her and the school she works at.

Currently I am offering it on Smashwords for free, by using the coupon VC42F, for the next two weeks. This is in an effort to garner reviews and hopefully help spread the word.

If people are interested in buying a copy, it can be purchased for $0.99 on Amazon or Smashwords. Given the way royalties work on the two places, Smashwords is better value – one sale there produces twice the profit it does on Amazon.

January Report

Posted: February 2, 2011 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, The Oncoming Storm, winter wolves, writing update
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January has come and gone – yes already. One twelfth of the year has already flown by.

Writing wise it was a decent month. Notable points are;

130K words written – mostly rewriting old drafts but still that is progress.
70K done on rewrite of Winter Wolves novel.
10.5K done of rewrite of Dawn of Wolves novella.
Tears of the Mountain published on Smashwords/Amazon.
Halfway into the rewrite of He Stands Between.
Various notes and ideas done for other stories.

Hope I can keep up the pace for February.
Aims for February are finishing off Winter Wolves and hopefully Dawn of the Wolves, plus a short story or two. And trying to market Tears of the Mountain better.

Progress and Plans

Posted: January 14, 2011 in Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, writing update
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The year has begun and we are already a couple of weeks in so I thought it time to take stock of what has happened and what I have got planned.

Firstly I have managed to write everyday of the year so far, and not insubstantial amounts. If I am rather liberal with my definition of ‘written’ then I have written 58,000 words in 13 days. The best day was yesterday, with 9,500 words done. Of course a large chunk, read most, of those words are rewriting old drafts into newer drafts. It is much easier and faster doing it that way, but of course the rough drafts need doing first.

Some of those words are on rough drafts, of which some have already received some rewriting, which seems a rather fruitful way of doing it. Scribble up the rough draft in the morning and in the evening get stuck into a rewrite of it.

All of that has been spread over a number of projects I’m busy working on to try and finish off, ranging from novels to short stories. The quick they are done, the better.

In addition to all that, I have finished the editing and polishing for Tears of the Mountain (or at least that is the theory – I have probably missed half the errors in it.) To celebrate I have put it up on Smashwords, and plan to make it available at more places (such as Amazon), as well as pushing it around the traps – but more on that later.

So that is what has been happening. Now for what I have planned.

I do at some stage need to give the old website an overhaul, updating the statuses of various projects, stories, collections and the like to reflect changes that have happened.

Short term plans are to complete the last part of the initial book of Cara’s Choice – the rough draft is getting close to being finished – and also to finish a rewrite and update of an old novel, Winter Wolves. Winter Wolves was sitting on around 60K of its rough draft when I left it but finishing Tears of the Mountain inspired me to return to it, given it takes place in the same setting and features one of the same characters. Since I wrote it there have been a number of changes to the setting that need incorporating, as well as it needing a complete overhaul of the ending; it didn’t work at the time and works even less due to various changes. But in a day and a half I’ve done 13,000 words of the rewrite of it.

Longer term is a goal to increase output, that being a short story every two weeks, a novel/novella every two months. An audacious target I know, but if I keep up my current output then it is entirely achievable.

I even had the short list of what those projects will be;

Winter Wolves (gunpowder fantasy novel)
He Stands Between (epic fantasy novel)
Hammer of the Skies (steampunk novella)
Cara’s Choice: The Awakening (urban fantasy novella)
Primal Tales III (fantasy short story)
Nhaqosa V (fantasy short story)
Cahuac and the Fisherman (fantasy short story)

Between all that I should be busy for a while.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

Posted: January 1, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, The Oncoming Storm, winter wolves, writing update
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I’m not going to look back at my resolutions for last year – I know that most of them never got done, which is why I normally don’t bother.

It is a good time, however, to look back over 2010 and to look forward to 2011.

2010 was a year of missed opportunities, both writing and otherwise.  While I did actually complete my first proper, full length novel, my writing output was way down on what it should have been and that single novel should have been more.  Moreover, it is still sitting there gathering dust and hasn’t been used yet, something that needs to be rectified.

2011 needs to see an improvement.  I’m not going to make any resolutions – because they will just be broken – but I want to see a lot more writing done, both novels and short stories.  I’ve got all these ideas floating around not being used.

I’m going to go over the Pure Escapism page and stories and clean it up, make it look more professional.  That includes new and improved covers.  I have a few that I’ve worked on and that I need to upgrade the rest to that level.

I’d like to try and add at least one new short story to the collection a month – more of the time permits – and of course to try and exchange the reader base. Cleaning up and polishing the pages here and at Smashwords, plus starting to join up on various forums should help with that a bit.

The big one is of course the novels. I’ve got one complete and two half complete. They need to get completed, polished and made ready as soon as I can. And then I have to make a big decision.

Do I try for an agent and publisher, a long and laborious process that has no guarantees of any success?

Or do I try and go independent? There is no success guaranteed there either but there will at least be something to show for it, which is more than would happen if I ended up with no agent. It would require a whole new skillset – that of self marketting – but there have been a number of successes to show it is not impossible.

A Smashwords Success Story to Aspire Too

Posted: December 23, 2010 in General
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I’ve got a few stories up on Smashwords – nothing major, just my collection of short stories. It is a valuable tool that one day I need to make more of. And now I have the inspiration to do so.

On the Smashwords blog there is a post about one of their authors, Brian S Pratt, whose books have taken off. He is on track to make $100,000 next year from sales. That is the kind of success I dreamed of making when starting out. Actually, I’d be happy with just a quarter of that.

The difference between him and me is output. He has 17 books out there, mostly large epic fantasy, the genre I in part dabble in. I currently have a bunch of short stories.

What I really need to do is sit down and write, write some more and then continue writing and get some novels and novellas finished and put up. Only then could I possibly consider success anywhere near that scale.

The full interview can be read here.

Upcoming Changes

Posted: September 18, 2010 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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Its been a bit since I last posted on here – got kind of sidetracked with others things.

I’ve got a couple of things planned to do soon ™.

First is to get The Tears of the Mountain tidied up enough and start shopping it around.

The other, and bigger, project is to do a revamp of all the short stories completed to date and collated them into single volumes and give them proper covers. This is mostly for Smashwords purposes, to clean up all the stories over there and maybe give people a reason to purchase them, though a number of stand alone stories will remain by themselves (and free).

The four collations will be Cara’s Choice, The Cahuac Cycle, Primal Tales and Nhaqosa’s stories.

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