Do you hear the sound of screeching brakes?

Just when I think I know what the heck I'm doing, it all goes wonky on me.

Here I was, just working on JJD4, minding my own business... Got some words in, got a great idea for a new first chapter...  Starting to really get back into the swing of Jesse's brain again.

And then I get the little "bing!" on my phone that says I have email.

Well who could that be, says I?

It's my lovely agent!  She's lovely!  This is why I call her my lovely agent!

The email was in regards to The Musicbox Girl.  ((Previously, on "This is my life", I sent the first three chapters of The Musicbox Girl to my lovely agent who is lovely, because she liked the idea so much.  /end flashback))  Judging by the amount of all capital letters and imperative commands to finish this right now!, I think she likes it.

So once again, JJD4 is on hold.

While I am thrilled that my lovely agent who is lovely is so excited about my new project, I also feel a bit guilty for continually pushing Jesse to the wayside.  Poor guy.  He's gonna develop a complex.

Needless to say, this is going to toss any semblance of personal deadlines I had RIGHT out the window.

Ah well.  We improvise.

Because I like to tease you...

Several things going on right now.

First off, I got the chapters of The Musicbox Girl delivered to my amazing agent last week.  She hasn't had time to read them over yet, but I hope when she does that they're all she imagined them to be. (Prior to this, she'd only seen my notes on the idea, which are admittedly rambling and disjointed.  Seriously, someday, I'll post some of my notes files on novels for you guys to see, and you will marvel at how I ever managed to make it into something coherent.)

Second off, I was supposed to switch to working on JJD4 this week, but so far I've only managed to finalize what I think the title is going to be.  Letting it percolate in my brain a bit, and when I'm sure, I may go ahead and commission the cover art, so that I could debut that at the RT Convention in May.  Thinking, maybe having some bookmarks or something to give away with the new cover on it.  (would probably do some kind of giveaway here too, for those of you who can't come to RT obviously)  If any of y'all have any ideas in that area about swag you'd like to have, let me know!  I'm new to this end of the authoring.

Third off, there's been some other movement on other things this past week.  Can't tell you anything, because officially, nothing has happened yet.  But I've made some crucial decisions, and I'm really feeling pretty good about them.  Can't wait until I can fill you all in on the details.

Back to JJD4:  I had said previously that I had about 7K words done on it, but as I started reading back through things, I realized that what I have as the current chapter 1 just isn't going to work.  My first chapters are always flashbacks of some kind, and while the one I was writing is good, and pertinent, it's just not going to work out.  I think I'll finish it anyway, and probably post it as a freebie closer to time to release JJD4.  Just something to whet the appetite.

So, that knocks me back down to about 5K words.  Not a big blow, but less than I'd had.  Real life keeps interfering with my writing time, so this week has largely been a bust.  I'll have to make it up as I go.  Still want this done by May 1 (new revised deadline), before RT.  That's the point where I'll have to start figuring out paying for editing, etc.

I will say, the self-publishing concept still really intimidates me, but I think it's going to be like so many other things in life.  Once I get through it, it's going to be way better than I'd feared, and I'll never understand why I was so anxious about it in the first place.

Did Not See That One Coming...

Well, my intentions of getting started on JJD4 (which MAY have a title, if I can mull it over a little bit more) will be delayed about another week, but for good reasons.

At least, I think they're good reasons.

See, a while before Christmas, I sent my lovely and gorgeous agent a quick synopsis of a project I'd dreamt up...oh... Back at the end of summer, maybe?  Maybe longer ago than that?  Anyway...

She emailed me today to say that she LOVED it, and would I please write the first 50 pages so she can see about finding someone else who LOVES it too.

So, this weekend, I'll be hashing out about 50 pages (roughly 12,500 words, or 3 chapters) of something I'm calling The Musicbox Girl. 

Y'know, it's funny, this one was totally on the back burner for me, wasn't even thinking about it.  But just knowing that someone else is excited about it makes me all excited about it too!  Whee!  Snoopy dance!  Kermit arms!

Ahem.

Anyway, that's my goal for the rest of this week/upcoming weekend.

I'm excited!  Did I mention that?

Goal Number 1 - Check

Well, four days late, but I finished the edits/three new chapters of Night of Fire and Ash and got those sent off to betas.  Breaking in some new betas on this one, too, so I have more thank yous to dish out.

I doubt that I say it enough, but none of my books would be what they are without the hard working betas that volunteer to read and offer feedback.  They don't get paid, except in effusive praise, and on one occasion a pound cake, I think.  But they are crucial to my writing process.

Naturally, I'm a teeny weensy bit late starting JJD 4, but I'm not stressing about it yet.  Honestly, finishing NoFA was very liberating, even though the majority of it was already written. (Fun Trivia:  NoFA was my NaNoWriMo project back in 2009)  I proved to myself that I can still edit, I can still write.  I don't think I realized how much my year hiatus had really affected me, until I felt the weight of finishing something, anything, lift off my shoulders.

So, between now and April 1, I'll be working on JJD 4.  This will involve not only the writing of it, but coming up with a title, and maybe sorting through some cover artists to get an idea of what it's going to cost me to make this thing beautiful for you guys.

In all honesty, I will most likely not make the April 1 deadline I've given myself, but that's ok, because I really wanted it done before the RT Convention which takes place May 1-5.  I'll be speaking on a panel there, and signing books at the big shindig on Saturday, so I'm hoping to see some folks there!  Since I only have one panel to do, I'll be spending the rest of my time there attending events just like all of you, so don't be afraid to come up and say hi.  It's my first con, so I might hug.  Just fair warning.

After that, the rest of my year gets more hypothetical.  A lot of it depends on book deals (will there be one?  What book? When do they want it?  Etc.), and general real life chaos.  My ideal scenario would be to take a month to edit whatever project I've managed to sell (no doubt for 1 gajillion dollars (hey, I'm talking ideal here)) and then dive back into something new.  I've got a new idea that's been dancing around in the back of my head lately, and I might dive into that.

So, there's my life in a nutshell.  (Or nut house... Too close to call)

To-Do List

To-Do List

I haven’t written anything substantial in…oh…probably a year.  Probably since I turned Wolf in way back in August of ’11.  I’ve done revisions, I’ve done edits, I’ve dribbled and drabbled here and there, but I haven’t sat down to actually write anything new.  Mostly because I have been so torn up over whether the series would be continued, and then knowing that it wouldn’t, and… Bleh.  Mental anguish takes a toll on the creative process.

However.  It is now time for me to get off my ass.  So, with that as my goal, here is the list of things I would like to accomplish, in no particular order or priority.

Finish A Night of Fire and Ash:  This book is actually about 3 chapters from being complete.  It was actually my Nano project clear back in ’09 (dear gods, really that far back?) and if The Editor is considering publishing it, she’s gonna want an ending.  They like endings.  But even if I just take what I have now and tack the last three chapters on the end, it’s going to end up way shorter on word count than I’m happy with.  So in addition to finishing it, it needs a complete revision.  Recently, I did a revision on the first three chapters, and I’m really happy with that.  I just need to continue from that point, and then jump into the last three chapters when I get there.  Estimated completion date:  Ideally, I’d like this done by the end of the year, so that I can jump into Book 4 of JJD at that point.

Write Book 4 of JJD:  I currently have about 7K words written on this.  If I start my concerted efforts on January 1, I would need to write approximately 24K words a month to finish it by my self-assigned deadline of April 1^st and a word count of 80K.  That’s 6K words a week, or 857 words a day on a 7-day writing week.  (for a 5-day writing week, ‘cause I like weekends just like anybody, it works out to 1,200 words a day)  Barring any unexpected divergences (ie: stopping to do revisions on a sold book), this should be an easily accomplished task.  Estimated completion date:  April 1^st.

Speak at the RT Convention:  Toward the beginning of May, the RT convention will be here in KC, and I’m slotted to speak on a panel.  I will also be signing books at the huge book signing thingy that they do, and I’m really, really looking forward to it.  It’ll be my first con!  Feel free to locate me and ask my opinion on local barbecue.  Since I imagine that JJD 4 will still be with beta readers at this point, it’ll be a good chance for me to stop, catch my breath, and make more concrete plans for the rest of the year.

Choose a brand new project:  Like I said, I haven’t written anything in over a year.  Nothing I would consider “new”.  So one thing I’d like to do this coming year is to get started on creating something new.  My main potentials are probably a sequel to NoFA, or a sequel to Peacemaker, or maybe, just MAYBE, I might actually go back to The Pugilist and the Alchemist.  A good friend has been helping me hash out the details of that one over the last year, and I finally feel like I’m in a place where I could actually write it.  Estimated completion date:  No idea.  Mostly, I want to do this to at least get me started on creating again.  Whether I complete it this year is up for grabs, especially since at some point, JJD 5 will have to become a priority (and taking into consideration that I may have other books under contract by then)

Get JJD 4 published:   Still not sure what I’m going to do here, precisely.  The way things are going, I’m leaning more toward putting an ebook out first, and then trying to get a paperback in the works a little later.  A lot of it’s going to depend on money, and whether or not I’m brave enough to try the whole Kickstarter thing.  Estimated completion date:  Um…not sure.  But, theoretically, if I can get the type of editing I want on it, and get a good cover created, let’s shoot for the end of 2013.  Don’t hold me to that, folks, I’m just kinda throwing out wishes here.

When you look at it all laid out like that, 2013 looks like a pretty damn busy year.  You have to keep in mind that I’ll be doing all this at the same time that I work a 40-hour week, with an hour of commute time, and then cook/clean/do all the things required to raise a pre-teen daughter.  Oh, and I gotta fit sleep in somewhere.

I can do it.  I’ve done it before.  I just gotta get off my ass.

The Measure of Success

First off, let me say how much I truly appreciate the messages of support I’ve received in the last few days.    I truly feel better now than I have in the months since I found out the news.    It’s good to know that there are people who care enough about Jesse to keep following him.

I also find it very interesting how many people have said “That’s okay, I don’t buy print books anyway!”  It ties directly into something I’ve been pondering for a while, and that’s the idea that (for a writer) the measure of success has changed in recent years.  I mean, real recent.  Like, over the last three.

We can all agree that hitting the NYT Bestseller list is a sign of success.  But for most authors, their successes are measured in much smaller increments.  Just getting an agent, for example, or that first book deal.  There’s validation in that, and confirmation that yes, you really don’t suck.

From the time I was a child, the idea of a successful author for me was someone whose books were in bookstores and libraries.  I saw them every time I went into a store, and I always mentally marked the place on the shelf where my name would go. (Had to move down a bit, once I got married and my name changed.)  Those were the people who were REAL authors.  They weren’t like Great Aunt Matilda who paid that company a ton of money to print her rambling diatribe against garden gnomes and their hedonistic ways.

Even as a child, I knew that real authors had publishers and editors, and losers self-published.  And those people who only had writing available on the internet?  Hobbyists at best.  They didn’t have physical books, they were just playing around.

But fast-forward thirty*coughcough* years, and here we are.

Ebooks are becoming more popular every single year.  I can measure the spread of them just by looking at my sales figures.  And self-published books are hitting the NYT Bestseller list.  It’s no longer absolutely necessary (provided that you have the time, skill, and funds) for all literary works to go through major publishers.

What does it all MEAN???

Well, there are smarter people than I who have been batting this one around for years.  What does the advent of ebooks mean for big publishers?  What does the rise in quality self-published works mean for the industry in general?  I think every possible outcome has been kicked around and talked to death, and the fact is, no one knows the answer yet.  We’re all kinda stuck in this big whirlwind of change, and it remains to be seen what part of Oz it’s going to spit us out in. 

I do think, however, that authors will need to reevaluate what they consider “successful.”  Does having a physical book on the shelf mean as much, when many bookstores no longer care a large assortment of stock?  Will print run sizes be important, when ebooks are taking up the bulk of your sales? 

I know that it’s been hard for me to wrap my mind around it.  I’m old-school, apparently.  The thought of “ebook first, print maybe” seemed like a step backwards at first, and I had to sit myself down and point out some facts to myself.

Self, I says to myself, you’re looking at this the wrong way.  The entire industry is now rushing to catch up to a demand that technology created, and you may actually be in on the first wave of something new and totally awesome!

Do I think big publishers will ever go by the wayside altogether?  Of course not.  Personally, I LIKE having a publisher. I like having an amazing editor, and someone to take care of the cover design, and all that tricksy formatting and such.  Every moment they do that is a moment I can be doing something else, like writing, or talking about writing, or thinking about writing.  Or playing video games.  I admit it, I do that sometimes too.  I know diddly about cover art design (it’s more than just taking a pretty picture, folks) or ebook formatting, or…well, I know diddly about a lot of stuff.  That’s why you guys might very well be getting a crayon stick-figure for a cover on the next JJD book.  (I wouldn’t really do that. I think.)

But I think that physical books on shelves and monster print runs will no longer be the measure of how successful an author is.  Instead, we might get to measure it by how many readers truly loved the books, and I think it should probably have been that way all along. 

In which case, I’m pretty damn successful, because there are a TON of you who love Jesse.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So.

Been needing to write up this blog post for some time, and kept putting it off.  Partly because I didn’t want it to overshadow Wolf’s release, and mostly because… Well, once you write it, it’s true.  I think Doctor Who said something like that.  Reading it makes it a fixed point in time.

A lot of you have been asking about the future of the JJD series (mostly involving statements like “You can’t leave him like that!!!”)  Even my own grandmother called me up the other night to tell me that exact thing.  Some of you, I’ve even lied to your face when you asked, because it wasn’t a discussion I was able to have at that moment.  (I’m truly sorry about that)  I’ve known about this for several months, you see.

Well, the sad news is, Roc has decided that my sales aren’t good enough to continue publishing the series.  They’re not even good enough to consider a digital-only option.  So, the JJD series with Roc is ended.

I’m disappointed, naturally, but I also feel like I’ve let a lot of people down.  There are a ton of fans who have become so invested in Jesse and Axel and the rest of the weirdos that I love so much.  Part of me knows that sales are what sales are, and there’s a limited amount I can do about it.  The other part keeps wondering what I could have done better, sooner, to get the word out, to get more people to buy.

Every day, it seems, I hear from someone who had never heard of Jesse before, and I keep thinking, dang, if you’d have heard of it two years ago when the first one came out, maybe I wouldn’t be in this position.  Maybe…what if… mighta could.  Y’know how it is.

But.

Two other pieces of news for you on the subject. 

First, I have NO intention of leaving Jesse in this state.  I need three more books to finish up the series the way I want to.  I’ve already started writing book 4.  My intention is to look into self-publishing the last three, possibly funded with a Kickstarter project early next year.  I’m still researching all the details and such.  There would be quite a bit involved with publishing this book the way I want to see it published, and the way I think you all deserve to see it published.

So, since I have no official deadline, and no one to answer to, you guys are now my conscience.  My goal is to have Book 4 written (and titled) by April 1st (barring any unforeseen circumstances which I shall discuss below).  After that, I’ll need to really start putting things in motion regarding a Kickstarter project, rewards for contributors, that sort of thing.  (cover design, editing, ISBN numbers, the list goes on and on.) I’ve learned a lot in the last few months regarding all that goes into self-publishing things the right way, and it’s way harder than I ever realized.  Makes me appreciate all that my actual publisher does even more.

And speaking of, the next bit of news:

My editor at Roc still wants to work with me (and I still want to work with her, ‘cause she’s awesome and I love her).  So at the moment, she has both Peacemaker and a few chapters of A Night of Fire and Ash sitting on her desk.  We’re still in the discussion stage, not in the “official offer” stage, but I’m 90% sure you’ll be seeing a new series from me in the future.  Most likely, expect to see an ebook first, then if sales warrant, a print book later on.  The more I talk to other authors in my genre, the more this seems to be the norm.

(And frankly, seeing how my ebook sales have gone since the release of Wolf, I’m starting to understand why.  Ebooks are really becoming a thing!)  ((Yes, I know this makes me sound old.  Get off my lawn.))

Right now, I’m back at the “hurry up and wait” phase of the publishing game.  Authors spend way more time here than you folk know, even after they have an agent, and a contract under their belt.