As we recover from the recent stress of moving, the dayjob workload ramps up, and everything else competes for what attention I have left, it can be difficult to keep in mind that writing can and should be the foremost area of my interests. I don’t attend university for 4 years to design advertisements, after all. I did it, at first, to teach others about stories, and then decided I’d be happier telling stories myself. And some of the stories I’ve told since then have gone over pretty well.
Sales of Cold Iron have been very slow. I feel I need to do more promotional work, as nobody else is going to do it for me, and that means getting more people to review it, sending out more tweets, talking it up in person to people, and so on. I guess my reluctance to do so comes from the fact that I hate annoying people. I know how it feels to me when I get annoyed by someone talking at length about something of interest to them to the exclusion of all other subjects, and the last thing I want to do is inflict that on others. But I guess I need to suck it up and deal with it if I want to move copies of the book.
Progress on Cold Streets is, unfortunately, also slow. I’ve tried to unstick myself a couple of times in the last few weeks with moderate success. I’m not writing in the huge chunks I need to meet my end-of-year deadline, at least not yet. Time is running out for me and I really want to get another novella out there. I can’t get this thing to pick up if I don’t write, dammit!
Between some historical insights and inspiration from the likes of Martin and Kay, ideas keep rolling around in the back of my mind for attention regarding Godslayer. As much as good chunks of the plot are unlikely to change in their basic structure, so much of Acradea will be different in this new story that these ideas (which tend to crop up after I go to bed and the lights are out) will need to be laid out and sorted so I don’t get tripped up when I start writing the damn thing in earnest next year. Maybe it’s time to buy Scrivener and start cork-boarding things? The jury is out on that one.
More on this as things develop. And if you get annoyed when I start tweeting every day about Cold Iron and its sequels, I apologize.
November 9, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Self promotion is a tricky process. I’ve met a lot of authors on goodreads, but those have been both positive and negative experiences. I believe it comes down to how you’re introduced to people, as a peer or an author.
It’s awesome to meet someone on that site, who is offering really excellent reviews and insight, and then find out later they’ve written a book. I’ve read a number of books written by friends and acquaintances on that site. I see you have a profile, but maybe a little more activity couldn’t hurt? Just a thought.
On the other hand, there are authors who bombard you about every single little thing they write. “Hey, I took a poop today and it looked like the letter L, come check out my novel.”