What's Happening - January 2015

Well, it's been an interesting start to the year. For one thing, this is the first month since July 2014 when I haven't had a release and/or been on tour for one. And as it turns out, just a short breather before another six months of nonstop releases and/or tours. Oh my!

But it hasn't been a quiet month. I've had ongoing edits for Keir and Zombie Girl part one, and the cover reveal for Keir is happening next week! I've been taking a workshop through FFnP on book launches. I've also taken a small chunk out of my seemingly unfinishable TBR pile. Prompted by my feeble sales, I'm attempting to get a grasp on this thing called marketing, though I'm not sure I'm making any progress. And on top of that, I'm working on two short stories for two separate anthologies, due at the end of March and April respectively.

So for the next few months? I have the print release of Restless in Peaceville in February, print for Tethered in March, digital release for Zombie Girl in April, re-release of Keir in May, and print release of When Dark Falls in June. Gosh. Each of those will have a tour attached, although for Keir I've asked for reviews only (with the odd spotlight and a couple of guest posts at a couple of my favourite blogs). I simply can't double up tours this year after struggling to get through it last year. My brain got fried!

My publisher also announced some important changes last week, which have altered my writing/publishing aims slightly for the rest of the year. They're now making print a priority over eBooks (yipee!) and not accepting works under 50K (um). My first concern was Zombie Girl, ironically written in response to a request for YA shorts. ZG is contracted so will be coming out as an ebook, but it was pitched as the first of a trilogy of shorts, each around the 17K mark. So I thought "okay, that's it - scrub the next two shorts". Apparently not. The three shorts will simply get bundled together and...bought out as a single PRINT book. Woot! Totally unexpected, but I'm not the least bit unhappy about that.

I also want to self publish two more Keir stories (the sequel at 65K and a side story at 17K), plus another VA story (a 22K novella). I also want to write a 50K+ sequel to When Dark Falls - a real challenge when my last three long works have stalled before the 45K mark.

That means six scheduled releases, three self published stories to hopefully release, and four shorts and a novel to write, edit and submit. Yup. Pass me the straitjacket now...

I really don't know how or if it's achievable. But I'm going to try. After all, there's always next year. :)