Writer’s Life Gone Loco
So things have been a little crazy these last few weeks. I am now an assistant editor for not one, but two SFF magazines. ArmadilloCon is ramping up and I actually have to start planning Registration stuff now. I’ve been tracking the sales of my ebooks like a nut. And yet more exciting super secret potential news I’m sitting on.
In the wake of all this madness, I think I have officially given up on Write One, Sub One for the year. I’ll be shifting over to finishing up my novel sometime before November so I can turn around and do NaNoWriMo. But W1S1 did give me 13 pretty neat stories and ideas for a handful more. I’m trying not to be bitter that I have not yet sold any of these stories, but the year is still young!
Reading slush has been going surprisingly well. So far I’m impressed with the quality of the stories. I thought they’d be easier to reject, but instead I find myself working hard to distinguish good stories from great stories which is a learning opportunity and fun challenge that I suspect will strengthen my own writing skills.
The ebooks are doing better than I expected. I’m closing in on 100 paid sales which is the exact number that will equate with a minor success in my mind. 100 sales means $35 in my pocket which is about what I would have gotten for the two original short stories in the collections if I’d sold them to semi-pro mags. Plus, I’ve gotten 6000 free downloads which is free publicity. I just uploaded the third and fourth volumes to Amazon, so they should be available soon. Just in case you’re wondering the breakdown–I’ve made 7 sales on Smashwords and 85 sales on Amazon. The Smashwords sales don’t yet include the sales I made through Barnes in Noble which looks to be reported quarterly, but I’ve got sales ranks, so I assume there are some sales there too. So all-in-all, not a bad experiment so far. I’ve got a fifth ebook planned for August when my rights are up on one story, tentatively titled “Love and Other Filthy Habits.”
And last but not least, I need to give a shout out to my writer friend Rebecca Schwarz who just had her first story published. It’s called “Fairview 619” and found a loving home at Aurora Wolf. This is seriously an awesome story. I was glued to the screen during the entire reading, which almost never happens to me. Read her now so that you can say “I knew her when…”
Well, I guess that’s all for now. Hopefully super secret potential good news won’t remain so for much longer!
Sounds like you have good stuff going on, Nicky.
I can understand the need to end W1S1 participation to make room for other things. After 6 months, I’m going to have scale back from weekly to monthly, at the very least, too. Don’t be a stranger in the forum for it, though!
I can’t wait to hear your exciting news!
Good stuff all around, Nicky. Slushing at 2 mags? Wow. Go you!
And those are some good sales, too. Interesting contrast v Smashwords and Amazon. Always knew Amazon was bigger, and more likely to get random people buying, but 7 v 85 is a big difference.
I’m scaling back on the W1S1 challenge too, and may have to cut it completely before the end of year, for reasons quite similar to yours actually, though without any novel stuff. BTW, we’ll be starting a 12-monthly novel challenge at AW, to coincide and kick on from Nano, if you’re interested.
I also can’t wait to hear your exciting news! 🙂
OMG! Thanks for the shout out on Fairview 619! It’s one of my favorites (except for the ones I’m working on of course). I don’t know why but this post just came up in my blogroll today, weird. Hope you had fun at ArmadilloCon. I had a blast and am planning on becoming a regular.