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!

In which my story is the best someone has ever read, plus Amazon sales

I just got a heads up (thanks, Sam!) of a great review at Diabolical Plots of my story “Wrath of the Porcelain Gods” which the reviewer says is “the best story I’ve ever read.” Okay, so there was a little bit of a qualifier that came before it, but still it’s a mighty compliment, and the story went on to get a Recommended rating. It made me all warm inside to read that. It’s nice to know that my writing is being read by actual real live people and having some sort of an effect. That’s why I drive myself nuts, sitting in front of the computer writing for hours on end, while normal people are out doing what ever normal people do with their free time. I want to be an entertainer, to connect with my readers and to (hopefully) make them laugh.

And speaking of readers, I finally got around to publishing my two short story collections on Amazon.com this weekend, and I’ve already made a couple sales. Delightfully Twisted Tales: Fire, Fangs, and Brimstone is now ranked 55,410! Yes, that’s a really big number, but it’s a number! No sales for Delightfully Twisted Tales: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind yet, but hopefully some will come soon, and I’ll be rolling in money. Well, quarters at least.

Can I get a cookie yet?

30th Sale Plus Slush, Slush, Slush!

I am pleased to announce that the story I wrote at Viable Paradise has found a home. “Of In-laws and Close Encounters” will be appearing in Issue 5 of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind! After several days of struggling with a “serious story” that was clearly not going to work, this whimsical tale popped into my head the morning the assignment was due. I wrote in a fury to finish it and was quite pleased with the result. This marks my 30th sale, which kind of sounds like a lot. It’s nice to know that 30 people think that my writing is worth paying for, and hopefully there are many more out there that feel the same!

And in other news, I will be reading slush for a well-respected semi-pro SFF magazine, and I’m really looking forward to shoveling through my first batch of slush. We’ll see how excited I am when I’m drowning in it a month or two from now, but I’ve heard that it’s good to work in the trenches to get some perspective on one’s own writing. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Not much news to report on the writing front, but that will change soon. This weekend I’m dedicating to submitting all of my stories to market, and getting my short collections up on Amazon. I’ve even got in my mind to send out a couple snail mail submissions, though we’ll see if that actually happens.