Some announcements

A month or two ago I said I would have some announcements about what was coming up next for my writing. I wanted to share where my head has been. Please check in on my Books page or Events page for upcoming dates as they are firmed up.

As you probably know, I have been sharing most of my writing with you through self-publishing. There have been some truly rewarding things about this phase of my life, and I don’t regret doing it. But I am coming to realize the more I dig into what makes someone successful as a self-published writer that I may just not be cut out for it. Going forward, I will be shifting gears back towards traditional publishing by cleaning up some old projects for queries and pushing most of my new work in that direction.

I’ve already begun to do this, and really it doesn’t affect much for you readers right this minute. Things I’ve promised you on the self-pub side of things (Creation Saga 3 and the Black Roses novellas) are still planned. The blog will continue apace. I also still intend to get Daughter of Madness into audiobook. I know I’ve talked to you about some of this, so please know that it is on my radar and the narrator has expressed interest in continuing the series at this time. These are the things I know. What I don’t know are dates, outside of the general publication date for Veridian.

Why am I considering this jump? There are a lot of reasons. One of these is that self-publishing requires a lot of initial, upfront investment to be done right. Another is that most successful self-published authors keep up a punishing production schedule that I just can’t match, writing in genres I’m not really very interested in.

I have been doing a lot of research into what would make self-publishing by itself something financially viable for me, and I know for a fact I don’t have that level of effort to give to do everything, nor the stomach for the financial risk to continue hiring out services as I have been. My books in general do not seem to make enough money fast enough for me not to feel the hurt of that initial investment, and there are probably a lot of reasons for this – my early work was not as robust as it should have been, for one; my investment in marketing is mostly not a thing, for two, and I have no desire to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars trying to establish a reach that would help; and, as mentioned, I’m not writing in the markets where self-pub has been most competitive (romance, paranormal or otherwise, YA, or space opera seem to be the top three at the moment). So I don’t sell many books, and that cuts into profit margins. This is just a fact, not a complaint – I see no need not to face the music at this point.

What this means is that future work (outside of the yearly novellas which I am still planning and the final Creation Saga book) will probably be going through the long, slow, sticky process of traditional publishing before I consider self-publication as an option. On the plus side, should I be successful in my endeavors you may see a lot more of my writing. I’ll have some support networks and a financial incentive to prioritize writing work over other work, plus a lot more readers to keep you company. On the minus side, traditional publishing is a long, slow, sticky process and it’s not really any easier than self-publishing is, when it comes down to the wire.

They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing in the same way and expect different results. It’s time for me to change things up a little and try something new.

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