Greetings All & Happy New Year!
I have spent more effort than expected wearing the salesperson’s hat. It is my first time, that is, after publishing “The Last Train.” Previously, I trusted my publisher to do the marketing according to our contract. That was a mistake and a failure. I was a newbie.
Now, I have kept my sales consistent by learning from my peers. There is still so much to learn. As a condition for a paid service, I also signed up with Twitter. That fed the email tyrant with a new source to draw upon. OMG!
Nevertheless, I am well on my way with the upcoming anthology of short stories. Barry Woodham, Wren Hartwood, and I have joined to make available stories new and old. I have collected stories for 3+ anthologies and organized the first volume. It is over 120 pages before formatting it and adding pictures, etc. The three of us chipped in title ideas and agreed on “Eyes of Prometheus. An Anthology of Fantasy, Science Fiction & Horror.” By the way, Prometheus stole fire/knowledge from the gods, which gives us a large playing field for our stories.
Now I am editing all the stories. Then I will pass the completed volume, by my conspirators with pictures and my cover design. With their approval, I will format the text and publish it on Amazon Kindle and CreateSpace. I hope to have it available in February.
I have personal publishing goals this year, and hope to complete three volumes of the “Eyes of Prometheus.” For those who have been interested in my progress with “The Rising of Julian Adams” and “The Rising” series in general, rewriting the first epic volume has burnt me out several times. That gave rise to my e-zine short stories and “The Last Train.” When it occurred to me that removing my vampire book from the marketplace, I had nothing representing me at the many booksellers, I saw it necessary to change my habits. 2015 will likely be a break from the series as I build up my public portfolio.
As it stands, I have a wonderful network of friends helping me spread the news about “The Last Train.” I also have a plethora of stories to choose from for this years’ projects. Many stories, created for the late 1980s Twilight Zone TV series are at my fingertips. I only wrote four scripts out of the hundred + I had outlined. Three were accepted for production, and then the coming season was canceled. Rather than look at it as a loss as I did back then, I see them all as available ideas.
Therefore, there is a lot to come. Pray I do not surrender my time to social media related emails. My overriding desire is to bless you with my stories. Many voices fight in my head for written expression. Every one of them wants to sweep me away first. They are still under my control… I think.
Richard Alan – Author
::Bump:: Day or Night
Hey, Richard!
ReplyDeleteFirst, congrats on getting farther along on the anthologies! I really hope they do well for all involved.
Someday, maybe something of mine will be considered, but I think I need to find someone who can mentor me. I find that my main issue is (outside of not actually writing) figuring out how to draw the stories to an acceptable end.
I do have some short stories, and have submitted to several online mags, but have not been accepted yet. Now, I must rethink the endings of some to make them more satisfying to the reader.
Take care!
-- John