Considering Self Publication

I've been considering self publication, specifically an e-book only self-publication route.  I'd always said that I had zero interest in self publication, but I feel differently now.

There are few reasons:

• Self-publication doesn't see to have the same stigma that it once did.  I've been really enjoying self-published authors recently.
• I like the idea of "owning my destiny"
• The thought of sending my query into the black hole of agent desks sounds scary.
• I can afford to spend the up-front costs on editing/marketing/book-covers

Goals Before I get Started:

• 3 fully polished books in my "back list".  
• I currently have one fully polished and another that's 14k words into its rough draft.  
• I plan on releasing them 6-8 weeks apart.  
• One will be the first in a series
• The other two will be books 1 and 2 in a different series (with the first being free)
•  Create a full marketing plan.  I want my books to be launched...not released...and not escaped.  The plan will have all of my marketing goals, but a subset includes
• Giveaways
• Facebook page
• Press Release for my hometown (Fishers, IN) and local (Chicago)
• Blog Tour
• Email List
• Blog pages for each book
• More...part of making the plan is deciding the "more"
• Get books professionally edits
• Get professional cover art

Currently the only item on the goals list that I am working on is getting three fully polished books.  I plan to finish that before I start the other goals. 

I think I need to be able to write a couple books a year if I want to be a successful published author.  I know that the more books you have, the more of all of them you can sell. 

The first book took me five years, admittedly on and off.  This second book has taken me four months to get to this point, and has at least six months left.  The third book I hope to fully write in six months.  The third book would be book two in one of my series.  The other two were the first books in two different series, so have a bit of "start up costs" around world building etc.

Anyone out there in blog-land have any thoughts about traditional vs self publication?

How many books per year should I aim to release if I am published?


Links of interest:

• Marketing Plan Example
• A Newbie's Guide to Publishing
• Lindsay Buroker's Great Site on Self-Publishing

Still Around

Sorry that I haven't been blogging for the majority of the month. I realized that I was having a problem with my duel plot lines because they really didn't belong together. I had to go strip out the one plot line (and save it as the start of another book), which totally killed my word count. The other plot line was at about 8k words and, after a little bit of work my main plot line is to 15k. My goal is to get back up to 20k by the end of the week. At that time I am going to go back through what I have and do my first revision. Every 20k words I am going to do that (but only over those last 20k) so when I get to the end everything has been revised once. It's going to be a little harder to fit in writing because I picked up a second job that will last about three months. My goal is to keep up at around 4k words a week when I'm not revising and about 3 chapters when I am.

Also, my little sister got married last weekend so we've been crazy busy with all that and all the prep work. That's the above picture. I'm the one on the left, Meg is in the middle and our older sister, Ashleigh, is on the right. The wedding was very nice with minimal drama, which is good :)

20k

Yey! I've hit 20000 words! It was my first big goal milestone and I'm here ahead of schedule!

It's Cooking

Book in the Oven isn't about cookbooks, it's about the creation and development of a novel. It's intended to be a pun on "Bun in the Oven". I'm just hoping it won't turn out half-baked.

Currently I am beginning the blogging process while sitting at 13k words. My word count goal is to end up somewhere between 100-115k.

From looking through the blog-o-sphere and various websites, there seem to be as many methods to writing a novel as there are authors. It's really funny when one person says to *never* do something and the next guy says it's the best way.

So considering how I work and what I want to produce, here are the steps that I will be following:
0) Get a rough outline for the story and major goals. (done)

1) I have two major plot lines (that merge a little over half way through the novel). Right now I am going through and writing a very rough draft of those plot lines. I hope to hit around 70k works when I am finished with that.

2) I am going to go through all of those scenes and add tension and description. I am going to remove the generic/boring phrases and replace them with better ones. I hope to be up to 85k through that.

3) I am going to go back through the novel again and layer in some additional plot lines and add more color to secondary characters. (This idea is one that people swear on both ways.) I hope to be around 125k after that. Basically Steps 1 and 2 are for the main characters and their primary issues. Step 3 is adding colors/layers to emphasize the main plot line and keep action moving throughout

4) I am going to go back through my novel yet again and remove scenes that don't advance the story (maybe merging important details into another scene) and tighten up the story. At the end, I expect to be around 100-115k

I also plan on working through Writing the Breakout Novel workbook and employ his suggestions into my writing. I will blog about what I learn.

This blog to take me through my novel's writing process , submission process, and--with any luck--publishing process. I won't discuss any details of my novel besides saying that it's the first of an Epic Fantasy Series.