Posted By Scath on November 19, 2009

In the course of writing Arcane Solutions this month, I found myself facing a dilemma: the book’s characters have series potential.

The story arc for a series was so subtle that I didn’t realize just what it was that kept setting off the ‘series potential’ klaxons in my brain.

Fortunately, two of the characters took pity on me, revealing it during a phone conversation they were having during yesterday’s writing on ‘fill in the blank’ scenes.

Oh, I thought. That’s it!

My next thoughts were ‘Nooooo! Not another frickin’ series!‘

This is my curse: some groups of characters that have taken up residence in the House of Craze fascinate me so much that I can’t bear the idea of not writing about them.

So I do, as quickly as possible, even when it means setting aside other stories and an end result of my WIP list not diminishing, but steadily growing.

I may write fast and have a brain full of stories being continually whispered to or even screamed at me, but it’s past time to admit that I have a problem.

I’m addicted to writing and spend as much time as possible doing it.

More hours go into it than I ever clocked working a job for someone else. The difference? I was fairly compensated for those jobs.

No, this isn’t a pity party with whine and cheese, or a rant.

What it is, is my realizing that I apparently missed that whole ‘work smarter, not harder’ bus. I’ve put enormous pressure on myself to write down and pursue every idea the Voices shove in my face.

Well, they’re going to have to shut the hell up and start raising their hands, waiting for Teacher to call on them from now on.

Those hours spent writing need to be spent on the stories that people will enjoy reading. Ones that do show a positive financial gain, and that readers will want to recommend to friends.

No, I’m not in this business with the goal of making big bucks, but I do need to justify how I spend my time to myself. I’m a good writer, but I can be a better one. Practice usually tends to result in ‘better’.

But there’s a problem to address:

• In order to sell books without cutting heavily into my writing time, I have to build a larger readership that will help promote my titles.
• Building that readership is impossible if I don’t spend a lot of time promoting them and myself, which does cut heavily into my writing time.

Vicious circle, anyone?

How do you promote wisely? Widely and without having to spend hours a day doing it?

I have no frickin’ clue.

But I am working on it. My first steps are occurring now, as I work on integrating my various profiles so that those which allow it update when I post a new entry here, at 43Things or tweet something. Plus, if someone stumbles across say, my Google or Windows Live profile, they find links to led them here, to FaceBook or Twitter, as well as to where my titles are available.

It should result in less time spent updating and a more focused approach to promoting, meaning more time writing.

Next step? That writing smarter bit I mentioned.

I’m going to spend some time in the next few days culling my WIP list. I’ll end up with four lists: Nearing Publication, WIPs, Potential WIPs and Backburners.

It’s going to hurt to do that, because I want to write all of them. I love to write. I need to write.

But I have to learn to set priorities. Flailing around like a beached whale isn’t working for me. Big surprise, huh?

Work smarter, not harder is my new mantra.

Which brings me back to Arcane Solutions and its potential as a series.

This is my plan from now on, concerning series ideas, although Shadow’s series is exempt, LOL.

I hope to have it ready for publishing shortly after the first of the year. Since the word count is high enough to do so, I’ll be releasing it as both e-book and print.

If it attracts enough attention, gains enough readers, that it hits or looks like it will hit 1000 copies sold by the end of next year, then my 2010 NaNo novel will be a second book for Discord & Company.

Basically, I’m not going to invest my time in writing any series if there’s not enough interest to justify doing so. I can’t, no matter how much I may love the characters and want to write more about them.

Writing is a time consuming business that I’m currently earning pennies a day for doing. It’s up to me to turn those pennies into dollars by writing the stories that readers want to read and will enjoy enough to recommend.

My blog averages 6,000 visitors a month. I average one book sale every 2.5 days or so. That’s less than 150 sales per year. I’m obviously not working smarter right now.

A writer is nothing without an audience, regardless of how satisfying a creative outlet writing is.

I need to learn how to convince readers to give me feedback. To write reviews on Amazon and Smashwords, thus helping me out. Point out my weaknesses so that I can improve. Also, I need to find book reviewing bloggers who are open to reading my titles.

While I won’t stop writing, how I go about it has to change and begin justifying those thousands of hours a year I spend doing it.

Learning the smarter way, becoming more productive, is my goal for 2010. Expect more posts on this subject in the future as I set related goals and track my progress.

The quick versions will be available on my 43Things page.

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Categories: Bloggings
Tags: Babble, Challenges, readership, writers, writing