On Changed Plans and Things That Trigger Them

I meant to apply my marketing class to the Kickstarter, but when I thought more about it, I realized I've already messed it up. Oh, well. There's always the next one.

I intentionally attempted to help fans by making my Kickstarter a way to get the Aleyi series for less with the pre-sale…and nibbles have been…pretty much non-existent. (Note to self: Holiday season crowdfund projects need a longer deadline, not a shorter one—and they probably aren't going to work until I have a larger fanbase.)

That's okay. I don't mind failing like that (and frankly, it might still succeed). If it doesn't, that's fine. It's not as if I'll be having to buy a cover for A Fistful of Water—although I'll probably revisit the filtering I do to the photo. I can't quite figure out how to get the effect I'm wanting.

And CreateSpace just made their "Expanded Distribution" free.

What does that mean?

"Expanded Distribution" (ED) refers to additional sales venues to which CreateSpace can make a self-publishing author's book available—including the CreateSpace Direct program, which lets bookstores and such buy your book at a wholesale price. ED used to cost $25…and any books sold through those vendors pays the author a lot less than the other sales venues.

Some self-publishing authors have avoided it due to the cost, and they're jumping on it now. Some have put their books in it as they could afford it and are snatching up the new free ED for new releases and for any old ones that didn't have it yet.

But some authors don't see ED as worth their while, either because of the pay cut or because of where they have to price their books to be able to put it in ED. These folks are generally fretting over keeping print prices "competitive"…compared to mass market paperbacks. (Note that CreateSpace produces trade paperback size books, not mass market paperback size. The mass market paperback size doesn't work with print on demand publishing; that size requires offset printing runs to be economical.)

Personally, I'm putting every book I can in ED. That's me. I don't know how many CreateSpace users are going to do that.

In other news, you might have noticed the widget on the right, where I'm doing NaNoWriMo. I've updated my "FIRST DRAFT PROGRESS" section in the sidebar there to show the things I hope to finish this month. So far, I've finally finished drafting the sequel to "Thrice Uncharmed", and I've discovered that the sequel to "The Nymph and the Goblin" is going to be longer than I originally thought it would be.

After I finish that, plan is to jump into my "How to Focus" guide and my book on writing essays efficiently. I suspect the sequels to the above sequels might weasel their way into that list, though.

In any event, December and probably January will be major revision months for me, so I can get those things to you. Maybe I can finish some of those short stories on the back burner as a break. Hmm. I'll still have First Draft Fridays to do, so… we'll see what happens. Especially since I'm moving in a few weeks.

But Lord willing, the next few months will be nice for fans who want more reading material by me. ^_^

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? What are y'all up to, this month?

—Misti

Chronicles of Marsdenfel Book 3: A Fistful of Water (and Other News)

A Fistful of Water is done!

Well, drafted. Now I'm putting it through Holly Lisle's "How to Revise Your Novel" class—or, at least, I will be, soon. I seem to be running short on hours in a day, lately.

For those of you who have followed me for a while, you're probably unsurprised that I'm now running a Kickstarter for A Fistful of Water.

But before you click away, this one's a bit different than my others.

First, this Kickstarter is intentionally designed to let you pick up the next book (or even the entire series) at a discount.

Second, this Kickstarter includes opportunity to get a collection of all Aleyi short stories—including the no-longer-available "Butterfly Boots" and one as-yet unreleased one—which will only be available through this Kickstarter.

For you readers of my blog, any donation amount will get you the e-book of the limited-edition story collection. Just comment here with your Kickstarter username or PM me there with your commenter name, so I can know who you are.

And I do mean "any". Minimum donation amount on Kickstarter is $1.

Of course, there's always the possibility that it won't fund, but one reason I am low on hours in the day, right now, is that I'm seeking to apply a marketing class I'm in to Kickstarter. Which means—

Well, I'll let it be a surprise. But I think you'll find it amusing. :-)

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Now, for other news: My First Draft Fridays over on Wattpad is on hiatus for this week at the very least. Possibly for a bit longer, but it will be returning.

Non-Writing News: I made brine pickles. I dislike them, but I'm not sure if that's a matter of how I flavored them or that I just don't like brine pickles. Considering they were a bit salty and I don't care for saltiness, I'm assuming I don't care for brine pickles and will be attempting vinegar ones, next time.

Writing News: I'm also doing NaNoWriMo this year.

Well, sort of. I'm falling under the "Rebel" classification, this year, where I'm focusing on writing 50k words rather than writing a single novel draft. (The "Rebel" classification is allowable under the formal rules of NaNoWriMo, despite the name being short for "National Novel Writing Month". Speaking of the official name, that missing hyphen bothers me.)

I've designated November as a "Month of Finishing Things". So the sequels to Thrice Uncharmed and The Nymph and the Goblin, my "How to Focus" guide promised to those on my e-mail list for my study guides (sign up here), and my book on how to write essays efficiently that people have been nagging me to finish for years.

I expect that to be about 8k–10k words of fiction, plus 45k or more words of non-fiction. If I'm wrong about how long the non-fiction books will be, I have some short stories that can be added to the "to finish" list.

Have you reached a "finishing" step on any projects, lately? How are your projects coming along? Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

—Misti

What? New Kickstarter? New Cover? Oh, Um. Yes…

If you don't reach your goals on Kickstarter, you don't get any money. On the flip side of that, if the project doesn't reach its goals, donors don't get charged anything, either.

That's actually something I like about Kickstarter. Either you get all the funds to do your project (and deliver the goodies), or you don't get anything. (Can you imagine the mess that might ensue if you got partial funds, but not enough to get the bonuses folks have signed up for? Blergh!)

Any readers who remember my fiasco with a particular publisher (who's mysteriously failed to follow through on their promises, for the record) might remember the short stories involved, or that I went ahead and published them.

I've never really liked the cover. I had to do a different one for the e-book vs. the print book. I preferred the e-book over the print book—which I hated, but I couldn't figure out how to do what I wanted. I was relaxing last night and found a few good photos that, while they don't do exactly what I wanted, they produce a far better cover than what I had. So I fiddled with the source image, modified a few things that I thought had contributed to the suckage of the old cover, and…

(If you want to compare it to the photo I modified, that's here. It's by JD Shippel and released under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.)

Not great, maybe, but far better than the original two covers. And the best thing about it? I can use it for the print version, too:

I'll be letting the covers sit a few days before I update the stories, to give me time to seek things to tweak.

So the Kickstarter's for the audio version of those stories. (I'll have to figure out covers for the two other stories, then, too! *gulp*) If funds go over, I'll apply them towards either production of the next collection or translation of this one. (Depends on how much funds go over. If they go over. Assuming I even reach payout.) I've been waffling over trying a Kickstarter for this, but what's it hurt? Worst-case scenario, things don't fund, and I'm just out some time.

If you're not interested in these stories, in an ARC of the next collection, or in an audio or Spanish version of this one, but you want to drop a few dollars to support someone, dig around Kickstarter to put your money on something you'll enjoy. Whenever I've wanted to donate to help someone, I've found someone whose project interested me.

Be warned that these stories have more gore and salty language than my Aleyi or Darkworld ones. (…Okay, so maybe not more gore than some of my Darkworld ones, but I think you get my gist.)

Note added 3/14/13:

The Kickstarter failed, but that's okay. It happens.

I used to have an otherwise as-yet unreleased flash fiction piece here, called "Thanks Taking", but I've since pulled it down. (But its former presence here explains some of the rest of the post and the comments.)

Note: Lyn ≠ me. I'm actually against euthanasia, for the record, but that would make me one boring writer if I couldn't convey characters with morals that differ from mine. ^_^

This story doesn't appear in the current collection, but Lyn (the narrator) is the MC of all the stories. If that's piqued your interest, head on over to Kickstarter and check out the project.

I don't expect anybody to donate. If you do, I'm grateful, but if you're uninterested or you can't afford it at the moment, please don't feel bad. I know the feeling. ^_^

Have you ever used Kickstarter, either to donate or to fund a project? Would you ever use it? What do you think of crowdsourcing? What'd you think of "Thanks Taking"? How do you like that new cover for "PRIMpriety"?

—Misti