In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Bradbury Challenge Reminder
* A Personal Challenge for You
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
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Quote of the Day
“If you’re not publishing as often as possible, you’re missing out.” Vin Zandri
A New Short Story
“The Bad Man and the Boxer” went live yesterday on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go! Read! It’s free!
If you enjoy it, tell Everyone. If you don’t, shhh! (grin)
Bradbury Challenge Reminder
Today is Saturday. You who are in or want to join the challenge, please be sure to get your story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
Setting a Sunday night midnight (or earlier in the week) personal deadline is the easiest way to ensure that.
Remember, the whole point of the challenge is to have fun and grow as a writer even as you expand your IP inventory. (grin)
I’ve already heard from the first Bradbury writer, and he’s a brand-new contender! Very exciting.
Congrats, Loyd J, on jumping in! (Now write the next story!)
A Personal Challenge for You
Other than being deep in writing another story or novel, few things bring me more pleasure than the enails that pop up regularly from Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) in my inbox.
The subject is always the same: Please ensure your KDP pre-order is ready by [date].
I usually open the email, but only to see which book they’re talking about. (grin) I already know the preorder is ready because I took care of that when I first put it up.
As I finish a story or novel and get it back from my first reader and apply any fixes he recommends, I upload the manuscript and cover to D2D first, then to Amazon KDP (NOT the exclusive KDP Select), and I’m done.
But when I upload to D2D, I set the book for pre-order. I select a date that’s two weeks to a month out. Why? Because I know I’ll finish another story by then. Then I upload to Amazon and set it for pre-order on the same date.
A few days later, the KDP emails start coming in, reminding me to “ensure your KDP pre-order is ready by” that date.
It’s really cool. For one thing, It reminds me I’m prolific. For another, it reminds me I’m still writing, that I still have more stories inside me and I need to write those too.
In other words, those silly little emails motivate me.
As an added bonus, rarely my first reader will come back to me and say, “Oops, I missed this on the first go-round.”
That’s fine. Because the book is a pre-order, it isn’t “live” yet, so I make the fix, upload the new manuscript, and I’m golden.
So here’s the challenge:
Use KDP preorders to drive you to the keyboard. If you’re in the Bradbury Challenge, this is perfect for you.
Instead of letting the stories pile up, when you finish one, put a cover together and publish it to D2D and Amazon KDP. But set it for release on a date that’s say 4 weeks out.
(Yes, even if you publish the stories one at a time, you can still go back later and publish 5 or 10 of them together in a collection. That’s yet another publication for you.)
When you finish the next story, do the same thing, but set it for 5 or 6 weeks out. Set the next one for 7 or 8 weeks out, and so on.
You’ll get constant reminders that you’re a writer, so you should be writing, and as a bonus it feels really good to get those emails.
It’s a way to get ahead of yourself.
The KDP email reminders will drive you to write more, and before you know it, you’ll be writing more fiction than you ever imagined possible.
And yes, this works for novels too. But only after you’ve shed that old BS belief that it takes half of forever to write a novel. It doesn’t. Like a short story, it just takes spending whatever time you can in the chair.
The Writing
It’s been awhile since I included a section on my own writing, so I thought I’d give you a happy update: The novel I’m currently writing is going nuts. It’s very hard for me to stop writing at the end of each day.
As always, the character’s personality is key. He has a strong personality, and the woman with whom he’s become involved has a strong personality. Clashes are inevitable, and wonderful.
In fact, even the bit players are strong characters. This thing is all but writing itself. I only have to show up and put my fingers on the keyboard. As it should be. (grin)
In fact, when I do stop for the day around 4 p.m., it’s all I can do to wait until I can wake up the next morning and get back to it.
May it be the same for you with your characters and stories. Being excited about what you do is pretty much the best feeling in the world.
I’ll talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Publish as Often as Possible! Please watch this. Great short video.
Fiction Branding… Part 8 Another very good post.
Stephen King reads from You Like It Darker Mark your calendars. He’s reading from a new short story collection.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 910
Writing of Blackwell Ops 23: Buck Jackson
Day 1…… 1217 words. To date…… 1217
Day 2…… 2154 words. To date…… 3371
Day 3…… 5757 words. To date…… 9128
Day 4…… 5433 words. To date…… 14561
Fiction for April…………………….….… 14561
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 240353
Fiction since October 1………………… 543409
Nonfiction for April……………………… 4580
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 133300
2024 consumable words……………… 373653
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 6
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 88
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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