My Personal To-Do List (Marketing)

In Today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* A Note on Yesterday’s Post
* After the Current Novel Wraps
* My Personal To-Do List (Marketing)
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” Andy Grove, Intel’s legendary founder (from the first link in Of Interest, by Kevin Evers, on “productive paranoia,” a term I like a great deal and employ regularly)

A Note on Yesterday’s Post

For a lot a good comments and responses on yesterday’s post on the POV character’s unspoken thoughts, Click Here.

I recommend reading all the comments in the thread, and my thanks to those who commented. I wrote several responses, and there might or might not be more comments by the time you read this.

All of that said, do whatever you like and in any way you like. I can only offer up my experience from having been there.

I’m here to help cut your learning curve, not stifle it. So write however you want. I can only make recommendations. It’s your work.

After the Current Novel Wraps

First, little black letters and marks of punctuation on a white page do not do a good job of conveying authorial mood, so let me just say up front, as I write this I have a grin on my face. So there’s the tone I hope you’ll carry with you as you read the following.

After Blackwell Ops 37: Temple-Schiff wraps I’ll be taking some time away from storytelling to focus on putting together some of my fiction and nonfiction books in omnibus collections or, if you wish, “bundles.”

I hope to have completed this task within a week. If I can complete it in a shorter timespan, I will consider that a bonus.

I’ll bundle my best nonfiction books to maybe get my best advice out to writers at a lower per-book cost. Of course, the price of each new bundle will be more than any individual book, but it will still be only a fraction of (for example) a $300.00 online workshop. Just sayin’.

I’ll also bundle from 2 to 22 novels at a time (and in some cases, novellas) into omnibus collections so readers who enjoy particular characters or genres can purchase them in bulk at a greater discount.

I will publish all of those to my StoneThread Publishing discount store on Payhip first, then to both Draft2Digital and to Amazon.

Why am I taking time away from my writing to do this?

Well, I ran the idea past Scott Carpenter’s WIBBOW Rule (Would I Be Better Off Writing) and I decided I’d be HAPPIER if I was writing fiction but not better off. I need to get this done.

So I’m taking the time to do this for a completely selfish reason:

25 New Publications

When I’m finished, I’ll have at least 25 new major publications ‘out there’ containing my work and with my name on the cover.

That’s 25 new opportunities for readers to discover my name and my work. Now multiply that by 1200 stores and libraries worldwide. And the actual number is well over 1200 stores and libraries. It was 1200 a few years ago.

I’ve done a little of the prep work. On my Payhip online store I’ve created two new category—Omnibus Novel Collections and Omnibus Nonfiction Collections —and I’ve already moved three omnibus collections into the first: two mystery omnibus collections and the Soleada Garcia subseries.

Finally, if you’re wondering why I didn’t recognize this opportunity until now, I have no idea.

My personal excuse is that I’m 72 and a bit rattled with a faulty ticker, too many red blood cells, and stumbling around like a directionless moron because my back doesn’t like me anymore. (grin)

If you’re younger than I am (sorry, James G, Robert S, Dan B, Peter A, et al [grin]), your own excuse might vary. But you can always default to ‘Whatever works,’ am I right?

Okay, so below is what I have left to do after the current novel wraps. If it helps you or gives you ideas (or even simply reinforces Heinlein’s Rule 1: “You Must Write”), good. If not, well, that’s up to you.

My Personal To-Do List (Marketing)

• Create a new image for Omnibus Novel Collections (This will be a simple label.)
• CREATE a new label/image for Omnibus Non-Fiction Collections

Then I’ll start compiling, creating covers and promo docs for, and publishing the following omnibus collections, listed by genre:

Nonfiction

• Punctuation for Writers and Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction
• Quiet the Critical Mind and Write Fiction, Punctuation for Writers, and Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction
• Quiet the Critical Mind and Write Fiction, Punctuation for Writers, Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction, and Writing Better Fiction

Fiction: Action-Adventure

• Charles Claymore Task: BO-2, 6, 18, 19, 20
• Philip Dunstan: BO-7, 8
• Jeremy Stiles: BO-10, 11
• Buck Jackson: BO-23, 24
• John Quick: BO-29, 30
• Jack Temple: BO-31, 33, 36, 37
• One-Off Men of Blackwell Ops: BO-1, 9, 12, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 32, 34, 35
• The Women of Blackwell Ops: BO-3, 4, 5, 13, 28
• The First Five Blackwell Ops Novels (BO 1-5)
• Nick Spalding books 1-4
• Jonah Peach & When the Owl Calls
• Three Action-Adventure Novellas: Jobs Like That, A Rough New World, A Little Time

Fiction: Mystery

• Stern Talbot Omnibus 2: The Darling Members Club, The Waller Files

Fiction: Western

• The Original Story: The Wes Crowley Saga 1, 2, 13, 14, 15, 16
• Wes Crowley Saga complete 22-volume set
• Other (non-Wes Crowley) Westerns: A Change of Plans, Rider Jones, Charlie Pilsen, Two Old Gringos

Fiction: Science Fiction/Science Fantasy

• The Journey Home Saga (10 volumes)
• The 13-Month Turn, Rose’s Story
• In the Siberian Fields, The Claim
• The Battle Begins, The First Nine Days
• Other Non-Series SF: The Day the Earth Shuddered and Went Dark, The Advent of Simon Stark, The Storm, Terminus Loop, The Consensus, The Portals

Fiction: Magic Realism

• Stories from the Cantina, The Cycle of Ramon, Keeper of the Promise

As I compile and release the bundles, I will probably report on my progress here in TNDJ.

The Writing

Today was an abbreviated writing day, as reflected in my numbers below.

In the first 11 hours of my day I did a bunch of stuff other than writing, including responding to a LOT of comments. I am not complaining. I LIKE comments.

I finally turned off my email alerts and turned to the novel again at a little before 1 p.m. to enjoy running through the current story with Jack Temple and the ever-delightful Miss Delilah Schiff. I expect that story to wrap in the next day or few. Then I took off a half-hour early to reward myself. (grin)

Of Interest

The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift From the article, “Her success is about much more than her music—and innovators can learn from it. … Swift is just taking control of what other artists let happen organically.”

You Only Have Three Months to Get a Real ID This fulfills my personal requirement to do a public-service message annually or whatever. (grin) If you fly, you need to do this.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 1130

Writing of “The Anatomy of a Hit”

Day 1…… 3323 words. To date…… 3323 done

Writing of Blackwell Ops 37: Temple-Schiff

Day 1…… 2012 words. To date…… 2012
Day 2…… 2487 words. To date…… 4499
Day 3…… 4597 words. To date…… 9096
Day 4…… 2790 words. To date…… 11886
Day 5…… 3430 words. To date…… 15316
Day 6…… 3353 words. To date…… 18669
Day 7…… 2811 words. To date…… 21480
Day 8…… 3166 words. To date…… 24646
Day 9…… 2077 words. To date…… 26723

Fiction for February………………….. 32203
Fiction for 2025………………………. 153558
Nonfiction for February………………. 10410
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 42390
2025 consumable words…………….. 189438

Average Fiction WPD (February)…….. 2928
Average Fiction WPD (Annual)……..… 3656

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 3
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 107
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 275
Short story collections……………………. 29

Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.