As you're probably aware, I'm in the middle of re-vamping and re-evaluating my business plan. I outlined my goals earlier this month, and I wanted to use this time with you to give an update on my progress.
So far, so good: I'm through the hard part, a series of deep edits to three books: Turning Back The Clock and A Galaxy At War, which I wrote under my old 00's pen name of John Fitch V, as well as to Royal Switch. When I wrote that initial post, I had already gone through TBTC and chopped some 18,000 words and some change from the original book, removed head-hopping, as well as passive voice. I did the same with Royal Switch and ended up chopping 4,000 words from the original text and massaged some of the prose there. I had intended on re-writing the entire book from scratch, but after review, I think it's better this way. And that opening to the book? Not as big of an info dump as I thought!
Galaxy, though... it was as I suspected. Much like TBTC, there was unpolished writing full of head-hopping, passive voice... just a really unrefined book, if I'm being honest. I've said it before, I'll say it again -- I really wasn't a great writer back then. Great storyteller, sure. I weaved a good tale. Did I execute it properly? Absolutely not.
That is why it pains me to relay to you that I cut over 32,000 words -- more than a third of the book -- from Galaxy's original word count, turning it more into a story the size of Zombie Showdown or Scollay Love more than anything resembling the AGENT series; it's like the old dime novels, with some beef to them. Still, my hope is that the book is better from this exercise, and I will re-read the story around Christmas to make sure it is just that. I will do the same with TBTC and Royal Switch, then re-brand with new covers. My hope is that all three books will be out for public consumption in March.
And speaking of new covers...
So far, Terry has come through with four of the six new covers for Obloeron. I've gotten peeks of what he has done, and it's amazing. At some point this week, I will make the refreshed cover for Scollay Love -- which should just be the old cover, resized for paperback -- and I will get back to my website and make sure I don't have the wrong links for Apple iBooks; some of them go to the Euro pricing, not the American. I've gone through the links in the bookstore to make sure I have no broken links.
Phew.
What's next? In looking at my list, I see there are many things I can do. Copy and paste the AGENT novels into specific three-book files for segmented box sets. I can do that. The same for Obloeron. I can sign up for BookFunnel to distribute my not-yet-written freebie; I still haven't decided if it should be a Jaclyn freebie, or something else.
I can start doing additional research for Glorious Rise. I can look into more advertising. I can do this. I can do that.
Really, so much still to do!
But the fact that I've gotten most of the really hard stuff out of the way... yeah, I'm happy with that, and my progress.
We'll take the victories, however small, as they come.
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