February Already

2014-02-01 06.46.00So there’s what January looked like. After a rather disappointing start, yesterday was the first day off since the 7th.

Half Share is ready for format and upload. I should be able to do that today. I’ve already got the galley for Full Share sitting here on the table beside me and I’ve got a red pen all ready to go. I suspect there will be less markup on that book, meaning I’ll get through it that much faster. The goal is to get Full Share done by the end of February. Sooner is better.

I’ve still got audio work owed. You’ll see that I managed to get some out in the middle of the month but mostly I worked on paperbacks.

The 21st was “surgery day.” I lost that day to the hospital – family member, not me. She’s recuperating and all is well.

I had a lot of nice green circles (around the date numbers) – those were podcast days. I had one blue circle day when I walked but the recording failed. It happens.

I know many of you are disappointed that I’ve not even started any new work this month. It’ll come. I’m still in the “million words” club — a group of us who have set a million word goal for this year. That’s only 100 days of 10k words and there are 330 or so left in the year. That’s more than enough for six new novels.

Editors, that’s another question, but I’m working with three right now and have a couple more in the drawer for future work. Let me get the old stuff cleared up so I can move forward into a new workflow and I think all of us are going to be happier.

Keep flying.

Print Update

I got yet another request for paperbacks this morning, asking for a schedule. I left a reply on the comment itself – and also replied to the accompanying email but here’s what it looks like right now for publication schedule…

It takes about a month per title. I’m working on the paperback of Half Share now and should have it done by the end of the month.

Full Share in February
Double Share in March
Captain’s Share in April

I don’t have Owner’s Share back from the editor yet, but if I get it back in time I’ll publish that in ebook as soon as possible and paperback in May.

Then on to revise and re-release Ravenwood in June, Zypheria’s Call in July, and Hermit of Lammas Wood in August.

By then I should have South Coast back and will publish that in ebook as soon as possible and paperback in September.

The rest of the year will be recording audio for those books that don’t have it yet. The Tanyth Fairport stories – arguably much better – are suffering because they’ve not had the same exposure as Ishmael Wang has enjoyed. I need to fix that.

Hardcovers will have to wait until 2015.

My six book year will have to wait for a bit, too.

My plan is to approach publishing as my “day job” and see if I can carve an hour or two a day out of the schedule to actually write something new. There won’t be any 10,000 word days in there, but I might be able to get something written by mid summer for publication in the fall. If I can get those paperbacks out sooner, then of course, I will because that will be one huge load off my back.

Stay tuned.

Mid January Status Report

January In ProgressJanuary’s about half over and after being a prat about my work load the other day, I thought I’d share some of the stuff I’m doing.

This image is what I’ve done this month.

The circles around the dates are for my daily walk/podcast. Red means I didn’t walk. Green means I walked and did the podcast. Blue means I walked but the podcast file failed.

In the boxes are what I did. For the first week, my word counts were zero. We were still on Holiday Schedule here with family home and kids under foot. HLW in red means editing. I published it on the 12th. (Green box.)

The red box is “No School” day. It’s MLK Day and everybody will be off.

The good news for today is that I finished the markup for Half Share’s paper edition and I’ll be loading those changes in over the next few days. That’ll be one less book in the pile.

I’ve also taken care of a lot of “back office” business this week. I finalized contracts for foreign translations on Korean and Japanese editions. I paid my estimated taxes to state and feds. I shipped a bunch of stuff out to Dark Overlord Media for a benefit auction for CosmoQuest.

It’s been a hectic month and I’ve not done any of the things I planned, but I think I’ve done the most urgent things on my list.

I still have a lot to do. Luckily, tomorrow is another day…