Tuesday, April 08, 2014

The Experiment Continues

My newest installment of the sequel to Precinct 13, UnJust Cause, is live: http://www.wattpad.com/44898135-unjust-cause-part-3-the-body-and-the-suspects

A body is discovered at the base of the clock tower.  But did they jump or were they... dropped?  It's up to Alex to determine if there's something more sinister going on, and her  investigation is hampered by the presence of the two Internal Affairs agents....

If you're confused about what I'm doing over there, the short of it is that I've really struggled with motivation to write ever since I was dropped by my publisher.  The idea of posting this is a work-in-progress on WattPad is to keep the momentum going.  I am really hoping to develop a following and a community there, so I can be encouraged to keep on keeping on.

I can't really say it's working so far.  It's possible that I've been silent too long.  My readers may have given up on me, which is totally fair.  I really dropped out of the scene pretty hard.

I probably should have considered doing this sort of self-publishing thing immediately, but, the truth is I held out hope that one of my other projects would sell quickly.  Obviously, that didn't happen, and when it didn't, I was very thrown for a loop.  I still have projects that I'm hoping my agent will be able to sell, but I probably wasted a lot of valuable time scrambling around trying to fight a system that changed on me, seemingly overnight.

For instance, she and I were still trying to sell books on proposal, which, apparently, despite how many books you've had published, you really can't do any more.  You need to have a finished project, ideally, but, if not that, then a lot of finished product to show off.  I didn't have that, and so when there was interest, I had to scramble and write... which I'm not as good at. I did my very best, but I'm much better at having a chance to have a lot of revision and time to feel my way into a character and the plot.  So, no surprise, those 'samples' fell flat for a lot of publishers....

...which, of course, only continued to depress me.

So, the whole idea behind publicly posting my work on WattPad was to up my confidence.  But, alas, I've lost half my readers between my first post and my second.  So... that kind of sucks.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  It wasn't like I had an overwhelming response for my first post, either.

However, I'm still trying to use the publication schedule I've set for myself as a motivator.  At least if I write a 2,000+ word installment a week, that's forward progress. Considering that previously I was writing zero words a week, that's a very good thing.  So, I'm not ready to write off this experience just yet.  Not by a long shot.

For those who are wondering, yes, the end result should be a self-published e-book.  Provided, of course, I stick with this.

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