Goals and progress toward them

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by triceretops

It is now confirmed--I am jealous.

Ha!!! Remember, I don't have a day job, although I am looking for one now. It makes a huge difference in the amount of time I have to write.

[Wesley Kang]

Great thread.

My goal is to get my debut novel on Kindle by the end of the week. Plus setting up the necessary things to promote promote promote.

Good luck to everyone in your threads. And though it may seem sometimes you are only sharing your goals for your own sake, it truly is inspiring and motivating for me to see what others are doing.

[merrihiatt]

I agree with Wesley. I may not reply to every post, but I read every post and love hearing about everyone's journey.

[merrihiatt]

10,015/45,000 words written on Spring Love.

"This big ol’ house was made for a family. You and Jared would have some mighty good-looking kids.”

“We’ve only been on one date and you already have us married with kids. Don’t you think that’s pushing things a little fast?”

[Katallina]

Well, well... I'm now at 16 / 26 chapters edited, so that's one more I've finished.

The outlines for the Tales of Ellithica books are going well.

And I finally heard back from my cover designer ... Does $25 an hour x 15 - 20 hours (ie. $375 - $500) sound normal to you guys? That's what I've been quoted and I think some wires got crossed here. I definitely want to address that before she does anything.

Anyway, glad to see everyone is doing well.

[merrihiatt]

That sounds pretty average to me, Katallina. I generally figure around $500 for an original cover. I'm sure some covers would cost upward of $1,000. I'm not fortunate enough to have that kind of money to spend on covers or editing. It is my dream, though. I'd love to have original cover art and have my books edited by a professional.

[stranger]

That sounds really expensive for cover art. I think you can get great art done for 150 dollars or less. I researched it lately so I can send you the links I've been looking at if you want.

[EngineerTiger]

I researched cover art extensively several months ago. The difference in the pricing is that there seem to be two different types of cover artists out there. Those who are artists who create original art (digital or otherwise) tend to be on the higher side. I can think of one artist who I'd love to have design my covers (one of our fellow AW members). He's a bit pricey though since he does fantastic original art and my budget right now has to focus on the production of the audio books.

The lower cost covers tend to be by graphic designers who take stock art and manipulate it in one way or another. Some of the designers seem a bit more limited in what they can achieve (as in, if there isn't stock photography that can be used as the basis, they are less likely able to create the desired cover). I had one lady explain to me very carefully why she could not produce the cover I had envisioned. Apparently, the idea of taking two or three stock images and manipulating them to create an entire new image was not something she was interested in doing. Her alternative suggestion, while charming, was more suited to an historical romance (and similar to other covers she had done) and had little to do with the actual story or what I wanted.

Many of these covers by graphic designers are stunning, however, it explains the price differential. It also means that a writer must be realistic in his or her expectations of what a particular cover artist can generate.

[merrihiatt]

11,603/45,000 written on Spring Love. "I think it was St. Francis of Assisi who said, ‘Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words.’"

[Rubay H.]

Short term goal - finish up on the first revision pass of my novel this week and write a new novelette while I'm waiting to hear back from an e-publisher on the novelette I just sent out.
I'm pretty sure it won't get picked up. It barely made their preferred word count and the genre might be a bit hard to market.
Hopefully, I'll hear back in weeks as opposed to months so I can go ahead and make it available to read.
For somebody.
Anybody?

[Tettsuo]

Current goal is the finish the editting process by the end of July 2012 so I can distribute the book to the beta readers. I've already got a cover artist, my bro. We're going to review some of his suggested thumbnails on Monday. Once we agree on the cover concept and direction, he'll do the original artwork on it.

[Wesley Kang]

Hello everybody,

YOU CAN DO EET.

That is all.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by Wesley Kang

Hello everybody,

YOU CAN DO EET.

That is all.

[merrihiatt]

13,198/45,000 words written on Spring Love. "I wasn’t really listening. I was looking over Lisa Jones’ shoulder as she texted her friend. They were talking about the date she went on last weekend. It was way more interesting.”

[EngineerTiger]

Well, finally slogged my way through Chapter 9 (wonder why I find love scenes so much more difficult than battle scenes? Must be the tomboy in me - eh, mush).

[Al Stevens]

Got the novel ported to Scrivener. I used the remarks feature to build a timeline--date and time for each scene--and realized that given the subplots, the chapter progression doesn't match up with when things would have happened. Scene A depends on scene B having happened, but scene A happens first. Or scene C needs X amount of time, which is stomped on by scene D. Flow.

So, next goal is to fix that.

[Nightmelody]

One more read through before Alien Blood is off to editors and beta reader. It is a novella so won't have a huge time frame for turn around. Cover artist is mocking up covers so everything is on schedule.

Will work on book 3 until AB edits are back.

[MmeGuillotine]

Hello! Can I join in as well?

Basically my goals right now are:

1. Finish the chapter that I've been working on for three weeks. I don't know what's up with it - I usually work much faster than this. Maybe I'm just not feeling it for some reason?

2. The cover for my first book is ropey as hell as I did it myself on Photoshop. Despite the cover, the book is still my best seller so I've decided to give it a bit of a reward and commission another new cover from the artist who designed the gorgeous cover for my third book. I see there's a discussion about cover costs further up the thread - the one that I commissioned for my third book cost £120 and I couldn't be happier with it. I'm hoping that the new cover will be finished by the end of next month so I can relaunch the book and give it a bit of a sales boost.

[stranger]

Progress: After an intense week of editing, I sent Mythweaver to the copyeditor. Cover art is delayed but hopefully won't affect my schedule. The plan is to send out the copyedited novel to as many reviewers as possible in July, in the hope it'll have one or two reviews by the time it is released in early August. I will go KDP Select initially.

Goals:
Get back to writing The Narrowing Path, which has been put on the back burner.
Waiting coverart on Crimson Dream, then I have to release a print version of that
Fix up a short story, do cover art on it and release free on Smashwords/Kindle with first chapter of Mythweaver at end as promotional tool
Update/Improve website. Set up a blog and get some good content up ahead of Mythweaver release.
Look for forums on mythology and interact a bit, figure things out.
Check out kindle boards.

[merrihiatt]

Sorry I've been AWOL from this thread for the last week. My new/old job is kicking my behind. Ha! I haven't written even one word on Spring Love. I'm trying to tell myself that it is okay. I need the time to make the transition back to a working girl (hmm... maybe that wasn't the best choice of wording. Ha!).

Goal one: Reconnect with Spring (this means turning off my work brain).
Goal two: Write one chapter on Spring Love today.
Goal three: Write one chapter on Spring Love tomorrow.

[EngineerTiger]

Merri, don't fret. Sometimes work impinges on my writing, too. I find that things continue to percolate even when I'm not composing. Sticky story lines, dialogue, etc. so that when I can get back to the keyboard, things tend to flow. Hope the job goes well for you.

[merrihiatt]

Thanks, Beverly. Gosh, when I was almost at the end of the chapter tonight I kept falling asleep. That's never happened before. Hope the readers don't fall asleep when they read it!

14,477/45,000 words written on Spring Love. She liked the way his touch heated her skin and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Maybe she’d find out at the end of their date tonight.

[Katallina]

Lots going on this week.

17 / 26 chapters revised now. (yay!)

I'm actually going back and reading up to where I am to make sure everything is lined up before I do the last part of my book. I've taken notes on 15 / 17 chapters I've worked on and I seem to be lining up. I've also noticed my writing is bulky, and will need another sweep to smooth it out but my 125k fantasy romance will thank me for that, I'm sure.

Some of you may have seen my cover thread and if you have you likely know I'm back to the drawing board for cover & blurb. That's okay, though. It'll get sorted out.

Overall I am happy with how things are going here. In a perfect world, I'll be done this round of revision by the start of July and will have things cleaned up by the end of the first week of it.

[triceretops]

Got two interviews finished and sent off to the blog hosts. Sent to free copies to book reviewers, so I'll have to wait on those. Looking for the prequel short story to hit Amazon--any damn day now, any day now. And waiting for editor to send my agent suggestions for rewrites and revision, which is hinging on a contract.

Oh, werewolf thriller should bust out the 26 of this month, God willing nothing else goes wrong.

tri

[Old Hack]

Merri, when I take a short break from my writing I find that when I return I write more, and better stuff too. It's as if it all accumulates, waiting to be let out.

I hope you don't get too tired or stressed writing and working at your day job. It's a hard balance to strike, especially for someone as productive as you.