Announcement Time!
*Ahem*
It's about that time. You know what time I mean. Yeah, you do, c'mon.
Wait, you don't know what time I mean? Okay, well, I'll tell you then.
It's about that time to release the first chapter of Moon-Burn! Like last time, it will be in three installments over the course of a month. Also like last time, obviously, you'll know Part 1 because it was at the end of Book Two, but I encourage you to re-read it when I post it. It'll refresh your memory and get you geared up for Part 2, which I hope you'll enjoy as much as I do. Some of you may be wondering why I bother posting the first section when you've already read it and you could easily read it again since you have the book. Well, it's because I get a lot of new traffic on my blog (meaning people who maybe haven't read my books) on a daily basis. And I don't want people who haven't read Lone March to miss out on the first section of a chapter and be lost just because I already put it at the end of the last book. Yes, they'll be lost anyway if they haven't read the first two books, but I hope they'll get into it after reading the first chapter and go back and read from the beginning.
And just so we're clear: this is NOT a ploy just to sell more books and make more money--it's not a money thing at all. I am not rolling in dough over here. You guys all know I sell my books for 99 cents each. I just want to get my work out there. If I was in this for the money, I'd be charging more than 99 cents a pop and I'd probably be putting them out there a lot faster than every six months. I have always maintained that this is not about money. I want to share my work--that's every writer's dream: to share their stories with the world and make connections with the people who read those stories. So I hope that a new person who stumbles onto my blog, or even purposely searches it out of curiosity, will read and enjoy a free chapter and want to read more. It's as simple as that.
Since my first conversations about this industry with fellow writers, one thing has been clear: it's damn hard to make a living at writing--especially fiction--because it's such a saturated market--just like the music industry. It's not impossible, obviously. J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer--all cases in point. But unless you're them or perhaps a few others, you most likely have a day job. I do. (One I love, by the way.) And honestly, I'll tell you something. Even if I sold millions of books and made all kinds of money, I think I'd still have some sort of job that got me out of the house, even if I only worked a few hours a day. I spent the last year not working while my fiance paid the bills. It was his idea. After my last semester on campus at UNT, we planned to move in together and he said he would pay for everything so that I wouldn't have to have a job and I could just work on my books. We both thought it was a great idea--every writer's dream, right? (Well, their second dream, of course, after the sharing-their-work dream I mentioned earlier.) To be a full-time writer? What an awesome life, right? Wrong. I got so stir-crazy that I could hardly write at all. I couldn't focus--it was awful. Don't get me wrong--I wasn't miserable; I had a good time with my fiance and I did do some writing obviously because I wrote two books during that year, but it was harder than it should have been. My point is having something other than your art to focus on, having some other obligation or responsibility, having something that forces you to keep a regular schedule, that can give you insane focus when you get your free time and you can actually work on your projects. At least that's how it works for me. I've got to have something other than my art to occupy my mind or my work starts getting sloppy and empty and meaningless and I lose focus, hope, and, worst of all, I think, I lose interest. Luckily, I've got a job now and I'm back on track. Book Six is really cookin' over here. Having so much fun with it. But anyway, that's another story for another post.
Look at this. This was supposed to be a quick announcement about releasing the first chapter of Book Three and it turned into a whole big written soliloquy on my process and creeds of creation. Let's not make a study of my fickle and hypercritical psyche anymore, shall we?
Okay, then.
xxErin
PS. Look for that first installment sometime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment