Out with the old, in with the new

Another year in the books. (books! Get it?) Let's see what the master story submission spreadsheet shows.

In 2019 I had seven short story acceptances and one novel on twenty-one submissions, which is one less win on the same number of submissions from 2018. My acceptance rate is still pretty good at about 33%, so I'm pretty happy with how things went.

I also had a novel, Crystal Empire, come out this year. That makes about one novel a year. I'll keep that going with the novel I just turned into the publisher for review last December. It was provisionally accepted, so we'll see in a month or two what the publisher thinks.

My overall short story total sold is now twenty-seven. That is starting to sound normal to me, where the number would have been pie-in-the-sky fantasy when I got started.

What's next?

This coming year I'd like to put out a collection of my Science Fiction stories, and another of Fantasy stories. I have enough of each to top 40,000 words for each collection if I don't mix in the sub-genres of Steampunk and Urban Fantasy. If I added those, I'd be over 70,000 per collection.

I also plan to keep submitting short stories, but I may ramp back a little to make more time for the next series. I'll spend more time shopping my stories to the higher paying markets to see if I can disqualify myself from Writers of the Future by either winning, or by selling too much pro-grade work.

Speaking of a new series of novels, I'm going to start outlining this thing soon. Now that I know I have what it takes to finish a series, it's time to apply all my recent lessons and new skills to a whole new project. I think I'll hit science fiction this time around. Working with small press and self-pub, I have a bit more flexibility to write what I want, and I like that.

Another big change for this year is that in August I will migrate from President-Elect to President of the League of Utah Writers. That will certainly slurp up some of my time, as being President-Elect has for the past year-and-a-half. I enjoy giving back to the writing community that has taught me so much over the past few years.

2019 short story sales:

A Little Help from my Friends (an essay in How I Got Published and What I Learned Along the Way)
Stalemate (Secret Lunar Wars anthology should be out in 2020)
Maintenance Mode (Mecha anthology)
Retirement Plan (Storyhack Issue 4)
Providence Canyon (Heard at a Utah Diner anthology)
The Bannik and the Soap (Fae and Fate anthology)
Designated Survivors (A cancelled anthology. Going to sell it again soon, I hope.)