2017 Wrap-up and Writing Goals

Holidays Winding Down

We had a wonderful Christmas with lots of time spent with family. My wife's birthday party Christmas Eve consisted of making custom tree ornaments. She rolled her eyes at me when I helped one of my sons stuff a clear glass ornament with cat hair and glitter. We had kids, their in-laws, and others over Christmas morning. We visited a local park with a tree lit up as the Tree of Life. I didn't get down to see the lights at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City this year, but most of the family was there at one point or another.

I hope your holidays were as joyful and filled with family as mine.

Goal Report

Last December I posted some goals, so let's see how things went.

• Finish and publish “Crystal Queen” with Immortal Works.
• No, but not by far. Crystal King saw some delays, and I've just now got Crystal Queen to where I can send it to the publisher.
• Speak at three conferences (panelist, presenter or moderator). Most likely are LUW spring and fall conferences, LTUE, Salt Lake Comic Con, and FanX. I’m likely to attend all five either way.
• Yes. I presented at LUW spring and fall, LTUE, and Fyrecon. It was a lot of fun. I'll be at LTUE again in February as a panelist and I'm proposing panels for LUW and Fyrecon for next year.
• $200 in face-to-face book sales at conventions and conferences.
• Maybe. I haven't crunched the numbers, so I don't know for sure. We had a very successful booth at Salt Lake Comic Con, with some success at LUW, LTUE, and Winterfaire.
• Publish four short stories. (stepping things up from the 3 and 2).
• Yes. I sold six. It's a difference in semantics when you talk about sold vs. published. Sold is easier to track. I'm also tempted to bend the rules a little since one of the six was poetry rather than a short story. Also, coming in as a semi-finalist at the Writers of the Future is a rejection, but it's a highly valued rejection.
• Get 30 short story rejections.
• Yes. I got 35. I measure rejections because it's a way to turn something that's usually a negative into a scoring mechanism. If I keep my stories out there gathering rejections, I will also gather sales. It worked. I got only a few more rejections this year compared to last but I doubled my acceptances.

Crystal King Published

The book came out in September through Immortal Works and you can buy it here. When I sign this book I usually write "It's all about family and friends." This applies to the story, but it also applies to life in general. Families are the bedrock and foundation of society.

It was a long road to publication, about two years in the making. As a first fantasy novel it required a bit more editing and adjusting than my second effort which is already prepped and almost on its way to the publisher.

Short Stories Sold in 2017

I didn't enter the Utah Horror Writers contest for their anthology this year since I was too busy with other projects. Some of the stories from this year are online or for sale in ebook or paper format. Others are not quite in print yet. Here is a list, including one long lead-time story sold over a year ago and still not quite out.

Learning to Run with Scissors (sold 2015, due out in an anthology next year)

Dissonance (due out online next year)
Market Rat (free online at Silver Blade)
Protector of Newington (Storyhack Issue 1 on Amazon)
Unlocked (poetry in a League of Utah Writers Antho on Amazon)
The Bannik and the Soap (due out in an anthology next year)
The Lure of Riches (Clarion Call 3 on Amazon)

2018 Goals

Here's what I want to accomplish this coming year. I'm not going to keep up on the short story rejection list because I'm transitioning more to targeted anthologies along with the novels. The shorts have done well for me in the past, so I will continue some effort there, but maybe not quite as much as in the past.

• Send Crystal Queen with my publisher (nearly there!)
• Write Crystal Prince and submit it to the publisher.
• Get another Semi-finalist at Writers of the Future. I've got a small stack of honorable mentions now.
• Write a science fiction series outline. Depending on the timeframe for Crystal Prince, I may be able to do this as a NaNoWriMo project in November.

And there you have it. 2017 was a good year. I expect 2018 to be even better.

Marketing and Publicity

As with many reclusive, shy authors, I'm not great at marketing and publicity. Putting myself into the public spotlight is awkward, and by nature, I'd rather sit at home and work on projects than go out among the teeming masses.

When you treat writing as a business, that doesn't work. Even though I still feel like I'm just getting started, I want to be seen as a reliable business partner and a successful author who makes things happen on schedule and to specification. That's the engineer in me leaking out into my writing.

I've had short fiction accepted and printed by several publishers, with more on the way. They've all been great to work with and helped me with my craft, and given me tidbits here and there on marketing and publicity. Here are the ones I'm closest to with either past or current work.

• Xchyler Publishing (my first short story since I started writing regularly)
• Griffin Publishers (my two published horror stories)
• Immortal Works (my upcoming novel Crystal King)

I've Also done several things to integrate myself into the amazing local writing community. These go beyond my writing.

• Attend conferences, conventions, and mass book signings. I've been to seven or so, some of them multiple times as they come around each year.
• Join the League of Utah Writers.
• Become a chapter president in the League of Utah Writers.
• Volunteer to help with some of those book signings and other events.
• Sell books at many of the conventions and conferences.
• Speak at conferences, whether as a solo class, team teaching, as a panelist, or moderating a panel discussion.

Still, those things only go so far in building an audience of people who like to read what I like to write. With that in mind, we had Ann Hunter come out to speak to our LUW chapter several weeks ago about mailing lists. She told us about how she's used InstaFreebie to build a list and a bit of what she does with that list.

Armed with enough information to be dangerous, I wrote a short story set about ten years before my novel Crystal King, and I set it up as a giveaway with InstaFreebie. You might still be able to see the link for it at the top of my blog. I'll eventually change out that link for something else.

Just signing up, adding that link, and making a couple of Facebook and Twitter posts gave me a trickle of up to five people per day interested in reading the free story and joining my email list. Then I saw some facebook groups on extending my reach. My blog isn't a high-traffic mecca, so I wanted to bump things up to the next level. I joined some promotional events to put my free story into lists of other free things.

Two promos kicked in this week. Wow. I don't know how the week will end, but it's started really well. Yesterday I added fifty people, and we haven't hit the big push days yet. It's really cool to see that people are interested enough in my story to sign up, and have stuck through my string of emails talking about writing. Here are the links to the promos, both very well run by their organizers.

My first promo email where I share these events went out yesterday and another goes out tomorrow. These won't bump up my list because those people are already signed up. This is co-marketing with other writers because maybe their readers will be interested in adding my story to their to-be-read list, and maybe my subscribers will be interested in those other writers and their stories.

I'll use my list of new fans to keep them up to date as my release date nears, as well as giving them reviews and recommendations for other authors. My challenge now is to give them content worth their time.

Maybe I'll do a second write-up on publicity after my novel comes out to see what sort of difference it has made. The challenge there is that it's a first novel (mostly), so there's nothing to compare against besides other authors' debut novels. Stay tuned, and if you like horse stories, you can join Ann's mailing list.

Salt Lake Comic Con 2016 Schedule

Salt Lake Comic Con is September 1-3, 2016. Several authors who have published through Xchyler Publishing are ganging together at a booth. If you have early Christmas shopping planned, or if you like steampunk, fantasy, urban fantasy, dystopian, or genre fiction in general, stop by! We also have a drawing for an Amazon gift card. We'll be in booth 2226 at the west end of the green section in the northwest main hall.

Follow the red arrow to our booth.

I stole that map from Sarah Seeley who has four panels and is one of the authors at the booth. Thanks, Sarah!

Also, I'm a panelist this year, which should be loads of fun. We'll talk about how language helps us find our tribes and helps us to communicate with those we relate to.

Friday, Sept 2nd at 5 PM, room 253A

Edit: I've been added to a second panel. This one will be a lot of fun, and I'll be sure to come in steampunk attire. It's even in the same room, 253A. [Edit: They added the picture for this second panel finally, so here it is:]

Saturday, Sept 3rd at 8PM, room 253A

A Celebration of Steampunk: Wildly imaginative and stylized, steampunk is a culture and a genre all its own. But how did it start, and how can you get involved? Is it just all about the fashion, or does the genre have something important to say about the relationship between technology and society? This panel will discuss the best steampunk books to read, whether you are a newcomer to the fandom or a longtime lover of the literature, as well as recommending cosplay resources for beginners and pros.

So there you have it. I'll be at the booth some of the time and at panels the rest of the time. We should have a posted schedule of author's planned time at the booth in case you want a book signed. I'll have these books there:

Salt City Steamfest 2016

On Friday I spent some time at our booth where we had books on sale. Several steampunk, some urban fantasy, and a smattering of other cool stuff.

Kelly Olsen (Our sponsor), John Olsen, Scott Tarbot, Sarah Seeley, Jay Barnson, Julie Barnson, Scott Taylor

I found out the final schedule Thursday confirming I would be presenting two panels, one on Friday and one on Saturday. The Friday panel  was on Victorian Weaponry. I brought out a laundry basket full of some of my treasures to share and show off in addition to having a slide show.

You can see the slide show links and a brief description on the bottom of my presentations page.

These fine folks showed up to my Victorian Weaponry panel

It was a lot of fun, and we ranged through historical weapons, how that differs from steampunk, customizing your own costume parts, and a whole lot of ground in between. It turns out that people built some really weird stuff in the Victorian Era (and times nearby to that). Never assume an idea is so weird it hasn't been done before.

The Apocalypse crew. Titan machines, clockwork dolls, and sky pirates, moderated by Jason King

I was getting ready to head back to our book booth when I was asked by Jason King to fill in on the Choose Your Own Apocalypse panel, to champion the cause of the clockwork dolls. Unfortunately I was competing against giant robots and drunken sky pirates, both of which had much greater appeal. I mean, who can compete against drunken sky pirates? It was a lot of fun, and my first experience with on-stage improv.

Saturday afternoon I had a presentation on A Gentleman's Guide to Steampunk. Paul Genesse stopped by to assist since there was a little confusion as to whether it was a presentation or a panel. We talked about how Steampunk is a genre linked at the hip with high society and manners because of how it tends to tie in to the Victorian era. I spoke about a wide range of things, including dining, walking, riding in a vehicle, writing, talking and appearance. The net result is that if you use good manners, even if you don't nail them all in Emily Post style, you'll have not only a better con experience, but also be a good influence on those around you. Good manners carry over to all our interactions on a daily basis.

I also stepped in to help with another panel Saturday talking about Victorian Weaponry when a panelist didn't show. Two guys from Winterfest helped out, and I brought my basket of weapons in from the car again for show and tell. This was much more a panel discussion than my Friday presentation.

One sad note is that this will (according to the schedule handed out) be the last Steamfest in Salt Lake City unless someone else wants to take up the cause. :(