Today's Wordcount and Other Notes (8/22/2014)

Part of today is going to be spent sorting through my spreadsheet of what stories are out where and getting stuff out. That’s one of the really tedious things about being a writer – all the paperwork.

So how do I track submissions and figure out where to send them?

I have an Excel spreadsheet. One page has short stories that are circulating, a second does the same with flash pieces, a third tracks sold stories, a fourth audio reprints, and a fifth foreign reprints. When a rejection comes in, I mark the story on the sheet as freed up and put it in bold red. Once it’s been submitted, I switch the color to blue. That lets me look over the sheet and get an idea of what needs to go out. Right now it’s looking pretty red, so I’ve compiled a list of five flash pieces and ten short stories that need to go out, making a note of the word count.

After that I usually go to a market list, usually Duotrope.com or Ralan.com and look. I have some markets that stories always go through, but once they’ve been through those, it becomes a matter of finding the right place. I’ll look to see what anthologies are open first and see if I’ve got anything that fits into a particular theme.

Another system that can be used to track submissions is the excellent Story

Before I submit anywhere, I read their guidelines and do my best to read an issue or two (if they’re free online fiction, I don’t think there’s any excuse for not doing a little research there.)

Things that up a market’s attractiveness:

• Good pay – I make my money through writing and editing, so this is a big factor to me.
• Fast response time – When sending via snail mail, for instance, that adds at least a couple of weeks to the response time. A good resource for checking how fast they’re responding is the Black Hole.
• Circulation – Do people read the magazine? Is it getting discussed/reviewed? Are many year’s bests coming from its pages?
• Good editor – A good editor is a joy to work with.

Audio reprints and foreign markets are usually separate passes, since I’m working with different lists there – the best of the stuff that’s been published. I absolutely would be lost in looking at the latter if I didn’t have Douglas Smith’s Foreign Market list. I’ve been bad about audio reprints and need to get more of those circulating, so that will probably come after this pass.

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As you may know from the five bajillion posts and tweets and updates and god know what all else, I just had a book come out. I tried to have a somewhat coherent, or at least well-documented, promotion battle plan. Some stuff worked, some things worked better than others, and some stuff I dropped the ball on.

Things I did included:

• Making jewelry: Anyone following the blog has seen the jewelry based on the interior art that Mark W. Tripp and I put together. They turned out beautifully and were a lot of fun to make. I’ve used those pieces as giveaways at the book launch post, as well as various web giveaways, and people seem to like them. I’ve been able to post some pictures of people wearing those, and that’s been fun as well. I made sure the pieces I handed out at WorldCon had chains with them, so people could put them on immediately and many did. I also made special versions for blurbers and other people involved with the book design.
• Sending out an email: I sent out an email listing what people could do to promote Near + Far. I sent it to friends, fans, fellow writers, anyone I thought might be interested, and tried not to be too spammy about it, including a way they could remove themselves from my mailing list.
• Contacting book bloggers and reviewers: I contacted a number of people, making my list simply by poking around on popular spec fic sites to look at their blogrolls. I’d intended to set up a blog tour, but didn’t get my act together on that, so there was no organized effort along those lines, but I did do a number of interviews.
• Getting stories out there in both audio and print form: Figuring that samples of my work were one of the best ways to intrigue people, I sent out a lot of stories, including a number of audio reprints. I made sure that in the bio statements for each of these I mentioned the new book.
• Goodreads giveaway: I set up a Goodreads giveaway, following the excellent suggestions Emily Chand laid out in How to Run a Goodreads Giveaway with Maximal Results. The giveaway is currently on its last day, with 752 people requesting it, which seems like a good result, particularly since a third to half of them have added it to their to-read list.
• Blog giveaway: I gave away three pieces of jewelry on the blog, and had about a hundred entries all together. In retrospect, I might follow the poilicy mentioned in the Goodreads piece and just distribute one thing at a time, but next week I’ll be doing a sticker giveaway with stickers from the interior art.

So what’s in store for this week? Well, mostly preparing for a trip to the Baltimore Book Festival. I’ll be taking some stickers and jewelry along with me, but my focus is selling books. Beyond that, I’m continuing to send fiction out (got six pieces circulating over the weekend), preparing for another Goodreads giveaway, the aforementioned sticker giveaway, and trying a giveaway on Shelfari as well.

What all have I neglected? I’m still struggling with the mobile app intended to accompany the book, for one. I’d hoped to have more audio available, but still need to work on recording that (along with some other pieces I’ve promised to narrate). Overall, I’d give myself a solid B for my efforts, but I’ve made plenty of notes of things to do better next time.