Colony Update! + News · 6:06pm Sep 16th, 2016
60,000 words.
That's how little I have left to edit on this Alpha pass of Colony. 60,000 words. Considering the story itself is 333,000 words, that's not much. A day or two worth of work, no more. Then I've got to run through and make some noted changes to air pressure in a few marked chapters, and then ...
Then I move to Beta. Which means those of you that are former Beta Readers can expect to see a message from me soon, while those of you who aren't may see a post looking for additional beta readers up here on the site, looking for those I know are good for it.
The point to all of this is, however, that Colony is getting close to being ready for release. Sometime in the next week or two I'll probably start work on the cover, and once I'm officially in Beta I've got to figure out some other things to. Such as "Do I split this titan of a story into two 'parts' so that readers can buy a cheaper chunk rather than the whole thing at once and then sell a 'combo' book that's both alongside it? Or do I just sell the book?"
You can read the rest of this post at Unusual Things
Oh, but you can read this bit here, since it's kind of specific (it's also at Unusual Things):
Fanfiction
Right, so fanfiction news, guys. Yes, I know it's been a while since I've said anything or done anything on that front. As you may have noticed, I've been pretty busy. Unusual Events, Shadow of an Empire, Colony ... etc. But lately I've had two ideas itching in the back of my mind, and they won't go away, so ...
But I'm getting ahead of myself. First the big news: Hunter/Hunted. Right now, here's the plan moving forward: Once Shadow of an Empire is out, I'm going to start writing the sequel to Colony, Jungle. Once that is done, I'm going to start on the third Dusk Guard book, Hunter/Hunted. Yes. At long last.
But ... that does mean sometime like summer or late spring of 2017. So in the meantime, starting tomorrow, I've got two smaller stories planned that I'm going to start writing out. One is shorter, a standalone, and (unusually enough for me) definitely not meant to be taken seriously. I'm not going to spoil anything, as that will ruin the fun, but it's going to be short, sweet, and utterly ridiculous. Once you see the title, you'll know why. It's a kooky idea I had after I ... well, that'd be a spoiler, but as easy as it will be to write, I'm going to go ahead and start working on it.
But after I finish that, I'm going to start work on another small side-story, this one a sequel to one I've already written. And again, that's all I'll say on that. That one clue. Work will obviously be slow, because I'm only going to be doing this on Saturdays (unless it really consumes me) and I won't post anything until the story is done (which means Alpha and Beta reads there, too), but it should be a lot of fun to write and read.
Just an update. Hit the link above for all the other stuff.
I love that this sentence is a thing. It looks like the story is some sort of machine with parts to be calibrated.
I'm also looking forward to the above-mentioned pile of whimsy. I could use a bit more silly in my life.
Thanks for the update :)
Will eagerly wait for new stories
About splitting the book. I, being long-time fan, will of course buy bundle :), but I like idea of having book1&book2.
For me personally buying bundle of two books is psychologically easier - not even in having more things for the same money way, but in a way that I can read one, make pause and read the second one later.
Also for person who is not familiar with your writing it could be easier to buy the first part and decide if he wants to buy the second book imho. 'One drink' being cheapest available option still has different theme from Colony and cannot work as preview.
Also I'm not sure that having free try-before-buy part is so bad idea. You do not have to split the book into 20 parts to do so.
You can have small part (book-zero) for like 5-10% of whole epic which is free, and then book1 and book2 which are paid. In that case it will be easy for new audience to check if they want to invest money in the book or not.
BTW just as an idea - did you think of having short story with characters and setting from Colony (does not have to be directly related with events in the Colony itself, more like One drink to Dead Silver) released before the book itself? Could be a way for potential audience to become familiar with characters and world. I saw few times when authors included short stories related to upcoming book in book that is available right now, making it a bundle with book + short story inside. Audience gets the story + bonus, author gets potential buyers for the next book. It definitely worked on me at least several times.
I think you should split Colony into three or two books. While I'm usually in favor in keeping a story as one book, 1,300 pages is quite a behemoth. Is this your largest story yet? 333,000 words is even bigger then Beyond the Borderlands.
I'm going to take a guess that the second side-story mentioned is a sequel to Emoticon, featuring the time when the Doctor first met Steel Song. I remember the Doctor mentioning this when Steel Song met him in Emoticon (The fact that they met each other out of order reminds me of the episode "Blink").
This kooky story idea has me intrigued (Pretend there's a detective Pinkie Pie emoticon with the pipe from 'Mmystery on the friendship express')
4212757
Well, in a way it is a machine. A machine to provide entertainment!
4212787
My thoughts exactly: Two books is much easier to buy than one, and a new reader may go for the up-front lower cost, and not mind that they're paying more in the long run if they get both. Sort of like buying an episodic game all at once versus buying each episode.
I've thought about doing that before, actually, but what keeps me from doing it is Amazon already providing that service. You can read the first 10% of any book on their store for free, even downloading that sample right to your reader. Which in Colony's case is going to be about 130 pages worth of preview stretching the first few chapters. Simply put, Amazon's already done that for me, so it doesn't make much sense to make a "demo version" of the book when Amazon does it automatically.
There is a downside to that, though, and that's that so many customers, to put it bluntly, can't be bothered to notice. Even with the giant "LOOK INSIDE" banner and the button right beneath buy that says "Send a sample to my kindle," you wouldn't believe how many e-mails I've gotten from people saying that they like the description but don't want to buy my stuff without reading a free sample, could I please send them one or put one up somewhere for them to read?" at which point I explain that it's already built into the Kindle platform, all they have to do is click a button.
Some people even reply thanking me for setting that up, and comment that Amazon should have that by default. Which they do.
Shadow of an Empire has that with Ripper from Unusual Events, but at the moment there is nothing like that for Colony. It's not that it isn't a good idea, but between the time left until release and the nature of the story, there's not much that could serve as a standalone without either A) spoiling several chapters of the book or B) being quite disconnected from the narrative.
It's not a bad idea, but it's just not feasible in this immediate case. Getting any sort of resolution out of it would spoil something about Colony, as it would be after the fact (unlike Ripper, which was written before the fact and planned for).
Thank you! Look for it soon!
4212953
Splitting it into three isn't practical. Bear in mind I'm not talking about making it into a trilogy or similar here, where there are three, self-contained, interlocking stories (so each book gives you somewhat of an introduction to the cast, etc). This would be a literal cut. Book One would end with the end of part two after chapter 23, and Book Two would start with Part 3 and Chapter 24. Bam. Right into the action.
And yes, Colony is the longest thing I've written so far.
4213210
Okay, that makes sense.
4212956
Well, at least from UX point of view, if user needs some feature but cannot find it - it means not that user is dumb, but that UX specialist who created interface did not do his job right. Since you obviously cannot ask Amazon to fix their mistake - I would say that it's logical to look for some workaround.
Does Amazon forbid you from creating and publishing free preview book ? If no - it would be good idea imho. For each potential reader who actually went so far as to message you with preview question - there are at least several dozens who simply left and were lost for you forever (please read last 4 words in Pinkie's voice)
Or if you cannot have free books published - you could publish the first few chapters with price of .99 (I think that is the minimum allowed). It is still much more comfortable for the user to try new author this way than paying for the full book, imho.