Delays

Dearest non-existent reader,

I'm writing you to apologize for the lack of information recently. I've recently entered a turbulent period of my life--I'm getting married, moving across the country, and finishing my PhD. This means I don't have a lot of time to hammer away at constructing Act II.

Don't get me wrong--it will be done. I'd love to have a fully written draft by the end of 2013, after all. I'll do my best to make that happen.

But it's gonna be tough goings gettin' there. A good amount is done already, but you need to understand that writing is work and writing at the peak of my capability is extremely difficult work. It's fun work, yes, but it's work nonetheless. It takes a lot out of me and there ain't much to give these days--I spend so much time writing my dissertation that its hard to see sitting back down at a computer desk and typing more as any kind of comfortable respite.

Sales are just as non-existent as you, reader. Still sitting at 4 actual purchases. That's not a great motivator, either. It's my fault, I don't have time to advertise or whatever. That's not me, anyway. That's not how I "operate."

The free copies I've given away to reviewers have come back more positive than negative, generally. That's good, that makes me happy. I found out I don't like reviews, though, even if they're 100% positive. They make me self-obsess. They're counterproductive to my writing, too, because now I don't just think "what happens next" I think "will people like that" as well.

And that is a TERRIBLE way to write. That's why so many books and movies are garbage. You can't pander to your audience. I want to tell the story as it happens and not modify events to gain public appeal. I'm not some Hollywood producer and this isn't a summer blockbuster.

So I've decided to stop sending out free copies to reviewers (haven't done so in months) and I won't send out any copies of Act II or Act III to reviewers in the future. Yes, this means that it will be almost entirely overlooked since no one will know about it, but, y'know what? It already is almost entirely overlooked, so what's the difference?

Bottom-line it for ya: Act II will hit ya. Sometime. My goal was this fall, but that seems unlikely now. We'll see. It won't be forgotten, though, and that's a promise.

Sincerely,

-Bert


PS: I know you're non-existent because blogger reports page views. And there ain't been none.

Hello there.

First off, I want to thank everyone who took a chance and purchased my story. You're incredible.

Hopefully you didn't hate it.

So, news. My time in KDP expired a little while ago and I did not renew it. This means three things:

1) No more free giveaways. This is bad since the free giveaways were essentially my only form of advertisement. I'll need to figure something else out now.

2) I can put Empire Zero in places outside of Amazon. The other day I uploaded a copy to Smashwords and I'm now waiting for them to approve it. Once they approve it, it will go out to Barnes & Noble, Apple Store, and other electronic-y store-y places.  Places-y. 

3) I can drop the price. The lowest you can price in KDP is $2.99; the book is now $0.99.

Ok, enough boring business stuff. Onto slightly-less-boring progress stuff.

Writing the next “Act” is going well enough, all things considered. It's shaping up to be very similar to the first in terms of layout and length—around 70K words and 30ish chapters.

So, how much work have I completed? Well, the chapter-by-chapter outline is ~90% complete. The only “iffy” areas are a few middle chapters in the Brother storyline. Other than that, though, I think I've got a pretty solid plan. Act I set up a bunch of questions and seemingly unconnected events; Act II will draw the curtain open.

The rough draft of the Thief storyline has been completed. That said, I'm not happy with some of its early chapters. I'll probably end up changing some pretty significant things. That's the way I write, though. Or edit, rather. More time is spent editing and refining than actually writing. There were around eight or nine drafts of Act I; I imagine Act II will end up following a very similar path.

Ok, well, that's all. I'm not really a blogger. I wish I could wrap this post up with some witty and relevant comment. 

The First Three Weeks

Act I of Empire Zero has been on Amazon for three weeks now. In that time, I've made a total of one sale. I guess that's what no advertising will do for'ya.

When I put the story on Amazon, I enrolled in the KDP program. This program lets you put your book on "sale" for free on five days of your choosing in every three month period. So far, I've been putting it for sale on every Saturday of June (including yesterday).

This is what my free distribution has looked like:

June 2nd: 263 free copies downloaded
June 9th: 39 free copies downloaded (302 total)
June 16th: 25 free copies downloaded (327 total)

My original plan was to have the story available for free on every Saturday of June, but now I think it may be a better idea to hold onto my last two free days. Hopefully some of the people who've downloaded it for free will enjoy and review the book. Once it has a couple of reviews, I can try another free day and see what happens.

So, if you've come here because you've read Empire Zero, please go ahead and review the book on the Amazon webpage (you can click the cover in the right sidebar to go directly to the page). If you didn't like the book, still go ahead and leave a review but make sure you explain why--if it's something that is fixable in the sequel, I'd like to know now before I devote too much time traveling down the wrong path.

This is the first post in the blog. For testing, natch.