Tag: Novel

Yes, I know it’s been some time. I promise though, that I do have some updates on my progress with my next novel!

Always one with excuses, I will lay blame to the holidays and the nasty cold season that seems to be infecting everyone lately including myself. Between those two things and the last promotion I had for Beautiful People (which was excellent!), time has been quite limited.

Enough with the cry fest though. I have been working hard on my next novel. I had left it for some time and am having a really hard time getting back into it. I’m one of those that if I leave a half-finished project, it’s hard to get back to finish it. Luckily though, I had created a chapter summary for most of the chapters I had already completed.

After rummaging through each chapter, I see I had a good book lined up. The problem is though that the chapters are still quite disjointed. This led me to finding an amazing application called FreeMind.

FreeMind is an open-source, meaning that it is a free download. Basically, it is a mind map application. After downloading the application, I decided to give it a test drive using my stalled novel. Now I’m on the tedious task of entering all my chapters and characters into the program. I can see how it will help me organize my thoughts visually so that I can get back on track easier and speed up the editing.

I can’t wait to start my next project from scratch. This time, I will not set the project down until it’s done!

This is going to be a very quick note to let everyone know that my story, “Conduit: The Beginning“, is now available for purchase for the Kindle at Amazon.com.

I am of course very excited, but I’m also extremely busy trying to get the word out.  For those that read my novel and enjoy it, please let others know about my story.  Publishing a novel is but one step of the process, but the other step of getting the word out so that people know the story exists is probably the most difficult.  At least that it is what I have discovered.

I’m off to blaze a trail in cyberspace now.  Wish me luck!

 

With eBooks gaining popularity, there appears to be a trend of shorter style books called novellas entering the market. So what is causing this?

I attribute the change to several factors that I list below:

1)Cost
Without the overhead of printing books, there is much less cost involved in having a story available for sale. In addition, more and more authors are finding that more money can be made by posting the story themselves without the lengthy process of going through a publisher. Where an author would expect most of the income to go to all parties involved in getting the story published, he or she has the opportunity to post the story on their own, thus realizing a higher royalty. Because of this, an author has more flexibility in the cost of their story. With many people posting their own books for free or as low as .99 cents, authors are forced to sell their eBooks at lower prices. When books with 30,000 words (approximately 100 pages) are selling for the same price as full novels of 80,000 words or more, why wouldn’t an author move to writing novellas?

2)Lifestyle
I attribute much of the success of the eReaders to the accessibility of new books and other writing. In addition, life has become so much faster paced, many people do not have the time to visit a bookstore and browse for a new book to read. People have become so accustomed to having what they need available to them at the moment they want it, the idea of having to drive to a store to buy a book is almost archaic. With an eReader, a book can be purchased and downloaded in a matter of seconds. This new breed of reader is more apt to buy a smaller book to enjoy in a sitting or two instead of having to expend more time and energy on a larger and more complex story. The average worker today is stressed with a poor economy, work that demands most of their energy, and hardships at home. The idea of a large novel that requires a lot of thought isn’t as appealing as it used to be whereas an enjoyable story that has a world where the reader can slip off to, away from the stresses of their world, is what they are craving.

3)Speed
Readers are not the only ones that benefit from the rise of the novella. Authors who embrace the movement will find that their novels can be split into multiple stories allowing for their work to be produced more quickly and as a result, income can be generated at a quicker pace then had the author wrote a full novel.

I’m sure there are those out there that are against the novella format. It certainly has its pros and cons. I choose to look at it more optimistically. I know my blog is a new blog and I’m sure I won’t get many responses yet, but I’d love to hear some different views on this. So what do you think? Is the novella good for the writing industry or is it bad? Are we going to see more of them or less?