PeSS&NoPuMo

Before you ask, no, I’m not doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). A variety of reasons, none terribly interesting. It’s just not the right time for me.

However, I started pondering various things, and have decided that November (well, starting when we get home from Reno, so as of Friday, November 4) for me is going to be PeSS&NoPuMo. (Say that three time fast, hah!) In other words, Personal Short Story and Novel Publishing Month.

Other than a few anthology deadlines and two copyediting jobs, I’m going to focus on Soul’s Road Press and getting more of my work available online. Why? Well, largely, I need the kick in the pants to learn In Design (I know how to do newsletters in it, but not books) and CreateSpace. But also, this Christmas is going to be huge for ereaders, which means by the afternoon of December 25, there’s going to be a huge jump in ebook sales…and I’d like my stuff out there. Finally, I need some POD (print-on-demand) paperbacks available for readings/signings, etc.

Already up in eformat are 43 items: 1 novella (short novel), 1 short-story collection (lesbian erotic romance), 2 romance stories, 5 fantasy stories; the rest are erotica stories.

Right now, I’ve got three novels pretty close to being ready for publication. One needs my review of the copyedits and they all need formatting, which I can do. I’m waiting on the cover for one, and the cover designer for the other is waiting for me to tell him the dimensions, which I won’t know until I format it for POD, which I can’t do until I suss out the In Design and CreateSpace stuff. Also, I have a fourth novel that I’ll probably send out for copyediting this month.

I have one novella (short novel), In Her Hands, that’s available as an ebook, and I want to get the POD up. (I also am jonesing to write the two companion novellas, and get them up, and then release them as one big book. Maybe December with be novella-writing month….)

I have three to four collections in some stage of completion. My first one collection, Kiss Me Hello: Lesbian Erotic Romance, went up as an ebook in September and has been selling well; now it’s time to get the POD going. I have three with enough stories, and one that’s awaiting one new story.

There are also more short stories than I’m currently prepared to count waiting in the queue, too! So far, I’ve been focusing on putting up stories that sold to print publications and to which I still own the electronic rights. (There are a couple of exceptions to that – two or three stories that I put up for specific reasons; e.g., I wanted to include in a collection one that hadn’t sold elsewhere.) Plus, once all those are up, I’m going to start with stories that have been to all the major markets but not quite hit at them – the “great, but not quite right for us” ones.

When I get home I’ll figure out an actual schedule for all of this and make specific goals. But basically, I’m looking at the following:

• 3 novels (ebook and POD)
• 1 novella (POD)
• 4 collections (some ebook, some POD), depending on stories
• as many short stories as I can prep (I may not put them up all at once, though)

Will you use your holiday money to buy them?  ;-)