News for the Week of 10.21.13: Soulwoven Comes Together, and All Hallows Write is Soon

Hello, friends and readers!

I was up until 1:00 a.m. last night reading the second book of Soulwoven to my fiancee, so I’m exhausted as I write this today. But it was worth it. The book’s coming together very well. It’s darker and deeper and harder than the first one was, but I think readers liked those things about the first one, and if you did, you’ll like the second even more. I hope to start posting chapters of it on Wattpad around the same time the first book launches commercially (February 2014).

Speaking! Of! Which! The commercial edition of Soulwoven is starting to look really exciting. The new cover is approaching a finished state, and it’s going to blow the doors off the one I’ve got now (especially in print). I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to handle page design and layout, and I’m really excited about the way the whole package is coming together. I’ve always thought of books as pieces of art, of which the text is just the heart. And I think that Soulwoven is turning into a piece of art, and it’s incredibly satisfying to watch.

More news! On Oct. 31, I’ll be staying up all night with a couple other authors for a scary story writing marathon we’re calling All Hallows Write (more info at allhallowswrite.com). That means I should have a new short story up here for you guys on Nov. 1. It’ll be a bit of a departure from my usual style, but I think it’ll still be recognizable as mine, and it’ll still be good. Hopefully. I’ve never tried anything like this before, and that’s half the fun.

Finally: Nadya. Nadya’s mired in the muck of the traditional publishing process, searching for the needle in the haystack that will be the agent who loves her. I’ll know in a month or two whether that’s going to happen. I’ve gotten lots of nibbles so far, but no bites. Everyone has been in concurrence that it’s a good book. It’s just a matter of finding the right home for it.

So there’s more coming from me to you shortly, in one form or another.

Stay tuned, thanks for reading, and if you want to give me a wonderful birthday present, head on over to Amazon and pick up a copy of Three Dances. :-)

Yours dearly,

Jeff

News for the Week of 5/31/13: Lateness and LOTS OF THINGS

Dear Friends and Readers,

Waagh! Sorry for the late update. Things have been a little crazy.

First, Soulwoven: Plans for the Kickstarter are coming along nicely. I’ve got a developmental and line editor in place (Rose Fox, who has an amazing eye and runs the speculative fiction reviews for Publisher’s Weekly---I have learned a lot from her just by reading her blog), and I’ve figured out the copy editor I want to work with as well. I just need to get in touch with him. I’ve also got a local company (F Stop Productions in Denver) lined up to do a killer video for it.

The survey to help design it is still open, and I could use more responses. Those of you who have responded already are awesome and I love you.

Second, Nadya: I’m working my way through final revisions now, and it’ll be out on submission by the end of next month barring any major setbacks. I’m very excited about it---it has love and loss and jokes and airships and fire spirits and science and lots of other fun things.

Third, Other Stuff: I had a very productive meeting with an agent last week when I should have been writing this update instead. We talked about a lot of things, but perhaps the most important is a collaborative project I want to do on Halloween this year. It’s going to involve a bunch of writers (pros and semipros and amateurs alike) staying up all night writing scary stories and Twittering, and it’s going to be awesome. More on that to come.

So that’s May in the life of Jeff. Hope your spring has sprung in a most lovely way.

-Jeff

News for the Week of 5.16.13: Kickstarter Survey, Homebuying, Soulwoven: Exile, and Nadya Revisions

Dear Friends and Readers,

It’s survey time! I’m building the skeleton of the Kickstarter for Soulwoven, and I want your help! I’ll talk more about it below, but for now, link here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XR6QC6G

Here’s the deal with the survey. Kickstarter lets people like me fund projects they don’t have the scratch to pay for themselves, like buying professional services for long books. It also lets people like you support the creation of art by pledging money to a project. In return, you get special, one-of-a-kind rewards. The survey is going to help me figure out what to offer as those rewards. I’m choosing to publish Soulwoven this way because I want to make you guys as big a part of the process as possible. And I want to make sure that there are backer rewards in the Kickstarter that you’ll get excited about.

So please drop in and share your opinions. It’s a four-question survey, and well worth your time if you want to help this thing get off the ground and get some awesome stuff in return.

In. Other. News!

My fiancee and I bought a house. The process of that has been taking up a great of deal of time that would have otherwise been spent writing. You have my apologies for that.

But!

I’ve finished a full draft of Soulwoven: Exile, the sequel to Soulwoven. It’s now waiting for me to finish some work revising Nadya so I can get Nadya back to an agent who showed some interest in it. Once I’ve done that, I’m going to take one last look at Exile and start sharing it with my trusty team of early readers. Hopefully it will be on its way to you guys by the end of the summer.

I’m extremely excited about the stories I have coming up for you guys. If you haven’t yet, check out Three Dances and buy a copy via the links on Wattpad or my website. The more books I sell, the more time I get to spend writing.

Cheers and springtime love,

Jeff

Expanding on My Three Dances Speech: Traditional Publishers and Hybrid Authoring

Yesterday I posted a link to the first few minutes of the speech I gave at the launch party for Three Dances. In it, I talk about some of the ways in which traditional publishing and self-publishing aren't really that different.

It has occurred to me that this could be misconstrued as me saying that traditional publishing doesn't bring anything to the table. Being as I work in the industry, I want to be clear that I don't think that's the case. Three Dances was a great fit for self-publishing, because it was a project that was niche enough that it would hold little attraction to a traditional publisher no matter how good it was, and it was short and small enough that I could feasibly do all the work on my own. That's not going to be the case for all books or all authors (I have spent years of my life learning the editorial skills I put to work here).

And on top of the advance you might get through a traditional publisher, you get a pretty sweet basket of services thrown in as part of the deal. Top-notch editing, design, and production services for a novel-sized book can pretty quickly run into the thousands of dollars on the freelance market. Marketing and pr, even skimpy as it can be, adds to the cost of a book as well. I used to think thousands of dollars was too much to pay for that kind of work. Now that I make my living as a freelancer, I've realized that if you want skilled labor, you have to pay for it (indie authors may recognize this argument as one they've been making to publishers for years). As much as I owe my authors, I owe my family more.

I do think that indie writers, if they've written a good book, will make their money back over time. But not everybody has that kind of scratch to invest. I sure don't. More importantly, not everybody is a good judge of which projects to make that kind of investment on. I could have spent that money on Three Dances, but it would have taken years to make it back, even if I wildly exceeded my expectations for the sales of the book.

There are several reasons I'm pursuing a traditional deal for Nadya. One of the biggest is that the middle grade market is still very much dependent on bookstore, book club, and library placement, and those are very hard markets for an indie to break into. But the other big one is that I'm willing to sacrifice long-tail money on that book for the services I can get from a traditional publisher, and for the things I could learn from working with one.

I see more and more hybrid authors doing the same thing in my submissions pile at Carina, and I'm always happy to see them, both for their sake and for mine.

--
You can buy Three Dances as a print or e-book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

News for the Week of 4.2.13: Icy Roads, Encouraging Things, and SOULWOVEN Coming Out Soon!

Greetings Friends and Readers!

Apologies for the late newsletter. I spent the weekend dodging semis on icy roads in the mountains and have only just recovered from the shock (and the Easter meal that followed).

So, to the news:

Work is picking up on Soulwoven: Exile, the sequel to Soulwoven. I’m about a third of the way through it now, and while I’ve hit a few sticky points, and I’m also really starting to get into my groove. It still has to go through a few more rounds of reads and revisions before it will be ready for mass consumption, but I hope to have it finished soon.

Nadya has been getting a decent response from the agents I’ve submitted it to. So far it’s still all “no”s, but they’re the “loved this, didn’t love this,” or “thought it was strong but just didn’t connect with it” kind of “no”s. As an editor who writes letters like this, I know how close this means I am, and I take a great deal of comfort in it. I plan to sneak in another round of revision on it based on some agent feedback after I’ve finished this draft of Exile and then send it out to a broader swath of agents this summer.

And speaking of summer, I’ve decided to self-publish Soulwoven in the summer as well! I’m shooting for a June release date, which is a bit ambitious, but hopefully will be manageable. What that means for you is that you’ll be able to get a print copy, or a prettied-up digital copy, or a bundle of both, within the next few months.

Finally, Three Dances has hit the home stretch! I’m waiting on the final proof copy of the printed version, and as long as I don’t find any problems in it, it’ll go live either this week or next.

The fourth story in the collection, Birdcage, is up on Wattpad now. It’s about an ordinary human being who encounters something he can’t explain, and a supernatural being caught in a cycle of death, rebirth, and predation she doesn’t particularly enjoy.

It is also, despite what one early reader said to me, decidedly NOT erotica.

Happy spring, friends! It snowed AND rained here today, so surely the world is yawning and stretching and waking up for another round of rabid growth.

Jeff

News for the Week of 3.25.13: Proof! A New Challenge! Soulwoven to Be Pubbed This Summer!

Dear Friends and Readers,

Apologies for posting late! I have been busy with things that are Not Writing of late, but they’re wrapping up shortly and I’m very much looking forward to spending a lot more time creating things in the near future.

There is, nevertheless, some news:

My proof copy of Three Dances arrived today! I was less enthused than I’d hoped to be by the quality of the printing. It’s exciting to have a book in print, but there’s definitely a homespunness to CreateSpace that I wasn’t expecting. It suits Three Dances well, actually, but I was a little underwhelmed all-in-all. The electronic editions are definitely better.

I also discovered a need to tweak the cover in a couple of places and a couple of interior problems, so there will be a new proof coming my way soon. Perhaps it will be made of sterner stuff than the first one was.

I shall post the third story in the collection, The Glacier, on Wattpad as soon as I’m done with this letter. It’s longer than the rest and forms the backbone of the collection. It’s about a man who falls into a glacier. It’s also about his friend, and about the glacier itself, and the mountains, and a dance in the time of myth that shaped the world.

In Soulwoven-related news, the book has almost hit 250,000 reads! I can’t tell you how excited I am about that. I’ve decided to publish the book this summer (probably in June or July), and as I cook up ways to promote it, I’ve run across one that sticks out. Wattpad has a (hidden) rank for its books called “All-Time.” Right now, Soulwoven is somewhere around 275 on that list. If it breaks into the top 100, I should be able to write some pretty compelling copy for it.

All it needs to do that is your votes.

Seriously, if all 178 of you vote for every chapter in the book, it’ll get there in the blink of an eye. So if I’ve moved or entertained you, do me a solid and throw some votes my way. To those of you who already have, thank you. :-)

Nadya is still waiting for agents to respond. Soulwoven: Exile has my (nearly) full attention this month; I hope to have the first chapter ready for you soon.

Thanks as always for being the wind in my sails,

Jeff

News for the Week of 3.7.13: Big F-ING Week

Dear Friends and Readers,

This has been, in the parlance of our times, a BIG F-ING WEEK. I hit three major milestones, one of which was on schedule, one of which came as an early surprise, and one which I had to crank through a major weekend of work to hit a month ahead of schedule, because opportunity knocked.

Without further ado, here they are:

Milestone #1: Three Dances exists as an e-book.

I finally finished design and production work on my upcoming short story collection. It now exists as a .PDF, an ePub (the file type every e-reader but the Kindle family uses), and a MOBI (the Kindle file type). I cannot tell you how exciting this is for me. All that’s left now is proofreading on as many reading devices as I can possibly squeeze it onto, distribution to prepub reviewers, press releases, a launch party to plan...y’know, the usual.

And I’m going to go ahead and announce a release date: Saturday, April 13^th! I’ll start putting stories up on Wattpad this weekend. In the meantime, if anyone wants to help me out by proofreading an advance copy, e-mail me at jeff at jeff-seymour.com. (I need your help. I only have access to a Samsung Galaxy S3, an old Kindle, and an iPad, meaning I can’t verify that the file will work properly on a Nook, a Kindle Fire, an iPhone, or any other devices without you).

Milestone #2: Nadya is out on submission.

I was planning to spend March line editing Nadya and send the book out to agents in April. But last weekend I got a newsletter from an agent I’ve done editorial work for, and she mentioned that she has editors knocking her door down for mid-grade fantasy with sweet romance. Or, as I like to think of it, for Nadya. So I marathoned through the line edits in two days (it’s my job, remember?) and sent the manuscript off to her on Sunday night. I’ve since sent it to a couple other agents as well. I queried most of them for Soulwoven last year. And I can’t thank you all enough for your support on that book, because I was able to tell them that since they last saw Soulwoven, it’s gotten massive support on Wattpad.

Which brings me to Milestone #3: Soulwoven has hit 200,000 READS!

I can’t explain the sudden upswing in support for the book this month, but it’s been huge---50,000 reads in 28 days. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you’ve done for this book. This is how books get big. This is how careers launch. This is how stories spread their tentacles out and grab hold of lives and shake them, or hold them, or innervate them.

Stick with me, and tell your friends, because we’re just getting started.

Happily yours,

Jeff

News for the Week of 2.22.13: Soulwoven's Rebirth, More Crit Sessions, and Lots of General Excitement

Hello, Friends and Readers!

It’s been an exciting week for me. In my day job, I’m deliriously happy about a couple of projects with amazing authors that are coming my way, one of whom is already a star in his own right and one of whom I expect will be soon.

More importantly, things have been clipping along with my books! My first-page critique session last Saturday was a smashing success, and interest in Soulwoven has positively skyrocketed since I did it. I can’t tell you how gratifying that is to me. Almost 2,500 people have read the book in its entirety on Wattpad. That’s solid, midlist-level success, and it’s only the beginning!

Also, I’ve finally cracked the egg on Soulwoven: Exile, the second book in the series. I’ve been experimenting with outlining the story, which is something I didn’t try for the first book, and it’s really helping me wrap my head around things. The beginning still needs work, which is why it isn’t up yet, but the middle is in solid shape and I have a good feeling about the end. I’ve reworked the first chapter into a shape I’m happy with, and I’ll aim to put it up in the next few weeks.

And Nadya is almost ready for line editing! It’s seen additional attention on Wattpad this week as well, so I’m going to put up the second chapter. I’m extremely excited to finish up work on it and get it out into the hands of agents. I think it’s going to sell, which is a feeling I never really had about Soulwoven.

I’m still waiting for copy edits on Three Dances (I was promised them a week ago) and have decided that if they don’t come in by tomorrow, I’m just going to forego them and do my best to copy edit the book on my own. It’s hard to copy edit your own work, but I’ve done it professionally, and I’ve reached the point where I just want to get this monkey in the air.

So lots of exciting things! I’ll be doing first-page critiques tomorrow (Saturday 2/23) at 1 p.m. EST. As usual, I’ll reserve the first two spots for followers, so if you’re interested, send me a private message linking me to the story you’d like critiqued.

Happy winter, dear friends. There’s snow on the ground, and it makes me feel that all is right with the world.

-Jeff

Cultural Learnings from Agent Meetings for Make Benefit of My Books

Yesterday, I met with two agents at the Lighthouse Writer's Workshop's Litfest 2012 in Denver. The meetings were a part of their business weekend pass, which at $220 was a steal (I also get to hit up seminars on marketing, freelancing, the small press/magazine market, and other things I could stand to learn more about).

Anyway, I was reminded of a very interesting thing right off the bat:

There are several different subcategories of fantasy reader, and agents fall into them too.

I met with two agents, both of whom rep fantasy. One of the great things about the meetings (and the reason I signed up for the conference, actually), was that they were 15 minutes long and included a critique of the first 15 pages of a manuscript (For reference, a similar critique I recently donated to the Brenda Novak diabetes auction went for $81). My two agents gave me very different feedback. One of them wanted more worldbuilding in the opening pages. The other told me she just hadn't connected with the characters.

I took good things away from both meetings, but they were also a reminder that some people read fantasy for the world-as-a-character, while others are more interested in the characters themselves. As a writer, I gravitate a little more towards the second group, and it's there that I think I should be concentrating my efforts.

Last night, I revamped Chapter 1 of Soulwoven. I do not know whether the changes will stick. I am very confident that they make the book more marketable, and fairly confident that they make the opening more interesting.

But they also place focus on elements of the story I had not intended to focus upon. How far the ripple effect of that will reach, I'm not yet sure.

...and now it's time to shower, eat, and hop in the car to go find more cultural learnings for make benefit of my books.