Monday, December 22, 2008

How did I do in 2008? How will I do in 2009?

Because I am bored. Let's look at 2008! Here were my writing resolutions for the year:

Sell a novel or novella
Make my first pro sale
Make at least four other sales
Write two novellas and a novel
Write at least four short stories
Finish revisions for Stag in Balance and Jack of All Trades
Finish writing Stag in Velvet

I actually did really well. Not counting Trunk Novels, I did actually sell a novel in 2008. It's not a big huge deal, but I am getting cash money for it plus royalties and it will be available as an ebook or POD print book. That's Jack of All Trades that I sold to Cyberwizard Productions sort of by accident (long story) and I'm going ahead and announcing now because I'm tired of waiting.

I also made my first pro sale this year, "Sand-Skin Man" to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which will be released on January 1, 2009! I continue to be impressed with BCS's quality.

I sold more than four stories this year (just barely), most of them early in the year: the BCS sale, a story to Fictitious Force (which then promptly went on indefinite hiatus), a flash story to ASIM, a flash story to Space Squid, and the recently released "Gaming Real Life" to MindFlights.

I wrote only one novella this year, Hilda and Justice, which was for the 3-day novel contest. I wrote only one novel, The Taste of Magic. But I did a lot of rewriting in the middle of the year, so I'm not counting that lack of a novella against me.

I wrote more than four short stories, and sold a good percentage of them. Short story production has trailed off into almost nothing, though, after a strong beginning to the year.

I finished revisions for Stag in Balance (renamed Stag at Bay) and Jack of All Trades. And I finished writing Stag in Velvet, a book which turned out to be a ridonculous 130,000 words long.

I also redid my website with its own domain name (thanks Richard!) and have released a couple of old stories for free on the site's main page. If I'd thought about it last year, I would have made that a goal on my resolutions.

So...what will I resolve for 2009?

I'll be a bit more aggressive this year with the goals. Here they are, in all their unattainable glory:

land an agent
sell a novel
sell a novel to a major publisher (i.e. one which will get my books on shelves)
sell at least four short stories
sell a story to a SFWA pro market
write at least six short stories (flash doesn't count)
write at least two novels
finish writing White Rose

Oh, and I'm about over my cold, but grouchy because I'm at work with NOTHING to do; thus, I blog. Oh, and I still haven't heard from Mundania. Or the agent who has my requested full. Or anyone else.

10 comments:

Jamie Eyberg said...

Wow! congrats on the book sale (e or otherwise is a pretty big deal)congrats on the whole year actually!

K.C. Shaw said...

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with how I did this year.

Cate Gardner said...

How do you accidently sell a book? I need the formula - now.

Congratulations, KC.

K.C. Shaw said...

Well, you give up on selling it and stop sending it out, and then post in a thread on a writer's forum (SFReader in this case) where a small press editor is annoyed that she isn't getting enough fiction subs, and say you'd be happy to send something but the only thing you have available is 60,000 words long, and the editor writes back and says that might work as a serialized story even though there's no pay and send it on, and you send it on because you know you'll NEVER sell it anywhere, and the editor sends you back a real book contract, not a serialization one, and says you don't have to sign but that she'll argue with you if you don't.

At least, that's how it worked for me. YMMV. The actual thread that started the whole thing is here: http://forum.sfreader.com/default~f~27~m~90326.html

Cate Gardner said...

It was fate.

K.C. Shaw said...

I wish fate would get me an agent too.

Aaron Polson said...

A very nice year indeed. Now I'm going to go try to accidently sell a book...

K.C. Shaw said...

It's easy! The stars just have to align.

J m mcdermott said...

You done good this year.

I think you should condense your goals a little:

1) Qualify for, and join SFWA, due to short fiction publications
2) Acquire an agent with a proven track record of deals to major publishers

(My personal goal for the new year? 1) Don't Write Sucky Stuff.)

Good job, and good luck!

K.C. Shaw said...

If I condensed my goals, I wouldn't write any short fiction at all. I hate writing short. Other than that, I agree--those are two very concise goals and exactly what I need.

I don't know if I want to join SFWA when I'm eligible, but it'd be nice to have that actual choice.

Good luck to you in 2009 too!