The Sale Is Over? What Now? THE JABBERWOK

First, check out this interview in which I talk about writing (of course), character VS. plot, using personal experiences in fiction, my faith and how that's played into my fiction, and many other things.

Second, this past week Crystal Lake Publishing ran a Countdown sale on my first short story collection Things Slip Through, which ended yesterday. Essentially, the ebook started out at .99 and slowly, over the course of six days, worked its way back up to its regular price. 

I've got to be honest.

I really didn't expect anyone to bite. I certainly didn't expect folks to share and re-share the sale (even though I was running a contest for folks to do so, I didn't expect them to do it, either), and I certainly didn't expect to not only see the book shoot all the way to #4 on Kindle's top 100, but I also didn't expect folks to keep purchasing it after it raised to about $2.99, keeping it up around #13 and #16 right into Saturday.

I'm absolutely honored and humbled and totally blown away. That, and I'm again in debt to the great work editor Joe Mynhardt has done in promoting my collection. In fact, because the sale was such a success, today marked the first day of a similar Countdown sale on Amazon.com.uk. 

But for the most part, the hoopla is over. The collection has slipped its way back off the Top 100 mark, and unless a similar showing takes place on Amazon.com.uk it's time to stop basking in the temporary glory and get back to business. And I say that tongue in cheek, of course, because I never stopped writing during the whole thing. However, now that the sale's over, it's really time to put my head down, stop crowing about myself and push onward to the next thing.

What are those next things? 

Well, Billy the Kid: Down in the Dark is officially done and will be shipped off to beta readers. It stands at roughly 145,000 words, which, believe it or not, met my goal of 150K or under. Now, beta-readers will hopefully cut out all the fat so I can prep it for pitching to publishers.

And this is awesome, awesome news, because it frees me up to focus on a totally crazy experiment: a free, monthly novel called The Jabberwok. The plan - release a chapter a month for free, on as many platforms as I can manage.

And that's it.

No strings.

No catches.

Totally free.

Eventually, when it's finished, I want to experiment with The Jabberwok as my first self-published title on Amazon. "Hyrbid Writer" is something I want to eventually become, and The Jabberwok is my first stab at it.

But why free?

Simple. In another blog - maybe tomorrow - I want to talk about developing a relationship with readers. I learned a lot through the TST sale, and one of them was this: a strong relationship with readers cannot underestimated, at all. How will The Jabberwok help in the regard?

Tune in tomorrow...