To Do Lists

Posted on by under Indie Publishing, Wild West Thursday

Every time I go to a conference, I come home with a To Do list. This has always been the case, but my lists have become longer with conferences in the past year or so. RWA Atlanta was no different – and I still have list items from BEA in May and even Novelists’ Ink last October. I’m halfway wondering if I should stay home for a year, just to catch up on my To Do lists!

The reality isn’t that I’m inefficient. We’re in a strange market in which everything is changing very quickly – and those who are nimble and take advantage of new opportunities quickly see the biggest results. Also, being indie-published means everything is my own responsibility. While I have a team (a beta reader, an editor, a cover designer, a formatter, etc.) everything stops at my desk. This is the challenge of indie-publishing – being completely in charge and fully responsible – which not every writer welcomes. There is something enticing about the idea of having someone else (like the publisher) do all of the nitty gritty while the writer just writes: the problem is that, in my experience, it doesn’t work out that way very much of the time. As I said many times at RWA this year, my publishers over the past 20 years – by offloading jobs to me – have done an excellent job of training me to publish my own books.

So, what’s on my updated list this time? RWA for me was about opportunity and networking. There are a lot of interesting ideas and possibilities out there, so many that I’ll have to pick and choose. (Sadly, my days still have only 24 hours. Boo.) Kim Killion had a fabulous idea for Thorolf’s cover which I’m hoping works out well. It would be a whole new adventure for me, which is exciting. I’ll let you know more about that when/if the details come together.

Overall, though, my plan for the next year is to write, and all the other stuff will have to fit around the perimeter of that. I’m ready to finish up my existing series and dive into a new project (and there are lost of candidates in my office.) There are two more paranormal romances  to finish the Dragonfire series (Thorolf and Sloane) and two more medievals (Malcolm and Elizabeth) to finish The True Love Brides series. I suspect Drake and Ross will get novellas of their own to conclude both series. (In an ideal universe, they will be Christmas 2014 novellas.) I’ll spend the next year researching other story ideas and developing them, maybe even launching something new soon.

These are exciting times. Stay tuned!

7 thoughts on “To Do Lists”

  1. Never mind anything else on the ToDo list – just finish Thorolf and Sloane so that I have a full series! Looking for ward to your promise to send me the Dragon Warrior book when it comes out due to having bought an unreadable ebook of the first one. Once I have them I’m pretty sure I’m as up-to-date as I can get on my dragons.

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    • LOL – that’s the plan, DJ. And I have your mailing addy to send you the book asap. It’ll have to be shipped to me first to be signed, then shipped back to you. Now that Kiss of Destiny has gone to the formatter, the print book should be finished and available soon.

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  2. Wow Deb, this is big incredible news finishing up a series and starting a new one is exciting news I’ll be very sad to see the PRY hibernating but I think we’ll probably see them again when a characters whispers in your ear and you can’t ignore them any longer. And kudos to you for taking all the responsibility that goes with being an indie author. It takes a special person who can do that, and it’s also a very scary way to go.
    I love your writing you have a very unique voice in romance whether it’s paranormal, historical etc… and I will follow you wherever you go. As far as to do lists, I’m a pantser and they get done when they get done LOL
    xoxo
    deb

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    • Oh, Deb, I think you’ve misunderstood me – I’ll be finishing up both Dragonfire and the True Love Brides series FIRST. New series will come after that, but I like to think/plan/dream ahead. 🙂

      No fear of the Pyr being put aside. I have a few impatient dragon shifters in my office right now, and it’s only gotten worse since I wrote the beginning of Thorolf’s book, Serpent’s Kiss. Once I catch up on my administrivia and enjoy a little bit of summer, Thorolf is next!

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  4. Your Cover Artist for the Dragonfire books is Tony Mauro isn’t it? When you say you have a idea for Thorolf’s cover I hope it doesn’t mean a new cover artist!!! Cause I just love the theme of all the other covers so much!!

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    • Hi Ang –
      You’re right that Tony Mauro did the Dragonfire book covers to date, and they are great. He works mostly with big publishers, though. Kim Killion did the three Dragon Legion novella covers, and will be doing Thorolf and Sloane’s covers. The theme will be the same, but the artist and designer will be different. 🙂

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