It all starts next week!

I know. I know this will be a slow road. This is like taking that first step when running a long distance race. You know it’ll be hard. There will be pain. You’ll slip. Things might not go your way. Other people will pass you. The wind will blow in your face and slow you down.

These things happen. It’s still difficult not to be excited about the start.

That said…

This isn’t a foot race.

In a foot race, there’s a clearly defined line where you finish. There is a clearly defined winner. Everyone knows the rules and must follow those rules.

With writing, there are 1001 ways to get the job done and there’s no clear endpoint. There isn’t any winner though there are a significant number of losers.

Going through Dean Wesley Smith’s lessons on Heinlein’s Rules of Writing, it’s a cycle. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. You got a book done? Good for you. Get it on the market. Write another one. Keep going. You want a cookie? You don’t get a cookie. There’s no cookie for you! Write! Go!

Ahem. Excuse me.

That doesn’t take away the joy of what I’m about to embark on. The biggest difference, and I’ve said this before, I’ve scheduled work out. I’ve given myself the biggest buffer I can. I got a lot of the advance work done and set up. I’m going through and scheduling short stories to start dropping every other week. So many short stories!

My Favorite Daughter sat down with me this evening and we create the book covers for the first nine short stories and the compilation. I’m NOT going to share it out yet. It’ll be a little surprise. You’ll have to be patient and wait.

The concept, I’ll share with you. It’s simple.

When scrolling through the endless books on Amazon or any other site, it’s filled to the brim with faces in space, ships in space, sword wielding warriors both male and female, dragons, monsters, blown up cities. I get it. There’s a specific book cover for letting readers know “This is sci fi” or “This is fantasy.” I get that. honestly, I do. People spend a lot of money on their book covers and it shows.

Good for them. I applaud the effort.

The problem for someone like me, I’ll get lost in the noise. Quickly. Someone will see a cover for a short story and it’ll look like 1000 other books the reader is scrolling past. It won’t make an impact even if they know my name.

I know this because I’m a reader of all that and I’ve bought literally thousands of books and I can do the same thing scrolling through my kindle.

What makes me stop? Something totally different. Something that sticks out as not the same. That’s what I was going for with the covers. I wanted something that would stand out, catch someone’s attention, and make them wonder “What’s that?” I want to clash with the flow of everything else.

Why?

I’ve seen the memes for movie posters. The sameness is getting boring. Sure, they look amazing, but the don’t stand out one from another. I feel the same way about some of these book covers.

That said, this experiment is ONLY for my short stories and compilations. I won’t do this same thing for regular novels.

I’m off to go calm down. Got shot #2 so I need to get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow might be a rough day.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!