J.R. Murdock

I’m still not gone, but I’m working on it. Thought I’d drop a quick post. While I’m writing this post, my brain is thinking about ad copy, sales copy, book descriptions, and the like. I’ve got a number of short stories and books I need to do that for. I’m watching this video…

and reading these blog posts…

https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/tag/sales-copy/ – Dean Wesley Smith on writing Sales Copy

and thinking about buying this book.

That is all for tonight. I’m off to pack and do some food prep. I know I’ve much to learn so I’m cramming for next week when I get started on doing all these.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Gang. I’m not here at the moment. Though I may not be working on a book at the moment, trust me when I say my mind is still in the game. So much is going on in my head and I’ve done so much work both with the day job and getting all these books and stories ready for publication, that I’ll enjoy this little break.

That said, when I return Monday, I’ll be right back with the 5 a Day With Jay videos. I’ll be working on the interior of the ebooks (short stories are already done). That will take much of next week. The week after, I’ll be preparing the print editions. Then I’ll work on getting everything scheduled.

Next week, I’ll also work on getting a preview of the book covers for you. It’s an exciting time.

For now, I need to refresh. I will post daily, but I won’t be doing the videos day. Nothing big. Just something to keep the streak alive.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome.

Though this weekend (and this evening) were lazy days, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t getting anything done. The weather has been playing havoc with my sinuses and causing me to snore and sleep has been a struggle. If you choose to watch the video below, you’ll hear it in my voice.

It’s not the hour shift. Yeah, that messed with my brain, but not my body.

I did spend more time this weekend peeking and tweaking the book covers. I’ve got them dialed in where I like them. I can’t wait to get these scheduled. It’s going to be a fun time. I also can’t wait to see what My Favorite Daughter comes up with for the short story covers. It’ll be fun to see all that come together.

I also went through the website. Cleaned up a few anthologies that are no longer in print. I was sad to see they were not there any more. I also found another short story that I edited, cleaned up and got ready for publication. Oddly, the anthology isn’t up for sale anymore, but the individual short story is. I’ll be reviewing the contract on that one to make sure I can put it out myself.

So a lazy, yet still a productive weekend.

While fixing and fidgeting, I did watch a few more videos from the 20 Books Vegas series on YouTube and finished watching the Dean Wesley Smith series on Heinlein’s Rules. I know I’ve a lot to learn from those who’ve gone on before me and become successful. I don’t know that I’ll rise to their level, but it’ll be fun trying.

Finally, I’ll continue blogging this week, but tomorrow evening we’re having dinner with friends (only 4 of us) and I will be out hiking with the Mrs for a few days. That means no 5 a Day With Jay unless get a wild hair and decided to record on my phone. We’ll see.

I’m off to get more rest and get my body back to normal.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/A-little-time-away-esmisb

Another relaxing day. I spent much of it deflating and relaxing.

Then I looked at the book covers I’d already done. Got some more input from the Mrs. and My Favorite Daughter. Did a lot more tweaking of some elements. I’m really liking how they’re all coming together. Happy with the end result.

And Then! I started looking at my webpages (you know, this one and ofgnomesanddwarves.com). Looks like a few of the anthologies I’m part of are no longer up on any of the book sites. Ah well. I removed those to make space for the bombardment of content that’s about to come flowing forth. I’m getting back into the headspace of everything I need to do once I start getting these scheduled.

I also watched several speakers from 20Books Vegas 2019. I recommend watching several of these. Dean and Kris (if you need to ask, ask me in the comments and I’ll provide links) as well as Kevin J. Anderson. So much great content from all of them. It’s really eye-opening.

I’m off to get some rest before getting up early tomorrow and starting my regular schedule.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

I’m still plugging away on covers, ebook formatting, and blurbs. When I’d started, I’d forgotten all about doing blurbs, also known as Sales Copy. Dean has a great series on this which I have revisited and if you’re stuck on how to write these, here’s some great advice and a free ebook. I’ll leave this here and get back at it.

Not every part of being a writer is sexy and interesting. Wait…ok, almost no part is.

Today I hit a sticking point in the day job and it got me to thinking that I’ve also got a sticking point with my writing path.

For work, it was a matter of stepping away and realizing where the missing semicolon wasn’t (isn’t it always a missing semicolon?). I spent a few minutes away from the computer and, presto, I found the issue.

With my writing goals, it’s a little more complicated to identify. The biggest thing is that it’s not something in my control, at the moment. The biggest thing I need to do is get work out there for readers to find that will lead them back to more of my work. To say that I’m getting ahead of myself is an understatement.

I know what I’ve done wrong over the years with sporadic releases and inconsistent output on social media. My whole point over this next year is to change all that. I know I won’t be able to maintain this output. I’m only able to do it now because of years of work that I’ve already put in to build up this backlog. Once that’s been depleted, I’ll need to come up with a new strategy.

Again, I’m getting ahead of myself. This is the time to focus on what I have laid out for the next year. Yes, I need to have a plan beyond the next 12 months. Once I get this all scheduled, I’ll start to work on a 5 year plan and a 10 year plan. What to do beyond this first year. I know I won’t be successful if I run for a year and stop. It won’t happen.

One of the many reasons I’m doing the YouTube videos and these blog posts is to journal my journey. I’ll be able to look back and see what worked and what didn’t. Should I get stuck, I can have a moment of reflection to ground and center myself once more before charging forward again.

Writing is a big piece of what I need to do, but it’s not everything. Getting and staying on a schedule, that’s the ultimate goal. I know I can do this. I needed today to take a step back and refocus. It’s going to be an amazing ride.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Audio Only Version: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-day-with-Jay-Episode-101-ese9cd

You’ve been hearing me talk in the videos and reading on this blog about what I’m planning with dropping content every week for a year, possibly longer. I’ve talked about how excited I am to get this content out there into the hands of readers. I’ve had this plan in mind for years.

It started out as dropping content monthly and getting on a schedule. I wanted to save up a backlog of books and publish this one a month for as long as I could.

That plan morphed into what I’m currently about to do which will see content drop weekly starting on 5/5/2021 and looking at the schedule, except for a couple of holes and books I know I’ll be able to write in that time frame, the schedule goes out until 10/5/2022. Yeah, a year and a half of dropping content every week for a year and a half.

And that’s quite likely just the beginning. If this gains a good head of steam, I could keep that going.

That said…I’m terrified. I’m scared. Yes, fear creeps into my head. That little voice telling me “What if you fail?” “What if no one reads your stuff?” “What if people hate it?”

Yeah, I’ve got a little voice in my head that tells me all the time that my works sucks. My stories are awful. This is all going to fall flat on its face. I’ll fail. Worse, I’ll fail publicly for all to see and point at what not to do.

That feeling sucks. Big time.

I like to think I’ve got a thick skin. That people don’t hate my work. Maybe I even have a shot at making this succeed. What if I don’t try? How will I ever know? I’m more scared of not trying and never knowing. Living a life of “what if” tearing me apart from both ends.

What I was in my early 20s, I wanted to be in a metal band. A punk band. Any band. I wasn’t a great musician, but I had fun. You’ve seen the video. We weren’t terrible but we were far from great. I tried…I failed. I had to admit to my friends, my family, that I was a failure at what I tried to do. I was a starving musician and let me tell you, being a musician was a blast…it was the starving part that sucked.

One of my other life-long dreams has been to be a writer. I know I’ve dropped the ball many times over the years and had several false starts. That all changes on 5/5/2021. That’s when I start dropping content and getting this dream under way. Let’s see how long I can keep it going.

I’m off to go make magic happen.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

My plan tonight was to talk about fear which would have gone hand in hand with yesterday’s topic, excitement. Plans. Pfft.

As it was, got up later than planned due to a headache brought on by the rain. Argh. Did the day job. Worked out in the afternoon. As I was cleaning up, I noticed the time. Hey! It was nearly 5pm on a Wednesday. This is when the writers group that I’m part of meets. It’s been quite some time and I decided it was time to join back in.

It’s a great group of writers, all of us amateurs and nearly all of us either with day jobs or students. I didn’t mean to, but I got us on the topic of self-promotion, platform building, and finding readers. Great conversations were had on that topic.

Then we got into publishing, book covers, and editing and the costs associated with each. This is were opinions differ. There’s the mind set that you MUST put money into editing and covers in order to have a great book, it’s all a matter of how much money.

There’s also the mindset of putting out the best book you can for what you can afford. There were opinions up and down the spectrum.

I’m not saying write, produce, move on. Heinlein’s Rule #3 is edit, but don’t edit to death. Yes, read through your work (or cycle and edit as you go) but put out a clean manuscript. There are grammar tools out there to help you. You can have word read your document to you which will help you identify rough spots. There’s a LOT of options that cost next to nothing if that’s your budget.

It’s about putting out the best work you can within your budget. Readers will be forgiving to a certain degree. If a work is littered with typos and grammatical errors, many will put it down and some will leave you bad reviews. It happens. The goal isn’t perfection, but the best book you can put out. Making sure a manuscript is clean.

Perhaps have a friend read it first to see if they can identify something. I know several writers that have a beta-reader team that will point out flaws and issues. That’s another route you can take.

All I’m saying, you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars per manuscript if that’s not in your budget. You can put out a book for next to nothing except your outlay of time. Put in the time, do the work.

That’s what I’m doing and I’ve got a LOT of work ahead of me over the next couple of months before I begin my rapid release launches. My goal isn’t perfection, it’s entertainment.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

I don’t know how else to say this and I apologize if I keep repeating myself, but this is exciting. Tonight I went through and did a read through of a few of the short stories (the ones I hadn’t read in years) and did line edits on everything over the past few days. I use a few different “grammar” tools to fix things like comma placement and a majority of word misuse. Some of my characters don’t talk no good so the programs all balk at those lines and slows the process down a tad, but overall, I’m happy it’s done.

What I have now is 36 short stories (give or take) which will layout to be 4 collections of 9 stories each.

In the grand plan, that’s 36 weeks of just short stories, which will launch every other week. That’s 72 weeks. Nearly a year and a half! It boggles the mind.

On top of that, the collections will be 4 months (ebook one week, print book two weeks later) on the release schedule. I have 4 other completed books, that’s another 4 months. I’ll have a 5th book done before I start the launches which will add another month to the book schedule.

That’s 9 months only with what’s completed. If I average a book every 2 months, which is very doable, I’ll have the other 4 books I want to have done before all the current content is fully published! Meaning I’ll have another 4 months added to the end of the current schedule. By this time, I’ll be working on the Military Sci-Fi trilogy to wrap up the 15 book arc I’ve had stuck in my brain for…I don’t want to think about how long it’s been stuck in there.

And, of course, I’ll be writing a short story here and there to keep this flow going.

Can you see why I’m excited? If I stay on schedule, I’ll have potentially 16 months of releasing content every single week. I’m kicking myself for not doing this sooner, but it’s incredible to think about doing this and getting it all launched. It’s a steam train coming down the rails and once this gets started, there’s no stopping it.

My plan, as I’ve said before and I’m sorry if I keep repeating myself, is to have everything currently written, uploaded and scheduled. I want all that on auto pilot. I’ll have blog posts ready to go, release schedules set up. I can sit, relax and watch it all happen in real time!

My brain is going a billion miles an hour thinking about the possibilities.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about fear and how freaking scared I am to do this. I mean, excitement and fear go hand in hand, right?

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!