My Favorite Daughter finally got around to looking at what I’m doing recently. I got a ‘meh, it’s ok. I’ll show you how to fix it.”

As I’ve said many times, I’m learning how to do all this on me oddy knocky. I’ll watch a video, try something. It may or may not work and I sometimes have to drop back 10 and punt. For me, learning isn’t a linear path. It’s a journey with many side trails and rabbit holes. Today’s video I tried a number of things that didn’t work. Got frustrated. Deleted what I was working on and went with something far more simple. I learned what didn’t work, so I did learn something. Even if I didn’t get the result I was looking for. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I also got another book cover done today. Three more to go and I’ll start working on the ebook versions. After that, I’ll get the print books ready to go.

Speaking of books, I might have an interesting release schedule once I get started. Here’s what I’m looking at doing.

week 1: ebook release — week 2: short story ebook — week 3: print book release — week 4:short story ebook

I’ll be doing this for each book I have ready to go. I have 4 books ready meaning I’ll have a weekly schedule for the next four months. During that time, I should be able to finish another book meaning I’ll have five months of weekly releases. And in 5 months, I’m fairly certain I can get two books written, edited, formatted, and ready to drop. The more I think about this, I might be able to release a title a week for 6 months.

That’s the kind of momentum I’m looking at building up. Because AFTER all that…I’ll be able to assemble a collection of short stories and have a 7th month of weekly releases.

Ok, this is getting crazy and the more I think about it, the more my brain hurts. To think that over the course of seven months, I could drop 28 titles or more.

Welcome to the new world of publishing, eh?

Think we can do it? I guess we’ll find out together.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Yes, I’m still learning. Lots of things. After Effects, Premier, Photoshop, etc. Oh yeah, writing, publishing, formatting. There’s so much to learn if you want to do this book publishing stuff on your own. Heck, even recording videos and recording audio. It’s all a process.

I’ve said this over and over and I’ll keep repeating myself ad naseum. Learning never ends. I don’t expect I’ll ever stop learning until I feel like it’s time to spend my time sitting around sipping pina coladas on the beach and doing as little as possible. Maybe some day I’ll get there, but it isn’t today.

So, today’s video I’ve got a different intro/outro, bed music, and I even put in some transitions and a drop title. Yes, it’s awful and basic and I think it sucks. I spent about an hour and a half working with a 15 minute video going though all the steps, failing, trying again, walking away, trying again, and I’m still not happy with the final product. But, hey, it’s bed time and I’m not going to sit up all night working on it. I’ll give it another go tomorrow and I’m confident it’ll go smoother next time. And so on, and so on

I’m not a pro with video editing. I’m not even very good. I’m learning and I’m glad you’re here following along.

Enough of that, onto the writing stuff. Got up super early and started working on a book cover, again. I’m spending this week getting the rest of the book covers I need for all 12 books I want to have completed by the end of the year. When I thought about it, I was surprised how close I am to getting to that goal. If I finish the 5 books I want to by the end of the year, I’ll have those 12 and I don’t want lack of book covers to hold me up. once I have those done, I’ll be getting the ebooks formatted, then the print books and once I have ALL that done, I’ll set up a schedule to start dropping books.

Now, if you recall, I want to drop an ebook, then two weeks later, the print book. Whatever shall I do in between? I’ll be dropping short stories! WOO! After I get a good set of short stories, I’ll put out a collection. I’ve already got Murdockian Tales out there, so I’ll be putting out Murdocian Tales 2! This will give me even more titles to put out into the wild. For short stories, I’ll be doing those as ebooks only and the print will be collections as well as ebook.

The goal is to get more titles out there to raise my discoverability. I also want to get content out there for people to find. Step 1 is getting everything ready that I’ve already got completed.

Now, this small break in the writing won’t slow me down from targeting 5 full novels this year. I know it’s ambitious, but I also know, putting my mind to it, I can get the work done. I just need to clear the decks.

I’m off to get things done.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Gang!

I spent some time today working on book covers once again. I have 4 books that are done, edited, and sitting around waiting for me to publish them. Yes, yes. I’m a SLACKER! I’m working on that.

One of the things I’m doing while watching Dean’s interpretation of Heinlein’s Rules is figuring out where I’m falling down on the job. I can tell you right now where I’m falling down. It’s easy to see where I fell down.

I’m not publishing what I finish!

If you’ve ever read Heinlein’s rules, you know how simple they sound. I’ve decided to take a short break from GRPC3 while I work on getting the 4 books I have done and need to publish, done and ready to go out the door. My plan is to get the ebooks and print books done and ready. Then over the next 16 weeks, get those books out into readers hands. Every two weeks, I’ll have a release. First the ebooks, then the print book. That means for 4 months I’ll be putting out a book a month. My hope is that during that time, I’ll have another book completed and ready to go and if I’m working hard, I’ll have two done. That means I’ll be about to have 6 months where I’m putting out a book a month.

Momentum! That’s what I’m working towards. I’d like to get these books written and out the door. Much like putting out 5 a day with Jay Videos, the only way to get the ball rolling is to GET THE BALL ROLLING! Inertia is the hardest thing to overcome. As I say in the video, the only way to get good at something is to start doing it and learning as you go. You’ll never be an expert out of the starting gate.

That said, watch this space. Books are coming.

Until next Time!

Stay Awesome!

First off, my test results came back and I’m Negative. WOO WOO!

Secondly, I made book covers this weekend. HOORAY! I made covers for V&A Shipping 3, Giant Robot Planetary Competition 2, Almost-Super Heroes 1, Almost-Super Heroes 2, and V&A Shipping 4. I started working on Almost-Super Heroes 3 but couldn’t find an image to utilize and I’ll need to be making my own. That’ll be an interesting challenge.

I did write a little today, but due to an incident outside last night that went until after 11pm, I wasn’t able to get up early and get words in as I had wanted to. Tomorrow is another day. I’m not going to beat myself up over this. I’m still working my way into a schedule and once I do, I know it’ll all work out.

Stress is one of the biggest things that derails me from writing. I know this and I’m taking steps not to put too much pressure on myself to get too much done in a hurry. I’d rather take my time and do things right. Again, this is all still a learning phase to see what I’m capable of.

Bear in mind, I’m not a full-time writer. This is a hobby that I’m doing for fun. If it isn’t fun, I won’t do it. I still have the day job to content with and that takes up much of my day and much of my energy. My hope is to start making enough money to supplement my income and maybe have a passive income when I choose to retire in ten of fifteen years. By then, I also hope to keep writing and keep putting out books.

Alright, I’m off.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Audio Only: The Cloak and The Dagger (part 1)

Today I went and got tested. After a few days with a fever that won’t go down and a mild headache that’s more annoying than anything, combined with feeling a little run down, I took the day off from work and went and got tested. I won’t have my results for a few days and hopefully all is well.

I did spend time looking at the symptoms and if I am positive, my symptoms are very mild. I’m not concerned that this is anything more than an annoyance, but want to know for certain. This may impact more people that just me so I will self quarantine this weekend in the house until I know for sure.

I did sleep in. Took a break from the morning workout. Took a nap. Did some reading. Watched some TV. Watched a few of Dean Wesley Smith’s Heinlein’s lecture series. Wrote a little.

One thing I did was open up all the photoshop book covers for all the books I’ve done. I know I need to get cranking those out. I want to get the ebooks done and follow up with the print books. Looks like I’ll have all weekend to get that done so I will start on that tomorrow.

I’ll also spend some time recording this weekend. I’m running out of backlog and need to get content ready to go! I’m slacking. Can’t let that happen.

Another thing I need to take care of (yes, I’m working on a list) is to get all the short stories I’ve written lined up and ready to publish as ebooks. I haven’t settled on a price point yet. I’ll also work on collecting them in Murdockian Tales collections. That’ll be fun.

Content, content, content. That’s my goal. It’s time to push forward and get things rolling. As I keep saying, I’m out of excuses. It’s time to get the work done!

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been running a fever. I still attribute this to seasonal allergies. It’s been hanging between 100 and 101 all day. I check both ears to see where I’m at.

It’s not running me down as a fever tends to do. I don’t have chills, hot flashes, or body aches. It’s only company is the headache that will come and go throughout the day.

I am still able to get my morning workout in. Reading. Writing (coming up on 15,000 words slower than I’d like) and, of course, I do my day job. So it’s not impairing me to any noticeable degree. Regardless, I may be taking tomorrow off as I don’t feel 100%. I’m by no means incapacitated, but could do with a little down time.

That said, another short post this evening. I’m going to be early so I can get up early and we’ll see how I feel from there. Maybe I’ll knock out a few words while the video finishes uploading. Those words aren’t going to write themselves, you know.

Until next Time!

Stay Awesome!

My brain is still getting used to waking up super early and going to bed earlier than I used to. Adjusting my sleep schedule isn’t going as smoothly as I had anticipated.

To that end, this will be a shorter than normal post tonight.

1. I am getting words down on the page early in the morning
2. I am getting my workout in early in the morning.
3. I am tired.
4. I am getting reading time in.
5. Other things in the afternoons have been eating up time where I would normally be writing
6. I’m tired.
7. I’m watching Dean Wesley’s Smith series on Heinlein’s Rules of Writing (good stuff!)
8. I’m tired.

Yeah, I need to go to bed and get up cray early. I know it’ll take time, but I will get there and will get my schedule adjusted. For I want to get books written. Many books and many more short stories.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

If you watch the video, I’m a little all over tonight. I blame the shifting of my schedule. I’m getting up earlier. The reason is I’m doing my workout first thing in the morning. Then I have time to get ready for work and still have an hour before I start work. This gave me time to read a little and write a little.

After work, I had a few things to take care of, watched an episode of the Curse of Oak Island, ate some dinner, and sat down to record. Tomorrow I should have more writing time. We’ll see how it goes. It’ll take me a couple of days or a week to get into the swing of things. I’m hoping to get 500-1000 words done in the mornings and another 1000 or more in the evenings. This will help me step up my word count and keep my YouTube channel going.

I have noticed many more viewing the site vs viewing the YouTube videos. I do want to keep making the videos, though. It’s good to get my brain working in a different medium. I know I need to get to recording before I run out of Short Story Saturday and I also need to record Golden West 2. That’s my next biggest thing to tackle. I’m thinking I may spend Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings working on those recordings which will get me a bit ahead.

Yes, yes, I’d planned to have the recording down already. I don’t plan on making people wait too long for fresh content if at all. Again, I’ll see how many views those are getting. My overall goal is to have a backlog of content people can discover when they stumble across the channel and hopefully mainline everything I’ve put out. At least, that’s the master plan.

I’ve a crushing headache. I’m off to relax before going to bed.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!