Another Writer's Night Out

So Cherri Galbiati and I had another writer's night out. I know you guys out there must think that's all us writer's do...sit around at Denny's and talk about writing. But we do actually write and stuff. Really! She also showed me a copy of a short story she'll be putting up on Amazon.com soon. It's a charming little Christmas tale, but I shall not say anything more than that as that's not my place.

Anyways, we discussed the changing field of writing, the emerging indie market, and the different routes that writers have to choose from nowadays. It's a pretty strange field at the moment, and I don't think anybody really knows how all this is going to turn out. There are New York writers who desperately want their backlist of novels back so they can publish them independently, and there are indie writers who hope to catch the eye of a New York publisher. The grass seems to be greener all over the place, depending on who's doing the looking.

I've pretty much settled for a hybrid role at the moment. I publish with small presses and also releasing indie works. It allows for a lot of flexibility, and also lets me see the market from different sides. I can't really predict which way things are going to go (well, I could...and sure as shootin be dooming the course I predicted to utter oblivion), but I'm noticing some of the things I discussed in an earlier blog post starting to happen.

Cover artists are starting to advertise and cater to indie authors...offering good quality and low cost artwork using image editing software. I bet you will see more and more people offering editing services over time too. What's going to be interesting to see is if the market for these services end up being dominated by individuals offering their services on author forums, or if some larger service vendors form. I can see reasons for both.

Anyways, I intend to polish A Memory of Me and get a few proofs out to proofreaders, then I hope to upload it to Amazon.com at the end of the week. That will be my last novelette of the summer, and it will be time to attempt novel writing again. I'll break out my novel, and even take another look at what I've got with Argiope as well, then try to get to writing.

Onwards and Upwards...and lets get through this Monday together!