Next

Finished another short story yesterday. I turned out liking it better than I thought (see previous post) and it was a worthwhile effort. Is it the best thing I’ve ever written? No, but like I said, it gave me a chance to write from a different perspective and see if that would lend itself to a whole book. Maybe? I don’t think I totally captured why this narrator would be different than the narrator who told the story in First. If I end up writing the book I’ve been thinking of, I’ll really need to work on giving this narrator a distinct voice. Otherwise, I might as well write it using the same narrator.

What next? I’m waiting another week for responses from my queries to independent publishers, and if nothing positive comes back then I’ll start the self-publishing journey again. In the meantime, I can get my ducks in order. The first question I have to resolve is this: which book to self-publish first?

Seems like it would be a question easy to answer, right? Publish them in the order written. Except I have this feeling that Next Time would be easier to market. One train of thought is that if it’s successful, people would be more inclined to read subsequent books. Another thought is that I put out First and see how it goes, using it as a means to figure out what I will need to do better when I publish Next Time. And somewhere in there is Assignment Day, but I don’t think that will be the first one I publish.

Once I make that decision, I think I’ll take one more look through the book I choose and make darn sure it’s in the best shape possible, especially story-wise. Then I’ll go from there.