It was nice having some time the past few weeks to cough up a lung, sleep a lot, take lots of meds, and recover from a bad chest cold! (Not) As if the cold itself was not enough, I received the edits back from my editor. Which actually, were quite good! However, I just didn't feel like a rewrite and I reasoned that having a cold and a chemically induced stupor was not conductive for writing. But now that I'm feeling much better I'm back on the court and swinging away.
Now that I have the edits back and I'm quite pleased with my editor, I think it's time to sing her praises. I had spent almost a month putting the word out that I was looking for an editor for my first soon to be self published short story. After receiving a few offers but not being pleased with the lack of experience in my target genre, I decided to seek out a recommendation from Steven Gould (Author of the book, Jumper). Steven is one of my favorite authors but I had never been in touch with him before. I found a "Contact Me" link on his site and I mentioned that I was looking for a good editor with experience in our genre. Several weeks later I actually received a response and a recommendation to use Dr. Debra Doyle. At around the same time, I received several recommendations from folks on the Absolute Write forums to use Dr. Doyle as well. So, after some correspondence and a paypal payment, the Doctor started her work. I'm very pleased with the edits and feedback that she provided. She is very detailed but has great insight on the market and provided some kind, but spot on, recommendations. So, now I'm editing and doing a bit of rewrite on the story.
A Picture is Worth...
The picture on the top right is the first concept sketch from the cover artist, Sean Hill. Sean is a student of the International Academy of Design and Technology and was recommended to me by one of my co-workers. The cover art work is progressing nicely and I'm looking forward to the final. I'm quite pleased that he's one of those artists who is willing to get a lot of details on what is needed before starting the work and he's been great with asking for feedback during the process.
Social Marketing Progress
Klout Score: 45 (+1)
TT.com Page Loads for the past month: 954 (-71)
Twitter Followers: 501 (+139)
G+ Peeps Following: 199 (+36)
The bulk of the growth has been on Twitter. I'm amazed at the increase even though I haven been very active on the number of tweets I do. I'm also finding twitter to be a great source of information for writing related sites. However, at 500+ followers, I'm finding that watching the twitter feed is kind of like trying to drink from a garden hose. To help, I'm using a product called YoruFukurou that I found on the Apple App Store. I have no idea what the name means - a colorful metaphor? All I know is that it allows me to create columns that show tweets from a list of folks that I want to specifically follow. Such as close friends, favorite authors, etc. I've yet to find another twitter application that does this.
I'm also finding that I have to limit my time spent on twitter and Google Plus. There is a ton of great content on the new G+ Communities. But if I was to join every invitation sent to me I would have no time for writing, eating, or sleeping. So I've kept it down to 6 communities - and I may be dropping a few of those in favor of focusing only on those that have the most impact on what I'm doing.
Wrap Up
Unfortunately, having a cold doesn't provide much opportunity for finding a humorous tidbit to share with you all. Instead, I want to mention that Steven Gould has a new book out this week - Impulse! It's a continuation in the Jumper series and I'm very excited about diving into it. I highly recommend him as a writer. And if you come across his book on the shelf in any bookstore, do me a favor and send him a twitter pic. I'm sure he'll appreciate it. He can be found at @stevengould
Thanks for reading folks.
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