Nov 12, 2018

Long-overdue update here, mostly regarding Game Over, the book to which Uncharted Territory is the sequel.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve added a number of character profiles to my blog: Dylan, Cora, Grishnag, Nishara, Syala, and Ayastal. I also put up an introduction and a snippet of a scene in a post titled, "Finding the Silver Lining," which shows Dylan’s sometimes peculiar way of looking at things.

The thing is ... none of it is working. Two months in, with only 30 days remaining till the deadline, Game Over is still sitting at zero preorders. Which isn’t the first time something like this has happened. If I remember correctly, Project Revenant reached its deadline with maybe two or three preorders. Before trying Inkshares, I put both books on Kindle Scout, and when it was over, both of them finished with exactly zero votes.

One of the issues I’ve had all along was my inability to advertise effectively due to having no money to spare for buying ads or traveling all over the country to promote my books. My income is barely enough to scrape by every month, so I have to make do with whatever I can get for free. Twitter and Facebook help draw attention to my work, but apparently not enough to compel new readers to sign up and preorder. I’ve spent entire days searching for places to promote the book without having to pay a fee, and half of them no longer exist by the time I find them. The rest only accept links to books already published on Amazon and other sites, aside from the occasional page that accepts other works, but so far none of them have responded to my queries.

The other issue is the job and other everyday-life stuff getting in the way. I envy writers who make a living with their writing or at least are able to keep a regular writing schedule. I’d be able to keep at it more regularly if I could ditch the job, but I can’t do that and keep a roof over my head. So it’s time I stop kidding myself. I’m not giving up just yet. I’ve put too many years into this -- 27, give or take, so far -- to admit defeat. I just need to acknowledge when something isn’t working and move on to something else. Maybe I’ll submit Game Over to a huge publisher and get lucky, or maybe I’ll find another approach that actually works. I haven’t exhausted all the possibilities yet.

I looked through the FAQ and didn’t find an option to end the campaign early, so I’ll just wait it out and take the book down after the deadline. I’ll keep Uncharted Territory up for the time being, and post the revised chapters and continue working on it until it’s finished, so the readers who have enjoyed the work in progress can see the rest of the story. After that ... well, it depends on what happens with Game Over.

For anyone who wants to keep updated on the book’s status and my other projects, I’ll pop in a link to my blog, which has links in a sidebar to all of my writing projects. 

Finally, I want to thank everyone who followed me and my books here. It’s very much appreciated, and I can’t help feeling like I’ve let everyone down. But it was a fun and interesting experiment while it lasted. It was definitely worth a shot. As Jack Burton once said, "Hey, ya never know till you try."