Busy, Busy, Busy
Man, April is living up to its Awesomefantasticness so far, and I’ve been too overwhelmed to process it. Just taking it day by day. I got one short story acceptance from Allegory, a magazine I’ve been trying to crack for a while. (Another zombie story set in a Gap store of all places). I didn’t realize how many zombie tales I’d written, but despite many markets saying they’re tired of seeing zombie stories, I’m still doing a pretty good job of placing them.
I also finished reading my book club book. (ebook!) There’s a first time for everything, I guess! I picked out the book (The Sparrow) so I’m kind of nervous to hear what the rest of the group thinks about it. Plus I still need to finish critiquing my friend’s novel, and I have all but decided that I won’t have my novel ready in time for critique in May. Too much stuff going on!
I attended Paradise Lost writer’s retreat last weekend, and had a great time reconnecting with people from Viable Paradise, plus got to meet Jay Lake and Howard Waldrop. It was a totally cool experience. I liked the informal lecture sessions the most, I think. Jay was very accessible and overly gracious with his time. There was lots of good food involved, including fried eggplant sandwich and fries from Hyde Park Bar and Grill, humongous cupcake from Quack’s Bakery, delicious sweet potato fries and blackberry cobbler from Salt Lick, and a fabulous spread at the party that catered to my semi-vegetarian needs–including awesome bean dip, spinach dip, and homemade ice cream. Yum! There was a lot of indulgent eating to be had. The retreat ran smoothly, and I definitely look forward to returning.
Lastly, I’ve posted a couple of short story ebooks up to Smashwords, and I’m waiting for them to trickle through the various distribution channels before I make the official announcement. It’s been an interesting experiment so far, meaning I’ve yet to sell anything, which isn’t surprising since I haven’t marketed anything either. I just wanted to get a baseline of what I could expect. I listed two books, one for free and one for 99 cents. The free one has gotten 170 downloads so far, and the 99 cent one has had 8 partial (non-paid) downloads. Hopefully this will change once I start promoting it. I’ve got two more books lined up to go out in the summer, and I’ve probably got enough stories to do a zombie collection in the fall. These stories have mostly been published before, so really, there’s nothing to lose. I’ll report in in a couple weeks with more updates.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Just trying to stay Zen, and ride out the rest of the month!
The retreat sound (delicious) like a lot of fun. And congratulations on Allegory! That’s a nice one with some fun stories. And good luck with the ebooks. Man, you *have* been busy!
Certainly sounds like April’s been a blast so far, Nicky! w00t! Keep up teh awesum.