Category Archives: Publishing

So about January...

by Liana Posted on February 3, 2013

I did more work on the website and more writing than I could have expected. I can't rightly call it just blog anymore. The menu holds just a handful of links, but they are portals into a newly vast area of the site: Bibliography, Fandom (the baby of the bunch), and Challenges.

So on those challenges. The only one I'm pretty on target with is the 365 Challenge, but I'm getting back on the pony with reading and also with the 100 Things challenge, where I write 100 blog  posts about creativity. I also intend to start slowly moving my fanworks over here and to add a Heinlein Challenge page. I started and failed the Heinlein Challenge last year, but I'd like to get at least 52 items out on submission this year. It is time to grow the scribbler's income and writing, publishing, submitting is the only sure way to do that.

In January 2013, I wrote and published 1 review for the 52 Read Challenge.

In January 2013, I wrote and posted 11 stories, 2 fanfics, 1 metafic, and 6 poems for a total of 25/365 items by the 365 Challenge count. Total word count: 8312. Total line count: 203.

This does not include any WIP or non-challenge works.

How was your January?

Posted in Journal, Publishing, Website, Writing | Leave a comment

Making Plans of Scribbles and Scrolls...

by Liana Posted on December 30, 2012

Thoughts here, please. I'm working away at setting up project and production goals for the year and I feel utterly torn. Do you have rathers?

  1. I thought about setting up a subscription website with everything I have available—fiction, poetry, etc.—normally for sale available to subscribers. Say $5/mo.
  2. I also thought about doing an email subscription fiction thing, like Bruce Holland does here.
  3. I thought about hosting a quarterly fishbowl, where readers can prompt stories/poetry and read their own while I save the rest for submission or they can sponsor those stories for free publication.
  4. I thought about doing a print books subscription thing like Dean Wesley Smith does here.
  5. I thought about doing a web serial updating upon donations (don't think I have the audience for that).

Do any of these appeal to you? Would you be interested in any of these?

Posted in Publishing | Tagged | 2 Comments

An Update on the Scribblings of the Scribbler

by Liana Posted on October 25, 2012

As some of you know, I'm quite busy trying to keep roof over head, redo a website, and provide necessary support for the movie project I've been a part of for... a long time. You probably don't know what I've been up to or why it's taken me so long.

En brief, am:

  1. proofreading a novella for a client
  2. drafting three stories for the last Ficlet o'Clock—Room for Magic, Breath from a Stone, and (fanfic) Girls that Go Bump in the Mind
  3. submittingsomething once weekly via the Heinlein challenge
  4. creating huge swaths of new functionality for a client's website
  5. creating huge swaths of new functionality for this website
  6. in the process of the above, identifying a plethora of bugs for the Pods CMS team
  7. finishing a huge special cleaning job and then heading into my regular time-consuming cleaning job
  8. applying for work in Civil Services :prays... hard:
  9. trying to order the muse to pipe down on City of Glass and Storm (It's a tad ambitious to try to finish three shorts and two novellas simultaneously. Just saying.)
  10. reading everyone else's blogs and posted fiction in the smatterings of moments I dare to ambitiously call "free time"

What's on your docket?

Posted in Publishing, Website, Writing | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Posting Schedule Change-Up for City of Glass

by Liana Posted on August 27, 2012
This entry is part 12 of 13 in the series City of Glass

Due to a fear on my part of moving too slowly, I bumped up my initial City of Glass posting schedule to twice weekly. Due to the reality of my first thought being the better one, I'm bumping it back down to once weekly. The novel will now update on Thursdays only.

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Reader Feedback Request: City of Glass

by Liana Posted on August 17, 2012

In the effort to meet my deadlines on City of Glass, I pounded out the middle of chapter one, working off of some previous work that worked pretty well—before I put it in a serial. I distinctly do not care for how chapter one turned out because it seems to have lost all the tension from the prologue and I'm pretty sure it's because I went with the outside POVs and am holding my real main characters at a distance. These are Hayley, Jena, and Shelley, who hasn't even shown up on screen yet because I dumped her remand scene.

Should I power ahead on chapter two or rewrite chapter one? Do you care?

Posted in Fiction, Publishing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Nonfiction Fishbowl

by Liana Posted on August 9, 2012

FISHBOWL NOW CLOSED

at 15 out of 28+ prompts

I need your help. Freelance articles for Constant Content are my bread and butter and put beans on the table, keep a roof over my head, but the output required to earn that bread over there is something I haven't quite been able to produce without help.

FishbowlSo without further ado, I am offering a nonfiction fishbowl, in which you may prompt for blog posts, personal essays, research articles, anything between 500 and 800 words that you want to read or know more about. Ask questions, express wonderments, mention projects that need more documentation for how-to—anything you want. Some of my favorite topics include designing a WordPress website for noncoders, myth and legend, natural health, tea, fiction, creativity, etc.

I figured out that I need to post two articles daily, which is fourteen articles a week, and roughly fifty-six for the month. Constant Content pays me about $0.05/word when the articles sell, and these go much faster when there's a good size backlist.

Prompting

  1. You may prompt as many times as you wish. If you prompt, I promise to write at least one piece to your prompt(s).
  2. If you prompt an article or blog post, I will send you a private copy of it in PDF format for your personal use.
  3. Any prompt is fair game, but if I do not feel conversant enough with a given topic, I may ask you to prompt again.
  4. I will reply in the comments to each prompt with the article/post title and a brief summary or teaser.
  5. I will post at least one blog post or article from the fishbowl on the website and make it freely available.
  6. All completed prompts will be posted on Constant Content for sale unless sponsored.

Sponsoring

  1. Want me to post something on this blog or see an article someone else prompted? You can sponsor an article for $0.02/word. I will offer reprint rights for sponsored articles on Constant Content, though as I understand it, full rights sell much better.Example Cost: 500 words = $10.00 and 800 words = $16.00
  2. Want a guest post for your blog or to purchase the content outright for your own use? You can purchase an article for $0.05/word. I will sell the article or post as work-for-hire and relinquish all rights to the piece.Example Cost: 500 words = $25.00 and 800 words = $40.00
  3. Want to read all of the articles and blog posts generated from the fishbowl? Donors of $10 or more will receive a private copy of all pieces in PDF format for their personal use.
  4. Want to donate to the fishbowl? You can donate any amount of $1 or more through Paypal or snail mail. If you would like to donate through snail mail, please send an email to info at lianamir dot com for the address.

Feed the Scribbler

Please consider prompting and sharing this fishbowl. I am hoping to produce at least 28 articles and get two weeks worth of work going.

Thank you for any and all support!

Mirrored on LiveJournal.

Posted in Nonfiction, Publishing | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Creative Plans: Daily Reports, Kickstarter, and Fishbowls

by Liana Posted on August 8, 2012

The Daily Creation was an idea I had to create something daily. Well, one week in and I'm discontinuing it. While I still intend to create daily, I will not be reporting or sharing along that aspect of my life. It's too stressful, and as I told someone else, I work well under deadline and lousy under pressure.

On the other hand, I have looked into Kickstarter as an option to bringing you more fiction projects but have found them insufficient to my long-term needs and recalcitrant at allowing me to use a non-DBA penname. Surprisingly, you don't have to get a doing-business-as to use a penname. Just provide your real name whenever legal items or payment is involved.

That said, I've been studying successful fishbowls of Anke Wehner, rix_scaedu, and Ysabet the Wordsmith, and I think it's a good way to develop and stockpiling the fiction and nonfiction frontlist I've got mulling over here.

More on this soon!

Posted in Publishing | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Designer Files: Covering The Creative Life

by Liana Posted on August 7, 2012
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series The Publisher Series

So I reworked my series pages today and how they worked with my theme. I want to do more, but alas! I haven't solved PHP coding yet. In the meantime, every post in a series now displays the series icon, which was formerly relegated to the sidebar. Wait a second. Hold that thought. It what?!

Not all of my series icons made awesome book covers, to put it mildly, and the icon for The Creative Life was certainly not going to cut it as a book cover.

Who I Am icon by photoshopfreak
icon by photoshopfreak

Continue reading →

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Letter from One Muse to Another

by Liana Posted on July 27, 2012

Dear Muses,

About that Pinterest thing: We know you've been putting off dealing with it because of valid points of inspiration and all that yada and primarily the fact that tracking a picture down to its original source is hard. to. do. 'Nuff said.

But we've been reading up here and here and here, and something's come to light you simply have to address. Not only are we held liable for what we pin, but also for what we repin? Oooh, goody. Nice going, Pinterest. Make sure every single person micromanages every other just so long as you don't get held liable. :grumbles thunderously:

So what happens now?

Continue reading →

Posted in Publishing | Tagged , , | 8 Comments