I have a plan

 

I'm working to "rescue" the Athena Fox series, not because I'm in love with it, but because that's six years of back catalog and having more books out there always benefits the writer. There's a lot of things to be done, which is why I wasn't able to attempt this before.

Identify market and approach with an outside advisor. I have one now and have some confidence this one will work out.

Revisions. I'm still collating notes from two beta readers and of course myself, so I can get The Early Fox fixed up. It is actually in pretty good shape but could benefit from a bit of tightening. I am rather less looking forward to working on the others, but will probably go through beta readers again; weighing the potential value of an already-written book against time that could be spent writing a better one.

Editing. Yeah, I want a human edit pass. I haven't figured out yet if I can afford it.

Possible new titles, definitely new covers to fit the identified market approach. I have a stack of Shutterstock pulls for the latter and intend to mock up my own consistent set of recovers for the whole series, then hand those off as concepts to an artist -- preferably a solo human artist, not the front end of a cover mill. Which is also expensive, and I'm on fixed income now.

A release scheme. Probably staged, under new ISBNs. I might purchase my own ISBNs this time. I'd love to do ARCs for reviews, but I don't know if I'm up for that, too.

More cooking at home, because I want to be conservative with my expenses, and I've been meaning to get back to that. But I don't want to be too ambitious with it yet. I need to clear out more space in the kitchen. And that means cooking has to stand behind general cleaning and re-organization.

I have plans but they basically require I lose from thirty to forty percent (by bulk) of what I own. I've done most of the obvious. Now it is down to sorting out old cables and electronics, clothing I don't wear, books I've been keeping in the closet...and then increasingly challenging questions, like do I want to get rid of the musical instrument parts (including a half-built ukulele)?

My hope is to lose the two big bookshelves, shift the two small bookshelves and add a matching third, both opening up more bare wall for space and light and also freeing an entire wall to rack up some musical instruments. In the kitchen, even more ambitious; completely clear one end and stick acoustic material up there so I am less self-conscious about practicing musical instruments at home.

Revisions on The Early Fox are probably going to take a week. Deliverable on the marketing plan is seven days as well. So that's probably the focus for at least a week and, especially if I get into editing and/or revisions on other books immediately, at least the rest of the month.

That thing about making a solid back-catalog is in context of writing stuff that isn't another Athena Fox adventure. I have a floating list of potential books, with two currently close to the top and ready to go.

Those two are a weird contrast. All Systems Blue (working title) is robust in the structure; technology, philosophical ideas, structures of society, etc. But as yet I've done very little on the surface look and feel.

The Tiki Stars is all about the surface. There's really nothing under it. But since the surface is so vivid and mostly already constructed for me, writing it is likely to be easier and it is also (plotting concerns aside) closer to being ready to write.

Or my marketing consultant might convince me to throw more behind Athena Fox.

(I really do want to do another American episode, specifically, a blue highway adventure; dropping off a Greyhound bus into some small town and discovering a big problem. The stumbling block is while I've thought of half of dozen plot hooks already, I can't seem to get archaeology into the mix.)