So, I had a long overdue conversation with the guy that runs Pro Se Press, the small-press publisher that published my first two novels. Initially, I messaged him to finally apologize. Because I felt like I gave up on writing and haven't written anything in a year. And obviously haven't even tried promoting my books.
Even now, I still feel like a failure when it comes to writing. My books didn't sell. I'm not particularly happy with the things I wrote since then. For example, I have two fully completely manuscripts: a third Dill adventure and my first crack at a YA novel. The latter is a complete mess in my eyes and basically requires a complete overhaul of the plot, world building, characters, and everything else in between. Dill? Of his three adventures, I actually like this one the most. @Zero Esc read and partly edited it (she was understandably too busy and overworked with other things to do a proper full edit). But her biggest feedback is she thought it was the perfect balance of the big threat like the first book and the smaller, personal threat of the second. It still needs a lot of work, including reworking a particular thing towards the end.
But I've sat on it for over a year because, as I said, I felt like a failure as a writer. Depression has obviously hit me hard in the past year, which hasn't helped. I thought about taking Dill elsewhere, but my only option would be self-publishing since:
1) It's highly unlikely any publisher would be interested in re-publishing two books that didn't sell.
2) Publishing the third book in essentially a failed series.
And even self-publishing is too big and intimidating for me. I probably couldn't afford a cover artist, for example. And I think part of what made the first two a complete failure was my inability to properly promote myself. I still don't know how to promote myself, so whether I went with Pro Se, self-published, or another publisher, self-promotion would still be a major issue.
And yet...after talking with Tommy (the Pro Se guy), he got me thinking. For one, he completely understood how I felt. He said that Dill's third adventure would still be welcome at Pro Se. He even suggested an idea I'd had before: re-publishing the first two as a set to promote the third book. He was open to my idea of giving the first book a complete overhaul. Not in terms of plot, but just the writing itself, like editing out most dialogue tags ("he said, she said"). But doing a "Dill Double Feature" was one rough idea if I self-published. Heh, I even had an idea for the cover: parodying the 1990 Ninja Turtles movie where Raph leaves the movie theater disgusted, looks at the movie posters, and says "Where do they come up with this stuff!?" Only in this case, it's Dill looking at the covers of the first two books.
So now I'm...I don't know. Feeling maybe inspired to give this a go with Pro Se? I'm tempted to crack open Dill's third adventure and have another look at it. And maybe start re-working the first book. But I don't know. I don't want to do all this only to be disappointed again.
Even now, I still feel like a failure when it comes to writing. My books didn't sell. I'm not particularly happy with the things I wrote since then. For example, I have two fully completely manuscripts: a third Dill adventure and my first crack at a YA novel. The latter is a complete mess in my eyes and basically requires a complete overhaul of the plot, world building, characters, and everything else in between. Dill? Of his three adventures, I actually like this one the most. @Zero Esc read and partly edited it (she was understandably too busy and overworked with other things to do a proper full edit). But her biggest feedback is she thought it was the perfect balance of the big threat like the first book and the smaller, personal threat of the second. It still needs a lot of work, including reworking a particular thing towards the end.
But I've sat on it for over a year because, as I said, I felt like a failure as a writer. Depression has obviously hit me hard in the past year, which hasn't helped. I thought about taking Dill elsewhere, but my only option would be self-publishing since:
1) It's highly unlikely any publisher would be interested in re-publishing two books that didn't sell.
2) Publishing the third book in essentially a failed series.
And even self-publishing is too big and intimidating for me. I probably couldn't afford a cover artist, for example. And I think part of what made the first two a complete failure was my inability to properly promote myself. I still don't know how to promote myself, so whether I went with Pro Se, self-published, or another publisher, self-promotion would still be a major issue.
And yet...after talking with Tommy (the Pro Se guy), he got me thinking. For one, he completely understood how I felt. He said that Dill's third adventure would still be welcome at Pro Se. He even suggested an idea I'd had before: re-publishing the first two as a set to promote the third book. He was open to my idea of giving the first book a complete overhaul. Not in terms of plot, but just the writing itself, like editing out most dialogue tags ("he said, she said"). But doing a "Dill Double Feature" was one rough idea if I self-published. Heh, I even had an idea for the cover: parodying the 1990 Ninja Turtles movie where Raph leaves the movie theater disgusted, looks at the movie posters, and says "Where do they come up with this stuff!?" Only in this case, it's Dill looking at the covers of the first two books.
So now I'm...I don't know. Feeling maybe inspired to give this a go with Pro Se? I'm tempted to crack open Dill's third adventure and have another look at it. And maybe start re-working the first book. But I don't know. I don't want to do all this only to be disappointed again.