Over on LiveJournal, under my fandom persona, I’ve always done an end of the year round up of writing meme. I decided to transfer that here this year.
Number of Books Published in 2013
1. Ascending Hearts with Keira Andrews
2. Love’s Nest with Keira Andrews
3. Training Season
Words Written in 2013
1. Training Season – 60,000 new words
2. Love’s Nest – hilariously, I had 51,900 at the end of 2012, but didn’t actually finish the book until February of 2013, and, after edits, it was down to 51,061. So, I netted no words there. – 0 words
3. Binasco Bakery – 5,630
4. ’90s Coming of Age – novel – 24,000 new words (at least, but I don’t have a good ‘before’ count)
5. Falling – novella – 10,000 new words
6. Smoky Mountain Dreams – novel – 0 new words
7. Everything Is Yes – novella – 10,000 new words
8. Trans* Story – novella – 11,242
9. Sheriff Jackson – novella – 951
10. Lost Souls – novel – 0 new words
11. Bucket List – novel – 1,034
12. Ask Jungle Jason – novel – 2,314
13. Always Naked Men – short – 2,648
14. Heist – 457
15. Stalking Dreams – novella – 9,986
16. Leuka – original novel – 0 new words (poor Leuka)
17. Lost Sea – original novel – 0 new words
18. HertClub – original novel – 0 new words
19. Stalking Novel – novel – 44,777
20. For Reasons – novel – 3,158
Subtotal: 186,197 <–Wow, that is totally not enough! Not even close to enough. I have to do better this year.
I also wrote 75,000 words of pure smut under a different pen name. Nope, not sharing it here, but I did write it and it’s out there bringing in smut money. 😉 So, I’ll count those words toward my total count. (And also make note to decide if these words paid off monetarily in terms of focus, time, effort, etc.)
TOTAL WORD COUNT – 261,197
I’d like to hit 350,000 new words in 2014.
Overall Thoughts:
Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?
I always overestimate what I’m going to get done, so I’d go with less. I’d have wanted to break 300k word count, at least.
What did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
I finished Training Season. That was never in my plan for the year. It hit me in August that I had an old draft of a book about an Olympian and that, hey, the Winter Olympics were coming up. If I wanted to do something about that, now was the time. So, when I started the year, Training Season was not even in my plans.
What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Training Season, actually. It is the kind of book I want to write and I’m proud of it.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I decided to finish and self-publish Training Season. I learned that I love, love, love self-publishing. I love having control over when the editing happens, when it’s released, how the cover looks, etc. I love being able to make coupons for the book to provide discounts for special occasions. I love the freedom of choosing if I want to go to print or not. I love it all. At this point, I might need to be sold on why I should return to a publisher. The last one I dealt with offered very little in exchange for their 60% of profits, and they were often rude in correspondence, didn’t seem invested in getting my book out there, and sales were abysmal. So, yeah, I’m not sure where the benefit is, necessarily, except perhaps in access to readership. For that reason, I’ll probably submit a few books to publishers, but I will have to be won over whole hog before I’ll submit every book.
I’ve decided to take a huge writing risk next year. But I’ll save that for later!
From my past year of writing, what was…
My most popular story of this year:
Training Season, for sure.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
Ha! Well, I guess it would have to be poor Love’s Nest. I’m not sure what the problem is with selling the book, because, though the other two fairy tales didn’t fare very well either, they acutally did better. I suspect it’s the pricing, but I have no control over that, since it’s not self-pubbed. (Oh, hindsight!)
Most fun story to write:
I loved working on Stalker Novel [half-finished]. It was a blast. I loved finishing up Training Season. I had fun with the expansion of Coming of Age Novel [also half-finished].
Story with the single sexiest moment:
I write so much sex that I have no f’ing clue! LOL!
Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:
There’s a lot of that going on in Everything Is Yes [submitted to a press].
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
Everything Is Yes.
Hardest story to write:
Love’s Nest. I am very happy with how it came out, but there were parts that were like pulling teeth, and we knew sales would be abysmal, so feeling inspired to finish it was quite hard, to be entirely honest.
Biggest Disappointment: Everything about the publishing experience prior to self-publishing. Though, as I said, I’m willing to try another house and see if things are different. But, wow, I didn’t anticipate the complete lack of investment from the house we were with.
Biggest Surprise: Training Season‘s reception! What is this madness!?!?!
Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Oh, hell. They probably all are very telling. I’m sure the way I had to approach the kink in Training Season or Everything Is Yes is the most telling of all, though.
Do you have any goals for the New Year?
I want to put out ’90s Coming of Age Novel as a serial. I want to finish ’90s Coming of Age Novel, Stalking Novel, and Trans* Story. I also want to start the Bill/Angus companion novella to Training Season. Though, if you look above, I’ve got twenty-one works in progress, so I’m always wary of starting a new book. But, I think if I finish the three I mentioned, then I would be in the clear to go forward with Bill/Angus. I really want to get my het novel, For Reasons, mostly finished, too. I just opened it up to see the word count earlier, and, oh my god, I love it! Ahem. Anyway, that’s what I’d like to do, but I have no idea if that’s possible.
Leta Blake 
No matter how you look at it you wrote a lot of words! 🙂
I agree with the publishing houses. I’ve written for a handful, two have gone belly up and the others just don’t seem to care about helping their stable of authors.
I love self-publishing and if I could afford a great editor I’d forget about the publishing houses forever.
I hope you find one that gives you what ever author deserves.
Yes, it’s absolutely the cost that goes into it that keeps one from being able to just self-pub altogether, which, given that houses clearly have expenses, too, you’d think would mean they’d be interested in helping you move product, but, in my admittedly limited experience, nope. Not so much! Thanks Amber for the good wishes and may your next year be full of beautiful things and much writing success! 😀
“I’ve decided to take a huge writing risk next year. But I’ll save that for later!”
This line has got me massively intrigued! 😉
Oh, it’s basically that I think I’m going to release the ’90s Coming of Age Novel as a serial, which has the potential to go over well, or completely flop.