Containment Restrospective, and future plans!

It's been a week since I've released 'Containment,' so this seems like a good time to do a short retrospective based on the reception it's gotten so far, as well as to talk about my future plans.

In general, 'Containment' has been doing quite good in sales, but 'Sky Trained' has exceeded my expectations. Of course, 'Sky Trained' has been released for longer, so that doesn't really mean much.

I haven't gotten any feedback on either novel, so pretty much all I have to go on is sales to tell me what people are enjoying. If anybody has anything they really like in particular, do let me know, as it's the only way I have of knowing what part people enjoyed the most! Otherwise, I'm just muddling around in the dark here.

Pricing

After seeing how it's been going for my new novels, I'm confident in saying that I'll be pricing my stories in this way going forward:

$2.99 - Shorts, anything less than 30K words

$3.99 - Novellas, anything between 30K-70Kish words

$4.99 - Novels, anything longer than 70K words

That seems fair, given the relative amount of work I have to put in to get these released.

If I had to make a time estimate, it takes a minimum of an hour to produce 1K words, and to be more realistic, on most days, I would say it's about two.

For editing, I can get through about 10 pages per hour, if I'm not working quickly. During editing, I read everything aloud to ensure that it sounds more or less natural, and to ensure that I catch as many mistakes as possible.

Assuming a 70K word novel, that's about 140 hours for writing, and about 18 hours for editing. Once you calculate out how much a novel of that length can make, you're definitely not hitting minimum wage.

Of course, I'm not doing this to get rich, but it's getting more and more obvious that I won't be able to quit my day job to concentrate solely on this.

I will say that the advice 'release often' is definitely the way to go, and I suspect that I would generally do better if I could release more shorts. It's unfortunate that I tend to be so wordy, but my stories simply tend to spiral out of control when I'm working on them. I can't help it!

Oh well. But I'll definitely produce a short at some point, see if I don't!

Trancemaker

My next story is titled 'Trancemaker,' which I'm packing full of gothic goodness.

Cybergoths, leather, neon lights, lipstick, nail polish, the whole shebang.

Never mind the fact that I've never belonged to a gothic subculture or dressed as one. I simply find the work that goes into it and the end product to be super hot.

Because I'm writing for fetish purposes, I'm sure to get everything wrong about these subcultures, but I do hope I'll at least produce an entertaining story!

Mixed into this stew is a good jolt of paranormal romance and fae lords etc, with a lot of slavery and fun brainwashing. I'm fairly pleased with some of the hot scenes I've written so far, and there's quite a few more to go.

This currently sits at 25K words, and I'm estimating there's at least 4 large scenes left to write. If I had to guess, that will make this novella length, almost certainly coming in around 40-50K. I doubt it will be a novel, as the plot simply isn't that intricate. Unless something very cool occurs to me, I suspect this guesstimate will be fairly accurate.

Here's the cover for this novella, which I've already finished:

I also just made an attempt at putting together a synopsis, which of course is subject to change between now and release:

"Kai quit her high powered job as a lawyer to become a full time live-in slave for her Master. However, she doesn’t remember how she acquired this Master, and she still isn’t sure what the purpose of the tattoo being inscribed on her belly is for.

Her cybergothic friend might help her to discover these answers, but there’s a cost - she’ll be required to visit her club and be dressed as a goth herself. That is the only way she’ll be accepted by the Pathwalker and shown her possible futures.

The difficult path does not guarantee success, but failure will ensure that she becomes a jewel slave to one of the fae.

Embracing her new gothic style might be the only way for her to navigate the shadowy paranormal world which mirrors our own."

The Future

After Trancemaker is edited and released (likely late August or sometime in September), there are a couple of options. I'd really like to fit in another short before I start something else, but I currently only have vague ideas on that front. If nothing comes to me, I'll likely start work on 'The Rubber Order: Sanctification,' as I've finally jotted down an outline for that story.

With what I have plotted, it will be significantly darker than the first novella, and it's likely to turn into a novel on me, but we shall see. I'm sure there's some fans out there that wouldn't mind if I wrote more rubbery goodness, and believe me, it will happen. It's only a matter of when.

See you next time! Half Shim, signing off!

'Containment' is now live!

I'm pleased to announce that my newest novel, 'Containment,' has just been released on Amazon!

Rubbery gas mask wearing smoke demons and silvery hive drones abound in this latest outing, with loads of sex and fun transformation scenes. If that's your cup of tea, why not check it out?

Containment - Kindle edition by Waters, Caroline. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

I've been very hard at work on getting this put together lately, and I finished the editing far faster than I  had thought possible!

Please enjoy, and I'll post again another time with news about my next project... but don't expect a month between releases on that one - it just happened to line up that way this time! Cheers!

Raven’s rock band is down on its luck, and seemingly about to split up, until she discovers the extra dimensional entity hiding in her father’s bass guitar. Now, she’s having fun rocking out with her bandmates, but they’ve all been turned into IT’s glossy black rubber smoke demons!

Wendy works for an organization trying to keep IT's transformed Things out of our dimension, but she’s run into a bit of a snag - they’ve recently captured an AI core, which is dead set on converting her and her coworkers into sex starved Hive drones!

In a brutal battle for control of the city and each other’s hearts and minds, if either of them wins, everyone loses!

End Of May Update: Sky Trained + Containment

May is almost over, with summer fast approaching. I think that this is an excellent time to discuss where I'm at with my current projects, though I have no covers to reveal this time, sadly.

I do hope the small number of people who have read 'Transference' have enjoyed themselves. I've heard nothing so far about that release, one way or the other, so it's quite difficult to know what the market is looking for. I suppose I shall have to keep writing stories with different plots to get a sense of what people want in their longer form smut.

Sky Trained

I'm still in the middle of editing Sky Trained, almost literally, at 156/321 pages. At an average rate of 5 pages/day, this process should be complete at the end of June, giving this novel a release date somewhere near the beginning of July.

Depending on how well how the process goes, this may be done a little sooner.

I will say the story is turning out to be fairly fun, and I do hope to get it into everyone's hands as soon as possible. There's a lot of cow milking that's going to happen.

Containment

This story, at 43 K+ words, is starting to turn into a novel. I have a vague idea of where I'm going with it, and I'd like to keep it under 80K words if I can. If that's possible, I might be able to start the editing process for it at the end of June, at about the same time I release Sky Trained.

Just in time to start a new editing cycle! Oh joy!

I haven't given the next project too much thought yet, but it's likely to either be something shorter, or the next installment of the Rubber Order, which is very unlikely to be short.

I like the idea of writing a short, but none of the ideas I've had so far have turned out to be short. Oh dear.

So - nothing too much to report, really, except that I've been working diligently! Cheers!

Sky Trained Editing + Containment

Sky Trained

I've started the editing process for Sky Trained, and it's clear there's no way I'm going to be able to keep the pace I was using while editing Transference without horribly drying out my eyes. As such, I've halved the pace in an attempt to keep my sanity.

At the moment, that means I'm reading about 5 pages a day, which is a little unfortunate, because I expect that means I won't have this done being edited for at least two months. Bummer!

While that will push out my schedule quite a bit, at least it's happening, right? Currently, I'm 20 pages in out of 324, so it's definitely going to be a ride.

That said, there isn't much more to report here. I'll keep plugging away at it and hopefully I'll have good news to share about this (or a release!) eventually.

Containment

I've continued writing this tale, but it still doesn't really have an outline - just a rather vague idea of having two titanic forces clashing against each other. I think that actually is going to work, given the scope of this story is fairly small.

'Small' is a relative term for me, however, as I've already hit 20K words on this one, and I expect it to take at least around another 20 K more to finish it out. It's pretty likely that this will be another novella.

The good news is that I already have the cover done:

What do you think? I'm really quite proud of the result. This took quite a bit of editing, and I added the smoke effects myself with the help of some free paintbrushes in Gimp.

Anyway, there's going to be plenty more latex fun on this one when it's complete.

Of course, that means I'll have ANOTHER huge amount of text to edit before it can be released, but that's just the way it goes with authors, I suppose!

My updates from here on out might be a little sporadic, as I won't really have anything to share until I finish the first draft of Containment or I finish editing Sky Trained. I suspect Containment will be done first, but we shall see!

Rubberily yours, Half Shim

Sky Trained Update + The Future

I do hope that those of you who picked up Transference are enjoying it!

Now that it has been released, and the Robotic Restitution changes are in my rear mirror, it's time to look at what's next!

Sky Trained

As of Saturday, 4/23, I have the first draft of Sky Trained completed. It weighs in at a whopping 134,334 words, which I will have to read aloud to edit. (That seems like a bit of a daunting prospect!)

At 320 pages, reading 10 pages a day, that would take me a little over a solid month to do.

Yes, I'm planning on doing it at some point, but no, I'm not sure when I'm going to start that yet. At the moment, I'm in 'recovery' mode, trying to de-stress. This is my 'fun' hobby - it's not supposed to be a second job! (It definitely doesn't pay well enough to be a second job!)

I also know I don't have enough chapter breaks, so that will have to be fixed, too, before I can even consider getting it into an e-book format.

Worse, this is almost at the length where I should really consider splitting it into TWO novels... which leaves me with these options:

1. Do the split. Requires a good splitting location, and a second cover. Plus all the baloney that goes with creating two e-books.
1. Pros: The first half of the story can be released earlier while I'm working on editing the second half.
2. Cons: If I mess up in the first half while editing, that makes the second half more difficult to edit as I can't change details in the first half. Also, I would need to make a second cover and setup a series.
2. Raise the price, from the usual $3.99 to $4.99.
1. At double the content, in theory this is justifiable, but I suspect at that level, most people would simply give the book a miss. I'm currently in the solid 'NO' category with this idea.
3. Suck it up and release it as one, gigantic novel.
1. This seems like the most likely option at this point.

Ah, the fun parts of being an author. If anyone has an opinion on the above options, I'm willing to entertain them.

If I DO go with option three, I would expect the book to be released sometime in June. There's simply too much to get through to ask for anything sooner. I suppose this is on me for not writing and editing something shorter.

Containment

Since 'Sky Trained' has been finished, I've been scrounging around for another story to work on. I'm pleased to announce that I've started a new project, called 'Containment,' which involves latex clad rock band members, mind control via dark otherworldly smoke entities, an AI hive mind, and an organization tasked with keeping the world safe from interdimensional monsters.

I'm honestly not sure where this one is gonna go, because I started it without an outline (foolish me). I know how I want it to end, so I'm hoping that will be enough to get me working on a proper outline... eventually.

In the mean time, I'm going to keep writing this thing and see where it goes!

In theory, that should be exciting, but after coming off Sky Trained, I'm just hoping that this isn't going to turn into another two novels that should really be one novel.

Anyway, cheers, and at this rate, my next update will probably be in a month! Hopefully I have gotten a lot done by then!