Writing News

[osprey_archer]

A wild writing post appears! First, Honeytrap and The Sleeping Soldier were both recced in The New York Times. God bless Olivia Waite.

Second, I have instituted Sunday Morning Writing. On Sunday morning, I sit down with the decorated composition book my penpal sent me at Christmas (literally it’s one of those school composition books, but with shiny teapots and stuff pasted to the cover), and write a short story.

So far I have managed a complete short story each Sunday. This streak almost certainly will not last, but it’s a good groove while it continues! The stories so far:

1. The Orpheus retelling
2. The magic teashop f/f story for the Kalikoi charity anthology
3. “So. You want to hear the story of how Temis came to be called Wolf Speaker?”

(This last one is in a fantasy setting I have noodled with since… high school… so it’s nice to have finally finished a piece!)

Third, through the kind agency of sholio and jenett, I learned that although Amazon’s KDP select demands exclusive digital rights, you can nonetheless sell paperbacks of those books elsewhere. Moreover, uploading the paperback files to Draft2Digital will put them on a variety of online retailers’ websites (including Bookshop).

So I am plunking away at a paperback project. It turns out that since I already formatted the books to print as paperbacks, they’re pretty easy to upload to Draft2Digital. And next time someone asks if my books are available anywhere but Amazon, I will be able to point to the paperbacks!

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

Honeytrap and The Sleeping Soldier were both recced in The New York Times.

Congrats!!! And I love the idea of Short Story Sundays.

[osprey_archer]

Thank you! And I've been enjoying Short Story Sundays although also steeling myself for the inevitable day when I do not finish a whole entire story. Some short stories are simply not THAT short.

[storiesforsorries]

Congrats!! The Sleeping Soldier is one of my favorite books of the last few years! I can't wait to buy it in paperback (but no rush / pressure meant!!)

[osprey_archer]

I have uploaded a test paperback and am currently waiting to see how long it takes them to process it! So far, it seems to be taking a while.

[ellenmillion]

Horrah! Did you see that you got a shoutout at Smut Report, too? https://smutreport.com/2025/02/18/swords-dont-cross-vs-swords-that-do/

[osprey_archer]

No, I hadn't seen that Smut Report mention! Thank you for letting me know.

[sholio]

Oh, how lovely; congratulations!!

(I need to do the paperback thing too. Eventually.)

[osprey_archer]

The uploading part is pretty simple if you've already formatted your books from Amazon, but as far as I can tell The Wolf and the Girl seems to have sat there like a stone since I uploaded (admittedly, just a few days ago) without being published anywhere, so who knows how long their lag time is.

[asakiyume]

Wohoo!! Congratulations on the NYT mentions; that's fabulous! Talk about arriving! And congratulations on the writing streak, too. More power to you!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you! And I suspect this writing streak is about to slow down, as I got out of my system the few short stories that had been floating around. But I will keep plunking away even if I don't finish a whole story each Sunday!

[konstantya]

Honeytrap and The Sleeping Soldier were both recced in The New York Times. God bless Olivia Waite.

OMG. That's awesome!!!

Moreover, uploading the paperback files to Draft2Digital will put them on a variety of online retailers’ websites (including Bookshop).

Not that I've sold anywhere CLOSE to as many copies as you, but this is something I've nevertheless been thinking about, considering the *gestures vaguely* overall situation of things. Would love to hear how this goes for you!

[osprey_archer]

To be honest I suspect that what will happen re: uploading the paperbacks to Draft2Digital is about what has happened with uploading some of my ebooks, which is that almost no one buys them from any of D2D various online retail associates. But it's free to put them up, so can't hurt!

[ethelmay]

Well, I didn't know they were there, which is why I didn't buy any from Kobo! Have just gotten three things.

[konstantya]

Yeah, it's that expanded distribution (as it were) that I'm curious about--does that mean there's a chance of them showing up in brick-and-mortar book shops, even though they're independently published? (Rhetorical question--don't feel you have to answer, especially if you don't know off the top of your head, hah.)

[osprey_archer]

TBH this is a question I would also like to know the answer to! If either of us find out, we'd better tell the other.

[lirazel]

What a lovely writing ritual!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[lucymonster]

Ooooh this is all very exciting! Huge congrats about the NYT recs, and I can't wait to see what comes of the paperback project. :D

[osprey_archer]

Still waiting for D2D to process my test paperback (it's been four days! AN ETERNITY) but hopefully they'll finish that soon so I can get the ball rolling more generally. Will people buy them? Who can say! We'll see.

[msilverstar]

NYT rec, fantastic! I'll be interested in any insights you have on how it affects your sales.

[osprey_archer]

So far the effect has been modest, but we'll see how long the tail lasts.

[rachelmanija]

Oh that is wonderful!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[littlerhymes]

Omg wonderful!! Congrats!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!