2016 in review (the writing edition) (Patreon)

Let’s see, a full year to look back on, what to say about it, other than I wrote.

I took 22 days off in the year over 12 months, and 2 of those I took 3 days off. I had one horrible month writing wise, in October as I fought with Minecraft.

My word count for the year is 694,349 words. That is 41,400 words less than in 2015. I have to say that I have written more than I thought I had. I expected to be much closer to 600k since most months were close to 50k, with one way below that. I’m quite happy with it.

2016 was the year I was going to start publishing E-books. I had planned on publishing one every 3 months, starting in January. That didn’t quite work out as expected. Editing the books took longer than I expected, and I waited until the editing was done on the first book to look for a cover artist, so my fist book came out later than planned, later part of February actually. 

Having learned my lesson, I worked on getting my next cover much earlier, even if the book wasn’t finished editing, but now there was an issue with my artist. He vanished on me for 2 months without ever letting me know what was happening, or responding to my queries. This forced me to look for another artist, who I found, and I have been very happy with him (I believe he’s male) since. I also worked with an editor from outside the furry community on book 2, which was a mistake, she really had no idea to do with it and kept trying to get me to tweak it to turn it into a romance, which the book wasn’t (I don’ do romance). With that, the book ended up coming out in August.

By then I knew I wouldn’t keep to the every 3 months schedule and just focused on finishing the other 2 books, which came out in November and Early December. So I met my overall goal of 4 novels. I wish I could give you an update on how well they sold, but I still haven’t quite figured out how to get the dashboard for Amazon to work.

On the side of Patreon, this year I fought with scammers, who’d join and never paid a cent. It took about half the year, but Patreon finally figured out how to recognized them and lock them out. Overall I gained 2 new supporters, and make about 55$ a month.

So, what actually got accomplished?

I published 4 novels:

Tristan https://www.patreon.com/posts/tristan-novel-7581863

A Wasteful Death https://www.patreon.com/posts/wasteful-death-7586117

Finding the Line https://www.patreon.com/posts/finding-line-7594813

Demons https://www.patreon.com/posts/demons-excerpt-7645064

I completed the first draft on Crimson, book 2 of Tristan, and Toeing the Line, book 2 of Inheriting the Line. I started work on A Familiar Death. I also worked on a few pleasure projects, Finishing the first draft for Missing Son, the first official novel for the Orr Family Chronicles and the first draft to 2593, another Orr Family story that takes place in 2593. I write the draft to another Orr story, a short story this time called “Dietrich’s Loss.” As you can see, the Orr family is who I tend to turn to when I need to write for my own enjoyment. 

I wrote a couple of stories as a raffle for my Patreons, as well as my first commission ever. I also started planning (in the vaguest term) a 9 book series, because of a series I read. As well as starting on a Superhero story after reading one of Karmakat’s books. And finally (I think) I got the first draft down for what is going to be the first of many stories that I’ll write exclusively for my Patreon supporters, I got that done just under the wire, finishing it on the 30th of December.

As for my Beta readers, well, the group keeps shifting, as people agree to it and don’t participate or life takes them away. I think I’m down to a core group of 3 at the moment; I’d really like to have a dozen to ensure a variety of opinions.

And that is it for 2016. I hope everyone had a good year, and that your 2017 will be even better