On Finishing A Book-What's Next?

The Interdimensional Subwoofer is the third novel I've written, and I think, my very best yet. I've sent it to my editor and I'm just waiting to get it back so I can make the corrections and then send it off to agents. So I guess I should get started on my fourth book, right?

Well...I don't know about that.

Here's the thing. As an indie author who hasn't really gotten as much love for my first two titles as I would have liked, I still have that nagging feeling that I need to go back and rectify that. Now, I know, I should move forward, not backward. Those two books didn't sell for a reason, right? Well, I'm not so sure about that. A part of the problem of being an indie author is the fact that you are competing with so many other indie authors who all believe the same thing--there's just too much competition out there. With that belief, we constantly believe that it's not the writing or the cover that's the problem, but rather, the fact that it's too difficult to get your story known when hundreds of other trying to do the same thing every day. Whether it's true or not (That the writing isn't the issue), is up in the air, but the fact that we try so hard to promote ourselves is a constant issue that I think I've found a solution to, and it's in the form of "DLC".

What's DLC, you ask? (And if you ask it, then you're obviously not a gamer). DLC stands for Downloadable Content, and I'm going to implement it for my two previous books, The Darkness of the Womb, and A Boy and His Corpse. What they will be is short (Very short, 25 pages) stories that connect the books, but are also standalone titles. The first short story, "Clean Hands," will be about events prior to The Darkness of the Womb, but will have no true connection to it, so you wouldn't have had to read the book to know what's going on. It will be free and introduce the world to people who have never read my first book (Which seems to be the entire world itself).

My second short story, also 25 pages, will be about events AFTER A Boy and His Corpse. It will be titled, "Q: Are We Not Human? A: We Are Corpses!" which is a send-up of one of the most famous Devo albums. This title will only be free if you sign up for my mailing list, which is something I've (stupidly) neglected to set up for a long time.

(Image taken from: en.wikipedia.org)

So, you might be wondering why I'm doing this. Wouldn't it be wiser of me to invest in marketing campaigns and other things that other authors are already doing? Well, probably, but I think this is a way to get readers who otherwise wouldn't pick up my previous work to perhaps give it a gander if they like "Clean Hands" or "Are We Not Human?" Maybe then, if I get at least some kind of audience, I can move on with my life. But until then, I'll just keep pushing to get my first two books noticed. It's an uphill battle and one that I'll continue endlessly to climb. Whatever it takes.