Saturday, April 14, 2012

That Was Then, This Is Now

One year has passed since I launched my blog.  My mission was to chronicle self-publishing for my sake and for anyone looking to head out on their own.   I produced a series called “Lessons Learned in Self-Publishing,” offered writing advice and sometimes just wrote about what was on my mind.
Today I am not the same writer I was a year ago.  I like to think I am savvier, have some experience tucked under my belt and know where I want to go.  I have made some changes and plan to do more. 

First, I plan to change the focus of the blog. Up to now I have been writing to other writers; now my plan is to write to readers. Not sure how I’m going to get there, but I didn’t know much about self-publishing a year ago and I arrived. 

Next thing in my plans is to launch a website to showcase myself and my writing.  I wrote some HTML a decade ago, so this will be a new experience.  My daughter who is a graphic designer tells me a lot has changed in that time. Watch for the website coming this summer.

My writing will be changing too. Up to now I’ve written middle-grade books, bringing an Agatha Christie, thriller-suspense genre to a younger audience. Moving forward I plan to bring my mysteries to big kids, aka adults. More on that in a minute.

I’m not giving up on the MG books and in fact have a blog tour starting April 20.  Here is a schedule for anyone wanting to follow along.
Now the final piece of news. A few weeks ago I signed a contract with Cool Well Press to publish my debut mystery novel, Claws of the Griffin. Peter Reynolds, a rich northerner, heads to a rural town in North Carolina for an ex-girlfriend’s funeral.  He finds himself embroiled with moonshiners, good-ole-boy politics and a sociopathic killer. When the ex-girlfriend’s seven-year-old son inherits the family farm, 875 acres of prime land, Peter has his hands full outsmarting conniving relatives and a greedy businessman, all with their eyes set on getting the property. Claws of the Griffin is a roller coaster ride of mystery, mayhem and murder, Southern style.

I’m looking forward to all the great things happening.

Post Script: Just spotted my bio on the Cool Well Press website. Way cool! Check it out at http://www.coolwellpress.com/pages/authors/29.


5 comments:

  1. Hello Ron,
    I am now one year into my indie-publishing adventure. My focus has changed to writing more and less blogging. It is good to see that I am not the only one who is in the middle of this adventure.

    ;-) Cyn

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  2. Good luck, Ron. Personally, so far I have found the blogging completely overwhelming. I enjoy writing essays and write and post those every few weeks, but posting something several times a week, forget about it. For now anyway. Good luck and say to Andy and Barney for me.

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  3. Thanks for sharing your adventure, Ron. I've tried to set up Penelope with a 14-yo boy in the neighborhood, but he said he wants to live. "Are you sure she isn't a serial murderer by proxy?" Kid has a point.

    Write on!

    By the way, the link from the first site of the blog tour doesn't necessarily get you to the second site correctly. Hmm.

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  4. The links on the first blog stop are wrong. A later blog tour has the same mistake. I mentioned to the blog tour coordinator but don't think it helped....Penelope was not amused. ;)

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  5. I, too, tried to tell other writers about the vagaries of the writing game. I have written several Op. Eds. on the subject over the years, but to date I do not know that my advice has been of much use.
    Most have been published on my blog and other places on the Internet. I hope some benefit has been derived from the effort.
    Keep up your work, Ron. All we can do is try.

    Best Regards,
    Jerry

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