Filing System Drawback…
Smith’s Monthly As A Filing System…
A number of people have mentioned to me how cool that idea is to keep stories organized. And it really is.
When I publish an issue.
I have not published an issue since #67, which was November of 2022.
Which means I have not filed anything since then. (grin)
Granted, for six months of that time I was mostly blind and for another six months of that time I was recovering from surgery and most of this last year I was dealing with business issues. So yes, it has been 2 years and 4 months since I filed anything, but a lot of that time I didn’t have much to file.
Now with this challenge I do.
So thinking of firing back up Smith’s Monthly with a one year focus on short fiction for half the issues. I am thinking of ten original short stories per month, plus one ten-story collection. That would catch up my filing really quickly.
So the restart is getting closer. Got a few busy months ahead, but then after that the runway should have some room.
Poker Boy Coming To Kickstarter…
Finally a decent cover on the Poker Boy origin novel THE SLOTS OF SATURN.
Take a look…
The link is to check out more about the Kickstarter campaign and be notified when it launches on the 1st of April.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/poker-boy?ref=2uys1x
2 Comments
S. H. Miah
Hi Dean,
Just had a question about covers. You’ve always said that authors should learn how to do their own covers, which I’ve been doing since I published my first novel. However, I know hiring a cover designer for those really top-tier covers would increase sales and catch readers’ eyes a lot better. And I’ve noticed a lot of WMG Kickstarters have these new AWESOME covers that look really complicated to design (new Poker Boy covers being a good example).
At what point would you suggest authors begin outsourcing cover design? Or is it more worthwhile to just get REALLY good at stock photo manipulation despite the learning curve?
Thanks,
S. H. Miah
dwsmith
Just keep working on doing it yourself and getting better. Steph in house did the Poker Boy covers. She has been studying covers for a long time and will be even doing a class this late spring or summer over on the WMG Writer Store on how to design covers. I will announce it. She will talk about how to bring in all the different elements.
But honestly, it takes years and years to get as good as someone like the writer Lisa Silverthorne who can do those stunning, off the charts fantasy covers. But if you give cover design some attention and play with it as you go along, you can get to the point where people will say, “Wow, great covers.”
But like any art form, it takes practice and time.