Tag: publishing

Another BTL Spinoff

On By TomIn Achievement, author honesty, author ideas, beta readers, editing, General, Insight, killing your darlings, Novel, reading, series, thriller, trilogy, work in progress, writing2 Comments

When I started work on MacLennan, it was intended to be a standalone story, but once underway, I recalled how many times readers had mentioned their favourite characters from my Beyond The Law (BTL) trilogy and spinoff tales, Codename: Nightshade, and Codename: Foxglove. I introduced one person to spice up a few scenes, and as these things do, it led to bringing in someone else from the vigilante team, and the new retribution story took on a life of its own.

As I do with all my work, when the initial tale was told, I saved it and left it aside for three weeks before printing it to revise as a hard copy. Armed with a trusty red pen, fuelled with copious amounts of coffee, and with classical music in the background, I deleted, inserted, and amended from the first page to the last. It took four days, which was no surprise, and then I saved it and left it alone again. During the ‘rest’ periods for a manuscript, to avoid being drawn into the story, if an idea comes to mind, I make a brief note at the end of my story info file.

Like many authors, I also edit as I write, and might occasionally spend an entire day on three or four chapters, chopping and changing imagery, dialogue and narrative until the flow feels right. Editing, ‘on the hoof’ isn’t the way to produce the best work, but it goes some way to creating a good foundation.

Due to always having more than one Work in Progress, I find it easy, rather than frustrating, to leave a manuscript aside. During the year I spent on the initial draft, I took a short break from MacLennan more than once and worked on something else.

It was only after sending the story to beta readers that I revisited the cover and decided to rename the tale Codename: MacLennan. I felt that there was so much involvement by my original vigilante team that it was appropriate to make this story another spinoff from the BTL trilogy.

Codename: MacLennan is scheduled to be published by the end of March 2026.

A by-product of this new story is yet another spinoff in the form of Codename: Larkspur, which I will start work on in April of this year.

 I sincerely thank my regular readers for taking an interest and supporting my brand. If you’re new to my writing, I hope you’ll soon become one of my valued readers. Thank you for checking out my blog.

My Writing Year – 2019

On By TomIn Achievement, author ideas, box sets, collections, erotica, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Promotion, pseudonym, Review, series, Short Stories, trilogy, Uncategorized13 Comments

A successful writing year is measured using a variety of criteria by different authors. For me, I must feel that if not prolific, I’ve at least achieved a good standard with what I have published. I’m a firm believer that if as an author I expect a payment, I owe the customer my best efforts.

Rather than talk about ‘numbers’ as a guide, it would be better to look at the time taken for some of my most recent publications. Codename: Nightshade, for example, went through my process for two years before I was happy with the end result. One Man, Two Missions, was a bundle of files for a long time before I was satisfied with every story.

I created Tom Benson-Erotica to avoid, or at least reduce the mentions of the genre on here, but this post will be one of the exceptions and for good reason. I wrote a novel, a full-length prequel novel, and a book of fifty erotic poems.

*

Although the erotica output in my own name may not sound impressive, one of my most ambitious projects to date was the creation of a new author.

During 2019, I published five full-size novels under a female pen name. I’ve kept the pseudonym and the stories (in progress), a secret for two years. When I came up with the idea I promised myself not to go public until I had completed several books and published them over a period of twelve months. This would allow me to assess unaided development. The experiment was also to see if the erotica author would be prolific, and successful. She has been both when considering she’s had no support or advertising campaigns.

The theory of creating ‘box sets’ was beyond me for a while. I’d checked a fair number on Amazon and couldn’t see many reviews, so I figured that maybe they were popular as a purchase, but not easy to review. Whatever … I spent a couple of weeks selecting and producing four box sets. They haven’t been my most successful venture, but in each case, I’m giving something back in terms of pricing, so it’s the consumer’s loss; not mine.

Throughout the year I offered my services as a beta reader to several members of the Indie Author Support and Discussion group (IASD), the finest writing group of its type on Facebook. Oh, yes, and in between other things I produced two stories for the IASD horror anthology Depths of Darkness.

To return to my opening statement regarding success in the past year … yes, I believe that with the sales produced under my own name, and the regular sales by ‘Katya’, it has been a successful writing year.

I’ve produced this summary a month earlier than normal for two reasons. Firstly, I am deep into two WIP and will not be publishing anything new in December 2019. Secondly, this post will be appearing in the November issue of the superb Connections eMag produced by fellow author, Melanie P. Smith.

I have a smaller but no less important target for next year, but more of that in my New Writing Year – 2020 post in the near future. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and summary, and for any comments or suggestions, you may leave. Sincere thanks go out to all you lovely people who’ve sampled or continue to read my efforts.

 ***