I am a hybrid author

Keep meaning to write this post but so busy with home things going on and writing my books. Am here now.

I believe now that I am a hybrid author. For those not in the know, a hybrid author is someone who writes for both mainstream/traditional publishers and is self-published. I always thought of myself as just an indie author until last year that is. I read a blog post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (do read it if you are an author) last year, and she wrote that she is a hybrid author. She wrote that as well as self-publishing her books, she also writes short stories for magazines. It got me thinking - what have I had published in mainstream magazines? Fillers. Lots of them over the years. So I have been published traditionally too. This makes me a hybrid author. I am quite pleased with that title. I will be having a short story published in a magazine in July, so that definitely will make me a hybrid author.

So, if you think you are just an indie author, think about what else you might have published? Esp in magazines. You could be surprised like I was.

Diversity in writing Part 2

I am back writing about diversity in writing. Diversity is also about the authors who write the books. It is this that is the hot topic between authors because although BAME authors might get on the list for winning top awards, they might not win it in the end.

When I came to draft this post, I could only think of a few BAME authors who write for adults and children. As I write for children, I shall start with the few I have thought of.

Malorie Blackman, Patrice Lawrence, Catherine Johnson, Candy Gourlay, Chitra Soundar, Sarwat Chadda, Bali Rai.

After I drafted this post, I put a message on Facebook about this and got a few more names of children's authors in the Minor Ethnicity, and they are Jewish authors. Here they are: Keren David, Miriam Halahmy, Hilary Freeman, Judith Kerr, Meg Rosoff. It was raised that in traditional publishing authors might not be allowed by their publishers to write about Jewish events. Only a couple have recently.

For adults I could only think of Mike Gayle and Zadie Smith. If you can name more BAME authors who write for adults, let me know.

Next post will be another diversity post. Diversity is not just about BAME authors, there are disabled authors too, like me.

How to create a business plan - Step 2

I have posted about writing what you have achieved this year, so how about writing down what you haven't achieved. I am going to put down what I haven't, why I think this is and what I am going to do about it next year. Here we go:

1. Ebooks - I didn't achieve to write and publish as many ebooks as I wanted. I believe this was because I didn't make use of all the time I had because I was distracted by other ventures I was trying, which wasted time for me. What I plan to do - I have already started to make more of the time I have in the day to write.

2. Sales - I didn't achieve as many sales of my ebooks that I wanted to do. Why? I think this is because of the low price. All my ebooks are at 99c, which is a discount price. I now think that this is only suitable for discount buyers and not serious readers. So, next year, or even after Christmas, I am going to up the prices of all of my ebooks. I am going to think like a publisher. Lots of trad publishers have joined the ebook world and indies have to compete with them now, so I am trying to match their prices.

3. I didn't get my Asperkids series of books out there. Why? The publisher I had emailed the partial to hadn't got back to me about it. Next year I want to get my characters out there myself. Get the ms professionally edited, get an illustrator to do the cover and drawings in the book I want. Will be researching that next year.

4. I didn't get a short story in a magazine. I hadn't done the proper research and find out what sort of stories they publish. I have been to workshops by Woman's Weekly and know what they like now. I have been reading the magazines to get a feel for the type of stories they publish. I now have a better idea of what stories I will be sending to which magazines.

So, are there things that you haven't achieved this year? If so, what are you going to do about them? Let me know.