Future Plans and Puns

Today's blog topics include: The novel DLC idea and NaNoWriMo 2012 plans; puns!; let the marketing begin!? 

Tim Cody is currently:
Working on: Crimson Soul 2
Playing: Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3)
Watching: Despicable Me
Eating: All your chocolate covered pretzels


Post titles are the worst! I've been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to think up something clever.

So I'm not entirely sure if novel DLC is something people do already, but I'm totes going to start doing it.

The idea is the same as DLC--downloadable content--for video games. Crimson Soul 2 is a complete story, start to finish. Everything between its covers is necessary and whole, and by the time you finish reading it, you'll have the entire story.

But the universe of Crimson Soul is just that--a universe. All the characters you meet existed before the story of Crimson and Melissa, they exist parallel to their story; later, they exist parallel to Melissa and Lee, and they (the ones that survive Crimson Soul 2) continue to exist after Melissa and Lee's story is over.

Jack Stone was wandering around before Melissa and Lee show up half way through the book. He mentions that he went searching for a few people, and he confesses to being the one responsible for restoring power to the building. This happened before Melissa and Lee showed up, though, and the reader only has Jack's brief account of something that isn't crucial enough to the main plot of Crimson Soul 2 to actually show. This is where Crimson Soul 2 DLC comes in--it will chronicle Jack Stone's mini adventure.

Quite exciting, right? Half a dozen side stories collected in a single novella. Quite the 'novel' idea if I do say so myself. ;) Ah-hahaaaaaaah... Puns...

This may be the perfect project for me to work on during 2012's NaNoWriMo. I've never participated, but I've decided to give it a shot next year. It'll require some extra planning to work it into my schedule, since I have two more novels planned for 2012--three, I suppose, now counting November's.

50,000 words is about 100 pages for my usual double-spaced 10-point (I think it's funny when my editor squints) font. That will require more writing than my standard schedule allows, but that's the point of the month. But I get ahead of myself! Crimson Soul 2 is still in production.

I got my PDF all nice and ready. All I need is my cover art, and to finalize the chapter titles. After that, it's all done! Hopefully I can get this part of the process taken care of within the next week or so, so I can bring some copies home for Christmas.

And then it's some boring marketing! Boring attempts at marketing, I should say. I need to find some blogs that are willing to review self published novels! A task that has been proving fairly tricky indeed. You can jump back a few blogs and check out my thoughts on my marketing efforts, but long story short: It ain't easy. Or very fun!

Finally, be sure to take a look around my site here! I've added some spiffy new tabs up at the top, some Facebook Like buttons for your liking convenience, and after a few weeks, if I'm liking the looks of everything as it all starts to come together, I'll be registering my own domain to toss up there.

That's that and marmalade!

-Tim Cody

P.S.: Not much longer to get your free e-copy of Crimson Soul 1! Follow the link to the Smashwords page for Crimson Soul, and use the coupon code EZ59E at checkout.