New Year, New Series

Philip HarrisWriting1 Comment

2020 was not a productive year. I released a grand total of zero new books which as an indie author is not a good way to build a career. Amazon’s algorithms are ruthless and although I did sell some books the lack of new releases really hurt me.

My writing productivity took a hit as well. I did crank out 175, 204 words but that’s a long way from my original goal of 366,000. I managed to finish the first drafts of a couple of new books and some short stories. Not spectacular but better than nothing.

The chaos of 2020 was no doubt part of the problem but I’m very fortunate that I work for a company that is handling the pandemic very well and I can work from home pretty comfortably.

On that note, I also changed jobs – moving from a technical role at a company I’d worked at for 15 years to a Narrative Designer role at a smaller but very well known and well respected developer whose games I’ve admired for a long time. My new role is a combination of narrative and game design. It’s a perfect fit for me and I’m really enjoying myself.

But with 2020 finally on its way out, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks assessing my writing and my indie business and deciding where to take it next. The simple answer is that I need to get some new books out there. That’s made more complicated by the fact that I have way too many ideas. After much debate and a lot of bouncing ideas around at 3am I have finally come up with a plan. Well, two plans.

First up is a new series and I have the first draft of the first two books. I’m not quite ready to reveal the titles yet (mostly because I have no clue what they’re going to be called) but they’re supernatural crime novels with a demonic twist. The current plan is to have the first book out in April with the second following not too long after that.

Second up is another new series. The only writing I’ve done on this is the outline of the first book but I’m very excited about it. It’s a fast-paced science fiction adventure that should be a real blast. The timeline for this second series is up in the air but realistically it’s going to be towards the end of the year. Unless I get so excited about it that I drop all my other plans and dive right into this series instead. Which is a definite possibility.

On not totally unrelated topic, I was doing a bit of research today and found a very cool Firefly T-Shirt. I have far too many T-Shirts but I couldn’t resist.

If you want to grab your own they’re available here.

The first thing I write in the sci-fi series will be a short story that I’ll send out to my newsletter subscribers. If you’d like to get it (and three other free books) you can subscribe here.

In the meantime, I hope you and your family have a safe and happy 2021.

[New Year, New SeriesĀ by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 1 January 2021]

One Comment on “New Year, New Series”

  1. Pingback: January Writing Update - Philip Harris

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