Troy Osgood's Blog

Let’s take a look back at 2019 and get an idea of what 2020 should bring.

We’ll start off with what I accomplished this year. Which was quite a lot in the grand scheme of my developing author career.

My writing goal was 1,500 words a day for a total of 547,500 total for the year. As of this writing, I am at 553,282 with more days to come. That includes a total of 10 days with 0 writing. To get an estimate of where I’ll end up with 20 days left to go in December, I’ll add in 4 more days of 0 writing (I’ll be on vacation without a computer to write with, and New Year’s Eve). So 16 days of writing at 1,500 a day comes out to be 24,000 more words. A total of 577,282 words for the year.

Almost a month (I use 45,000 words a month for my minimum monthly goal) of extra writing. As of today, I’m at a 1,608 word a day average.

I can say I’m pretty happy with that production. Is it enough? Nope.

What if I pushed it to 1,750 words a day for 2020? That would be a total of 638,750 words for the year. I think that’s a good goal to reach for.

Push it to 2,000 for 2021. A total of 730,000.

If remember awhile ago, I set goals of having something published by me come out every month for 2021 but realistically around 2022. That goal is still attainable. I now know what I have to do to reach that.

This was a big year for me. I launched my epic litRPG saga Sky Realms Online with Aethon Books and it’s been great. Two books (third off to the editor) at the end of July and October. They’ve been doing great. Each hit #1 Bestseller in an Amazon category with the first hitting #1 in two.

I’ll have a short story in a litRPG related anthology out this month (announcement coming soon) and I’ve started on the first Sky Realms Online spin-off.

For the amount of words I’ve written, what was published seems low, but there are reasons for that. I worked on a lot of projects through the year, trying to find my groove and what could be developed. This will end up helping me with 2020.

Working with Aethon allowed me to put both SRO books into Audio and that has been amazing. It’s surreal hearing my words read by someone. I’ve been extremely happy with the reception SRO has gotten. Because of that, in 2019 and beyond, SRO gets the most attention. The books are big (for me) and take up a lot of time. And there is a lot more to come.

What’s next for Hall and the rest of the gang? Book 3, Axestorm, is off at the editors and I figure it’ll be March 2020 when it comes out. The cover is done and it’s awesome. I’m hard at work on Book 4, working title: Greenfire. I’m about 1/3 through the spin-off. Rockfell is the series name, no working title for book 1 yet.

For 2020, Axestorm will be out early, I hope Greenfire will be around June/July (a year after Grayhold, it would be fitting if each ‘trilogy’ came out around the same time. Book 5 would be Octoberish with book 6 early 2021.

That’s 3 Sky Realms Online books in 2020.

Arek Lancer took a bit of a back seat but he’ll come back early in 2020. I’m about half-way through the 4th novella. I hope to have two adventures done in 2020 with a third in early 2021 and then release another collected edition. Arek’s adventures will probably end up around 9 or 12 novellas and associated short stories.

Two Arek Lancer adventures in 2020.

I’ll be launching a fantasy novella series soon. Early to mid 2020 I would think. More details as the series develops. But I plan (hope) to have 2 of those adventures out in the year.

Two REDACTED adventures in 2020.

I’ve been working on a standalone sci-fi novel and hope to have that out in 2020. The code for this book is SFD. It’ll be around 80k words in length.

One stand-alone sci-fi novel in 2020.

Eight projected releases in 2020.

That doesn’t include the monthly/somewhat monthly releases on Patreon. I have a large backlog of short stories for the Patreon page, so that won’t involve new writing (beyond SRO: Rockfell) for a long time.

But where is The Taleweaver’s Song? Sadly, I unpublished those two books. The series just wasn’t going where I wanted it to. Sales and story. So I’m going to revamp it, starting with making the Skeleton Stone more standalone and bigger. The two novellas that are going to appear on Patreon will remain as-is. If they ever see publication outside of Patreon, they’ll be edited to be stand-alone.

I’m hoping that The Skeleton Stone Revised sneaks out in 2020 at some point.

All this means I’m going to be busy.

Book Two is out and doing well. Grayhold introduced Hall, the new version of the Sky Realms Online world that he and his companions are stuck in. In Silver Peak, the larger story starts to be revealed.

Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited, with the Audiobook coming soon.

The game has only just begun…

[image error]Hall had thought he knew everything about the game, but he’s finding every day that things are different in this new, broken version of Sky Realms Online. There are new game elements, new enemies, and even new locations.

After just barely surviving his first Boss Fight, Hall finds himself in one of those new locations. He’s become the lord of a ruined and isolated village called Skara Brae, deep in the middle of hostile territory.

Hall and his companions must make the long trek to the city of Silverpeak Keep for much-needed supplies or they’ll risk losing everything. He hopes the journey will help determine what to do with Skarra Brae, his new in-game home.

What he thought would be a simple journey through the foothills of the Thunder Growl Mountains becomes so much more. From raging undead, to a gang war between two thieves guilds, Hall will need new allies to survive more surprises than ever before. And the threat of permadeath still looms.

It’s a sad but ultimately (longterm) good news as I’m putting Taleweaver’s Song on hiatus.

I had big plans for TWS (Taleweaver’s Song). A series of somewhat connected but stand alone novels that took place in the world of Merelein, novellas in between each novel. This would would become a pen and paper roleplaying game setting.

The Skeleton Stone was published in 2016 and it took me a long time to write The Ork Plains. And the story just never worked. I finally published it but it was not a product I was that proud or happy with. Other plans for TWS had changed. The novellas had been shifted to the Patreon page.

And then Sky Realms Online happened.

To say SRO outperforms TWS is an understatement. Even if I ran ads on TWS, it wouldn’t approach SRO. And to maintain the pace I want with SRO, and reach the epic heights with that series that I want, something had to give.

That something is TWS.

For now.

I’m going to unpublish both novels. The two current TWS novellas that I have done, The Shaman’s Skull and The Marsh Tower, will still be released on Patreon but as standalone short story/novellas. I still love the world of Merelein and the stories that were going to happen but I got lost along the way and the foundation of the world just started shifting and sliding, not fitting how I wanted it to. There needs to be some reconstruction done. Most likely when I do relaunch TWS someday, there will be a couple additions built onto the structure.

The Skeleton Stone is going to be reworked to be completely standalone. I still love this story and am very happy with it. It deserves to be out there for people to see. I’m going to expand it, add some scenes, revise some scenes and make it bigger and better.

Shooting for mid-2020 for that re-release.

In the meantime, Sky Realms Online will be going ahead. Book 2 is out next week and Book 3 should be out early 2020. With Book 4 to follow later in 2020. I’ve already started the first spin-off.

Arek Lancer will continue and there might be another novella (fantasy) that fits into the rotation.

Like I said above, this will help me as I move forward. I won’t be spread so thin and can concentrate on keeping things simpler.

Thanks to all those that read and enjoyed TWS.

I’ll be at Nerdfest NH, October 26th and 27th, selling books. Come on by.

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There will be copies of Sky Realms Online: Grayhold, Collected Lancer Vol. 1 and Arek Lancer: The Last Child for sale. Any books will be signed (if wanted). Sadly, I won’t have copies of Sky Realms Online: Silverpeak in time for the event.

No Skeleton Stone for reasons that will be revealed later.

Come by and check out the event. Stop by my table and get some signed books.

Can’t miss me. I’ll be the guy in the Pike (from Sky Realms Online) t-shirt.

Visit   Nerdfest NH for tickets

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At an upcoming event I’ve agreed to talk about the genre and need to start getting my thoughts in order. My new series, Sky Realms Online, is lite litRPG. But what does that mean?

[image error]I’ll start off by saying that I didn’t generate the graphic. Lars Machmuller in the Gamelit Society Writer’s Workshop Facebook group created it, based off one started by Blaise Corvin (writer of Delver’s LLC). It’s a great way of highlighting the different subgenres of Gamelit.

But what is Gamelit? It can be science fiction or fantasy, any of those subgenres, but it has to involve some kind of game element. The best and most well known example of Gamelit is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. In that story, the main character spends as much time in the game world as he does the real world and the plot of the story revolves around actions in the game world. That’s Gamelit in a nutshell.

From there it gets broken down into the subgenres listed in the graphic. All of them involve the different types of games. Role playing games, first person shooters, pokemon-style, etc.. Most of the books involve a VR (virtual reality) system that gets the player into the game. Some involve the player getting trapped and unable to log out (an early example of this is the classic Tron, which was gamelit).

Sky Realms Online is a litRPG. This means that it takes elements from computer Role-Playing Games (RPGs) and incorporates them into the book. This could be single player games (Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Dragon Age, Dungeons & Dragons) or Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (World of Warcraft, Ultima Online). Those elements include character progression (leveling), classes, skills, dungeons, gaining experience and so on. What makes it different from a Dungeons & Dragons book (Forgotten Realms, Drizzt) is that the numbers matter and appear in the book. You read when the character levels and get details of what exactly that means.

It’s like reading a quest in World of Warcraft.

The two types of litRPG involve how much of those elements are detailed in the book. Lite and Crunchy. Lite is pretty self-explanatory. The numbers exist and are shown, but not as often or in as much detail. You may not get every bit of damage done to the characters or the monsters they face. You many only see the character sheet once or twice. Crunchy is what the more detailed, number-crunching, books fall under. These are for fans of numbers and stats and tables.

There’s a broad range between the two.

As a player of RPGs and MMORPGs, I never really cared for the number beyond “this is higher and an upgrade over my current weapon”. That helped determine what type of litRPG I was going to write.

So that’s gamelit and litRPG in a nutshell.

A first for me. I got interviewed about Grayhold.

I had a fun chat with Hank Garner about the book. Check it out.

Author Stories Podcast #708

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Grayhold, the first book in my new Sky Realms Online series, is doing very well and people have been asking when the second book will be coming. Well I have an update.

November.

That’s the target month. Exact date to be determined.

So where do we stand in production? Final edits on book two have been done and it’s off to the narrator. I’ve seen the first pass at the cover and it’s going to be beautiful.

This one will feature Hall and Sabine and the artist nailed Sabine perfectly.

I’m excited about the 2nd book and I’m hard at work on the 3rd, about 1/3 of the way through it. I love where the story is going and starting to lay seeds for the entire series as well as future books. Look for a Sky Realms Online related announcement concerning my Patreon page soon. I have big plans for this series and the world of Hankarth.

But it all comes down to you, the readers. Please buy the books, leave reviews and most importantly enjoy them.

That’s what the series is here for. Your enjoyment.

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I’m way behind on posting this but my latest series has been published and is doing pretty good.

[image error]Sky Realms Online: Grayhold, published by Aethon Books, came out on July 30th.

We’ve hit #1 best seller in two categories (Dungeons & Dragons Gaming and Roleplaying & Fantasy Games) and gotten up to #2, 3 and 4 in a couple of others (including Science Fiction & Fantasy Gaming and Science Fiction, TV, Movie & Game Tie-In). The book is currently at 4.3 on Amazon and 4.3 on Audible (with 75 reviews).

I’m very excited with the response Grayhold has been getting. Book Two is at the editors and I’m hard at work on Book Three.

If you haven’t, please check out Grayhold.

Available on kindle ebook, Kindle Unlimited, Audible and print.

That time of week again. Time to update the progress on my various works. Somehow, as much as I tried not to, new projects appeared. I’ve also nailed down my future writing goals, what I want to accomplish for 2020 and 2021 as well as beyond.

Slowly making progress on the various works. I really need to get some of these done and out of the way. As can see, SRO-N2 is done and in editing, which means that SS3 and N3 were added. I plan on doing a short story between each book so that’s why SS3 was added to the work. Look for a big announcement on what SRO is next week.

GS is brand new and was an idea that I wanted to start getting out. Most likely there will be another joining the list. This is why I developed some goals for the upcoming years that I want to hit.

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What does this all mean? By 2021 I want to have something released by me every month. This would be novels, novellas, short stories, anything and coming out from Barking Fire or other publishers. It would not include the original and exclusive Patreon works.

That’s a lot of writing. 2020, I want to start ramping up and go to having something released every other month. I’m a realist so I can see this taking to 2022. Every three months in 2020, every other in 2021, every month in 2022. But I’m going to push for the 2020 every other month release schedule.

I currently try to hit a minimum of 1500 words a day. The 30 day months has it at 45,000 words a month. The 31 day months has it at 46,500 words a month. To give myself some wiggle room, I totaled my year based off 12 30 day months, so 45,000 x 12 = 540,000 words a year. Reality (28 day, 30 day and 31 day months, excluding leap year) would be 547,500 so not that much of a difference. I’ll stick with the 540,000.

Now let’s see if this pace will work to produce what I want to produce.

Average Taleweaver’s Song novel (TWS) is 85k, so two months of writing. Average Arek Lancer’s (AL) is 35k, so under one month. SRO (which I can announce soon) is clocking in around 115k, so 2.5 months.

Those are the three things I’m committed to doing on a regular schedule. One TWS novel a year, two AL a year and two SRO a year. That’s 385,000 words a year and five months of releases which takes me 6.5 months to write.

5 months of releases for 6.5 months of writing, maybe 6 since the AL aren’t a full month.

155,000 words left for the year, 7 months left to release in.

Basically for this to work, I need to up my daily word count.

2000 words a month comes out to be 720,000 words a year. That’s 335,000 words left after the above committements. So 47k words a month. Still not enough to generate a novel for each of those 7 months. I could add in another novella series but I have plans for more novel length series.

I might have to “end” a series before starting another. Nothing wrong with that but not what I want. I know I’m going to have to at some point, just to do all that I want to do. I want to add in a 4th series to TWS, AL and SRO, not remain at the three.

What all this amounts to is that I don’t think I can hit the every month release. Every other is covered, easily. But could I hit eight months or nine months of releases? That could be doable. This would include novels, novellas and short stories.

Nine months of releases seems a more reasonable goal. So for 2020, every other month. For 2021, nine of the twelve will have a release. And I can work on a backlog of material so that in 2022 it might be every month.

Let’s see what happens.

Now to just decide what will be the fourth series.

It’s thursday and time for a little work in progress update. Also I made some changes to my Patreon.

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You can see where I made some progress. Concentrating on the standalone SD, SRO-N2, Pub1 – PR and the TWS-SS5 and SS6.  SS6 also bumped up in estimated total word count. Might push it into novella territory but I’m not changing the coding. I just might do all short stories and novellas in one code to make it easier on me.

Also added TWS-SS7. I wasn’t going to add new projects until some were off the list but this one is being written for a specific location. May not happen but I’m going to try to get it into this anthology. None of the current things would work for that anthology and it’s too good an opportunity to pass up so added another story to the work load.

As anyone figured out all the codes yet? The first two are easy. TWS = Taleweaver’s Song and AL = Arek Lancer. I’ll get to reveal SRO in a couple months. The others will have to wait.

Now on to the Patreon.

I recently redid my tiers. In looking at what other authors were doing, I realized I wasn’t offering what the readers seem to want.  Personally, I didn’t find the value in supporting a Patreon for work-in-progress chapters. I support the author by buying their work, I didn’t want to “pay” for it twice. I’ve always wanted to give good value for anyone that wants to support me. This meant, for me, giving original content that was equal to what could get from Amazon or other places.

I changed up the thinking. I’m still offering original content but it’ll be at the $2 tier and will be offering work-in-progress chapters at the $1 tier. I’m now trying to decide what should be the work-in-progress. It would be something that I would plan to self-publish as putting it on Patreon counts as “published” and most publishers wouldn’t look at it after that.

Might be something created specifically to post on Patreon.

We shall see.