My Goals for 2020

THIS IS the first post I’ve made on this dusty ol’ blog in quite some time. If you don’t know, I took a long hiatus from social media to deal with a mountain of personal issues and to get my life back in order. Things worked out, the year ended on several high notes, and now I’m looking forward to 2020, so I thought I’d use this post to outline some goals for my writing, my Twitter, and my manuscript critique business. So here we go, yo.

WRITING

This is simple. I want to publish my YA thriller novella, TO BE FRIENDS, in March 2020. It’s about a sixteen-year-old girl who gets reacquainted with a boy whose family moved out of town back in elementary school, only to learn something terrible happened to him right after the move.

A second writing goal is to complete and finalize a novel, begin querying literary agents, and maybe–just maybe–acquire one.

TWITTER

I want to focus on the Book of the Month feature I’ve started at my Writing Community Readers page (@ReadersWriting). This is not a promotional service available for purchase. Instead, I want to shine a spotlight on some of the great books the Writing Community has to offer.

Since there will only be 12 spots for the year, there’s obviously going to be a selection process. I’m working on a way for writers to submit their books for consideration (assuming the feature has any impact on the featured author’s sales and is worth submitting to), but there are definitely only two ways I will consider a book: 1) I’ve read it myself and would highly recommend, or 2) It comes highly recommended from multiple trusted sources.

I don’t know exactly how this is going to work just yet, but the Writing Community Readers page has grown significantly even in my absence, and I hope it will, among other things, serve as an effective promotional tool for self-published and indie authors.

MANUSCRIPT CRITIQUES

In the next day or two, I will be updating my editing services page to reflect several new changes, some to do with pricing, others to do with services offered. The goal is to provide a more specific set of options so each author can find what suits them best at the most affordable price possible.

There will now be more options for manuscript critiques, though the price of the standard critique is not increasing. If I’ve critiqued your full manuscript before, you know the drill: chapter-by-chapter commentary followed by editorial notes on the book’s major issues, the latter written after I’ve finsihed the entire manuscript.

These two features will now be split and made available separately or combined.

In other words, you can choose chapter-by-chapter commentary, which can run anywhere from 5 to 15 pages, or a 1-2 page editorial letter discussing the book’s major issues. Here are the new prices:

Chapter commentary only: $5.50 per 1,000 words

Editorial letter only: $4 per 1,000 words (for a limited time)

Both: $7 per 1,000 words

The new editing services page will include the details on what to expect with each option, along with suggestions for which to choose based on your goals with your book.

This is just one of the changes coming to Tory Hunter Books, but the rest will have to wait for the updated services page.

For now, I wish everyone a happy and successful 2020.

With love,

Tory