Wordcount Analysis: The Many Writings of K.A. Jones

[ysabetwordsmith]

kajones_writing has posted her wordcount from her crowdfunding project, which has been running just over a year now. I love seeing things like this, because it helps understand how a project grows and what shapes it. Let's take a closer look ...

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K.A. Jones writes a bunch of different series, mostly fantasy with some horror and other genres. Below are the named series and their wordcounts, which I have reorganized from largest to smallest. There were some stand-alone stories and other stuff not listed in the author's post, but this is still a big hunk of data to work with.

Donor House: 55,721
Thear: 45,631
Fae World: 28,305
World Walkers: 26,249
Afterlife: 20,750
‘Astral’ World: 17,513
Kim’s Earth: 15,901
Pagan: 13,222
Aurora’s World: 12,553
Heliopath’s World: 12,110
The Magi: 7,020
Deities’ World: 6,054
The Inquisition: 5,231

Total: 266,260

In approximate order of preference, these are my top 5 favorite series from this list:
Donor House: 55,721
Afterlife: 20,750
World Walkers: 26,249
Pagan: 13,222
Deities’ World: 6,054

You can see that my favorite series has the largest wordcount by a substantial margin. That's because I prompt for Donor House in every prompt call. I also support this project by proofreading the stories, which is awesome, because the credit system lets me barter my editing skill for more fiction and other goodies. I've dumped a lot of that into Donor House too, including creating several characters and the bookstore Echoes of Alexandria. The other big series is Thear, because of the 2011 Advent story. That one is basically a big loosely connected plot arc spanning 5 stories each with several parts. Both of the top two series are book length, counting that threshold at 40,000 words (the Nebula minimum for a novel).

World Walkers and Afterlife are my next two favorite series after Donor House. I prompt for them fairly often. Notice that they are 2 out of the 3 series in the 20-30,000 range. I suspect my enthusiasm is enough to help bump these toward the top. Of the other series I really like, Pagan is in the middle and Deities' World is near the bottom. I prompt for them occasionally, and it's probably not enough to affect their standing much.

What's to love in these series?

Donor House is very serious, very entertaining social engineering about how to get humans and vampires to behave as symbiotes instead of trying to kill each other. It's an innovative twist on the vampire concept, looking at aspects that most writers ignore. Characters I've created, inspired, or just supported because I think they're cool include John Good Road (a Lakota vampire), Jack (an asexual vampire), Caleb (a bite-addict), and Garion (a vampire-friendly cop).

Afterlife is a charming philosophical and spiritual exploration of life between incarnations, with attention to various belief systems. It's another series keen on problem-solving, though in more personal scope. Favorite characters here include Richard (serving as Death) and Caitlyn (a spirit guide).

World Walkers is a newer series about people who travel through fantasy portals to different realms. The available settings are still being developed, so this is very much about exploration. I haven't created or adopted any characters here yet, I just think the concept is cool and enjoy watching whoever shows up.

Pagan is contemporary Pagan fiction about a girl who's lost her memory, and some of the people she knows. I like Anna (the amnesiac) and Lloyd (her brother) especially. Deities' World is about various entities known on Earth as gods and goddesses, mostly featuring their interactions with each other and their followers. I keep a casual eye on this series because I like exploring different renditions of mythology.

A list of characters by series is here, and they're available for adoption.

It's really exciting to see specific numbers for the series activity. That helps me understand how my interest has influenced what gets written, which is great fun. Then there are some other things that other people liked or the author wanted to focus on. So it's a very good mix of different story motifs appealing to different tastes. (For comparison, this applies to other crowdfunding projects with multiple series or other categories: fans tend to favor one or a few items that they request repeatedly, which boosts the activity in those areas.) kajones_writing is highly willing to try new things, so I've been able to request character types and plotlines that I feel don't get enough coverage in mainstream entertainment. When there aren't many portrayals of something, even a few new examples can make a big difference in the available canon. This is one of the ways that crowdfunding can help fill in the gaps left by the mainstream.

If anyone else is a supporter of this project, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what your favorite series and characters are.