Making an Effort

In an attempt to do something, I'm making an effort to market again.  Not sure whether anyone knows this, but DYING EMBERS is only 99c and is now available from a variety of retailers.  

Anyway, here's the marketing copy I posted a short while ago*...

It's been ages since I did any marketing, so here goes...

When a string of deaths is linked together by a killer’s fiery signature, Agent Jace Douglas must face her fears and track down a murderer before another man is burned alive.

DYING EMBERS is available now from a variety of retailers for only 99c. Pick up your copy today!

https://books2read.com/dying-embers

With, ya know, this pretty pretty cover...

Anyway, I figured it was about time I got off my buns and tried to sell some books. I'll market some more later this morning. You know, after I get some sleep and have a cup of coffee... or five. ;o)

*No, this post wasn't scheduled. I was up at midnight. And since I was up, I figured I might as well do some marketing before my inner Piglet took over again.

Writerly Stuff

I think I was supposed to do a post about titles this morning, but I forgot and that one should probably be written ahead of time instead of on the fly.  Right now is definitely 'on the fly'.  LOL

Amazon, in its infinite wisdom, has changed the KDP page for checking out book sales - the Dashboard.  (And even the tiny picture next to my bookmark for them is different, making it so I have to go looking for it instead of going right to it.)  Turds.  I guess, for a limited time, you can still see the data the old way, but I'm not inclined.  If you're landing there for the first time, you might see that some of the metrics have a picture of a lock on them.  Click the lock, fix your preferences, and all will be well.  (It doesn't tell you to do that.  I found out by accident.)

I probably don't need to say this, but I detest change for the sake of change.  We'll see if the Dashboard is actually better or just different.  I'm holding off on my opinion there.

I guess now I could use a sale to show me exactly how it would work in the new Dashboard. :shrug:  If wishes were fishes, we'd all eat like kings.

I don't need to tell you that sales have sucked this year.  Well, ever since I went wide, I guess.  Of course, there's been very little marketing on my part, so that might be a huge factor.  The will to market is a dry, dry well.  As is the budget for marketing.  With no budget, all things markety have to be done by me, and with a dry gumption well... Umm, yah.

Anyway, enough with my whining.  I'm making progress on Shroudlands 2.  Not great leaps and bounds, but progress.  I'm almost at 18K words now.  My brain threw a curve at me last night that I wasn't expecting, so we'll see how that plays out.  Or whether I need to trash that plot path and initiate a do-over.

How are things in your world?

Blurby McBlurberson

 Here's the blurb I came up with for SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD.  It sucks, but I think you get the general idea...

Before anyone who lives in these lands was born, the Great Lady created the Shrouds and locked away those beings who would bring harm to her children.  Since then the Lady sleeps and while she sleeps, the Shrouds decay, loosing monsters upon the innocents.  Their only hope lies with the mages.

Aryl never wanted to be a mage, but the Lady chose to gift him and when the King's envoy arrives seeking those with the gift, he has no choice but to comply.  Thrust into the Academy to train with other young folk like him, he longs only for his home and the twin he left behind. 

The Lady could grant both of his wishes, but the cost may be higher than he expected to pay.  With Lyra beside him, they will learn to use their combined magics to fight and win.  But when visions of a dragon and destruction tear them away from their training, their meager skills may not be enough to save their home, let alone sufficient to save the Shroudlands.   

Yeah, I know, but I am clueless when it comes to writing blurbs.  Especially this one.  Do your worst.  One way or another I have to have something to toss up as marketing copy when I upload the book.  

On another note, I found something in the manuscript last night that I think requires an explanation I hadn't provided before.  Derp.  I'm working on it now.  If I can stop the distractions, that is.  It's a very distracty-full morning.

I'm still hoping to have this live on or before April 1st.  I worked on it all morning yesterday, took the afternoon off, and got back at it after dinner.  I want all my books to be the best they can be, but this one especially.  And, if you haven't written fantasy, it's probably the hardest genre to nail.  I know it's the hardest book I've ever worked on.

Anyway, I should toddle off and see if I can't weave this thing in and make it seamless.    

I'm No Ninja

I read a post this morning that said something to the effect of 'Ninja writers pre-sell books'.  Umm... yeah... about that...

I don't pre-sell books.

I had my first book up for pre-order.  For like ten days.  It was finished and could've gone live as soon as I uploaded it.  But I'd heard pre-orders were a thing, so I tried it.  I didn't like it.  I got a few orders that way, but not enough to warrant the waiting.  This post was talking about putting it up for pre-order before you even have the cover or the book finished.  

Wha?

Just the thought of doing that sends me into paroxysms of fear and doubt.  What if I don't get the book finished?  What if I have to delay the release due to reasons and because of stuffs?  What if I do get a bunch of pre-orders and I have to let those readers down?  

The author of the post even went so far as to suggest taking money for books that haven't been printed and offering a discount to those people.  Actual cash in hand for a product that doesn't exist.  :panics at the thought:

Nope, nope, nope.  If you lay down money for one of my books, you will have the book in your hot little hands, inside whatever time it takes to deliver the book to you - immediate for ebooks and however long ship times are for print.  

Perhaps if I was the kind of author who planned her books, this would be closer to possible.  I'd have a general idea of how long a book was and when I'd get the damn thing done, so I could maybe put up a pre-order.  Even then, I'd still be all spastic about it.  What if I break an arm?  What if my arthritic wrists decide not to comply?  Hell, what if my beta-readers/editors are jammed up and can't work me into their schedules?  Or they break an arm?  There are too many variables.  I don't like variables.

Now, if the post-author had been talking about pre-selling in terms of marketing before the book is ready to go, that I can do.  To a certain extent.  I mean, I have a cover.  And I have a general idea of what the book is about now that it's finished (not edited, but written), so I can talk about it.  But to take actual orders?  Ut-uh.  I can whet your appetite with snips and stuff, and let you hunger to buy it when it's available.  But that's it.  

I can hardly even give you a firm date for release until I am way closer to finished than I am now.  I'm shooting for before April Fool's Day, but I'm not promising anything.  I don't like making promises I'm not certain I can keep.  And a pre-sale is a promise.  

So if that means I'm not a Ninja Writer, well, I guess I'm okay with that.  I hope you are, too.

What about you?  Do you pre-sell your books?  If you're a reader, do you do pre-orders?  (I don't do those either, but that's me and a whole 'nother post.)

What's a Hermit to Do?

Last week sometime, a wildly popular (for his genre), money-making, indie author I follow was giving what he feels is the secret to his success - other than writing good books, that is.  It basically boiled down to making yourself visible and interesting on social media - in a non-marketing kind of way.  He says he rarely talks about his books on social media.  (Umm, not sure about that last one, but he does talk about more stuff  than his books, so maybe that's what he means.)  

Anyway, I read this.  And I immediately got depressed.  You know me.  I'm a hermit.  Sure, I'm sociable with the few people I know, but putting myself out there?  Umm... :crawls back under her rock:

This being a new year and all, though, I've been thinking about it.  I was way more social when I first published.  I was stopping at blogs and interacting with people and junk.  I even did some interacting on a forum or two.  Since then?  Yeah, the hermitude took over.

Oh, I'm still doing these blogs.  But I only stop at two or three others on a regular basis.  Maybe five, with only commenting on two or three.  Basically, I'm sitting here talking to myself and the few people who stop by.  

Now, I've never read this dude's books.  (They aren't in the budget.  Which is basically 0.)  They're probably pretty good.  People I respect have raved about them.  Maybe they're light-years better than my books.  :shrug:  Maybe it's just that he's out there.  And he is OUT THERE.  

And one thing this dude doesn't seem to ever worry about is pissing people off.  Which confuses me.  I worry about that all the time.  All. The. Time.  He's edgy.  He's loud.  He's opinionated.  And he doesn't care who knows it or how many times he gets his accounts suspended.  Me?  I speak my mind and then worry whether some asshole is going to report me and get my account blocked.  Or whether someone is going to get their undies in a wad and run over to Amazon to one-star all my books.  

Basically, I'm piglet.  As in, a very small animal.  I can't even comment on the dude's posts without feeling like the fat kid with cystic acne and thick glasses hiding next to the bleachers at the dance.  Hell, I can barely comment on the circle of friends' posts without feeling that way.  I try and without fail, I step on my tongue (err... fingers) and someone comes along to comment in such a way to insure I know I'm not part of their crowd.  

Hey, feels like high school.  Nearly thirty-four years later.  I am so screwed.

Okay, so what's a hermit to do?  Especially after nearly 7 years of publishing without being hardly social at all.  I mean, do I ease into the social sphere and spend countless hours/days/weeks getting to know folks?  Or do I jump in with both feet and be totally out there, who cares whether people like it, shock-jock writer?  

The easier answer is to throw money at it.  If I had money to throw, I'd throw it.  Since that's flat out, my choices are either get out there or resign myself to anonymity and the lackluster sales that go with it.

Anyway, I'm trying to comment more on FB and the blogs. And I need to get back to posting on MeWe.  I'll find the time or make the time.  

By the way, if you're here... Thanks.  You'll never know how much your continued support means to me.  If I ever make it big, I'll try to take you with me.

2021 Writerly Wrap-up

Well, 2021 is in the can.  Err... yeah, it was a shitcan, but it's over.  Now let's look back at it so we can move forward...

Out of a possible 365, I did something writerly 157 days.  Writing, editing, marketing, publishing, etc.  I only got one book published, but I finished writing it in 2021 and I finished writing the first draft (and the first round of edits) of another book this year.  I also noodled around with a couple other things.  I know I only worked 43% of the days, but that's about all I could manage in 2021.  It was an ass-kicking year whose name pretty much told the story - twenty-twenty WON.  

I did get one book published - Rumor Has It.  It sold 11.38 copies.

Speaking of sales... well, I did worse than 2020.  I only sold 69.92 books overall.  I made a little bit more money over 2020, but I had fewer 99c sales, so there was that.  I won't bother you with the book-by-book breakdown I usually do.  It was bad.  So bad, that I didn't sell a single copy of Unequal all year and only a tiny fraction of Project Hermes (like a page or two).

In case you weren't following along, I am in the process of removing all my books from the Kindle Unlimited program and taking them wide.  All my books are wide except for Fertile Ground (still in KU), Early Grave (waiting on FG to drop), and Project Hermes (also still in KU).  Everything should be out and wide by the end of the month.  

To try and coax more sales, Dying Embers and Wish in One Hand are now 99c for the duration.  This isn't a sale.  It's a price change.  I'll let you all know if I decide to put the prices back to $3.99.

Looking forward, I hope to have this Untitled Fantasy ready to publish by no later than the end of March.  There, I said it.  Now I have to stick to it.  I also hope to write at least one or two books this year and see those published as well.  As long as this year doesn't turn into Twenty-Twenty 2: Son of 2020, I should be able to reach those hopes.  (Hopes, not goals, people.  After 2020 kicked my ass, I was so over making goals, and then 2021 happened.  Blerg.)

How was 2021 for you?  Did you reach your goals?  Did you even bother to set them after the year before?  What are you hoping for this year?

Updates and Junk

It's been a while since I did an update post, so here goes...

The work on Untitled Fantasy is coming along.  I'm on page 37.  Bad news is there are 310 pages left to go.  The good news is that even though this is going slow, I'm feeling really good about the results.  I still haven't made any progress on giving the dang thing a title, though.  Derp.

In other news, I've been working on getting the rest of my books live through other outlets.  Here are the ones that are complete (with their universal links link) and live through at least 4 other stores:

Accidental Death
Blink of an I
Unequal
Sleeping Ugly
Ugly and the Beast
Cinder Ugly

Today, I'll be doing Natural Causes.  I'll also be doing all four genie books either today or tomorrow.  I'm trying to remember to update all the links on my blog side panels and the links on my pages up there at the top of the blog.  The verbiage is all over the place, but the thought is the same - get the books wherever you want them by clicking through to Books 2 Read.  

Anyway, it's not really that hard.  It's just tedious.  And when I tried to upload UNEQUAL with the title in all caps, like it is on the cover, it was rejected.  So, I won't be doing THAT again.  Derp.  You'd think they'd have some kind of warning at the beginning when you try to use all caps, but alas, no.  And you can't change the title after you've already sent the books through to the outlets, so I had to delist the book then delete the book and start all over.  Live and learn.  I tell you this so you don't make the same mistake.  So don't do that.  K?

I still haven't seen any additional sales from those outlets, but other than announcing they're not available wide, I haven't really done anything marketing-wise.  So no surprise there.

This year has not been a banner sales year.  In fact, it will be my worst sales year if I don't sell at least one more book.  And considering how bad last year was, that's sayin' somethin'.  

Eh, there's always next year.  May 2022 be better for us all.

Not a Real Writer

I've heard said time and again that if you don't show up and treat this writing thing like a job every day, you're not a real writer.  :shrug:  I guess that means I'm not a 'real' writer.  

Oh, the first year of publishing, I treated it like a job.  I was crankin' and spankin' on some writerly thing every day.  If I wasn't writing, I was editing.  Or marketing.  Or formatting.  Or doing cover stuff.  Or schmoozing.  I published 4 books that year.  For all that work, I sold 1017 copies.  Of course, during that year I spent just under $5000.  

The next year, I was still treating it like a job but treating it like a job was getting harder.  I published three books that year.  I sold 693 copies and spent a little over $2000.

Year three, the 'treat it like a job' thing fell apart.  I published 2 books and the numbers were 262 sold and $1500 spent.

I'd go on, but I think you can see where I'm going with this.  Maybe.  

When you look at the numbers, you might think: the more work I put into it, the better I did.  Or you can look at it the other way: the worse I did, the less likely I was to want to put the work into it.  It's the latter.  

Oh, I do see an uptick in sales when I'm putting more effort (and more money, by the way) into it, but it's rarely enough of an uptick to make it seem worthwhile.  I'm sitting here shelling out funds I don't really have to make sales that don't even come close to covering what I spent.  The reality of that is that I can no longer justify the outgo.  In money or in time spent.

I realize that last part there might make it seem like I'm prepping y'all for an announcement that I'm quitting.  I'm not.  I'm still writing.  I'm still editing.  It's just slower now and I'm more likely now to put time toward other pursuits that might actually give me something to show for my efforts.  If that makes me not a 'real writer' in others' eyes, I guess I'll have to live with that.  :shrug:

But when you get here and see that I still haven't progress toward the publication of another book, you might understand a little better where I'm at.  The last three books I published sold 30 copies.  Not thirty each... thirty combined.  The one book I published this year has sold just over 11 copies.  Numbers like that don't make me jazzed about putting in a full day at the job of writer.  

Add in the other, non-writing stuff that gets me in a bad place, and you can understand a little more.  

Of course, even to me, that all sounds like excuses.  If this was a regular job, I would've been fired years ago.  I'm not putting in the hours and I'm not making any money for the company I work for.  Thankfully, the CFO likes me.  And he sees all the non-writing things I do for the company as a whole.  And he appreciates the writing stuff I do do even if it's not making money, so I'm not in danger of being fired by him.

The CEO isn't so sure.  I may fire myself yet.  But not today.  

So, I'm not a real writer.  Not at the moment anyway.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe next year.  Until then, I'll be plodding along and hoping.

Industry News and Stuff

 A UK publisher of nature guides, etc. is talking about paper shortages over there in Europe.  I tried getting alternate sources for this, but was unable to find anything.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was true, but without additional sources, I can't trust the info.  Wait, I just found an article... which sounds more like a marketing ploy than actual news of a paper shortage.  A 'buy books now in case there's a paper shortage' sort of thing.  

In other writerly news, I saw a thread talking about the price of paperbacks in a mostly UK crime fiction FB group I belong to.  The general consensus was that people weren't willing to pay 15 pounds for a paperback.  Couldn't even conceive of why anyone would price their paperback at more than 15 pounds.  I didn't chime in.  I have at least one above that price point.  I had to or I wouldn't have made any money on that book.  As it is, I make about $1-2 per paperback, which is about 10% of any given book's price.  Considering I make 70% on an ebook, I don't think getting 10% on a paperback is too much to ask.

Oh, hey... Did anyone else get a super fun letter from Amazon earlier in the month about illegitimate ebook page reads?  I archived it because I didn't think it pertained to me.  Ummm... When I went to look at my previous month's sales to resolve the per page price for my spreadsheet, I noted that I'm not getting paid for ANY page reads in September.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Since I did, in fact, have page reads in September, I un-archived the letter and contacted Amazon.  They're looking into it.  My page reads only amounted to 842 pages, which works out to less than $4, but it's the principle of the thing.  Someone out there in America read books 2-4 in the genie series.  1 person does not a scammer make.  And imagine if they cut $4 from every author in the KU.  Gah.  So, if you got the letter, check your sales for September before that option goes away on 11/1.  Otherwise, you'll probably be screwed.

If you're not keeping track of this stuff, you probably should be.  I know it's a pain in the ass, but better a pain in the ass than in the pocketbook.  And these days, every $4 counts.  That's like 2 loaves of bread and a half gallon of milk here.  Or a tub of Edy's ice cream (minus the tax) at Dollar General.  Two tubs of Great Value ice cream at Wallyworld.  (Heh, maybe I should measure everything in ice cream.)  Or, here in SW MO, a gallon and a quarter of gasoline.  

Anyway, that's the news I've got for you this morning.  Got any news for me?  

Updates... Finally

Sorry that it's been a couple months since I posted here.  If you've been following along over at The Writing Spectacle, you know why.  If not, I was helping a friend prepare to move.  That's done now, so I am trying to get back to my regularly scheduled life.  Which means writing... or rather writerly pursuits.

Yesterday, I picked up Untitled Fantasy again and got back to making edit notes.  I was a little over halfway through.  Now I'm a little bit more over halfway through.

I feared I wouldn't be able to get back into the groove after six weeks away, but I picked up right where I'd left off and it was like I hadn't ever stopped.  Which was totally cool.  Usually my brain is all like 'what the hell is happening here' and then I'm forced to go back and figure out where I left off.  Yay for brain cooperation.  

This is still a behemoth and I still have 42% of the book to make edit notes on, but I'm progressing again.  Now, let's see if the notes I made in July and August make any sense when I circle around and start inputting them into the manuscript.  

I've also been playing with the idea of writing that Christmas short story set in my genie world.  Don't get your hopes up.  I started that thing a few years ago and never got back to it.  But it would be a nice thing to finish and get out there in the world in time for the holidays.  We'll see.

One thing I really need to do is get back to marketing, but I'm not sure where to start and how well any of it will be received after all this time.  I mean, it's been a while since anything sold, so the rankings are in the basement and generally, whether we like it or not, that means people are less likely to want to take a chance on a new-to-them book with craptastic rankings.  It's best to market when you have a reason to market - like a new book out.  Since I don't have a new book out and I'm not going to any time soon, I guess I'll have to make up my own reasons and go for it.  Halloween is always a good reason.  Maybe I'll do a sale on the genie books around Halloween.  Maybe the model books.  We'll see.  Stay tuned.

Also, looking forward, we have a little less than three months to the end of the year.  Yeah, I know you don't want to think about that, but I need to.  Spreadsheets arem't going to make themselves and all that.  

So, what's on your plate these days?  What's up for the rest of the year?  Any plans?  Or are you hiding from the 2022 workload for a bit longer?

Nothing New Under the Sun

There really is nothing new under the sun.  I was scrolling through my newsfeed this morning and saw a post by a cover artist I follow of a cover for a publisher.  On it was a beastie who looks a lot like the beastie I was just trying to draw.  (His was way better, of course, but then again, he's a pro and I'm a dabbler.)  

I assume his drawing was to the specifications of whatever author the cover was for.  Which means two authors who've never met each other pulled similar beasties out of their heads at nearly the same time.  

I've been thinking about this a bit.  I mean, look at the commercials - specifically the taglines.  Marketing people have to be running out of new things to say about their products, or they're becoming increasingly stupid.  (Here's one that's still new and fresh - with a cat - but most commercials aren't this smart.)  I wish I could remember the worst one I saw the other day.  It went something like 'Dog food  brand... because you have a dog'.  It wasn't dog food, but the gist was the same.  'Eye drops... because you have eyes.'  Maybe it was 'Skin cream... because you have skin.'  Yeah, that sound closer to right.

Anyway, with mankind having written stuff for centuries now, it's hard to come up with something totally new.  

I've talked about this before - a friend wrote a book, got it published, and then got crap about it on the internet because it's similar to another book that had been published a couple years prior.  I had read the previous book and I read my friend's book when it was still pre-published.  There were similarities in the plot and in some of the devices, but that's where the similarities ended.  One's book was lighthearted, the other's was more serious.  

So, my friend dropped her book.  Which was too bad because I thought it was the better book.  I had a major sad that the previous author did nothing to stop her fans from attacking my friend.  A 'hey guys, thanks for your support, but she didn't steal my work, so cut it out' would've been nice. And even sadder is that both books had a particular twist in them that was similar to one in a popular movie, so there really wasn't something NEW to 'steal' anyway.

How do we, as writers, keep this from happening?  How do we write something NEW when it seems like everything out there has been done already?  No clue.  I guess we write our books to the best of our abilities and hope that what we've created isn't too similar to someone else's work.  

You could, of course, read everything that's already been written, so you know for sure.  Heh.  You could research everything and change whatever seems similar, but you run the risk of 1) changing it so that it's now like something else and 2) ruining your own damn book.  

For my part, it's a matter of read what I can and research what I can and hope for the best.  Yes, I will probably change some basic things about the mistmorph.  (Have to research that name so I don't end up having named my critter something someone else has already used.)  Specifically, the quills running along its spine - which is what makes it exceptionally close to what that artist had drawn.  Other than that, I think I'm safe.  His had a wolf head - mine has a panther head with bat eyes and ears.  His was furry and mine is furless with slick gray skin.  Not really that big a deal.  

I really am trying to write this so that it comes off as fresh and original.  I already talked about having a similar name to another fantasy author which gives me a slight stumbler from the get go.  Nothing I can do about that.  People will think what they want to think whether there's a rational basis for it or not.  

And there's a slight plot device that similar to another popular book, but the actual thing and its mythology is, I hope, adequately unusual as to make that a non-issue.  

Is it any wonder fantasy novels take so damn long?  Maybe I'll talk about that next time.

Writing for the Love of Writing

Yesterday, my friend Silver posted about writing for herself.  Which dovetailed nicely into something I've been thinking about this week.

Why am I suddenly writing right now when I hadn't been able to write for a while?  I stopped thinking about what was marketable and started writing what I wanted to write.  If for no other reason than I needed to write again.  

Hell, the whole reason I never finished this fantasy in the first place boiled down to worrying about whether it would be something I could sell.  It's why I couldn't muster the will to finish Duke #2.  It lays beneath every unfinished novel I have on my harddrive.  Including the ones I didn't finish before I started publishing my own books.

Of course, back when I wasn't publishing, I was querying and the thought was more along the lines of 'why finish this is no agent is going to want to look at it?' Which in a circuitous way led back to selling books. Down the road.  Eventually.  

I get to worrying whether anyone will want a book and I lose faith in the book.  Yep.  That shit's a killer.

So, yeah, I picked up this old book I never finished and now I'm working on finishing it.  And still, the demon whispers that I'll never sell it.  I'll never be able to make a cover for it or buy a cover for it.  I'll never be able to pay for marketing.  Why bother finishing it?  

Because it's the book I want to write and I'm going to fucking finish it this time.  Screw the market.  I realized a long time ago that the market - as traditional publishing sees it - doesn't jibe with my set of philosophies anyway.  And no, that isn't sour grapes.  It just is what it is.  

There's a market out there for me somewhere.  It might not be huge.  Or it might be bigger than I think.  It's filled with people who want a good story, well-written and well-organized* and well-edited.  People who want to be entertained and maybe think a little while they're doing it (or not because my some of my books encourage rather than force you to think about issues).  I seek to entertain.  I seek to uplift through heroic actions when I can, but the entertainment is the priority here.

Anyway, you might not see me publish anything else any time soon.  I'm writing.  You also might not see me marketing stuff because putting all that effort into marketing and not seeing sales harshes my groove.  And I certainly don't need that.  

I'm writing for the love of writing again.  And that's all that really matters.

*Typing those words made me remember a particularly heinous reaction to a paper I wrote in college.  The prof said it was well-written and well-organized but he didn't like the topic, so he gave me a D.  (The assignment was to write a paper on some form of aggression.  I chose to write it on 'assertiveness as positive aggression'.  He hated that.  Buttwart that he was.)  Looking back, it was probably my first taste of a bad review of good writing.  He was definitely not my target market.

RUMOR HAS IT - On Sale Now!

RUMOR HAS IT is on sale for the very first time. Here's the marketing verbiage I'm using today:

When a lifelong friend dies under mysterious circumstances, it's up to Duke Noble, P.I. to cut through the rumors and bring the old gal's murderer to justice.

Take a trip back to the way old crime stories were told with DUKE NOBLE, P.I.: RUMOR HAS IT -  available for the first time at only 99c/99p.  (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.)

US: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08ZNXQKPC

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZNXQKPC

#gritty #noir #hardboiledcrime #ebooks #99cents #KindleUnlimited

Here's hoping that grabs people's attention and makes them want to slap down 99c for the book.

I'm struggling with writing the second book, but I'll get there. Maybe if I see sales for this one, it'll spur me to work harder on getting the next book out there.

So, there it is. Grab a copy if you haven't already. Gift a copy to a friend. Share it all over the place. And thank you for your support.

The Worth of a Book

The other day, someone posted about book pricing to a group I follow.  She was merely stating that a series she'd been enjoying had jacked the prices up on subsequent books, making it hard for her to continue to purchase them.  And a load of people jumped on her for daring to say 7.99 was too much for an ebook.  (And it was pounds not dollars, so even worse.)  

The people jumping on her like she was a witch who needed to be burned seem to have forgotten a salient point - books, like any other commodity, are only worth what the BUYER wants to pay for them.  

Yeah, sure, writers put hours and hours of work into their product.  They pay for editing and cover art and marketing, too.  The last time I checked, I'd spent over $11,000 on publishing my books.  If we priced each book at the amount it was worth to us, no one could afford them.  As Hubs says, if I price them at $11K each, I only need to sell one.  But who'd buy it?

I know, I know... thinking about a book as a commodity gives some authors a case of the vapors.  But that's all it is... to the reader.  It's a thing to buy.  Versus all the other things a reader has to spend money on.  Sure, books provide hours of entertainment.  They can enrich your life and your mind.  But they are still only worth what the reader is willing or can afford to pay.  

Some made the argument that a book costs less than a movie, but provides longer lasting enjoyment.  Maybe so.  Lord knows, I'd rather read a book than go to a movie.  (Do people even go to movies anymore?)   But when the choice is buy a book or put that money toward groceries, the groceries win.  

And, by the way, we aren't the ones to say what the value of something OUGHT TO BE to someone else.  Maybe for them, a movie is worth more than a book.  

Again, the worth of the book is subjective and dependent on the buyer's whims, not the author's.

The poor gal who originally made the post about pricing had to shut it down to comments due to all the blasting she took.  I felt sorry for her.  She was only expressing an opinion.  I was right there with her and I said so before the comments went down.  They were saying things like 7.99 is nothing and trying to make her feel ashamed for questioning the price of someone else's hard work.  Maybe for them 8 per book is nothing.  For the gal, it was definitely something.  For me, it's definitely something.  

Would I like to get that much for my books?  Oh, hell, yes.  But I'm not going to berate anyone who can't afford that.  And I'm sure as hell not going to ask readers to shell out that much for a book when I can't do it myself.  Hell, I feel bad sometimes that my books are 3.99 or 4.99 because I know how it goes when you would like to read a book but can't justify the outgo in your budget.  

Those people who were blasting her for not considering what a writer puts into a book are guilty of not considering what a reader might be experiencing with regard to their finances.  Treating your readers like they're cheap assholes is not the way to go.  

Jus' sayin'.

Sales and Marketing Updates and Junk

It's the last day to get UNEQUAL for free.  Starting tomorrow, BLINK OF AN I will be free for 5 days.  Then the sales begin.  RUMOR HAS IT will be on sale from 6/2-6/8.  The first three genie books will be on sale from the 9th through the 15th and WISH HITS THE FAN will be free from the 9th through the 13th.

I'll schedule additional sales for other books for later in the month.  

The thinking on the Once Upon a Djinn series sale this time is this:  A lot fewer people have read the fourth book than the others.  And I really want them to read that last book.  It's the one where everything comes together and I'm really quite proud of it.  So I made it free, while the other books are cheap.  We'll see if it works.  If you haven't read that last book, you're missing out.

As of this morning, I only moved 12 copies of Unequal, which is kind of depressing.  Dystopian is hard to move anyway, but I guess right now, living in a pre-dystopian world makes it so people don't actually want to read about one.  :shrug:  We'll see what happens with Blink.  

I still don't have money in the budget for advertising, so I'm doing the best I can with the free outlets available to me.  Two of my go-to FB groups have gone to archive - which means they aren't live anymore.  (One of them went to archive in the middle of my advertising campaign, which blew my mind.  One day it was open and the next it was closed.)  FB keeps glitching out on me and making life difficult, but I am persevering.  I have a couple book groups I belong to on MeWe, but the reach still isn't there yet.  

Anyway, thanks to all of you who have read and reviewed my books.  I really do appreciate it.  If you haven't read or reviewed yet, I'd appreciate it if you did.  Every download helps.  Sales help more.  Reviews are icing on the cake.  

The Last Sale Day for A MODEL CURSE

Today's the last day to get A MODEL CURSE in its entirety for only 99c/99p each.  Here's the verbiage (blurbage copied from my Amazon series page) that I posted to all the social media this morning:

A MODEL CURSE (the complete series)

When a curse strikes a supermodel, all hell is gonna break loose.

Jeni Braxxon was raised to believe she wasn't good for much of anything but being pretty. Her career in modeling is on the rise until being cursed to turn ugly throws her world into chaos. Now, she has to learn who the culprit is and stop them, if only to get her pretty back. And along the way, she'll discover that what she was raised to believe isn't anywhere near the truth. There's more to Jeni than ever met the camera lens—something her enemies probably should've thought of before they starting messing with her.

Today's the last day to get this trilogy for only 99c/99p each. (Always free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.)

US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MTWHHK2

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/kindle/series/B08MTWHHK2

#snarky #ebooks #completeseries #paranormalmystery #urbanfantasy

Marketing is hit and miss when you're not paying for it.  As such, I haven't had a single sale from this effort.  Of course, after the first push and the crickets that ensued, I didn't post anything else until this morning, so I only have myself to blame.  We'll see if anything comes of today's push.

I might be able to squeeze some money out for a paid advertising sale next month.  But AMC is done for a little while - until the 90 day thing refreshes.  Maybe I'll do SCIU next.  Maybe I'll see what kind of sales I can get for Duke all by itself.  We'll see.

You know, I'm kinda surprised AMC hasn't been selling like hotcakes.  It's fun and snarky and all three books are quick reads.  :shrug:  I wish I knew.  Oh, well.  If you haven't read the series, you can get the whole thing today for less than the usual price of one.  If you like snark, you like this.  If you enjoyed my genie series, you'll enjoy this one, too.  

If you've already read it, THANKS!  And if you haven't written a review yet, I'd really appreciate one.  :hugs:

The Two Minds of B.E. Sanderson

I'm of two minds.  On the one side, I have the creative mind.  It writes books and does covers and pretty pictures.  On the other, the business mind.  It does all the other stuff - accounting, marketing, formatting, publishing, editing, etc.  And they can't seem to work at the same time.

Most days, I can keep them apart.  Business works in the morning.  Creative works in the evening.  

But when one of them is particularly focused on its job, the other one takes a vacation.  When I'm deep into the writing, I can't seem to get Business to do the stuff it needs to do.  When I'm deep into work chores, Creative doesn't want to work and laughs at me when I try.  

Like when I get a bunch of spreadsheets to do for the pay-job... I can't write that day.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way because the pay-job stuff is time-sensitive.  It comes in and I do it, regardless of where I'm at with the writing.  Lucky for my writing, it doesn't happen too often.  I get the spreadsheets done in the morning and by evening, I'm ready to let Creative loose.

Right now, I've been wrapped up in post-publication stuff.  Business has taken over and Creative is at the beach napping under an umbrella.  I want to write.  I have ideas.  But I can't seem to get that part of my brain in gear.

Occasionally, the two minds have jobs that overlap.  Marketing, for instance.  It's a job for Business, but in order to get snazzy copy, Creative has to cooperate.  Trying to wake her up to write ad copy for FB posts first thing in the morning is like waking a hibernating squirrel.  Gah.  I should set those things up at night, but try and get Business awake enough then to remember to prod Creative... Gah.

Unfortunately, Creative is easily derailed.  Of course she is, she's creative.  She gets distracted by everything.  Like I said... squirrel.  If Creative had half the focus Business does, I'd be cranking books out all over the place.  But no.  Then again, if she was focused, she wouldn't be creative.  Or something.  I guess.

Not sure what the answer is.  Muddle along?  I do have 16 books out now, so it's not like it isn't working entirely.  Some days I just wish it would work more efficiently.  

What about you?  Do your creative and business sides work together?  

Note:  I am not insane.  Really, I'm not.

Post Publication

With my sixteenth, self-published novel (Duke Noble: Rumor Has It) now out there and available for readers, I still have things to do.  I'm pretty sure I've shared this before, but here it is again...

The Post-Publication Checklist:

1) Goodreads listing – add ASIN before the book goes live

2) Add book to your Amazon author page.

3) Verify book is on Amazon UK author page.

4) If in a series, add to series.

5) Update FB header.

6) Add book to all blog sidebars.

7) Update internal links inside book to Amazon 

8) Post to the blogs

9) Post to FB pages

10) Post to Pinterest

11) Post to Twitter*

12) Post to MEWE

13) Add book to appropriate Outside the Box book page

14) Update links on book page – US, UK, CA, AU

15) Bookmark Amazon pages – US, UK, CA, AU 

16) Update back matter of all other books

17) Post to FB groups

18) Fall apart.

I've completed 1-9, 11-13, and part of 16**.  I might've moved #18 to earlier in the schedule, but it's still there in case I want to fall apart again.

Additionally, and some of you will be happy to hear this, I'm working on the paperback for this book.  The proof should be here today.  If it's good, I'll set the book for sale and order copies to hand sell (or give away).  And if all goes well with Duke, I'll be doing paperbacks for the rest of the Model Curse books and for the dystopians.  In that order.

The only things I didn't put on the checklist are: 1) Marketing and 2) start the next book.  Both of those things will be coming along shortly.  

Anyway, I hope that list helps others to sort out what needs to be done after their book hits the markets.  I know it helps me keep things organized and helps me remember all the things I have to do.  In short, help keep my brain from being so scattered.  ;o)

Anything to add?  

*I don't actually log onto Twitter anymore, but my author FB page still updates to it, so there's that.

** Since I woke up at 3am, I figured I'd get some stuff off my to-do list - which included finishing #16 and doing #14&15.  Took me about 2 hours.

Kind of a Cascading Sale Thing

Okay, so I totally forgot to post here on Wednesday.  Which is kinda stupid of me, since I had a sale start on Wednesday.  Oh, I did all the marketing posts to FB and MeWe, but not here.  Derp.

Anyway, here's the deal...

DYING EMBERS is on sale now.  99c if you're in the US.  99p if you're in the UK.  This sale will last through to the 16th.  Then FERTILE GROUND goes on sale for 99 through the 23rd.  Then EARLY GRAVE goes on sale for 99 through the 2nd of March.

:shrug:  I'm trying something there.  Kind of a cascading sale thing.  Of course, I think the sales for FG and EG would be dependent on sales for DE, and so far it's been crickets for DE.  I'm not holding out a lot of hope.  

But hey, you can't win if you don't try.  Right?  

In other news, I've been so wrapped up in preparing for and worrying about the weather (it's frigid now and they're predicting 3-9 inches of snow for next week), I haven't used much brain power to actually work.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  One would think because I'm stuck inside, it would be the perfect time to work.  Umm, nope.  

Hopefully, now that we're as prepared as we're going to get, I can settle down and work.  I need to poke myself in the ass and just get it done.  Sheesh.  

Wrapping up 2020

Whew, I made it out of 2020 alive and with my sanity intact... mostly.  Time to wrap that puppy up and shove it into storage.  Here's how my writerly year shook out...

I wrote 73044 new words last year.  For the most part, that was finishing Cinder Ugly and writing Duke Noble .  I also laid some words down on several other books - another SCIU novel, the Arthurian UF thing, a quirky thing, and an attempt to start a sequel series to the model books.

I edited and published two books last year - Ugly and the Beast and Cinder Ugly.  That brought my total number of published novels to 15.

In sales, it was not a good year.  I sold a grand total of 65.39 books for a whopping $79.89 - an average of $1.49 a book. The only book I didn't sell any copies of was Project Hermes.  :sigh:  Of course, I didn't do any paid advertising last year for the nine free or sale things I did.  It was all on me and I didn't have the heart to do much marketing.  

I had five freebies.  I moved 359 books that way. 

Goals for the new year?  Well, I'm trying to take it day by day.  Lord knows my goals for last year didn't pan out.  And I quote: "If I can swing that, I'd like to see Ugly and the Beast and Cinder Ugly hit your ereaders in 2020.  I'd also like to get another SCIU and another Dennis Haggarty at least written, if not out there in public."  I did get UatB and CU out to the world.  As for the other two... umm, no.

This year, I will get Duke Noble's first book finished and out there.  Yes, I hope he will be a series.  No, I have no clue where I'll go after this one is in the can.  I still want to get another SCIU and another Dennis Haggarty out there.  Then there's the idea I had for more from Jeni Braxxon.  We'll see what happens.  I'm not promising anything but Duke at this point in time.

Other than that, the hope is to just keep plodding along and not let whatever happens this year derail me as much as last year's events derailed me.  

How was your 2020?  Do you have plans and goals for this year?  What are they?