Merry Christmas Eve!

Just in time for Christmas...  All of the Once Upon a Djinn book are now available at many of your favorite retailers.  Here are the universal links:

Wish in One Hand
In Deep Wish
Up Wish Creek
Wish Hits the Fan

Some of the retailers aren't quite ready yet, so if you don't see the one you prefer, check back.  I've also added the links for Amazon and Amazon print to make things easier for everyone.

I've also uploaded Rumor Has It, but I'm not seeing any links for that yet.  Soon, I hope.

Anyway, have a Merry Christmas!  See ya Monday.

When Fiction Becomes Fact

Back in 2015, I published a book... Project Hermes.  (First published as Bloodflow.)  

It's the little things that kill

The highest levels of the government believe Project Hermes is the best way to control America’s immigration problem. A simple microchip carrying a citizen’s information will allow officials to sort out who belongs—and who doesn’t. Harmless.

Unless the chip carries more than just information.

Agent Miranda Kruz of the Terrorism Task Force has reason to believe something is very wrong with Project Hermes. People are dying and the clues all point to a microchip implant. But Randi’s superiors don’t want anything or anyone interfering with their pet project. They’re threatening her job, her loved ones, and her life to keep her from revealing their secret. With the help of medical examiner, Vic Hammond, and electronics engineer, Jack Davis, Randi has to uncover the truth and make it public before anyone else is targeted for death.

Locating the madmen behind these executions will be hard enough—stopping them might just be impossible.

Today, I saw this headline about a Swedish company that's developed a microchip to prove your vaccine passport status.  Umm, not only no, but hell no.  That's some scary shit right there, folks.

Microchipping people.  Not just fiction anymore.  Of course, I couldn't have conceived of this pandemic and the lengths certain people would go to with it six years ago, so the chip I came up with is designed to hold your citizenship status... and so much more... but the idea's the same.  

By the way, Project Hermes will be available in Kindle Unlimited for another month.  After that, it'll go wide.  Read it for free with your KU subscription today.  Or pick up a Kindle copy.  Or, if you're anti-Amazon, keep an eye out for when it goes live everywhere else.

Books 2 Read and D2D

Natural Causes is up at most of the D2D retailers now, too.  

I'm actually managing to snag all of the custom links I want.  Which tells me people aren't using that function at Books 2 Read very much.  I probably shouldn't be talking about this until after all my books are wide, so I don't lose any of my future custom universal links, but that would be kind of a dick move.  So, if you're out there and reading this, set your custom links so they SAY your book's title rather than a series of gibberish.  Like Natural Causes is "https://books2read.com/natural-causes".

Don't know how?  If you're at your book's page at Book2Read, there's a little thingy near the bottom right that says "Is this your book?  Add additional stores."  (You have to be logged in, but if you're already logged into Draft 2 Digital, you should be logged in at B2R.)  

Okay, so you click that and then at the new page, on the left side, there are Link Tools.  Right there in the middle is Custom Name Your URL.  Click that.  Then type in what you want your URL to be.  If it's available, it gives you the option to Save.  And voila!  

By the way, while you're on that page, check to make sure they have all the links for your books.  If you're not having D2D submit to Amazon, because your books are already there, you have to add that link.  And at the bottom, there's a place to add your print book links.  Do that, too.  And every rare once in a while, links for stores D2D has submitted to are missing, so make sure those are there, too.  No use having a tool like this and not using it to your full advantage, eh?

To the gal who suggested I do this whole 'Universal Link' thing years ago, I'm sorry I ignored your advice.  But back then, I really only had Amazon to worry about, so I didn't think it mattered.  It does and I should've listened to you. 

So, now if I want to share my books with anyone, especially if I'm out and about, all I have to say is 'you can find it at 'books2read/<book-title>'.  Huzzah.  

OR, I can just tell them to find all my books at the Custom Page URL.  Mine is at books2read.com/BESanderson.  Easy Peasy, eh?

Hope that helps. 

Ahem, and I didn't get the genie books uploaded yet.  Maybe today.  

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.

Change It Up

Everyone's got their own way of writing, and that's a good thing.  Everyone also has their own way of editing, which is also a good thing.  As long as it actually is a good thing.

See, I have this usual way of editing my books.  I send the first draft to my Kindle, then I sit down with a big notebook and read the book while making notes about things that need changing.  I then input the notes and when I'm done with all of them, I send the next draft to my Kindle.  The second time, I generally input the notes as I go, once I get a page or so I enter them.  Other than that, it's lather, rinse, repeat until the book is as far as I can take it by myself.  At which point, the book goes to my readers so they can make notes however they make them and send them back to me.

It's a pretty good system that worked well for a lot of books.  So, I was working on that system for this book.  I did the first round and everything was fine.  Then I sat down to do the second round and it wasn't working for me at all.  And when things aren't working well, I tend to not want to do them.  I made about five notes and then I didn't want to pick up the book again.  Blerg.  

Then I sat down to input the notes, even though there were so few of them, thinking it might jump start the process.  Took like five minutes.  At which point, the general rule is to get up off my ass and go make more notes.  But the thought of that made me want to go play poker instead.  

So, what's a gal to do?  Change it up.  If doing the way I've done it for years isn't working, do it a different way.  Instead of making edit notes, I sat my ass down here, opened the manuscript, and started over from the beginning, changing anything wrong with the story.  I usually need the middle man, but I cut him right the hell out.  And it seems to be working for me.  Right now, anyway.  

Anyway, doing this goaded me into getting sixteen pages edited last night.  After only doing three pages during the previous session.  And two pages the session before that.  Yes, this deep, line by line editing is going to take longer, but I believe the end result will be closer to finished than the other way.  And if it isn't, well, at least it got me working again.  If it's closer to finished, I may only have to do a proofreading pass, which would cut the time off the end considerably.  We'll see.

The point is, there is no one right way to do any of this.  There isn't one right way from person to person, and there isn't even one right way for the same person from book to book.  Do what works until it doesn't work.  Then change.   If you feel like you're pushing yourself to work instead of being pulled by the work, mix it up a bit.  Do something... anything... a bit differently.  Hell, do it all differently, if you have to.  Put some jumper cables on that dead battery and get the engine to turn over again.  

At least this is working for me.  Your mileage may vary, but what could it hurt to try?