Not Giving Up... But Conceding

A couple of weeks ago, I made a decision.  With the economy the way it is, and every dollar stretched to its limits but still barely stretching far enough to meet needs, I applied for a job.  Gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do, right?

What does this mean for my goal of writing and publishing?  What does this mean for you as the reader?  It means I will have to find time after work and on the weekends to still get stories written and out there into the world.  

I'm not quitting.  I refuse to either give up or give in.  I'm merely conceding that writing is not bringing in enough money to keep this ship afloat.  Frankly, it never has, but the amounts I made helped.  In a better economy, the help I got from book sales was enough.  It just isn't anymore.  

This has been coming for a while.  Well, pretty much since 2020, but I was mulish.  

I got lucky.  A job opened up that is about a five minute drive from here.  I applied on the 10th, interviewed on the 17th, and started on the 22nd.  I'll get my first paycheck in July and the weight of cashflow will lift from my weary shoulders.  

And I'm glad to do it.  I've only worked three days, but I already love my job.  It's good to get out there and be productive.  

They've had a devil of a time finding employees who 1) want to work and 2) are stable, drug-free, drama-free, non-criminal, and sane.  That's me in a nutshell.  Tada.  I'm set to work 40 hours a week.  I'd work 50 if they let me.  I've never been afraid of work.  Depression makes me lazy sometimes and I tend to lack gumption at home, but in a work environment, I'm the little engine that could.  

Maybe if I could've put that engine to work with the writing, I would've done better.  But that's neither here nor there.  I busted my ass that first year of publishing and got crickets.  I know writers who bust their asses day in and day out, and still aren't making enough to get by.  So, kicking myself about my writing isn't going to help.  

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is I'm still here.  I'm still writing.  As I get things done, I'll get things published.  It'll just be a slow road.  To those readers who were hoping for new books soon, I apologize.  I just hope that by the time I get books done, there will still be people interested in them.  If not, I'll still be a writer.  And also an office assistant.  

How has this economy effected you?  

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?

SONG is Now in Paperback

I received the paperback proof yesterday.  It's very pretty and everything looks good, so I approved it for sale.  Yay.

Here's the social media release verbiage I just posted:

SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD is now available in paperback (as well as being an ebook from many fine retailers - see comments for the universal link). Sorry it's not easier on the wallet, but it's 422 pages. I made it as inexpensive as I could while still leaving a little scratch for me.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WZBBMHM

Of course, you don't have to go to comments here to get the universal link.  Click there.  And it's also available by clicking the image in the sidebar.  

It's pretty much everywhere Draft2Digital can make it be.  Except for Hoopla.  Nothing of mine has posted to Hoopla yet.  Derp.  

A quick note... I removed all the chapter-beginning wyverns.  I had a nightmare about being sued over use of a clipart image, so after I woke up, I did a bunch of research and since I was no longer 100% certain it was kosher to use those - even if I did change the original image - I ditched them when I woke up.  There are only four copies of it in its original format, and I own two of those (ebook and paperback proof).  It's all good.  I left the arrows.  They're mine.  

For the record, I get my cover images from Morguefile, and their terms state that as long as you change the image in some way and don't try to sell it as is, it's kosher.  I don't think anyone can say the images I've incorporated into my covers can ever even be recognized as the original photos.  Although, I think it would be kind of neat for the dude who owns that lizard to see his pet as a dragon on the cover of SSS.  I got the wings off a pic of a flying fox.  Cut, paste, delete on a microscopic scale, change the aspect, recolor, paste some more, add a bit of artsy so it doesn't look like a Franken-photo... tada, dragon!  Took me FOREVER, but I did it.

Anyway, the paperback is black text on cream paper and the cover has a nice matte finish.  The font size is 11pt, so it's easier on the eyes.  It's $17.99, but like I said, it's a big book, so it's about as cheap as I can make it and still make money.  Wish it could be different, but that's the way of the world right now. 

I'd really appreciate it if you could pick up a copy (print or ebook) and leave a review wherever you buy books.  Thanks.

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.

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.  

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?

Spreadsheets for the New Year

As you all probably know, I'm a spreadsheet geek.  On the personal side, I have spreadsheets for the books I've acquired and for my weight and activity (where I also keep track of writerly things like word counts and pages edited).  I do spreadsheets for the payjob.  And I have spreadsheets to keep track of things for the writing business.  Those last ones are the ones I want to talk about today.

I have a whomping huge spreadsheet to keep track of my expenses and income.  All six years worth.  That one's particularly ugly this year, so we won't really talk about it much.  When I finish updating it, it will tell me how far in the hole I am and whether I made any progress anywhere.  The closest any of my books is to being out of the hole is Accidental Death.  It's only $102.51 in the negative.

My other two main spreadsheets are Book Sales Data and Sales Totals.  

Book Sales Data has a tab for each month of the year and on each tab, it has sales information for each book - color coded by book on the rows with columns for each possible sales item.  Each potential US price gets a column, other countries get columns (except the EU countries only have one column because they all use the euro), there are columns for KU and print and returns. This sheet is for quantities only.  I used to do quantities and amounts, but I deleted the amounts section several years ago because it wasn't necessary here.  I keep all that over in the Sales Totals spreadsheet.

The Sales Totals spreadsheet is another whomping huge one.  This sucker tells me everything - quantity, amounts, page reads, etc. on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis with comparisons and charts.  I use the Book Sales Data sheet to feed this one.  (I have to, or this one would be even huger and the weight of it would probably topple my computer.)

The first tab of the ST takes the data from the BSD.  It's a lot like the BSD in that there are color-coded lines and columns for each of the possible sales items. Rather than try to explain it, here's a screen capture of what I'm talking about.

Pretty, pretty rainbows.

I couldn't capture the whole sheet, so I just gave you a month and the quantity side.  The earnings side looks the same, except the numbers over there will have dollar signs, when I have numbers to put into it.  The colors are for more than just looks, too.  They help me keep track of things with a glance.  Dying Embers will always be that shade of blue.  If I'd thought this though way back when, series would all be the same color, but I didn't.  And it would've messed up my rainbows anyway.  

If you look beneath the rainbows, you can see the tabs to where all that information works.  The Daily is quantities of everything sold.  The Daily Pgs is for Kindle Unlimited.  Overall keeps track of everything over all the years.  Monthly breaks it down.  Pgs Read does the KU by month and book.  It's all pretty self-explanatory.  

Every time I publish another book, I have to update everything - adding rows and columns, etc. - but for the most part, this works for me all year long.  Sucking in data and presenting it in a format I can easily digest.  

Every month, I have to plug in formulas to make ST pull from BSD, but that's only because I'm too lazy to do it all ahead of time.  I used to populate the thing with formulas at the start of the year.  Then it got to be such a pain, I decided to do it month to month, as things sold.  Why put a formula into a cell if there will never be any information in that cell?  So, I stopped.

Anyway, you probably won't ever want or need anything like this.  It keeps me out of trouble and even when the sales are light, it gives me a clear outlook on where I've been and where I'm going. 

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them as long as they aren't too involved like I'd be building your spreadsheet for you.  I've often thought about offering my services to make spreadsheets like these for other authors, but the sheer weight of these things and the data involved makes it less than ideal.  And the time it takes to create and maintain one would make the process costly for other writers. 

And besides, few writers are as geeky as I am.  I like knowing exactly what's going on with the business at any given time.  Even when the news is bad.  

Speaking of which, I will be doing at least one wrap-up post here sometime next week to talk about 2020 sales and junk.  See ya then.  I won't be here on Friday.

Talking Marketing Again

Okay, so I did the free thing for Dying Embers.  That ended yesterday and I saw 49 copies move out to readers.  Two more than the last time I did the freebie thing for DE.  Remember, this is sans paid advertising, so no huge numbers, but hey, it's something. 

Additionally, I have had Fertile Ground and Early Grave on sale for 99c each since Sunday and that sale is still on through Saturday.  (The logic behind Amazon letting you have a sale for 7 days but only free for 5 days escapes me.)  To date, I've sold 3 copies of FG and 2 copies of EG.  Plus there were some page reads for FG that I hope will continue.  

Facebook finally forced me to go with their new format, which makes advertising in FB groups a wee bit different.  Actually, it's a smidgen easier once you get the hang of it.  (The only good thing I've found about new FB, so far.)  Unfortunately, one of my go-to groups went to approving every post before it posts and the administrators aren't quick about approvals, so I won't be posting there anymore.  I get why they're doing it, but the delay harshes my game.  I also found and joined a new to me group I hope will find me some new readers.  :fingers crossed: 

If you want to sell through FB without giving FB money, posting in book groups is about the only way.  I mean, I've paid FB for ads and never saw a sale, so why pay them more?  That and I refuse to throw any more money their way.  I'd leave FB entirely if I could get the same return on posting at MeWe or elsewhere.  Hell, I'd pay MeWe if I thought I could make money there.  We'll see what it looks like in 2021.

In other news, I'll be doing another sale thing starting next week.  Not sure which book(s) I'll be doing.  Stay tuned.  Might be Accidental Death and Natural Causes.  We'll see.

I came across a potential new reader out and about in the world the other day.  But she only reads hardcopy books.  I stopped by and saw her this week, with books in the car, but I chickened out on actually trying to sell her any.  I'm so bad at hand-selling my books.  Thank goodness for Amazon.  (Although I rarely ever sell paperbacks even then.)

Okay, that's about it for me.  Any questions?  Anything to add? 

Why the Pre-Order?

 In case you missed it on The Writing Spectacle yesterday, Cinder Ugly is now available for pre-order.  Why the pre-order?  Well, I'll try to explain my thinking...

First there's the whole brilliant idea I had a couple weeks ago to put all of the genie books on sale this week.  I honestly didn't think there.  Or maybe I was thinking that I wouldn't have CU ready to publish until after the sale and then when I did have it ready, I didn't want a release to interfere with a sale and vice versa.

Then there's the whole link thing.  This is the last book in the series.  In order to have links for the new book in the previous books in the series, I needed to have a link available.  Put it up for pre-order and there's a link available if someone should happen to buy and read the other two books. (Unfortunately, someone snagged a copy of Ugly and the Beast yesterday before I uploaded the updated version, so the line for Cinder Ugly still says 'Coming Soon'. :shrug:)  I also now have links to CU in all the genie books, so if anyone buys those, they'll be able to buy CU if they get the urge. 

This pre-order thing also gave me the opportunity to get clickable links on my blog sidebars and on my A Model Curse page.   And get my Goodreads listing all nice and stuffs. 

It's marketing.  I think.  I hope.  We'll see.

On the bright side, the book will be in your hot little hands on Monday.  So you really only have to wait a few days.  And if you haven't read Sleeping Ugly or Ugly and the Beast, you have time to read them before Cinder Ugly drops.  

And I hope you will.  This was a fun little series to write and from what I've heard, it's a fun little series to read.  This paranormal mystery follows supermodel Jeni Braxxon from the moment she's cursed and trying to figure out who did this to her, through a maze of murder and intrigue, to the end when it all wraps up.  There should be some 'laugh out loud' moments* in there along the way and a couple scenes that might tug your heart a little.  (I know mine were tugged.)  

*Best proofer comment was simply a long string of laughing.

Write and Be Happy

This morning, someone posted a meme to a FB book group that said, 'I'd rather be happy than write a bestseller'.  And of course, she got people arguing with her.  (Which is the norm for FB.  You could post a picture of a rock and people would argue that it's a stone.)   One of the arguers actually said something along the lines of 'I'd give away my happiness if I could be a bestseller*'.

Anyway, the original post got me to thinking. 

And it made me sad, because I started thinking that maybe this poor writerly soul has convinced herself that the only way to be happy is to act as if sales no longer matter.  Like the old Aesop tale of the fox and the grapes.  After trying unsuccessfully to get the grapes, the fox convinces himself that the grapes are sour and he wouldn't have wanted them anyway.

Of course, it's always possible the author in question wasn't thinking about it and worded it the wrong way.  Maybe she was thinking 'I'd rather be happy and write what I want than to force myself to write what the bestsellers write'.  I'd applaud that. 

If you're like 99% of the writers out there, you're writing and publishing and dreaming of loads of sales.  (The other 1% already have the loads of sales and they're worrying about dropping into the 99%.)  Who doesn't want to be a bestseller?  Would any of us turn it down if it happened?  I know I wouldn't.  However, I don't think we're holding our breaths either.  I like breathing.

Write what you write.  The sales will come.  Or they won't.  Keep writing anyway.  It's the only path to happiness when it comes to writing - actually writing.

Sometimes, when the sales are non-existent and I ask myself why I keep doing this, I need to remind myself happiness comes from writing.  Selling would make me ecstatic, of course, but if I don't write, I can't sell. 

And if I ever someday become a bestselling author, I'm pretty sure that'll make me happy, too.  Aside from the monetary side, loads more people will be reading what I've written.  How can you not be happy about that?

*Umm, yeah, that was the saddest part of all.  =o(

Opinion Piece

A while back I saw something on Facebook that is worth mentioning.  A bestselling author had posted a screen capture of a message she'd received from a reader and her reply to it.  The reader said that because of the author's politicizing things in their stories, the reader would no longer be buying her books.  The author's reply?  Basically it amounted to 'tough shit, I don't write for readers'. 

To be honest, I've let enough time go by on this that I don't remember the author's name.  I only know that it was someone whose name was easily recognizable to anyone who hasn't lived in a cave for the past ten, twenty years. 

Anyway, I suppose it's easy enough to say 'I don't care what readers think' when you're already a bestseller, a known name, who's made a boatload off the sales to readers you don't write for.  :shrug:  So what if a few people stop buying her books?  Millions of others will keep her flush.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with her.  I guess I don't write for readers either.  If I sat here thinking about what stories were going to garner me the most sales, I probably wouldn't be writing what I'm writing.  Or I'd be selling a hell of a lot more books than I am now.  Of course, it would be easier if I had a Big Five (or is it Three now?) marketing department behind me, putting my name in front of millions of readers.  But that'll never happen.

I guess I'm disagreeing with the way she went about addressing this.  Making it public for one thing.  Shaming the reader who disagreed with her politics in a format for the world to see.  If I remember right, the reader's name was even on the post.  Might've been just the first name as the author addressed her personally.  Something along the lines of 'just so you know, B, I don't write for your approval'.  Umm, not just no, but hell no.  You don't DO that.

Like I said, I don't remember which author this was*.  I remember thinking that I'd read something of hers and didn't like it, so I obviously wouldn't be inclined to read her again anyway, but this put a nail in the coffin.  Publicly spitting in the face of a reader isn't good for sales, nor should it be.

Lord knows I've DNF'd enough books because the opinions and the philosophies woven into the stories rubbed me the wrong way.  Of course, I would never contact the author.  And I don't review those books.   My opinions are not going to change theirs and one lost sale isn't going to either.  Especially when the publishing industry is on-board with the ideas being espoused. 

The person who shared what this author had posted thought the author's reply was most excellent.  I don't remember who it was.  Not a friend friend, not even an acquaintance really, but someone on my FB friend list who is no longer on my friend list.  If she thought the author's response was a good thing, then what will her reactions be to someone like me?  Buh-bye.  Call it a preemptive strike.  Removal of potential conflict.  Whatever.  I don't need that shit in my life right now.

Jus' sayin',

*If you've heard about this and know who the author is, don't say her name in comments or I won't let your comment through.  I try to make this as anti 'personal attack' as possible.  Which, I guess, is kinda what she should've done.

The Best Laid Plans of Mousy Writers

Well, it's officially been more than two months since I sold a book and nearly two months since anyone read any of my books in the KU program.  (Not counting the 30-something pages someone read last week because it wasn't a whole book.) 

True, I haven't really done much to sell books.  And lord knows, I haven't been writing any books.  I did release a book in May, hence the sales two months ago.  (I didn't sell anything in April.)  I sold two copies of that book.  One of which was to myself.  Someone read the book in KU.  I marketed that book a little to the sound of crickets.  Book Two in a three book series when the third book hasn't been written yet is always a dud sale.

I'm not whining.  I'm just stating facts.  It is what it is. 

I'd blame the virus, but bhis was not looking like a banner year for sales even before the 'rona arrived.  Last year, I released zero books, and while I did do a lot of marketing last year, I cleared very little above what I paid for advertising.  I have, perhaps, reached saturation with the current buying pool for newsletters I put ads in with the books I already have published. 

Oh, I had plans to make this year better.  If I had stuck to my goals, I would already have two books published and be well on my way to completing another book.  If I hadn't been derailed, I might've been marketing.  Like I said, I got one book finished earlier in the year and published in early May - thanks to my friends who helped there and to those who bought and/or reviewed. 

Right now, I can't seem to muster the will to do anything toward my publishing goals.  Looking ahead, things don't seem in a position to improve.  I keep telling myself this has to get better, but without anything to back that up, I'm just blowing smoke up my own ass.  I have to work to make it better and I'm just not in the mindset to do the work. 

Whatever's happening in the world, that's on me.

Caught Up in the Crazy

Now would seem like the perfect time to get some writing and editing done.  There's nowhere to go.  No sports on TV - unless you enjoy curling.  Hell, here it's even been pouring rain so outside activities are suspended.  I should be here with my butt in the chair, working away. 

But no.  My stupid brain is so caught up in this carnival of crazy that I can't seem to make myself focus on the things I need to do.

For example:  Last night, at about 2:15am, a lightning crack woke me up out of a sound sleep.  After I got up and did my stuff and the cat's stuff, I couldn't get back to sleep because my brain switched over to 'what if we lose power?  I have a month's worth of meat in the freezer.  :panicpanicpanic:'  So it's little wonder I can't shift into work mode during the day.

To that end, I'm glad I didn't set a date for release yet.  I'd have to delay it.  I can't promise anything right now.  I thought I was scatterbrained before.  This makes the old me seem like a stable person.  Blerg.

On the upside, I had an interesting thing happen yesterday.  A wildlife photographer I follow on FB had set up a Pinterest page and was asking for help, so I commented.  And then someone commented on my comment.  And then she liked my FB Page.  And then she bought four of my books.  Wow.  I guess you never know where sales will come from, eh?

So, where's your head at these days?  Caught up in the crazy?  Keeping calm and carrying on? 

WTF Amazon?

Okay, so I started noticing this about a month ago, but Amazon has started letting people leave 'ratings' without leaving reviews.

And it sucks.

Wish in One Hand now has two single star ratings that drag down the overall star average without any explanation or user ID or anything.  No clue as to why they left a bad rating.  No clue if they even bought the damn book.  (Which I suspect they might not have since I hadn't sold any copies of WIOH this year prior to last week, and the rating came before the sales.)  No reasons, just slammed with shitty stars.

Goodreads, of course, has been doing this all along.  It sucks there, too.  I suspect, though, that people don't pay as much attention to the rating average on Goodreads when buying a book.  On Amazon, stars are critical to sales.  You see all five little yellow stars filled or partially filled and you're more likely to click through.  You see only four stars and the fourth star isn't even filled in, and you might just move on to something with more star power.

I mean, let's face it - people are lazy.  You have to grab them immediately and encourage them to put forth the effort to click through and read the blurb.  Stars do that.  More stars = more click-throughs = more chances to make a sale.  And the reverse of that is also true.

Gah, as if selling books wasn't hard enough.

And it's not like people won't abuse that rating thing.  Noooooo.  At least when someone had a bone to pick with you before, you could maybe contest the bad review they left.  This?  I'm not sure how anyone does anything about a random anonymous bad rating.

Not sure what the fuck Amazon thinks it's doing there.  I just hopes it goes away before it does too much more damage.  

2019 Sales and Marketing Wrap-up

Happy New Year!  Well, that's another year in the can.  I can't say I'm sorry to see 2019 go.  :waves buh-bye:  Let's just go ahead and get this wrap-up out of the way so we can put 2019 away.

It was not a banner year for the whole writing/selling books thing.  I had hoped to get two books out in 2019, if I remember right.  That didn't happen.  I started the year in a slump and it pretty much lasted all year.

I did get Ugly and the Beast written.  I also got it kind of edited.  Then I started Cinder Ugly and the wheels came off.  I wrote part of a Space Bunny thing.  I also did some noodling around with ideas for another SCIU and another Dennis Haggarty.  I participated in NaNo and got another big chunk written on a YA fantasy I started 6 years ago.  Oh, and I started a short Christmas story involving the genies.  Not much to crow about considering there were 365 days in there with which to work and how little I actually worked on writing.

In the selling books arena, here are the numbers.  It's easier to deal with numbers sometimes.

Total sales $: $469
Total copies sold: 484

Not as much money as last year, but better than 2017, so I'm not crying into my coffee too much.  With no new books hitting the market, I should be happy I got that many sales.  This year, I did roll over 3K books sold over the entirety of my publishing life.  It averages out to 603 books and $712 a year.  (2015 was a big year, so it skews the average.)  Woohoo.

Dollars spent on marketing: $316
Sales $ earned from paid ads: $353

So, I finished the year in the black on paid marketing, but not by much.  If it weren't for marketing, I wouldn't have sold much in 2019.  I mean, take the $353 off the $469 and you get $116 worth of books sold without any paid advertising. 

Average per book income: 97c

Considering that I only sold 24 books at full price, I'm amazed I averaged that much.  I attribute it to Page Reads, which, while not netting me the same dollars as selling a full-priced book outright, certainly nets me more than a discounted 99c book.  I sold 316 books at the sale price of 99c, of which I get about 64c.

Speaking of Page Reads...

Number of books sold through the KU program: 72.82
Dollars earned through Page Reads: $126.04

And the majority of that can be attributed to paid ads.

It's getting harder and harder to sell books as a self-published author.  For me, anyway.  I'm sure there are writers out there doing much better than I am.  They're probably dropping new books at least 4 times a year, spending a bunch more on marketing, and have more social presence than I do.  I can only do what I can do, so I'm trying not to come off as whiny.  Like I said, this was a hard year but not the worst year ever.  Sure, I'd like it to have been better.  Who wouldn't?

My goals for the year ahead depend mostly on having the funds to pay my editor.  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.  Beyond that, I can't commit to anything.  Not yet.  I hope to under promise and over deliver.

Ah, hope. It's a thing.

Do you have any questions for me?  How was your 2019?  What are you hoping to accomplish in 2020?

Time Again for Spreadsheets

I said something yesterday about doing a post about spreadsheets over here today.  Then it occurred to me that I've probably done a similar post in years past.  So, basically, if you've heard it all before, you can skip this post.

If you've been around here long enough, you know that I'm kind of a spreadsheet geek.  (Okay, I'm a geek in other ways, too.)  I make spreadsheets for all sorts of stuff - books I acquire, weight loss, word counts, expenses...  I also do spreadsheets for work, but that's another story. 

I like being able to see the data, track the data, research the data.  Look for patterns, compare  numbers, check for errors, etc.  Whether any of this does me any good is anyone's guess.  It keeps me out of trouble.  Right now, it's the time to start working on the spreadsheets for 2020.

My two main writerly spreadsheets are for tracking book sales.  There's a small one and there's a big one.  The small one - Book Sales Data - feeds the big one - Sales Totals.

Any time I see any sales activity, I plug it into Book Sales Data.  That one has tabs for each month and on each tab, it has each book and each book has a column of dates.  It also has columns for the price it sold at and where (country-wise), pages read, etc.  So, if I sell a book today, I'd type a one in say the Dying Embers section in the $3.99 column.  Or if someone in the UK read 100 pages of Wish in One Hand, I'd put 100 in the KU UK section (which could then feed a formula in another column to give me the percent of book read).

It's all very geeky. 

Anyway, the numbers go into Book Sales Data, which then feeds the behemoth Sales Totals spreadsheet to give me yearly totals and allow me to analyze things like how many books I've sold in any given month, how much money I've made, etc.  And then compares it against previous years, etc. With things color coded by book, so I don't get lost in the data forest.

It's a rainbow! Yep, geeky.

I'm not sure I like all the colors I chose for the books, but it's there now and after all this time, changing colors would totally harsh my groove.  BOAI is brown, dammit, and it will always be brown.

I suppose this all comes from my sales/management/computer tech/data entry background.  The sales force (me) needs to know what's selling and what's not and the management (me) needs to be able to see it all at a glance, so the computer tech (me) need to put it all in a useable format so data entry (me) can input everything easily.  Umm...

I can also take all of this and be able to provide the CFO (Hubs) with answers to any questions he might ask pertaining to book sales.  He doesn't ask, but it's there if he does.  Sometimes, I just blurt out stuff like 'hey, I reached 3000 books sold this morning'.* Or I show him the graphs when compare sales by month or by year.  Because they're pretty.

Oh, to have a sales spike like May of 2015 again...

I have another spreadsheet that tracks expenses pertaining to each book, but let's not talk about that one.  It depresses me and I haven't updated it in months. I should probably do that before year end, though.  Blerg.

Now, I started doing this when I first started selling books in 2015, so it made adding to it each year relatively easy.  If you were going to do one, that's the time to do it.  If you're already years into your book sales, it can still be done, but it would be a bear to recapture all that old data if you haven't already got it.  You could start from here.  You know, if you want to be geeky like me.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I just had a geeky spreadsheet idea to fix a problem I've been having with something I do for the office.

Any questions?  Comments? 

*happened last week, but I forgot to add it to the Sunday Update.

Sales and Kindle Unlimited

Here is a look at my Amazon 30-day sales graph as of yesterday

If you haven't seen one of these, the top graph is the quantity of whole books sold and the bottom is pages read through the Kindle Unlimited program. 

The spikes you see in the first graph directly correlate to paid advertising.  There's a little residual sale activity after the ad, but beyond that, crickets in the whole book sales area. 

What's notable is the continued page reads after the sale is over.  Two weeks after the ad went live for Dying Embers, I'm still seeing people in the KU program reading books even if nobody is buying the whole thing all at once. 

Sure, these numbers aren't going to wow anyone and I'm nowhere near making the list of top sellers in KU, but to see residual pages reads at all is always welcome.

This is why I keep my books in KU.  As I've said before, the times I've taken my books to a wider distribution, I do not see enough sales to make up for the page reads I've lost.  Of course, your mileage may vary.  We all have to do things that work best for us.  I just don't have a wide enough reach to bother having my books available everywhere.  And I don't have a large group of people out there telling me they'd buy my books if only they were available for Nook or Kobo or whatever.  (I used to have a couple people who asked, but one sale here or there wasn't making it worth my while.  If you don't have a Kindle and want to read my books, Amazon has an app for that.)  My stay in Kindle Select could change, but for now, this is working for me. 

Any questions?