Sunday Update - '25 Week 28

 :blink blink:  I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so bear with me.

I did some writing.  Not nearly as much as I would've hoped, but life's like that sometimes.  I only wrote three days, but I managed to put out 4054 words.  The book is up to 14648 words.  Not NaNo #s, but better than nothing, right?

This week, I marketed Sleeping Ugly.  FB is still hamstringing me, so I get like 3-5 posts up and it tells me they're not letting me post anymore for a while to prevent spamming.  Turds.  I'm following all the rules of the groups I belong to - like only posting one book and only once every 24 hours - but I'm the spammer.  Gah.  So, while I got posts out, they weren't all the groups every day, which meant I only moved 57 books instead of my former amounts of 120-150 a week.  I did manage to sell a couple others, too, so not a total waste of time.  It's just disappointing.

Reading was okay.  I finished one freestanding book and then one of the books in that Poirot omnibus.  :shrug:

Nothing baked.  It's too hot and I'm unmotivated.

On the activity front, I got off my butt 4 days this week.  Two walks, some gardening, and some housework.  I haven't weighed myself.  Again... too hot to be motivated.

In gardening news, the tomatoes all either have flowers or buds for future flowers.  Last night we got heavy rain and when I looked out this morning, most of the plants look depressed.  I'll need to go out today and shore them up with extra slats and yarn.  I hope none of them are actually broken.  That'd suck.  The trees all look fine.  I did manage to repot some of them.  I need more dirt and more bigger pots to really do a good job.  What the bigger trees really need is to go in the ground, but I'm trying to wait until fall to give them a good shot of living through the deer.  After Elmer the Elm's horrific death, I'm hoping young trees without leaves will get ignored and by spring they'll just be part of the landscape and therefore uninteresting.

Ah, Roku... how I love thee.  Yes, I have spent way too much time this week vegging in front of the tube.  I'm watching Midsomer Murders, Murdoch Mysteries, Doc Martin, Yorkshire Vet, Great British Baking Show, and Hometown from the beginnings.  Not binging, just watching an episode each like once a day or once/twice a week.  There are a lot of episodes of all those, so yay.  I'm also watching Emergency!, Red Green, Dr. G, Mayday: Air Disasters, Forensic Files, and MST3K when I feel like it. When we get done, or we get bored, I'll subscribe to BritBox.  I'm looking forward to watching all the episodes of Inspector Morse and Poirot (naturally, Poirot... lol).  

Okay, I think that's about it for me this week.  How are things in your world?

Marketing Monday, or Lack Thereof

 There won't be any marketing today.  I haven't been sleeping well and I just didn't have the drive to create a sale.  And I knew I wouldn't be in any shape to do morning marketing today.  (We finally slept last night, which was good.)

The problem with not marketing is with no marketing comes no sales.  I mean, I'm still getting some page reads, but nothing to shout about.  :shrug:

Unfortunately, even with the marketing, I'm only averaging about $20 a month.  I keep hoping something will take off and fly, but so far, nothing has.  When I look at the amount of effort versus the return, it really makes me not want to market.  

This, of course, is all free marketing.  As in, no money is going to to accomplish it.  On the other hand, I'm spending a lot of time.  We won't go into how many hours I spend to make $20 a month, okay?  That's just depressing.  I get paid more than that for working on a single spreadsheet for an hour.  

Anyway, I know that if I paid someone else for marketing, I'd trade cash for time.  The problem with that is the last time I paid for ads, I made an 11.06% profit.  In 2019, I paid $355.31 and cleared $39.31.  Not sure if 11% profit is awesome or pathetic, but there it is.

With FB being a turd about how much I can market, I'm definitely going to need to start delving back into other sources.  I've started that, kinda.  At least, I've gone through and determined which newsletters are defunct, so I have a good list to use when I start back up again.  Bleh.

Tomorrow's post will be of a personally relevant nature, as opposed to a writerly nature.  Maybe I'll talk more about this marketing thing on Wednesday.  For now, though, it's time to get to my morning routine.  Have a great day, wherever you are.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 25

I'm not exactly sure it is Week 25, but it follows last week, and I'm not inclined to go check, so there you are.  

I thought about writing this week.  I really wanted to be able to say that I wrote something when I did my update, but alas, I can't.  I also thought about giving up on writing this week, cuz it's not like I'm actually doing it and haven't done it for a long time.  But I'm a mule, so I guess we'll all just sit here and wait for me to write some stuff.  Or I'll sit here while what few followers I have left wander away.  I need to take a walk and give myself a good talking to all the way around.

Marketing was done.  I'm still hampered in my efforts, which isn't helping with the whole malaise, but I moved 83 books.  And someone somewhere is reading WIOH, so that's $$.  Not sure what this week will bring for sales or marketing.  Stay tunes.

Reading went slow this week.  I finished one book and then started on an omnibus of Hercule Poirot stories.  Not sure why I started this behemoth, but there it is.  I'll probably pause between stories to read something else.

On the activity front, I did stuff 4 out of 7 days - 3 walks for 3.35 miles, cleaning, and weeding.  Then it got hot and I retreated into my shadowy lair.  We won't talk about weight this week.  The heat is making me fluffy.  Yeah, yeah... that's the ticket.

Speaking of hot, no baking this week.  I meant to make cookies or cake or something, but meh.

Big news this week.  After eons of trouble with Brightspeed, I finally took the first steps to kick those assholes to the curb.  I'm going with a VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol - service.  VoIP uses a widget that connects to our Starlink via wifi so we can use our regular phone over the internet to make calls like anyone else.  I researched it and found a company out of Edmund, OK that seems stable.  The device will be shipping to us and once I have it, I'll start the process to port our phone number from BS to our new provider.  Once that's done, I'll call BS and tell them to pound sand.  Woot. Steppin' into the 21st century like a boss.  

Okay, I think I've about updated myself out.  Have a great day wherever you are.  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 14

 Yeah, yeah... I woke up late.  And yes, I've said before that I need to write these things ahead of time and get them scheduled, but we both know I'm not going to do that, so here we are.

Anyway, it was a week.  No writing, no editing.  I did think about writing, so that's a step in the right direction, but no actual words on paper yet. 

Last week's marketing effort was sorta blasé.  Thus, I only moved 28 copies of UNEQUAL.  Starting tomorrow, Dying Embers is on the freebie rotation.  I'll try to do better marketing that and see if I can't generate some interest.  Something's working because I am seeing a smattering of sales for books marketed previously.  Nothing spectacular, but better than nothing, and I appreciate every page read.  (Reviews would be nice, too, but beggars can't exactly be picky.)

Oh, yeah, I started working on a cover for the new book.  It's not horrible.  I don't hate it.  Then again, I don't love it either, so I have more work to do.  Personally, I think it turned out too bright and soft, like a chick lit cover instead of a gritty crime novel.  I really need to set everything up again and take another round of pics while it's still super-gloomy outside.  It might be the lightbulb.  I think it's a soft-white instead of a bright white.  :scuttles off to change bulbs:

Anyhoo... I did read a bunch last week.  I finished 3 books and made it halfway through another book.  I should finish that one today.  Right now, though, I've only finished 8 books this year, which leaves me 10 books behind schedule.  :shrug:  I'll either make that up or I won't.  

No baking this week.  It's not like my Ever-Widening Ass™ needs baked goods.

Speaking of the EWA™, my activity level sucked this week. I only got in a couple days where I did anything other than sit on said body part.  One day I did some woods work and the other day I went for a walk.  :throws confetti:  Weight: 174.8

One reason my activity sucked was the weather.  We've had some torrential rain crap move through in waves.  I think we've gotten about 6-7 inches of rain over the last 3 days.  And today we're supposed to get SNOW.  How is that even possible???  Stupid weather.  I moved all my baby trees inside for the duration.  Here's hoping Wrenegade leaves them alone.  

Yes, we still have that silly bird in the garage.  Although, maybe not so silly considering the rain and the cold.  He's a helluva lot better off than his free range counterparts right now.

Okay, I think that's it for me today.  I need more coffee and another cigarette.  Have a great day wherever you are.  :hugs:

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 13

Thirteen weeks into 2025 and I'm feeling pretty good about life in general.  Sales are up, soon I'll publish my 18th novel (the first published since 2022), and life is good.  As for the past week, here's what went on...

No editing or writing.  Once my edit notes come back, there will be a flurry of stuff to do, though, so I'm not kicking myself too hard.  I did some marketing this week.  This is looking to be my best month of the last few years.  Which still isn't going to get me into any higher tax bracket, but I'm hopeful.  I need to figure out today what I'm going to do for this week's sale.  I'll be as surprised as you are tomorrow. ;o)

The main writerly-type thing I'm focused on is driving ahead on cover art.  I even spent a couple hours wandering the local thrift store to see what sparked my creativity.  I picked up a couple tablecloths, a fake plant arrangement, and a lamp.  Now I just need to make that and some stuff we already have here into something that will sell books.  It's all percolating in my head.  I'll probably get the camera out and start playing today.  

I spent a lot of time reading this week, although it doesn't seem like much when you look at the reading wrap up from yesterday.  I did finish that book I said I'd finish, though, and I started another one.  Yay.

In baking news, I made another batch of cinnamon rolls and I also did a pizza.  So yummy.  My ever-widening ass is telling me I need to cut back on the baking, but I doubt I'll listen to it.

Speaking of the old ever-widening ass, I was pretty active this week.  I did something active every day - from gardening to tromping through the woods to just wandering.  I also did some cleaning. No update on the weight this week.  I feel slimmer, but I'm not going to promise myself any fewer pounds.

Speaking of gardening, I have now potted all the dogwoods that were germinating in the fridge.  The ones I potted previously... Well, some of them died.  On the upside, I have 4-5 that look like they might make it and even have real leaves - 2 each.  Nothing is coming up in the redbud pots or the spicebush pots.  I think the over-winter neglect killed those seeds.  Better luck this fall.  I also potted all the buckthorn seeds I could find.  Note to self: do not put black seeds in black dirt in the fall.  You'll have a tough time finding them come spring.  Cecil and Clyde... the cedars... are both doing well and both have lots of new growth.  Yay.  As for my gardens, I'm not seeing the glads or the lilies coming up yet.  Fingers crossed.

On the woods work front, I got a lot of dead limbs off the cedars and the area is looking really nice - at least from the road.  Now that it's getting warmer, I'll have to stay out of the woods, so the rest of the work in there will have to wait.  

This week, I plan on finishing the clean-out of the last two garden beds that need cleaning - the cedar bed and the shade bed.  There's nothing in the cedar bed but weeds, which I hope to change this year.  As for the shade bed, I'm not holding out hope that anything I planted is still alive in there.  If it's all gone, I'll order up some replacement astilbes and coral bells, and maybe some more lilies of the valley.  We'll see.  I also plan on knocking some other stuff off the to-do list I posted on Friday.  Time and gumption allowing.

And I think that's it for me.  What have you been up to lately?

Thursday This n That

Wow.  I mean, just... wow.  The freebie thing for DYING EMBERS shot off like a freakin' rocket this week.  When I checked the stats this morning, my orders said 777.  705 of that is DE.  (71 was from last weeks freebie of PH. And I sold one FG.)  I've never moved that many copies of anything at one time.  Hell, I haven't moved that many copies of all of my books in an entire year since my first year. That year, I moved like 1016, which is fewer books than I've given away this year.  I am shocked.  This is my wow-face =oO.  Anyway, thank you.  Thanks to all of you who've read my books, and to all of you who've downloaded my books, and to all of you who've reviewed my books.  You're all awesome and I love you. :HUGS:  You're really making my anniversary special.  Special thanks to Silver and Debs and Janet for sticking with me all the way.  You guys rock.

Today is officially the 10th anniversary of DE going out into the world.  On 2/13/15, it went live on Amazon and I got my very first sale ever.  Woot.  

Speaking of sales, I've officially made more money this year than all of 2023.  Sure, it's $28.82 vs $28.08, but we have to take our little successes where we can find them, eh?

Man, these last few years have been a little depressing for me with regards to being a writer.  I mean, I haven't broken $100 since 2021.  The last year I made more than my average of $400/year was 2019.  But there's always hope.  And more than a little of a masochistic nature, LOL.

Okay, enough about that... I think I might've already mentioned it, but I made carrot cake.  It was good but unimpressive the first day.  Every day, it's gotten a wee bit yummier, though.  Mmmm.  Next time, I definitely need to add raisins.  I do love me some raisins.

The weather here has been gross.  Wet and cold and icy.  Blerg.  Good thing I got all my errands done over the weekend or we'd be screwed.  Eh, it's all about planning ahead when you live in the back of beyond.  

Ack.  I need to wrap this up so I can call Mom.  It's a thing.  Every morning M-Th, I call her at 7am and we talk for an hour.  She's 84 and, let's face it, she's not going to be here forever, so I like to get as much chatting in as I can.  Plus, I really enjoy our conversations.  There's no better way to start the day for me.  (I also call her on Saturday, but that's at 7:45.  She gets Fridays and Sundays off from me. LOL)

And with that I bid you all adieu.  Have a great day wherever you are!

January Marketing Wrap-up

I'm taking the rest of the month off on marketing, so I can try to focus on editing.  So, since I don't have any sales or freebies going on, I thought I'd wrap up the month today.  Here's how January's marketing efforts played out:

I had four freebie sessions and gave away 517 books.

In Deep Wish - 148 
Fertile Ground - 153
Unequal - 97
Ugly and the Beast - 119

From the giveaways, I also netted 21.36 in sales ($21.12 worth).  And right now, I have two different books being read in KU.  I hope to see at least a little bit more in the sales totals before it rolls over to February.  (For the record, I hate when a new month starts and all the metrics zero out.  It's quite depressing.)

I haven't checked the rankings, ratings and reviews on everything yet, but there's hope I'll see some improvement when I do.  This year, I started keeping track of that and have seen a bit of an uptick in rankings, if not one in ratings and reviews.  There's always hope.  

Next month will be my 10th anniversary of being a published author.  I published DYING EMBERS on 2/13/15.  I'll probably do something to celebrate.  Maybe offer a signed paperback to... I don't know who because I don't have many people actually following anything I do anymore.  I'll definitely make DE free for that week or something.  Stay tuned.  

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

Marketing Monday - a Year-End Wrap-up

Since I'm not marketing anything at the moment, I thought today would be a good time to wrap-up what went on with this year's marketing.

Obviously, with the day-job for the first five months, no marketing was accomplished.  I sold 9 books January thru May, which is better than nothing but not by much.  Once I 'retired' again, I got to work.  Okay, so I didn't 'get to work' per se.  I started doing stuff to see if I could generate some sales.  Thus June and July were still pretty slow.

Here's how the last 7 months of 2024 played out...

June and July... I gave away 134 books and sold 4 for a whopping $9.42.

August went way better.  I gave away 179 books and sold 13.01, pulling in $13.29 for that one month.

September wasn't that great.  I gave away 169, but only sold 7.51 and made $6.21.

October was a bust for actually making money, but I moved a lot of books.  247 given away, but only 2.56 sold for $3.89.  November was pretty much the same - loads moved but less than $3 earned.

December, on the other hand, has been better.  I gave away more books - a whopping 284, as a matter of fact - but I'm seeing pages reads and purchases from my previous marketing efforts.  Of course, it's not much in the scheme of things and the actual sales side.  I've sold about 12 books for just under $18.  

All in all, I've sold almost twice as many books this year as last year for nearly three times as much money.  Woot.  Okay, so the money didn't even reach $100, but you have to take whatever wins comes your way sometimes, eh? 

And all of that without spending a dime on advertising, which makes it all pure profit.  Woot.  Sure, I gave away 1250 books in 2024.  Of course that hurts my capitalist heart.  But sometimes you have to give a little to get a little.  

I don't know what this next year will bring with regard to sales and marketing.  More of the same?  Keep whipping out the freebies and pimping the books in FB posts, plus some paid ads?  Time will tell.  I also hope to publish more books and get those sales going again.  To that end, I'm getting closer to having the second Duke Noble book published by the end of January / early February.  Then I'll work on the third.  Or maybe I'll take a break and work on the next Shroudlands book.  We'll see.

Anyway, I hope you found this post interesting.  If you have any questions about the actual marketing, feel free to ask.  Or if you're not sure about asking, search the blog for the term 'marketing' and read all the posts I've done on that subject.  

Have a great day.  And remember... START TODAY.

Sunday Update 12/15/24

T minus 16 for launch on 2025.  I repeat... T minus 16 for launch.

Finn's in my lap and making it difficult to type, but we'll see if I can't get this post out anyway. 

Actually, I don't have that much to talk about this week.  I didn't write or edit or market.  I take that last part back.  I did some marketing early in the week as I wrapped up my Song of Storm and Shroud freebie offering.  I ended up moving 87 copies and saw a some KU action for this and previous freebies.  Woot.  I need to figure out a plan for the rest of the year.  Your guess is as good as mine.  On the bright side... we'll all be surprised.

I did some reading, which you can find out about by looking at yesterday's post.  I'm one book away from reaching my reading goal for the year.  

In cooking news, I made more Rolo pretzel turtles.  I also did a vat of chili yesterday.  Hubs is still working on last week's blondies, but I plan on making more stuff.  I have the fixin's for chocolate cake cookies with the mint patties in the middle, so there's that.  Also, I'll do more blondies using a different recipe.  The last ones were good, but not spectacular.  We're searching for spectacular here, folks.

No activity worth talking about.  I did weigh myself, though, and I'm sitting at 174.4.  No real change in the old fat level despite being a toad, so I got that going for me. 

We're still working on putting the Starlink up.  We'd planned on getting outside with it yesterday, but it rained all morning and then the roof was a wet mess.  We'll see what today brings.  The clock is ticking on our 30 day return window, but we still have plenty of time.

When I first woke up this morning, it looked pretty clear out there in the woods, but as I sat there smoking, the fog slowly rolled in.  Within ten minutes, the woods were filled with a thin fog.  Now, about a half hour later, it's pea soup.  Pretty creepy, man.  And kinda cool.

Okay, that's about it for me and my boring life.  What's up with you?

 

Back on Twit... Err, X

For the first time since 2016, I am active on what used to be Twitter but is now X.  (I still call  it twitter.  Sorry, Elon.)  If you're interested, I'm @BE_Sanderson.  I'll try to remember to post stuff, but you know me.  Some weeks I can hardly remember to post here.

I stopped visiting Twitter because of all the crap I was seeing.  I did not delete my account, because I'd be damned if I was gonna let someone else have my user ID, but I relegated it to the unused links section of my Bookmarks.  And the only thing I did with it was let Goodreads post my reviews to it.  So, I'm back to see if I can generate interest in my books and other fun junk.  So far, so good.  My password still works, and all of my goodies are still there.  Woot.  I posted a notice that I was back, liked a bunch of posts, and then posted a funny thing.

"When your KDP sales graph is sick of your shit."

Eh, it amused me.  I mean, come on... it looks like a hand flipping the bird.  And yes, that's my graph as of first thing this morning.  Today's orders are still climbing, which would screw up the whole 'this is a hand' thing, so I snapped it as soon as I saw it.

I have to amuse myself where I can.

What's amusing you today?

Sunday Update 10/20/24

Good Morning.  I think.  The jury's still out.

I'm deep in editing right now.  Not any of my books, though.  I'm working on doing proofing for a friend.  I should finish today and then get my notes over to her.  Then I'll get back to my own stuff.

I did a lot of marketing this week.  WISH HITS THE FAN was free.  I moved 124 copies of that and sold a WISH IN ONE HAND in Australia.  It's not much, but it's better than a sharp stick in the butt.  I hope to see some residual sales and page reads in the coming weeks.  Like I did a free thing for BOAI last month and yesterday I saw where someone had read the whole thing in KU.  It's the long game here, people.  I've also earned double this year over last year.  Again, not a lot of money, but something is better than nothing.

I'm still not reading, unless you count that friend's book.  

The only thing I made this week of any note was battered tilapia fillets.  I'm all out of baked goods, so I need to rectify that soon.

On the activity front, I walked twice for 1.65 miles and I worked in the woods two days for an hour each day.  Mileage: 52.90.  I haven't weighed myself.  Unfortunately, all physical activity will be on hold for a bit.  Here's the dealie-bob: I was working in the woods and fell on my ass.  What happened was I was carrying a load of sticks from one pile to another, a longish stick fell out of the pile, hit the ground and stabbed me in the leg, so I twisted to get away from the ouchie stick. In doing that, my foot got hung up and my knee started to hyper-extend, so I jigged away from that and went down like a sack of dirt.  I did land on my ass instead of my face, so that's a win.  In the bizarre gymnastics of it all, though, I wrenched my knee pretty damn good.  It's not swollen or anything, but I probably shouldn't go hiking around with it.  Derp.  Hey, I usually fall at least once a year, and I haven't fallen in a couple years, so I should've seen this coming.  :shrug:

Right now, I look like I've undergone some type of weird abuse.  I have grease burns on my hand from the tilapia (flipped the fish and the oil splashed).  I have a bruise on my left leg from Friday when a tree limb snapped and came whipping back at me, whacking me just below the knee.  I have another bruise on that leg from the stabby stick and my right leg is both bruised and missing a layer of skin off the knee.  (I find this all amusing, so no worries.)

And that's about it.  I think I'm going to hit the coffee pot, have a smoke, and then go back to my recliner where I can put my leg up and get back to reading/editing.  Have a great day, everyone.

Rambling About Sales & Marketing

So, here I am... awake at 3 A.M.  I have Sawyer to thank for it.  I guess I can look at it as a positive because this early awakening means I have plenty of time for a blog post.  Not that I didn't have time the past two days, it's just that the time I did have was past the optimal time for posting.  

For the past few mornings, I've been trying to do marketing first thing.  I was up early on Sunday and got my marketing done around 5-5:30.  Monday was an hour later because even though I'd gotten up early enough to post, I forgot.  Those posts were around 6:30.  Yesterday, I woke up late and didn't get my posts done until after I called Mom.  (I call Mom every morning at 7 and we talk for an hour.)  Which means this morning's posts wouldn't be until after 8:30.  Frankly, later morning posts don't garner much attention, so I will probably skip marketing today and hit it hard tomorrow morning.  

Unfortunately, UNEQUAL is not doing as well as BLINK OF AN I.  Kinda sucks.  They're both pretty awesome, IMO.  Personally, I think people really need to read those two books, and not just because I would like to get paid.  They're both looks at what I believe could happen if the world degenerates due to circumstances.  Kind of cautionary tales, but with entertainment value.  

Unequal, if you weren't aware, is free through tomorrow night.  Blink was free last week.  

If they're free, how am I expecting to get paid?  Well, page reads would be lovely.  Unfortunately, I don't expect those for UEQ this time around because the damn 'top free' lists are not showing for that book at this time.  Turds.  BOAI's weren't showing a while back, but I got that fixed.  I thought I fixed UEQ, too, but apparently not.  I'm also hoping that the free readers would tell people about the book and then those people would buy a copy.  And then those readers would tell people... and so on, and so on.  

A gal can dream.

What's next marketing-wise?  I don't know.  Maybe I'll go a little crazy and make a last book free, to see if I can generate interested in the first books.  I offered Natural Causes for free last month and I saw some movement of Accidental Death.  Maybe offering a freebie on Wish Hits the Fan will encourage people to buy books 1-3.  Can't hurt, eh?  Except whenever I snag a later book for free, I just get irritated that I hadn't paid attention to the fact it wasn't a first book in the series and I am rarely inclined to even read it or buy the earlier books.  I could be an anomaly, but I doubt it.

Anyway, I'm just rambling.  I tend to do that when I'm up way too early like this.  Thanks for reading this far.  Feel free to offer a comment, if you're so inclined.  If I don't approve it right away, I probably went back to bed.

Hardcopies, Etc.

All of my paperbacks should be good to go now.  If there are errors from here on out, blame the printer.  If you didn't already know, all 17 of my books are available in paperback.  

Amazon now offers the ability to make hardcovers of them all, but I don't see the point of creating hardcovers for them.  I mean, there are probably people who prefer hardcover to paperback, but I have a feeling none of those people would prefer my books anyway.  Generally speaking, most of my books are in genres that don't necessarily lend themselves to hardcover - paranormal mystery, crime noir, etc. are not what one would think of getting in a hardcover.  Am I right?  Perhaps Project Hermes would do well as a hardcover, but I'm not going to go through the process of creating a hardcover version and buying an author proof just to find out I'm wrong and no one wants it in HC.  

To be honest, I can't remember the last time anyone bought a hardcopy of any of my books that I didn't personally hand sell.  Which reminds me that I need to order copies of everything for stock, just in case I run into someone who's interested.  It could happen.  In fact, it happened last month.  Woot.

I used to keep at least one copy of every one of my paperbacks in the trunk of my car for just such occasions.  I'd be somewhere, chatting with someone and the subject of my books would come up.  If they seemed really interested, I'd walk out to my car and come back with the book they were interested in.  Something for them to hold and touch, which they would then buy - signed, of course.  It didn't amount to a lot of money, but it's a nice feeling to hold your own book and then hand it over for cash.  

Of course, they're also all available as ebooks.  Right now, Kindle only and Kindle only for the foreseeable future, but they are available.  I ran into someone who seemed interested, but she didn't own a Kindle.  I just let her know that Amazon has apps for most any device to be able to read Kindle on them.  She didn't know that, so yay.  I'm not sure if she's actually bought anything or if that was just an excuse.  :shrug:

They're all also available in Kindle Unlimited, which is garnering me some $$ here and there.  I am making more there than I was having my books under wide distribution, so I'm glad I did that.  

Speaking of wide distribution, I also don't have any of my paperbacks available wide.  The various outlets for wide distribution make it so that I would have to charge an exorbitant amount of money for my books to clear any money at all through those outlets.  I'm making very little money on my paperbacks as it is, just to keep the prices as low as I can.  

Jus' sayin'.

Sunday Update 9/29/24

My life is pretty boring right now.  I'm not writing.  I'm not reading.  I'm barely editing.  

With regard to editing, I'm up to 29% of the book with edit notes.  I'm getting about a page of notes with every 2-3% of the book.  This is what comes of a dirty draft, but there's no other way I'd rather write, so there ya go.

In marketing news, I did the whole FB Group thing for my freebie offering of Blink of an I.  I moved 78 free copies.  I'm also getting some page reads for Blink, which means money in my pocket.  Not a lot, but it's better than a sharp stick in the ass, so yay.  I also have someone reading Wish in One Hand, which I assume is leftover from my marketing push for that last month.

I made a chocolate oil cake yesterday.  After I took it out of the oven, I slathered it with warm raspberry jam.  Once it cooled, I frosted it with vanilla buttercream.  It wasn't amazing, but it was pretty damn good.  Next time, I'll use more jam.  

My activity level is not where it needs to be.  I know how to fix that, but I am stuck in the lazies.  Anyway, I did a little raking in the driveway after a sploosher washed a bunch of pea gravel into the yard.  I also spent time working with Hubs to saw up the logs the electric company left.  We spent about 3 hours total on that over 2 days.  And we took one walk.  I'm up to about 49 miles walked for the year.  Weight: 172.6

Speaking of the logs, two guys with the electric company came by on a UTV and asked us if we needed help.  We assented.  It took one of them less than 5 minutes to completely saw that elm trunk into firewood.  He had a chainsaw, of course.  We'll still need to split it once it seasons, but those guys really took a lot of the work out of the task.  Yay.  We thanked them profusely and then threw all the logs into the wheelbarrow and transported them under the house for drying.

With the fall migration underway, we're seeing a lot of birds we don't usually see.  I can't remember the names of the exact species, but it was a couple of warblers new to me.  We're also hearing more geese.  I love migration time.  

The deer here are starting to separate for the rut.  They were also absent from the yard because of the tree cutting activity, but this is typical fall activity.  The fawns are now spotless.  =o(

Okay, I think that's it for me.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about what's going on in your world.  

Sunday Update

 Well, hello there.  Thanks for coming back for another Sunday Update.  I was a particularly lazy toad this past week, so not really too much excitement to report.  

No writing this week.  I did about 10% worth of editing on TTW.  And I spent a goodly portion of last Sunday working on paperback issues.  The only paperbacks I haven't addressed are the OUAD novels.  I'll get to those eventually.  I also did my usual morning marketing 9/14-9/18.

Speaking of which, the numbers...  I moved 91 copies of Natural Causes during the freebie.  I also moved 4.44 copies of Accidental Death for a whopping $2.25.  Which is better than a sharp stick in the ass, but not really anything to blow your skirt up.  Woot.  We'll see in the coming days whether anyone starts reading those books in KU.  I did see where Natural Causes made it to #7 in free crime noir, so I have that going for me.

Update 8:22a:  FYI... BLINK OF AN I will be free starting tomorrow.  We'll see how that goes.

No reading this week.  I really need to get back to that, especially if I'm not going to sit my ass down and write.  Derp.

Not much baking this week.  I got a wild hair yesterday and made brownies.  It was a necessity.  Why? Well...

Hubs and I spent yesterday morning planting mums.  Six big ones and five small ones in a lovely arrangement in the front bed.  The big one are two each of yellow, orange, and purple.  The small ones are all white.  I'm hoping they all come back next year.  Afterwards, I was craving brownies, so I made them.

And the above is pretty much all my activity for the week.  Unless you count the two trips to Wallyworld and the day I moved a couple chairs.  Weight: ?

Last night, Mother Nature got a bug up her ass and gave us a thorough waterboarding.  It lasted less than an hour, but man, was that rain ever coming down.  Sploosh.  The freakin' yard looked like an abstract water sculpture done by a madman.  The drainage trench was full to overflowing, the downspouts from the gutters were shooting out water like they were fire hoses, and our front flower bed with all the new mums was a small lake.  I'm guessing between two and three inches in under an hour.  

Oh, and another thing that happened this week was the tree butchering by the electric company.  They did do a better job than when the road crew 'trims' and hacks everything to pieces, but it's still quite shocking.  They were supposed to leave us the trunks of the three trees they cut down.  They left us two 6-8 foot lengths and carted off the rest - including Max's scratching tree which I had planned to make into a staff.  Turds.  Anyway, it looks semi-apocalyptic around here right now.  Trees all over the neighborhood are gone or halved where they cut limbs away from the power lines.  It's sad.  Yeah, it was necessary.  Yeah, I shouldn't expect the same quality of tree-trimming that a landscaper would accomplish, but man... =o\

I think that's it.  Today, I need to go out into the yard and clean up from the storm.  We also need to move those trunks away from the road before some numbnuts decides they're free wood and carts them off.  (A neighbor said the electric company was telling people they could do that.  I hope they also suggested that these people ASK the property owner first, but I doubt it.)

Anyway... Have a great day wherever you are.  And feel free to leave a comment if the urge strikes you.  I may not reply to comments very often, but I read them and so do other people who wander through.  =o)

Rambling on About Selling

Sales.  How does one get them?  How does one keep them going?  These are questions that have plagued writers since Ogg first put burnt stick to cliff wall, I guess.  Ogg had it harder.  Someone had to walk by his cliff wall and I don't think anyone bothered to pay him.  

I know one thing for certain... marketing my own books is way harder than marketing product manufactured by someone else.  I mean, I was in sales for crying out loud and I could drive up to a business, go into a meeting, and walk out with orders.  Even better if they were already interested in one item but I ferreted out they needed a whole slew of other items.  I was in my element there.  You called me about a little plastic case, eh?  Well, how about these cordsets?  Or how about this wire?  And you'll probably need tools to put all that together, right?  Huzzah.  

Now?  Not in my element so much.  Now it's more like 'say hey do you like to read? oh, you do. great.' or 'oh, you don't? bummer'.  And even if they say they like to read, it's a matter of which genre and what specifically they like in that genre and whether anything you've written would spark their interest.  Or they don't have a Kindle and only like to read paperback, but they don't want to pay the amount I have to charge for those to not lose my ass.  :bangs head on wall:

And let's face it.  Authors aren't just selling books.  They're selling themselves.  Maybe not all of themselves... this isn't slavery (even if some people want everything for free, which would be a form of writer-slavery.)  Still, every story is hatched in our heads and breaks free onto the page, so it's kind of like a teeny-tiny piece of ourselves.  When we go to sell yourself and find rejection, that's hard to take.  Which makes even the attempt like giving yourself a mental Indian burn every time you do it and thus makes one shy away from the attempt.

Still, unless you're interested in only having a book out there that maybe people will run across from time to time, you're going to need to do something to generate sales.  This Facebook Groups thing I do works a little.  Spending a little money on advertising works better, but who's got the scratch for that these days.

I don't know the answer.  If I did, I'd be raking in the dough, but alas, no.  Freebie things tend to generate some residual sales, if you can get your ads out there somehow and get those page reads, and have other things to offer readers... i.e. additional books in the series, etc.  Whatever you do, though, you've got to keep doing it.  Weather the storms.  Suffer the slings and arrows.  :shrug:  You'll see sales.  Maybe not enough to retire on.  (I retired anyway.  It's been good for my mental health if not for my pocketbook.)  Maybe not even enough for a burger and fries and MickeyD's.  The alternative is sitting and staring at your books while no one else even bothers to glance at them.  

Good luck.  If you have the magic answer, I do wish you'd share it.  Otherwise, we can hang together and commiserate.  :hugs:

Sunday Update 9/15/24

 It's Sunday and I'm actually awake before 6.  Winner winner.  

This week in writing was fairly uneventful.  I only wrote once for a total of 1539 words.  This is what falling off the writing horse looks like.  Derp.  I only edited a couple of days, too.  I'm up to 16% on my edit notes.  I need a good ass kicking and I'm just the gal to do it. :shrug:  We'll see.  I'll need a lot more coffee before I can accomplish anything more than talk.

I didn't do much in the way of marketing until yesterday.  Natural Causes is free right now, so I did posts in all the FB groups.  I moved 41 copies so far.  I need to wait until after 7am to do another round because I did not get up any earlier than that yesterday.  Which kind of has a wave effect making every day's posts a little later until I just end up doing one night post and missing a day.  With the marketing I've been doing since June, I've made about double what I made from January to May.  So I've got that goin' for me.

No reading.

I don't think I talked about baking last week, but I've been doing a lot of it.  Week before last, I made applesauce bars (meh), and breaded pork chops (yum), chocolate cookies (yay), and pizza (woohoo).  This past week, I made applesauce bread (yum) and oatmeal jam bars (yum).

Activity... Well, I did the window washing thing.  That was a lot of work and I paid for it.  I also walked three times for a total of 3.2 miles.  Weight... blerg.  You cannot lose weight, even if you're walking a lot, if you're also baking a lot.  Suffice it to say, I'm up almost three pounds.  :eyeroll:  I'm not really at a point where I'm really giving a hoot about how much I weigh, but if I keep adding poundage, I'll reach that point extra quick.  I gain weight and my legs start hurting and my back starts being a turd and my frontal area expansion gets problematic.  Best to worry about the weight now than face the consequences later.

Oh, oh, oh... one thing I did was something I've been procrastinating about for months.  I loaded my graphics software onto this computer.  I was so afraid of it not working with Windows 10, I didn't even try.  Long story short, it works fine.  I mean, as fine as it did through the last couple of operating system upgrades.  Which is fine enough for what I need.  So, yay.  I can start making graphics and book covers again.  Woohoo. 

Oh, another happy thing... I had somebody actually buy a paperback copy of Project Hermes.  Well, she asked for a copy of BloodFlow because she was looking at old marketing materials and I took one to her because I don't have any paperbacks of Project Hermes on hand right now.  It all worked out.  She was happy to get it and I was happy to get it to her.  I really need to create new marketing materials - which I can do now that I have the software loaded.  Squee.  

Another thing of note, we have a young armadillo hanging around the yard.  I have name him Aloysius. Aloysius Q. Armadillo.  He's all new looking.  Fresh off the factory floor, so to speak.  And so cute.  I hope he stays out of the road.  Around here, I see a lot of armadillos creamed alongside the road, so fingers crossed little Al doesn't meet the same fate.

The fawns are getting big.  The does are getting impatient.  The bucks are losing their velvet and starting to spar.  The rut is fast approaching.  Which leads to hunting season.  As always, I hope none of our deer regulars get harvested.  The herd needs to get culled, but I'd miss Sissy and Sonny and Lumpy.  

I think that's about all I have to talk about this morning.  Besides, I need another smoke and more coffee so I can greet the day with more than a sneer.  

How are things in your world?

Sunday Update 8/11/24

 Well, wouldja look at that... it's Sunday again.  Let's get started.

I didn't have the best writing week and it's all on me.  I got a little lazy.  Even so, I did manage to get 3452 words out.  The WIP is now at 33507.  I still have no idea where I'm going, but I'm forging ahead with the great hope that this will all get figured out in edits.

Dying Embers and the other SCIU books were on sale this week.  DE was free and the other two were 99c.  I moved 75 books - 73 free and one each of the others.  Not quite as good as the last sale.  :shrug:  I discovered mid-sale that the Amazon rankings were messed up and not moving at all, which probably screwed me for residual sales based off those rankings.  I had a great first day which probably would've put DE in the top 100 free suspense category.  Then :sad trombone noise:  Hopefully they get it fixed before I run another sale.  All of this is hard enough with glitches in the system.

This past week, I made Raisin Applesauce cake, which was awesome.  Then later in the week, I made a big batch of PB&C Oatmeal Cookies.  What are those, you ask?  Peanut butter and chocolate oatmeal cookies. Total yumminess. I posted the recipe to my FB page.  If you don't have FB or don't follow me and want it, let me know. (And if you don't follow me, please do.)  I also made pizza yesterday.  I got the dough all done and raised.  I cut it in half for two small pizza and got half of it on the pan.  Then I went to get out the toppings and discovered I was out of shredded cheese.  Derp.  All I had in the way of cheese was cheddar slices and American slices.  Not really pizza cheese and I wanted pizza.  So, I hopped in the car, drove ten minutes out to the Dollar General.  I got the last 2 packs of mozzarella they had and I also bought a brick of cheddar to make tacos today.  Anyway, the pizza got made, but while I was gone, the dough on the pan continued to rise (naturally), and the pizza actually turned out better.  I plan to do this on purpose from now on - let the dough rise on the pan for 20-30 minutes.  

On the activity front, I got in three walks for 2.7 miles, not counting walking while I grocery shop.  I also did some cleaning.  I haven't lost any weight, but with all those yummy baked goods to eat, it's no wonder.  

The day I went grocery shopping, I stopped in at the old office.  I got big hugs from my two guys who were in at the time.  Yay.  I do miss my guys.  I crapped out on seeing one of my other guys by 30 minutes, which kinda sucks, but stuff happens.  The place hasn't burned down or imploded since I left, which is good.  I really don't wish them ill, I had just had enough and it was time for me to get back to being me again.  

Other than that, not much else going on.  The baby deers are getting big.  The baby kitties are doing fine.  So is Hubs.  And the rest of my family.  Tomorrow Owl turns 31.  (How am I old enough to have a kid who's 31??)

How are things in your world?

2022 - A Year in Review

 Yep, 2022 is over. Time to go over what happened. And yes, I still have a flair for stating the obvious, so that didn't change with the new year. LOL

Let's see... 

I started out 2022 working on getting my 17th book ready for publication.  Song of Storm and Shroud hit the electronic shelves on 3/21/22 to a chorus of crickets.  Huge thanks to the 3 people who bought a copy.  

In all of 2022, I sold 30 books in 2022 for a whopping $54.  I would've sold more if I'd had the money for advertising, but I had no money. Which leads me to...

The big news of the year, of course, was the fact that I went back to work full time after an 18 year hiatus.  I am an office grunt.  I answer phones, file stuff, provide general backup for people whose jobs are more important than mine, etc.  The rented mule. The corporate mushroom. A busy bee.  The job is accomplishing it's intended purpose and that's all that matters.  I like it about 90% of the time, which is more than I've liked several other jobs I've had in the past.  

I had hoped that once I settled into my job, I'd have time to write.  I didn't count on the fact that once I get home, I don't have the energy or the will to write in the couple hours I'm home before bedtime.  My brain has entirely shifted away from anything creative.  I still hope to write again, but I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting on another book if I were you.  You'll turn blue and fall over.

In weight and activity news, I started the year at 182.2 pounds and ended the year at 165.2 - 17 pounds lost.  I wish I could say that was due to being active and eating less, but it's due to stress and eating less. I'm not home to graze.  I eat lunch - usually yogurt, a cheese stick, some ham chunks, and grapes - and then dinner and a bowl of ice cream.  I keep a bag of mixed nuts and a bag of Hershey's minis in my desk, and munch on those from time to time.  (I hand out candy bars to co-workers more than I eat them, though.)  I did have this great idea that I would walk on my lunch break (30 minutes), but I've only done that once.  Thus, my walking for the entire year was only 33.65 miles.  No biking at all.  My biggest activity these days is cleaning the office at work, once a month-ish.  I really need to up my activity level for 2023 so I don't turn into an atrophied lump of meat.

Tomorrow, work is having a big in-house thang wherein they go over the year before and address ways to improve and goals for the year ahead.  I had to fill out a sheet on my goals, etc.  I'm a grunt.  I have no goals except to do the best job I can do with the limited resources and control a grunt tends to have.  I mean, I'm 52 years old and post-retired.  What goals am I supposed to have?  Try not to fuck anything up too bad so I can keep my job.  (No, I did not put that on the form, but my bosses knows where my blog is at, so they're probably reading this anyway.  :waves:  Hi, guys.  Don't worry, no one around here reads this blog except you.)  I think I wrote 'continued improvement in all aspects of my work' - or if I didn't write that, I should've.  

Okay, I think that's it.  Not a whole lot of action in my year.  As for the year ahead?  Well, I don't have any goals or resolutions for the new year.  Keep working.  Keep breathing in and out.  Keep progressing toward Hubs' and my combined goals. I think we're thinking we can put in a wood stove by the end of the year.  

How was your 2022?  Do you have goals for 2023?  

Sunday Update - Week 45

 Well, hello again.  Let's see if we can rebuild this past week, eh?

No writerly things.  To my amazement, I sold a book.  Woo.  Which meant I needed to update my book sales spreadsheets.  (They were still on September, even though I sold a book in October, too.)  I did that yesterday.

I didn't finish reading anything.  I DNF'd two books before yesterday's post.  I'm DNF'ing the book I started after the post.  It's just weird and I'm tired of trying to make it make sense.  I'm sure it probably does at some point, but meh.

In baking news, I made an apple cranberry crisp last Sunday, then nada.  I do have plans to make a layer cake this week.  I bought pans for it and everything.  I haven't made a layer cake since Owl was a baby.  Wish me luck.

On the activity front, we walked last Sunday and then we went fishing.  Friday, I cleaned the bathrooms at work.  Took me like 20 minutes.  No weight loss this week.  I mean, I got down to 164.4, but then yesterday, I was 166.4, so up and down.  :shrug:

No one made me clean the bathrooms, btw.  I have a low tolerance for scudge in bathrooms. Rather than whine about it, I clean it.  2 bathrooms - each with a toilet and a sink.  I did the floors and the mirrors, too.  Are they perfect?  Nope.  That would take longer and I didn't have longer.  Are they presentable?  Yep.  I also take the garbage out on Fridays because the thought of garbage sitting over the weekend makes me gag.  They're my quirks and I own them.

As for fishing, we didn't catch anything but it was nice to just be at the lake drowning worms with my favorite person.

We got snow Friday night.  It was just a dusting.  Barely enough to make the grass white and leave some on the car.  I can handle that.  No more, though, please.

I went to the thrift store yesterday.  I was looking for an overcoat, but since they didn't have one of those, I picked up 6 books.  4 paperbacks and 2 hardcovers - $2.  Yay.

Work is work.  Like my weight, it's up and down.  The creeping crud is making its way through the staff.  I spent the last two hours of Friday by myself in the office because all the other office staff went home sick.  (I am fine, by the way.)  It was awesome.  I threw a rave.  Hundreds of people showed... :shudder: I can't even joke about that.  I enjoyed the quiet and got some stuff done.  I finally organized the surplus inventory room so it doesn't look like a tornado went through there.  All my filing is done.  Score.

I might zip down to the Wallyworld this morning and see if I can find a turkey that doesn't cost a wing and a drumstick.  (See what I did there? ROFL)  Seriously, though, I've heard turkeys are hard to find and that they're REALLY expensive this year.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Okay, that's probably enough out of me.  Nothing much else is going on.  How are things in your world?