Thursday This n That

Happy Halloween.  We're not doing anything, but hey, this is a better holiday than Labor Day, even if you don't automatically get the day off.  I did buy a couple Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins and a couple Russell Stover Marshmallow Pumpkins, so life is good.  

I'm in the middle of another freebie thing.  I really should be posting marketing stuff right now, but I'm tired, so I'm blogging instead.

Speaking of tired, I didn't get out of bed this morning until almost 7, which meant I had like 10 minutes to get to semi-functional before I called Mom.  

The DirecTV bill went up again.  Bastards.

The temp when I got up was 59.  It's only supposed to get to 66 today.  Woot.

I'm not sure anyone is still seeing my posts on Facebook anymore.  Every rare once in a while, someone will react to one, but not like they used to.  Between my marketing posts and my political posts, I think FB has throttled my reach.  Bastards.

Old Pervy Bill was up in Michigan stumping for the Hyena and admitted that the economy was better under the Big T, but Bill said we should all still vote for Hyena because reasons.  Go away, ya perv.

My cats are obsessed with pens.  I thought I'd hidden the pen I keep on my desk well enough, but nope.  It was pilfered in the middle the night and found on the floor.  It already had little teethmarks on it, so no harm done.  I don't think they're interested in chewing it enough to get to the ink.  They just want to perforate it a bit.  On a lighter note, it's fitting that a writer's cats should be pen-obsessed.

Some days, I'm not sure if I should call myself a writer.  I'm not actually writing much.  Hell, I'm not even editing much.  I'm just lazy.  I think I'll do like an Edit Wri-Mo thing for November.  Give myself 30 days to get this book done and ready to publish.  It's doable. We'll see.

Okay, I'm off to wreak havoc elsewhere.  Have a great day.  Eat some candy.  Watch a scary movie or something.  

Monday Marketing

Okay, so SLEEPING UGLY is free this week.  Thursday is Halloween, after all, and this book would be a perfect read for the holiday.  

Unfortunately, I am not in a marketing frame of mind today.  I'd like to be able to tell you all the awesome things about this book, but this morning's marketing attempts were more like 'here's a book, buy it'.  I don't expect great things from this.  Maybe tomorrow will go better.  

This book was fun to write.  Readers have told me it's fun to read.  I mean, she's a super model who's been cursed to turn ugly day after day (she gets prettier throughout the day, so yeah, at the stroke of midnight she's butt-ugly again - every day - which sucks for her), and crazy things happen to her because she had NO CLUE magic was real or anything before all this happened.  And she's always relied on her looks, so she's kinda screwed. It all works out... well, not all of it in this book.  It's all worked out by the end of the series.

Anyway, go buy it.  Grab a cup of coffee and read to your snarky heart's desire.  

Oh, and in case you didn't already know... Silver James' latest book - MOONSTRUCK MAFIA: BOSTON - is now available for you to buy and love.  This book is epic and amazing!

Sunday Update 10/27/24

 :blink blink: I just woke up, so bear with me.

Still not writing.  In editing news, I finished the first round of edit notes on Friday - 21 pages worth of single spaced notes on college ruled paper.  Not the most notes I've ever made on a book, but still, that's lots.  Yesterday, I sat down and started inputting those notes. Then I had to refer back to Rumor Has It about something and I discovered, to my dismay, that I wrote the entirety of TTW in the wrong person.  Should've written in first person.  Wrote it in third.  Derp.  Much swearing occurred and then much laughing because really, how silly can one gal get?  Sooo... I need to fix that, too.  I did manage to get one page of edit notes entered and five pages edited for notes and POV.  

I almost forgot... SLEEPING UGLY is free starting tomorrow.  Kind of a Halloween thing.  

I read a book this week.  Unfortunately, it doesn't count toward my goal because it was a book I volunteered to proofread for the author.  It's now out for sale, and I bought a copy, so I'll read it again and then count it.  The book?  Oh, it's Silver James' Moonstruck Mafia: Boston.  It's wicked awesome.  Pick up your copy today.

This week in cooking, I made a vat of chicken soup, a crockpot worth of pulled pork, and applesauce bars.  Oh, and I used leftover pulled pork to make Cuban sandwiches, which is no small effort.  (I mean, if I had a panini press, it wouldn't be hard, but I don't, so it is.)

On the activity front, well... you see... Falling on my ass in the woods and twisting my knee kinda put the kybosh on that.  I did get into the woods once and I went for one walk, which wasn't far and I had to turn back for home because my knee was being a whiny little bitch.  Sitting on my butt and eating copious amounts is not helping my overall physical well-being.  Weight: 175.2

The reason I went into the woods is to start putting my 'grow your own trees' scheme into motion. I've been researching what needs to be done to grow these trees from seeds, so I'm working on that.  I gathered seeds from the redbud in our front yard, a couple of spicebushes along the side, the buckthorn up front, and then went down into the woods to gather dogwoods seeds.  Yesterday, I separated all the redbud seeds from their pods, put them in a coffee mug, and doused them with boiling water.  They need to sit in that for 24 hours and then I can hit the next step, which if memory serves is to put them in dirt.  The other seeds all require different magic, so I could be remembering wrong.  Dogwood seeds need to be cleaned and scarified (i.e. the process of artfully damaging the seed hull to allow for germination), then they need to live in the fridge for 3-4 months.  Same with the buckthorn seeds.  The spicebush seeds just need to be cleaned, I think, and then chilled.  As I do this, I'll make sure to apply the right method for each seed.  Should be fun.

I'm also thinking about doing wood carving in my spare time.  Right now, I'm researching the tools and trying to see which ones to buy.  We'll see if I keep at it or get bored before I even start.

Oh, we went fishing this week.  It was only for a couple hours and I only caught one fish, but it was good to get out again.  And now I have nightcrawlers, so I can go whenever and not have to worry about waiting for my bait shop to open up.  

While we were driving to the fishing hole, we saw two bald eagles flying low and dancing in the air around each other.  It was AWESOME.  We also saw yellow-bellied sapsuckers this week, so yay!  I love fall migration.

Okay, that was a lot of read, so thank you for getting all the way down here.  Have a great week!  And feel free to drop a comment to let me know how your week went.

Thursday +1 This in That

 Okay, so it's not Thursday, but it's Thursday +1, so I'm doing this.

I don't want to suggest that we control the weather, but see, it's like this... We've noticed that every time Hubs mows, it rains the next day.  Except he hasn't had to mow in a while and now we're in a drought.  Also, back when I was fishing way more often, it seemed like every time I said I was going fishing the next day, I'd wake up to it raining.  Last night, I was talking about fishing this morning and I woke up to rain.  And another thing, I started thinking that maybe I'd still go fishing, because it's warm and warm rain is nice to fish in.  I no sooner thought that then the sky flashed and there was a big clap of thunder.  So, yeah, we control the weather.  To a certain extent, otherwise I could make it stop and go fishing. ROFL

If you think I actually believe that, you don't know me very well.  I do think it's a funny coincidence, though.  Well, we were laughing about it.

Man, it is pouring outside.  Yay!  The last time it rained like this was September 21st.  Hell, that was the last time it rained at all.  And we only got like two rains in September.  It's been dry here since like July, I think.  I'm not sure if this is going to spark a trend, but it's nice to hear rain on the roof again.  The cats, of course, are confused and have vacated their spots to probably hide under the bed.

So, I bought worms yesterday from my regular dealer.  When I started buying worms from her, they were $2.90 for a dozen.  Then she raised the price to like $3.15.  Yesterday, worms were $4.23 (after tax).  Frickin' inflation.  

My regular worm dealer is an older gal who runs a little corner store.  I wondered if she'd recognize me because 1) it's been a couple years since I've been there and 2) she's a stroke victim.  Yep, she remembered me.  Unfortunately, she's gotten more crochety since I was last there, so I've got to work on rebuilding the report we had.  :shrug: Life happens.

Fall colors here are really in full swing.  It's lovely.  And it makes me happy.  I do wish we had more maples here, so there would be more red added into the palette, but even though I didn't get to choose the painting, I still enjoy the art.

And wish that profoundness, I'll let you get on with your day.  Have a great one, wherever you are.

Non-Writing Projects

 I'm embarking on a couple new projects.  No, not writing projects.  Yes, I'm still editing and I still have tons of stuff to do in the writing vein.  These are for me. 

First off, Hubs and I decided to try our hands at growing trees from seeds.  Yesterday, I went out onto the property and gathered seeds pods from the redbud, then I gathered fruit from the dogwoods, the spicebushes, and the carolina buckthorns.  I've already done a ton of research to see if this is even possible and then to see what exactly needs to be done to get the seeds to germinate and thrive.  I've already planted an elm (poor Elmer, may he rest in piece... he was quite lovely before the deer ate him) and two cedars (Cecil and Cedric.  Cecil is doing fine in a pot right now.  Cedric never recovered from a late night critter attack.)  This won't be a short process and we won't even know if this works until Spring.  Fingers crossed.

The other project... err, hobby?... I'm gotten the urge to embark on is woodcarving.  We have all this wood and some of it is quite lovely (cedar, lilac, black cherry), so I'm going to try my hand at using it to make something beautiful.  I spent some time yesterday reading up on it and looking at tools on Amazon.  Sadly, the majority of inexpensive wood carving tools are made in China.  I may have to spend more to get domestic tools.  We'll see.  

Yes, I am quite aware that these are distractions and time sucks away from what I should be doing.  I also think I need this to keep myself sane.  :shrug:  Who knows how long I'll stick to this stuff?  It's worth a shot.  I mean, sure, I still have a big plastic tub full of yarn from my crocheting days - along with a blanket I started back in Colorado that I have yet to finish.  This may all come to nothing.  Either way, I'll learn something and that's never bad.

If the trees and shrubs work out, they'll make nice additions to our landscaping.  If the carving works out, I'll sell the stuff I make - or use it for gifts for friends and family.  I really want to carve up some really nice walking sticks and canes.  I have a thing for those.  :points to sporadically gimpy leg:  

Your turn... Tell me about something you do as a hobby.  Or tell me about a hobby you would like to have.  

Trigger Warnings

I know the people who stop by here on a regular basis are not trigger-warning type people.  We venture into the world without much of a care what other people say and we tend not to get offended by offhand comments.  If we read something that doesn't sit right with us, we close the book and move onto something else without it harshing our lives.  

I don't have trigger warnings on my books.  As a lark, before my last freebie offering, I put a warning on SLEEPING UGLY - something to the effect of WARNING: The main character of this book has a potty mouth.  Because she does and some people take issue with curse words.  I took it off there this morning.  Like I said, it was a lark and I didn't want it to stick.  I haven't yet gotten a bad review due to curse words, but should it happen, then it happens.  The book is what it is.

FERTILE GROUND centers around the hunt for a serial rapist.  It should be clear from the blurb, so if a person has issues with the subject, they should be able to suss out that this book isn't for them.  I hope they don't turn away from the book because of that.  It really does have a satisfying end.  Also, I do not go into any details in any of my scenes to show actual rapes, because I do have a problem with that.  It's more 'behind closed doors' and the after effects of said rape*.  

I'm a firm believer that we shouldn't hide from things that bother us.  Yank that shit out in the open, explore why it bothers me, find the cause, and then tuck it back away.  I mean, you don't have to invite it to sit in your living room, but you should at least know what bothers you and why.  

So, I guess you shouldn't expect any trigger warnings from me.  If you're triggered easily, my books probably aren't for you.  There's swearing and violence and ideas you may or may not be offended by (not all of these in every book... your mileage my vary).

What do you think of trigger warnings?  Do you use them?  Do you need them?  

* I have seen where people are now using asterisks in the word rape because even the word is a trigger.  I don't ascribe to that thinking.  I'm also now shying away from using asterisks in the word fuck.  Are people really less offended by f*** than the the word fuck?  Not sure what the rational is behind that.  Anyone above the age of 8-9 know what's behind the asterisks, don't they?  My friends and I were liberally using the word on the playground in fifth grade. 

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.

Trying New Things

 First off, I'm trying a new marketing image:

Pretty snazzy, eh?  Whatever I'm doing seems to be working, so there's a win for the new images, I guess.

Then last night, I tried making battered fish fillets.  I mean, I'm an old hand at breading stuff, but this is the first time I tried battering.  And I didn't use a recipe, so you can imagine.  All in all, it was pretty good for a first try.  They were pretty damn tasty, even if the breading turned out more like pancake batter and the pan was too hot, so the batter was done waaaay before the fish was cooked through.  I nuked them to get the fish done, which un-crispied the batter.  :shrug:  And tilapia probably wasn't the best fish for this experiment.  Like I said, they were tasty.  And there are leftovers, so lunch is taken care of today. 

A while back, I tried putting raspberry jam on a chocolate cake.  First I tried spreading the jam when it was cold.  That did not work.  I heated it in the microwave and then spread it.  That worked fine.  Once it all cooled, I put vanilla frosting over the jam layer.  It was super nummy.

The point here, I think, is that trying new things is good for you.  Sometimes they work.  Sometimes they don't.  But you've gotta keep trying.  And no, I'm not advocating getting rid of the old things.  Old things and old ways are good, too.  Sometimes the old ways can get boring, though.  Shoot off the beaten path and explore new horizons.  You never know what you'll find.  Jus' sayin'.

Thursday This n That

 I've been a bad blogger this week.  I blame it on marketing.  By the time I get done marketing and calling Mom, I just plain forget that I was supposed to blog.  Oh, sure, I could do a blog post at night,  but I'm busy doing other things at night.  And yes, I would like some cheese with that whine.

Last night, Sawyer decided to sleep with us.  Awesome.  Not so awesome was the fact that he wanted to sleep against my legs.  18-20 pounds of cat pressed up against my lower legs did not do me any good and I woke up with my right leg all ouchy.  More whine?  Yes, please.

On a happier note, I'm reading a friend's new book and loving it.  It's not available for sale yet, and I'm supposed to be proofreading it, but it's so good I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be looking for flaws, so I have to go back and re-read a lot.  Yay for good fiction. And I get to read it first, so neener neener boo boo. =op

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've been into crossword puzzles lately.  I was doing the ones in the back of our local electric company's monthly magazine, but I've gone through all of my back issues.  I broke down and bought a book of crossword puzzles.  They're marketed as fun and easy.  Easy?  Yes.  And kinda fun.  I'd have more fun if they were more challenging, but I'll take what I can get.  They're mostly just to exercise the brain and entertain me while I'm smoking, so they're doing their job.  Yay.

Finn is circling my desk wanting attention... and there he is... jumped up on my desk and down into my lap.  Typing with a cat in your lap is not the easily thing to do.  And he is getting in my face because I'm not paying attention to him.  Cat doesn't understand that I have typing to do.  LOL

On that note, I'll call this good and shower my kitty with the attention he so richly deserves.  Have a great day, everyone.  Peace out.

Monday Marketing, Etc.

It's morning and I've already been hard at Marketing.  It's the first of the freebie days for WISH HITS THE FAN, and I'm actually up early, so there you are.  I posted to 20 different Facebook Groups and to my three pages.  Now, we wait and see if any of this garnered any interest.  (The post verbiage is below the image down there.)

It's probably not the best way to market, but it's free.  All it takes is my time.  This morning, I spent about a half hour posting.  If I sell one book, that would mean I made about $2 an hour. 

But writers can't look at our time to earnings that way.  I mean, if we did, we'd drive ourselves crazy.  If any writer goes into this thinking their time is worth way more than that, they would have to price their books so high no one would buy one.  Think about it...

When I'm in my stride, a first draft takes me about 6 weeks to write.  If it's a clean copy, another 6 weeks to edit and polish.  (At about 2-3 hours a day, 6-7 days a week.  If I edit more hours than that a day, I start to froth at the mouth and twitch a lot.  If I write more, my hands fall off.)  Add another week for formatting, etc. and you're looking at 13 weeks from the start to publication.  

A conservative estimate for my time is 156 hours.  At the federal minimum wage of $7.25 a hour, I'm due $1131.00 when the book hits the store. At the cost of the below ebook ($3.99), I would need to sell about 283 books to pay for my time.  (Not including what that cover cost me or any marketing I do - or my 'wage' for the time spent marketing.)  

Since 2020, I've sold 233 copies of ALL my books. See?  That's crazy making.  Sure, our time is valuable, but we aren't normal workers.  We work for ourselves.  Sure, some writers are making enough to recoup the time/money thing.  Most aren't.  We writes the books, we publishes the books, we get paid what we get paid when we get paid, and we're damn happy.  (Or we're whiny.  Your mileage may vary.  Sometimes it depends on the day.)

I mean, I have run across writers who think readers should pay them what they think they're entitled to.  :shrug:  Umm... sorry... it don't work that way.  The market tells you what you're worth, not the other way around.  Years ago, I tried jacking the price of my books up.  I got zero sales.  I dropped the price, and the books started selling again.  I don't make much, but not much is better than nothing.  That's the load we self-published fools must bear. :shrug:

Anyway... Here's the marketing I did this morning:

For the first time ever, get the final book in the Once Upon a Djinn series - WISH HITS THE FAN - absolutely FREE. (The whole series is always free with a KU subscription.)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075C7FCXG

You’d think life as a genie would be easy-peasy. But when you’re Jo Mayweather, ain’t nothing so simple.

If you're interested, snag yourself a copy.  I know there are a bunch of people out there who read books 1-3 but not this one, so now's your chance to see how the whole story ends.  

Have a great day out there, folks.

Sunday Update 10/13/24

What a week, eh?

Let's see... I didn't do any writing again.  I did work on edits.  I'm up to like 60% of the books that now has edit notes.  I also did some marketing.  Unequal was free Sunday - Thursday but I only moved 18 books. Not sure what the dealy-bob was there.  Perhaps Sunday is not the best day to start these marketing blasts.  Maybe I'm reaching saturation.  I guess we'll find out.  I have Wish Hits the Fan set up to go free tomorrow.  None of the other books are on sale.  Well, Wish in One Hand is set at 99c, so there's that.  Get the whole 4-book series for less than $9.  It's a pretty good deal, if I do say so myself.

Once again, I didn't do any reading.

In baking news, I made a chocolate oil cake.  This time I used corn oil rather than vegetable oil.  I'm not sure if that made a difference.  Maybe it was a little more moist.  I also made a pizza.

On the activity front, it was a wild week of cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning.  The house looks lovely.  I also did one walk.  Mileage for the year: 51.25. Weight: 173.8

The reason for the cleaning... I mean, other than it needed to be done?  We had visitors yesterday.  Just low impact, casual chatting.  We had pizza for lunch and ate cake.  It was all good.  Well, except for the cats.  We never have visitors, so they were both totally freaked out and hid under the bed.  After a while of them not coming out, we transferred their food and water, and their litter box, into the bedroom and closed the door.  Poor things.  They finally got back to normal last night.  Little xenophobes.

Today should be back to normal all the way around.  The plan is to not do anything active and just veg.  I'll probably work on the editing notes.  Maybe I'll take a little walk.  Tomorrow, I'll be back to marketing so I should probably spend some time today working on marketing materials.  We'll see.  

How are things in your world?

It's Not Saturday

For some reason this morning, I keep thinking it's Saturday.  It's so not Saturday.  Which is good.  I have company coming on Saturday and I haven't finished cleaning the house yet.

Not working a day job really messes up one's schedule.  I'm sure this happens to everyone who doesn't work outside the home, but being a writer means working 7 days a week, so that makes it worse.  Each day slides into the next.  There is no two-day-off weekend.  It's just work every day. 

Sometimes it's writing.  Sometimes it's editing.  Sometimes it's marketing.  Often it's all three on the same day.  Occasionally, marketing will tell me what day it is because I have a sale going on.  Unfortunately, the sales are always scheduled for the same days of the week.  Often, I do a Monday - Friday sale.  This last sale ran Sunday - Thursday, which kind of messed me up because I thought I had one more day to market - Friday.  Nope.  

If it weren't for scheduled TV programs, I'd be totally lost. Unfortunately, the only scheduled TV programs I watch are on Sunday night.  After that, I'm screwed.  

I also need to remember which day is Wednesday because I still do work for the family business and I need to get my timesheet to them Wednesday night so they can cut my check Thursday morning.  But I don't get paid every week, so I can't count on that to tell me what day it is.  This past week was one of those weeks where I didn't have anything to get paid for, so no timesheet to send.  I'm all messed up now.

And even as I was typing this, it popped into my head again that it was Saturday.  Derp.  

My calendar doesn't even help because the one I'm using is a page-a-day calendar with lovely pictures of birds on each day.  I love it so much, I would buy one every year, but the last year they printed one was 2017.  The one I'm using this year is from 2016 (I switch back and forth between the two I have) and October 11, 2016 was a Tuesday.  I had a wall calendar, but The Boyz wouldn't leave it alone, so I didn't bother putting one up this year.  

So, I'm stuck in this time hole where I can't figure out what day it is.  In the whole scheme of things, it doesn't really matter what day it is.  Every day is like the day before.  I don't have any real schedule that depends on the day of the week.  Rarely does it even come up.  Except for weeks like this where I am actually doing something on a specific day.  

Ah, well.  I'll keep thinking it's Saturday and then reminding myself it isn't.  What does today feel like to you?  Are you one of those people who can keep track of the days or are you like me and adrift on the time currents?  

Thursday This n That

We're trying the whole 'let the cats have free run of the house at night' thing again.  After ten days of sleep deprivation, I gave in and put the cats in the office last night.  Ahhh, sleep.  Finn is a perfect little gentleman and he just wants to cuddle.  Why Sawyer feels the need to scratch the walls in the middle of the night, I'll never know.  It sounds like nails on a chalkboard.  Ah, well.  We knew what we were getting into when we adopted a kitten they had named Chili Pepper.

I still haven't cleaned the house.  

Today is grocery shopping day.  I expect this to be a large load.  Ugh.

Months ago, I bought some PERT shampoo.  Yep, they still make it.  It's okay, but it's not thrilling me as a shampoo.  Every time I use it, I feel like I can never rinse it all out of my hair.  I'm tempted to throw it out, but I have this aversion to throwing out things I paid for that might still have some useful purpose.  

I'm debating on making brownies today.  We'll see.  I might do cake instead.  Or maybe an apple-cranberry crisp.  Perhaps cookies.  We'll see.

Pumpkin pie bread...

Ahem, I really don't need baked goods.  My ass is expanding and it doesn't need any more assistance.

All the fawns have lost their spots.  This gives me a sad every year.  

Okay, I'm pretty much out of things to say this morning.  Fly and be free.

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.

Sunday Update 10/6/24

Well, here we are again at Sunday morning.  The start of a new week, no matter what you're heard about the week starting on Monday.  I'll die on this hill.  Yeah, I'm kinda feisty today.  You wanna make somethin' of it?  ;o)

This past week... Hmm... Let's see...

I didn't write anything again.  I did reach 50% of the book on edit notes, though.  Still loving it.  Yay.  I also finished the project wherein I updated all my books (17 ebooks and 17 paperbacks) with Amazon.  So I got that going for me.  Today starts a freebie offering of UNEQUAL, and I've already been hard at work marketing this morning.  It'll be free today through the end of Thursday.  If you haven't already done so, snag yourself a copy.

Since I'm still editing, I'm still not reading.  I really need to rectify that.

In baking news, I made homemade cinnamon raisin rolls.  Bought some cream cheese frosting to slather all over them, too.  Yummers.  

I did five days worth of activity this week.  This included two walks for just under 2 miles, which brings me to over 50 miles walked this year.  I also did some cleaning, some furniture moving and book shifting, and some gardening.  I also ate a ton, so... Weight: 174.2

We're back to trying to let The Boyz have free run of the house at night.  They're older now, so there's hope.  Friday night was better than the last time we tried this, but Sawyer was still annoying.  Last night was better than Friday.  This may work this time.  Until it does, though, I'm sleep deprived.  Yay.

I have an idea floating around in my head for a new story.  Kind of a crime noir but with fairies.  And not your typical fairies, more like grungy, ill-tempered creatures with less than palatable jobs.  I don't know if I'll write it, but it's there in my head.

Anyway, I should probably go do something constructive.  Or maybe I'll just go veg in front of the TV until the sun comes up and it's light enough to actually do anything.  Have a great day wherever you are and whatever you do.  Feel free to drop a comment and let me know how your week went.

Gettin' Dirty

No, not like that.  I'm talking about dirty drafts and the aftermath.  

First off, a dirty draft, if you aren't familiar with the term, is one you write without giving any thought to editing along the way.  Just slap those words down and let the missed commas and the poor word choices and the typos lay there.  The point is to get the draft out and worry about it later.

Well, that's what I did back in July and August.  I wrote a dirty draft... well, filthy really.  (Get your mind out of the gutter.  It's not that kind of a book.)  As I'm going through the book now, making edits notes, I'm discovering how dirty it really is.  What a mess.  

I mean, it's still a damn good story.  It's just all over the place and covered in muck.  Like an outdoor wrestling match after a heavy rain.  And now I'm left trying to clean up afterwards.  

I sat down with my handy-dandy notebook and my red pen, and started making notes.  About six pages of those got me to the end of that notebook, so I picked up a new one and kept going.  I'm averaging a page - one-side, college rule, single space - of notes for every 2% of the book.  Yesterday, I swear I made a page of notes off just two or three paragraphs of manuscript.  

Some of the notes are as simple as ">she was in the wau (way", while others reference the time period and the need to make sure what I'm writing fits with the 1950s here in America.  I also have a note to go back through the whole damn thing and make sure I don't swear.  There's no cursing in the Duke Noble books and I have a potty mouth, so it ain't easy.

I reached 40% yesterday.  It's not a fast road but then again, it's covered in crud.  Once I get all these notes created, I still have to enter them into the manuscript.  Then it's lather, rinse, repeat.  I'm not sure when this thing will be ready for even my readers to see.  :shrug:  It'd be nice to offer to readers in time for Christmas, but I'm not making any promises I can't keep.  Hang in there.  It'll be done eventually.  

Of course, if it turns out that this is actually Book 3, I still have to write Book 2 before this one goes out into the world.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of writing a series.  Thank goodness I'm indie.  I doubt any publisher would tolerate this.  

Have a great weekend, folks.  

Thursday This n That

If you're not following Wild Heart Ranch in Oklahoma, you're missing out on some really great photographs of awesome animals and some wonderful positive stories.  Right now, they're sharing about this little coyote that came in with mange.  She was a wreck - hairless and dying.  Now, the mange treatment has worked, her fur is growing back, and she's working toward re-release into the wild.  She's strikingly beautiful.

We often hear coyotes here.  Sometimes we see them.  I think they're cool.  Yeah, I know they can be destructive and harm livestock, and I know sometimes they have to be destroyed.  I'm okay with that.  But if they aren't doing any harm to people or property, then leave them alone.  They're just out there doing their jobs and living their lives.  Same goes for armadillos. Or really any other critter.  And that goes for people, too.

I watch a lot of crime stuff -- fictional and non.  Don't get me started.  

I've been baking a lot lately.  I've also been eating a lot.  I really need to up my activity level or I'm going to have to roll myself down the street.  Or I could just eat less, I guess.  Nah.

Yesterday, I got a wild hair and moved a couple of my bookshelves.  Here in the office, I have three bookshelves along the west wall - short, medium, and tall.  They were arranged in that order.  Unfortunately, the cats could jump from a chair onto the short one and then they had a straight shot to the top.  I didn't have a problem with this until Sawyer decided if he got on the tall one, he could lean over and bat at my clock.  I moved the chair, which made it so the boyz couldn't get up there.  Or so I thought.  I walked into the office the other day to find Finn at the top.  I stopped that with some boxes, but it wasn't a permanent fix.  I rearranged the shelves so they are medium, small, tall now.  And I put books on top of the small one, so it's less attractive as a landing space.  That should fix his little red wagon.  Cats... am I right?

I also replanted Cecil the Cedar yesterday.  Not in the ground.  Not yet.  He's just in a larger pot with better dirt.  I'm not ready for him to go in the ground.  I don't want the deer to eat him like they ate Elmer the Elm.  Poor Elmer.  =o(

And that's it.  Feel free to leave a comment.  I do read them all, even if I don't respond to them.

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'.