What a Chore

It's been so long since I release a book, I'd almost forgotten what a chore it all is.  Oof.  The writing really is the easiest part for me, even if it takes a while.  Editing seems to take forever.  Then there's the formatting.  And all the little things - like adding it to the blogs and posting announcements, etc.  :falls over:

Editing... Thicker Than Water went through 6 drafts, 7 if you count the final one. 8 if you count the other final one for print publication.  Which I guess you should.  I mean, you did the work, count it, right?

So, you get the book out into the world and you job is done... umm... If you think that, you're missing something.  What is it?  Oh, yeah, marketing.  That's a job that's never done.  Not unless you want to never sell your books.  And if you're not interested is selling books, what did you publish it for?  Jus' sayin'.

So yeah, I've been busy.  This morning, I've already posted scads of marketing things to get RHI seen by thousands, so I can sell maybe a few copies of TTW.  Yesterday, I did the marketing things, plus I formatted TTW for print and went through that process with Amazon.  It looks pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself, but the real proof will come when I get the... umm... proof.  Which should be in a week or so.  

One thing I realized while I was doing the print formatting and uploading thing was that I had missed fixing the scene breaks in both the epub and the print versions.  If you bought a copy of TTW and already downloaded it to your Kindle, the scene breaks are *** and they should be --∞----∞----∞--.  It's fixed and uploaded now, but like I said, early copies have the old placemarkers.  

So many little things to check and change and fix, I may be a little nuts this week.  Good thing Hubs is used to me and I don't associate with anyone else.  I keep my nuts at home.  :gigglesnort:

Anyway, I do have plans to get back to writing this week.  We'll see if that happens.  It should.  I'm ready to resume being a writer again.  Woot.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 19

First off, Happy Mother's Day.  

Next, I didn't get any writing done this week, but I did get a boatload of editing done.  And a cover made.  Then formatting, etc.  Thus, as of last night, THICKER THAN WATER is live on Amazon.  Here it is in all its glory:

Family ties and blood… Duke Noble’s had more than enough of both.  When he receives a frantic call from his mother, Duke’s not the kind of man who can simply ignore her pleas.  But discovering a body in his brother’s apartment wasn’t at all what he expected.  Wondering whether the body belongs to Harry means there’s no turning back.   He’ll have to work his way through both secrets and lies to get to the facts.  Even if it means digging up truths better left in the dirt.

Which brings me around to marketing...

Starting tomorrow Rumor Has It will be free for 5 days.  I'll be marketing that.  Last week, I marketed Song of Storm and Shroud.  Here's hoping RHI does better than that did.  I could use some sales this month.

Today, I'll be formatting TTW for print and getting that process underway.  This week, I'll get back to working on Duke Noble #3.

Now back to my regularly scheduled updatey stuff...

Reading - check out yesterday afternoon's post.  It was a good week for reading, and I'm now only 6 books behind on my reading goal.  Woot.  

No baking this week.  I'm trying to cut back on the breaded products for a while.  Not sure how long that will last.  I do love me my baked goods.  Not baked, but I did make a lovely beefy-rice dish that I'm jokingly referring to as Beef Risotto.  I also made a vat of turkey/chicken noodle soup that was quite yummy.  And a pulled pork that was so good, I was walking around going 'mmm...meat candy'.  

On the activity front, I was an animal.  There was only 1 day that I didn't do anything active.  I walked, I gardened, I did yard work, I moved some furniture around.  I walked 3.8 miles last week. Whoa.  Weight: 173.2 - you'd think it would be lower, but meh.

Gardening... my little trees are doing well.  The baby redbuds are about 4-5 inches tall and have several leaves now.  The dogwoods are about 3 inches and have about 4 leaves each.  The oak is looking good, but only 2 leaves so far.  The cedars are thriving, of course.  The tree seeds I planted last week aren't doing anything yet.  Yesterday, on the way home from Wallyworld, I stopped at the feed store and bought a flat of Roma tomatoes.  Those went in pots when I got home, so hopefully one or two of the six will flower and fruit, giving me yummy treats.

Well, I think there's probably more to update you on, but that's probably enough out of me for now.  Look for a marketing post tomorrow.  Have a great rest of your day and if you're a mom, I hope you get to spend time with the kids today.  :hugs:

The Formatting for Paperback Saga

Time for another round of Writerly Tasks that do not involve writing.  Today's topic: the Formatting For Paperback Saga*.  

I know I mentioned something about this a couple months ago, but my paperback formatting was all fudged up and I didn't even think to check it until recently.  I assumed (ASS-umed) that when Amazon took over Createspace that all of my books would be just as well-formatted as they had been when I originally did all that crap with CS.  Nope nope nope.  Oh, the internal stuff seemed like it was fine.  The covers, however, were a disaster.  

And the thing was that all my covers appear to be fine at first glance.  I scroll down the list and they all look hunky-dory.  When I go into the paperback setup portion and scroll down there, they looked pretty okay, too.  Until I noticed that the graphic was only showing the front cover and it was the cover for my ebook.  Ummmmmm.  Then I'd go into the preview thing and the covers were farqed up.  Blerg.

Now, this wasn't really a pressing issue because I don't get more than one or two paperback sales a year.  Then it occurred to me that anyone wanting to purchase a paperback would look at the preview and plainly see the cover was toast and then not buy, because who wants to chance paying for a book when the cover is fucked.  

Even then, though, I dragged my feet.  It takes about ten minutes per cover to just get it uploaded.  Then I was running into fresh hell after uploading my cover PDF.  It would be the exact same file I used for Createspace, but Amazon wasn't sizing it down to fit, so my preview would show like one CORNER of the whole cover as the whole cover.  Back out of that, go into the cover creator, upload the cover again (another ten minutes), work with all that, and then finally submit.  Lather, rinse, repeat - 17 times.  Frankly, it was more of a hassle than I was ready to deal with.

Until yesterday.  Yesterday, I sat down here and got to work.  I got all but the genie books done.  Those will get done sometime today, good lord willin' and the internet doesn't go down entirely.  

So, anyway, it'll get done.  Once it's done, and all my books get approved by Amazon, I'll be back in business.  For now, though, I'd hold off on buying paperbacks from me.  (Except for Accidental Death, Natural Causes, Project Hermes, and Song of Storm and Shroud - I did those back in June and they're good to go.)

I think I said this before, but it bears repeating - if you trusted on the transition from Createspace to Amazon to go smoothly, check your books.  They might be fine.  Then again, they might be tragically un-fine.  Either way, it's worth a look.

*Please bear in mind that you experience is probably not as much of a PITA as mine because I'm guessing you have better internet than I do.  

Sunday Update - Week 15

Gak.  Sorry I'm late here, folks.  I didn't finish this last night and then I got distracted this morning...

Well, we started out the week with Easter, which was just another day here at Sanderson Acres.  I didn't even make a special dinner.  Just threw a Stouffer's Grandma's Chicken and Vegetable Rice Bake in the oven and called it good.  

I didn't do any writing or editing this week, but I did format four books for print, get the two I'd done entirely myself uploaded, and get the proofs ordered.  And I contacted my cover artist for the other two books, got the paperback covers, uploaded those books and ordered proofs.  Then the proofs for the first two came in and I approved those for sale on Amazon.  The other two proofs should be here this coming week.

I really should set up some marketing for the paperbacks of Blink of an I and Unequal.  But I haven't.

I had a great reading week.  Right now, I'm on a Rex Stout - one that isn't a Nero Wolfe.  I never knew he'd written that many books.  I have a lot of work to do on that collection now.

No baking.  Maybe I'll make something with walnuts tomorrow.  I had a walnut windfall, so we're chock-full of those buggers.

In gardening news, stuff happened.  And I created a new blog to talk about that, so I'll let you go over there and see some stuff.  Including pictures!  Woohoo.  

On the activity front, I did something every day but one.  Some days I did more than one active thing.  All told, I walked almost 4 miles.  And did some garden stuff.  And went fishing, which was a bust, but I did gardening that day, too, so it's all good.  Weight: 184.8 still.  Better than up, though, right?

Speaking of garden stuff, my flower gardens are coming along.  Most of them were untouched by the deep freeze.  Unfortunately, my roses took a big hit and I had to cut them way back to remove all the dead stuff.  And I think my crepe myrtle is mostly dead.  Which is a bummer.  It has new leaves at the very base and not even a leaf bud anywhere else.  =o(

Since I'm late, I'll just leave ya there.  I can't think of anything else I did last week anyway.  How were things in your world?

Sunday... err... Monday Update? Week 12

Wow, I totally brainfarted out there yesterday, didn't I?  Last night, I was sitting here playing poker when something flashed in my head like a mental meteorite strike...  "It's Sunday, isn't it?" So, here we are on Monday with the Sunday Update.  Sorry about that.  For some reason, I thought yesterday was Monday.  Don't ask.

Anyway, I have finished all but the formatting and uploading of Rumor Has It.  And I still need to do a Goodreads listing.  I had planned to do all of that yesterday, but yesterday didn't go as planned.  Obviously.  I was so totally not in a place to do anything that required thought.  I printed off my formatting checklist in hopes that eventually my brain would turn over, but like a sad car, it just kept doing that rrr rrr rrr noise.  Of course, as soon as my head hit the pillow the old brain was all like 'Hey!  Hi!  Remember when you did that one thing in 1982... 1975... 1999...?  Let's revisit those events from every possible angle!  And plan a garden!  A think about the cat!  And decide what to do about dinner! Did you remember to do that spreadsheet?  I want a puppy!"

Anyway... the plan is to drink loads of coffee and get to work today.  Except I have to run out for smokes at some point.  My brain, having been up all night, is ready for a nap, so I'd better get this post done before it falls asleep again.

Those of you who are anxiously waiting for Duke, have pity on me.

As for the rest of the week... 

I read a couple pretty good books.  And I'm in the last half of reading another good one.  

I made apple bread again.  

On the activity front, I've started working in the gardens again.  Getting the leaves removed and weeding.  I also took a couple walks.  Weight: 184.6 - down a pound.  

As for gardening, I bought a new peony and planted it yesterday.  I also bought some more hollyhocks which will go in as soon as I clean out the garage bed.  And I bought three packs of vegetable seeds and a bag of dirt to start my container garden.  Hubs went into the garage and found a boatload of old containers I'd kept from all the plants I've planted over the last eight years.  So we're good to go on that.  To start, we'll have a go at tomatoes, lettuce, and carrots.  I'm also going to try planting zucchini in the rosebed.  I'll talk about the plans more tomorrow or something.

During said yardwork, I torqued my wrist or something.  I have craptastic wrists, so it's not surprising or even concerning.  It is however, hard to do anything with my hands when my wrists are being stupid.  I spent a lot of yesterday with my old friends, Aspercreme and Aleve.  I also trotted out my really old friend Ace Bandage.  It's better today.  

I'm sure there are other things that happened, but it's Monday, and I really need to get going today.  (Which is why I generally write this posts on Sunday.  Derp.)  Have a good one.  And if you're inclined, leave a comment.  =o)

  

Sunday Update - Week What?

I have no clue what week that was.  I'm not even sure there was a week, but since it's Sunday again, there must've been one there somewhere. 

It was the first week of Up Wish Creek's public existence.  It's already got a few reviews - all 5-star - and one rating (4-star). 

I spent most of the week in post-publication malaise.  I went fishing on Monday and didn't catch anything.  I went fishing again on Thursday, caught a stringer-full of fat bluegills.  (That's 8 keepers.)  I filleted them all and divided them into two baggies for freezing.  8 fillets is a meal for the two of us.  Yay.

I'm still working on rewriting Fear Itself.  I'm up to 11K words on that.

I began writing the first draft of Djinn 4 - clueless about the title.  Sorry about leaving you all hanging on Up Wish Creek.  I didn't really think of it as a cliffhanger, but I guess it was.  Derp.  Last night, the story blindsided me with a new idea, so we'll see how that plays out.  I worked on that Friday night and last night, and I'm up to 4600 words.

The plan here is to work on writing Djinn 4 concurrently with re-writing Fear Itself.  Fingers crossed this works.  If it gets too weird, the writing will take precedence over the re-writing.

Today, I formatted Up Wish Creek for print and shot an email off to my cover artist.  When she gets back to me with a print cover, I'll go through the rigamarole for making print copies available for purchase.  No ETA on that, since I don't know what her schedule looks like.

What was your week like?