Marketing Monday - Song of Storm and Shroud

 I did it!  I remembered to set a book for free AND I remembered that I remembered.  Banner day for this sometimes brainfried author.  Yay!  Anyway...

Starting today, SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD is absolutely free. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) Get your copy of this coming-of-age, YA fantasy today! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W745M6P

Funny story... Yesterday, I received an email from a scammer, wanting to help me promote my book.  Except it wasn't a book of mine.  It was, in fact, the Spanish language version of a book by a bestselling author with the same last name.  :cough:Brandon:cough:  He and I are no relation.  Not even in-law relation as far as I can tell from doing Hubs' genealogy.  I've never met the guy, don't know the guy, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the guy.  (Not that I would mind knowing him. I just don't.)

Years ago, after the release of Wish in One Hand and it's crappy original cover, I was accused to trying to make bank on his name.  I can't help it if we have the same last name.  Actually, I share a last name with at least two other authors besides Brandon.  I'm not related to them either.  Sorry famous writer dude and I also share the same first initial.  Blame Mom.  She named me.

Anyway, this is my fantasy novel, not to be confused with his fantasy novels.  (He's got better cover art.)  Pick up a copy.  It's a fun book to read.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 47

The internet says it'll be week 48 this week, so last week had to be week 47.  It's gotta be right, right?  I went and counted the weeks left in the year and it's 6 weeks, unless you don't count the half week at the end there.  :shrug:  I guess you don't count it.  Oh, well.  Anyhooway...

I wrote this week!  5 out of 7 days worth.  Woot.  I ended up with 5505 new words.  Yay.  And DN3 is up to 34056 words.  Also woot.  I think I have the basics of the who did what, now it's up to Duke to catch the culprit(s).  Of course, plot holes abound.  I'll spackle those after I'm finished.

I also did some marketing this week.  After my mental snafu, of course.  I ended up moving 29 free copies of SU and one person read the book all the way through in KU, so I have that going for me.  Not sure what this week will bring.  Hopefully, not the same as last week where I forgot that I remembered to set a book to free.

As for reading, I'm still working my way through The Martian.  It's good. I just don't have the same reading stamina I used to.  For instance, I read for about an hour a couple days ago, and the next day, I could feel it in my neck and shoulders.  Derp.  Getting old blows.

Speaking of getting old, laying around like a lump of oatmeal doesn't do a body any good.  My activity level sucks.  I need to rectify that effectively immediately.  It's not that I did nothing last week.  I did some vacuuming and some gutter cleaning.  I also swept the deck (because I made an unholy mess of it cleaning that section of gutter).  All told, though, it wasn't enough to balance the amount of food I shoved in my face.  I stepped on the scale on Thursday and had gained 2 pounds from the last time I weighed myself.  :sad trombone:  Weight: 176.2

Speaking of shoving food in my face, I made brownies last week.  Mmm... brownies.  Warm brownies... with ice cream... :drools:  

Other than that, I didn't do much of note.  Watched TV.  Saw a couple of neat movies.  Not really anything major.  

This coming week, I need to get outside and do stuff.  Today, I'll rake with Hubs.  Once that's done, I'll get to work on the trail we've got planned to make an easy access to the fallen trees.  I'll be buying a sled-thingie for moving logs up the hill, so that trail is a necessity.  There's already a type of natural trail there.  It just needs cleaning up.  So, I'll be working on that.  And I'll write words.  More words.  Woot.  And it's Thanksgiving week, which doesn't actually mean a whole lot here.  Hubs will cook a turkey, I'll make pumpkin cheesecake.  We'll eat like pigs.  

Oh, and the family thing?  It's pretty much addressed as much as we can address it.  For now.  We're not sure it's over, though, so there's that hanging over our heads like a rotted limb that could fall at any time.  :shrug:  

And that's about it for me.  How was your last week?

Thursday This n That

I'm still in brainfart land, but it's getting better.  We'll see how the rest of this week goes.

It's pouring rain here.  Deluge-esque stuff.  So much for grocery shopping today.  I don't mind driving in the rain, but I hate wet groceries.

They built a new Tractor Supply near the Walmart I use.  I am inordinately happy about this.  Not sure why, since I haven't been in there yet.  :shrug:  I do have an order I'm working on for TS, but it'll be for delivery and not pick-up, so I still won't have gone in there.  Yeah, I'm weird.

The order?  A sled for dragging deer (that we will use to drag wood) and a new snow shovel.  I'm also looking at pickaxes for breaking up the ground where I plan on planting trees.  Our ground is hard enough, it'll probably take small explosive charges to break that shit up, but we'll try a pickaxe first.  ;o)

Raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, and pretzel pieces make a yummy snack.

Speaking of snacks, the other day I made popcorn and Hubs got once of those evil kernel caps stuck in his throat.  He's fine, but for a while there, it was pretty gross.  I told Mom this story and she remembers a time when she got one stuck on a tonsil.  It was so bad, she remembers it 70-ish years later, and it's the reason she never eats popcorn to this day.  Not sure if Hubs is off popcorn.  I'll give it a few more days before I suggest it again.

Damn fruit flies.  It's frickin' November.  You should all be dead or dormant, ya little buggers.

Dang, this morning's coffee is good.

Okay, enough out of me today.  Besides, it's time to call Mom.  Have you got any this-n-that nuggets for me?

Umm, Yah

Well... It seems I screwed up.  And me, never being one to hide a screw up, am here to tell you about it.  

Remember yesterday's post?  The one where I lamented being so distracted by life that I forgot to set up a freebie for Monday Marketing?  Umm, yah.  About that.  It turns out I did set up a freebie and THAT was what I forgot about.  I learned yesterday afternoon when I saw I'd gotten orders but no monies, and discovered that SLEEPING UGLY is in fact free through Friday.  

First, yay for moving books with no marketing whatsoever.  Second, I can only blame my messed up brain and stress overload.  I do have failsafes against this.  Usually, I set a book for free, then write it in my date book, then I note it on my big 'sales spreadsheet'.  I didn't do the last two things.  Derp.  Hell, I haven't looked at my date book in weeks, so there's that.  Total fall down on my face thing.  

I guess the point here is... Don't be me.  

There are a lot of balls in the air when you're a self-pub, and I dropped one.  I'm not really kicking myself too hard.  Shit happens.  Still, after yesterday's post, I do feel a bit of a fool.  

And now, before I forget again...

Now through Friday, SLEEPING UGLY is free.  (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.)  Get your copy of this snarky, NSFW, paranormal mystery today!  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GM24Q48

When a curse strikes a supermodel, all hell is gonna break loose.

When Life Intrudes

Derp.  Okay, so when last we met, I was all set to do marketing starting today.  But I didn't know which book was going out.  Right?  Well...

I would've been fine, if I'd gone right over to Amazon and set a book for free.  Hell, I would've been fine if I'd done that at any point before yesterday afternoon.  That was when the animal waste hit the spinning blades.  The phone rang and we were splattered.  

Extended family stuff we couldn't ignore.  Nothing tragic, but something necessary to think about and plan for, and it took all the mental energy either of us had right at that time.  

Leftovers for dinner.  Mindless TV.  I remember turning off my computer and telling myself everything was ready for marketing in the morning.  I had already printed out a sheet that I use to keep track of my marketing posts and everything.  Then into bed where neither of us slept well.  

I woke up this morning ready to market.  And as I was sitting out in the smoking room, sipping coffee and listening to the plan Hubs came up with at 2 o'clock in the morning, it hit me.  I never set a book to start its freebie journey today.  

So, no... there will be no marketing today.  I'm not sure if I'll even do marketing this week, because of the aforementioned defecate in the fan blades.  Life has intruded.  There are calls to be made and plans to be put into place.  My brain is full of that stuff right now.

Wanna know something really ironic?  Yesterday, I gave myself a good talking-to, and I made a plan to start writing again.  Before the phone rang, I actually wrote about 800-900 words, and had every intention of going back to work on the story last night.  Double derp.

This, too, shall pass.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 46

Six more weeks left of 2025 and I'm okay with that.  This year has pretty much been a wash anyway.  

Still no writing.  Every morning, I tell myself that I am going to write today and then I go to bed that night without having written.  I did some marketing, though.  Huzzah, I guess.  I'm still marketing today.  For instance, UNEQUAL is free through the rest of today.  I'm not sure which book will be marketed tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

Very little reading was done.  Loads of TV watching, though.  Maybe I should do the 'hey, I watched this' instead of the 'hey, I read this' thing.  :shrug:  Anyway, if you're in the mood for a quirky family movie, try Papadopoulos and Sons.

Last Sunday, I made chocolate banana bread, which was a yummy quick bread.  Thursday, I made chocolate bread - a pretty good, if not chocolatey, yeasty bread.  I'm thinking about trying to make Irish soda bread this week. We'll see.

As for activity, I managed some work in the woods and some sweeping, plus a minor amount of gardening.  And I went grocery shopping.  Not really anything major or calorie burning, I guess. Weight: I don't want to know.  I feel fat.

The gardening for the week was taking the last of the tomato garden apart.  I snipped off the remainder of the above-ground parts and dumped the soil + roots into big pots so they can decompose over the winter and be ready for planting come spring.  Or soon, if I decide to overwinter potatoes.  I was reading up on that yesterday and it seems like a possibility.  We'll see.  I also read somewhere that you can overwinter carrots, but I'm not sure where I would get carrot seeds this time of year.  Potatoes can be gotten anywhere.  You just use a grocery store potato.  There's more to it than that, but I don't have all the ins and outs yet.  We'll see.

:pause for cat coughing:  Ugh, I hate that.  No barfing this time.  Sawyer must've just gotten a tickle (or a piece of fuzz) in his throat.  Ah, the joys of cat ownership.  Anyway...

Regular firearms deer hunting season started here yesterday.  I can hear shots this morning.  Keep your fingers crossed Sonny makes it through.  I have no problem with legal hunting, but I'd hate to see Sonny get killed.  He's such a nice buck and the herd needs his genes.

Okay, well, I'd better go locate some gumption and get something productive done.  At this point, I'll settle for anything.  Too bad it's too warm to go into the woods.  I need to throw logs.  

Have a great day!  And leave a comment so I know there are other human beings in the world.  ;o)

Saturday Reading Wrap-up 11/15/25 + Marketing

I don't really have anything exciting to report on the Reading Wrap-up.  I'm still working on reading The Martian by Andy Weir.  But there's an issue...  I made the mistake of reading the quotes on the back, wherein people, at some point, talked up the book.  All in all, not a bad thing, but there's one that says the book is like a cross between Castaway and Apollo 13.  Not that it's not an accurate representation.  Actually it is, but it's killing my reading enjoyment.

At first, I was like 'hey, yeah... it's Castaway on Mars... cool'.  Now I can't stop thinking about those two things in relation to the story I'm trying to read and making comparisons instead of enjoying the story. 

For starters, I loved both Castaway and Apollo 13 once upon a time.  Then Hanks went leftist and now I can't even watch the dude.  (I have a tough time enjoying entertainment once I learn the entertainer's politics are antithetical to my own.  It's definitely me.  Don't get me started on Bette Midler.)

Then I get to wondering... Is Watney supposed to be Tom Hanks?  He was played by Matt Damon in the movie.  First, I picture the character as Tom then I picture him as Matt... It's confusing.  

When Watney gets home is he going to learn his girlfriend married someone else?  

Anyway, we'll see if I actually finish this book.  I think I need to take a few days off from it and see if I can't get over it.

Now, onto the marketing portion.  This weekend only, get UNEQUAL absolutely free. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) Pick up your copy of this dystopian suspense today. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LDVFWBS

This is probably it for the weekend marketing experiment.  I didn't move that many copies of Blink last week, and I'm not seeing much hope for moving books this weekend.  The energy output is not equaling the return, so make it stop.