This week's free offering is RUMOR HAS IT - Book 1 in the Duke Noble, P.I. series. I'm working on the third book now. (Its title is eluding me.) Anyway...
Well, another week has passed and I'm having a hard time getting revved up to do anything this morning, which is why this post is later than I usually post one of these.
Writing was accomplished. It took me two more days to finish the read-through of DN3, and then I added new words for two days. 1781 words to be exact. Not a huge amount, but it's something, eh? DN3 is now up to 24920 words/87 pages. Woot. I would like to have this in your hands by the end of the year. We'll see how that works out.
I did marketing. I moved 59 free copies of Dying Embers. I also sold one after the sale was over. No page reads yet, which is :sadtrombone:, but it's early yet. Tomorrow, Rumor Has It goes on freebie.
Reading was slow. I did DNF that Victoria Holt yesterday, but I haven't started anything else.
In baking news, I made a pizza yesterday - pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, black olives, and red bell pepper. Yum.
On the activity front, I walked two days and spent three other days working on washing windows in the smoking porch. I'm up to 64.25 miles on the walking. The window washing? Yuck. But I'll finish that project today. I just have to finish the doors. Then I'll start the project of washing the other windows in the house. (We have a lot of windows, so I have to break it up a little.) Weight: 174.0 - I guess washing windows isn't really the calorie-burning event I wish it would be.
As for gardening, I have 10 tomatoes out there ripening. Well, I had 10 yesterday. We had storms overnight, so we'll see what's left. I have a ripe tomato in the fridge and I had to throw one out because it was funked up. :shrug: Not the Master Gardener of all time, but it's better than last time I tried this. Next year will be even better. I hope. Maybe.
Yesterday, Hubs and I watched a good movie - Hostage starring Bruce Willis. Not the most well-written thing, but certainly thrilling. It was very intense. But good guys win and bad guys die, so I'm satisfied.
As usual, life is pretty boring here. Sorry about that. How are things in your life?
I confess I didn't read much this week. I think part of the problem is that I'm just not that into the book I'm reading. I really need to DNF it and move on. Except it's a Victoria Holt and I usually love her books. :shrug: I don't know. Anyway...
No new books.
No Books Read.
No DNFs... yet.
Currently reading... The House of a Thousand Lanterns by Victoria Holt. Like I said, it's not thrilling me. So far, it's more like a soap opera than a gothic romantic suspense, like the others of hers I've read. I'll probably DNF it, but I might give it one more chance. We'll see.
What have you been reading lately?
I've gotten a few emails this week in regard to DYING EMBERS (which is still free through the end of today). Most of them have been obvious - people trying to get me to pay them to market my book. One of them, on the other hand, was someone wanting to use my book in their book club. I've been on the fence with that one re: sincere or scam.
I mean, he seemed sincere enough. He talked about my book like he'd actually read it. He said intelligent things. Unfortunately, so did several of the scammers. (In all fairness, the marketers may not have been scammers, but for brevity, and because it's so hard to tell the difference, I'll call them that.)
It's a minefield out there. How does one tell the difference between someone who is sincerely interested in a book and someone who's trying to part you from your well-earned and miniscule profits? (I'm averaging about $18 a month here.)
The idea that I may be ignoring someone who is sincerely interested in my work wrecks me. I lay awake at night thinking about it. I'd be willing to interact with them. (I almost said like or love, but the idea of interacting with strangers makes me nauseous. Hell, most days, I don't want to interact with anyone but Hubs, but that's on me. The older I get, the more hermit-like I become.)
On the other hand, interacting with scammers - even just a little - is bad. You even bother to tell them 'no thanks' and suddenly you're inundated with crap. Who needs that?
So, I sit here, torn between knowing I need to interact with fans/readers and wanting to stay as far away from scammers as possible. It's a slippery slope to hell either way.
What do you think?
(For the record, I deleted the 'book club' email, but didn't send it to spam like I do with all the others. If he emails again, I'll think about this some more.)
I located my gumption. It was hiding behind the TV.
Okay, so we all were taught there are three states of matter - solid, liquid, gas. Years ago, I read something about there being a fourth state - plasma. It's like fire. Fire exists but previously had no assigned state of matter, so Voila! plasma. I thought it was cool and seemed logical, so I taught that to my daughter. Of course, she mentioned it to a teacher, who immediately told her she was wrong. I had to talk to the teacher and explain where Owl came up with that and I provided sources. Derp. Which reminds me about my 6th grade science teacher who marked me wrong during our lesson on blood types. We pricked our fingers, applied it to the paper with some solution, and watched for the reaction. I already knew my blood type and the types of my parents, so it was easy enough. Once the thing dried, though, the teacher said I didn't have what I had and said I had a blood type neither of my parents had. I backed her down by pointing out that she was basically saying my dad wasn't my dad, and she changed my grade back to an A. Silly git.
For the record, there's no way I could be adopted. Sometimes, when I was a kid, I wished I was. Sometimes, I felt like I was. Mom explained it to me the easy way - we already had four kids, why would we adopt another one? Harsh, but true.
I watch a lot of Long Last Family (the UK edition). It's like a mystery show, and y'all know how I do love mysteries. But it's real. People finding kids they gave up for adoption, or adopted people looking for their birth parents, or siblings searching for each other. Usually there are happy endings, and I love those, too.
Is it just me or does Venus look brighter these days?
This morning, a barred owl was hooting out there in the woods. They make a sound people liken to 'who cooks for you'. The last time I heard it, it was just one big HOOT. I tried to make squeaking noises to draw it closer, but nope. Aw, well.
Which reminds me of this exchange I saw about people incorrectly correcting other people. Someone had posted about a barred owl and another person corrected them by saying they meant BARN owl, not BARD. ROFL
Okay, that's enough out of me. Got any this-n-thats for me today? What thoughts do you have on mine?
It's that time again. Marketing Monday. AND it's time for DYING EMBERS to hit the free lists at Amazon again.
