Stuff and Junk

Since I totally spaced out yesterday, there's a post there and a post here this morning.  (Although, the post there isn't nearly as interesting.)

First off, the genie sale started this morning.  Now through the 27th, Wish in One Hand is free and all the other genie books are 99c each.  If you were looking for some fun reads to load your or someone else's Kindle with, there ya go.  Get the whole four-book series for less than $3.  It doesn't get much better than that.

In other news, I saw a post on FB this morning wherein a popular author I know was talking about a review wherein she go tagged for using curse words in her book.  She explained, quite rightly, that she can't take those curse words out because that's how her character talks.  If she took them out, she'd have to change the character which would change the book.  Bingo.  And exactly.  Would Jeni be Jeni without her dropping the f-bomb?  Probably not.  

Also, when writing my marketing post for FB, I started out with Merry Christmas.  Yeah, some people don't appreciate the phrase.  Well, all holiday feelings aside, screw them.  I celebrate Christmas.  I wouldn't get all up in anyone's grill for wishing readers a Happy Hannukah or Kwanzaa or whatever.  So I left it.  But I also added a bit for everyone to have the happiest of holidays, covering my bases, so to speak.  Whatever holiday you celebrate, make it a happy one, okay?  And don't get all down on people for wishing you a happy whatever holiday they celebrate.  Take the wishes in the spirit they were given.  Happiness and joy, people.  That's all that matters.  :hugs:

Eat good food, hang out with the ones you love, and read awesome books.  Enjoy yourself in whatever manner you choose.  Personally, I'll be over here trying to have a Merry Christmas.

Note: Since this blog usually posts on Fridays and this Friday is Christmas, this will be my last post here this week.  See ya over at The Writing Spectacle until next week.  :HUGS:

Random Writerly Stuffs

First off, anyone who has written and/or published a book during this crap has my admiration.  All along this I've seen new releases.  Don't know how they did it, but kudos to them.  I've only just started getting back to writing and even now, some days are easier than others. 

Second, and totally unrelated to first, if you're going to market your book and use comparisons to other authors, don't just throw out a laundry list of bestseller names.  Do your damn research.  Actually read the books of the authors you're comparing yourself to.  I read an 'if you like... then you'll love me' list the other day that was obviously just someone who went down a list of bestselling urban fantasy authors and threw their names down.  I don't remember all the names now, but I remember being all like 'wait, she doesn't write anything like he does.'  Almost as bad as 'if you like Stephen King and Nora Roberts, you'll love me' kind of thing.  Don't do it.  Fans of the genre will know you're full of shit.

I have the cat to thank for last night's words.  I seriously didn't feel like writing yesterday, so I skipped it entirely.  (And felt guilty about it.)  Then at bedtime, Kira decided she did NOT want to use the litterbox.  (She's old, so we have to make sure she pees before we go to bed.)  So, I sent Hubs off to bed and I stayed up to try again later.  I used that time to write.  When I got done with the scene I was working on, I put her in the litterbox again and she did her business.  Yay.

Seven straight days of writing.  6723 words total for AuGoWriMo.  Unfortunately, I have to do some serious thinking of where I'm headed to next because last night I finished the part I'd planned and have no idea what's next.  There's a thick fog bank between here and the climax.  I'll wade in later.

A writer acquaintance of mine is getting slammed with people spoofing her Facebook account.  I notified her of one the other day wherein said spoofer attempted to friend me.  She posted about another two within the past week.  Not sure what the hell, but please, if you're on FB and you get a friend request from anyone you know or know of, please pay attention.  Each of these instances were close to her name, but not quite.  Easy enough to catch if you're paying attention.  If you EVER get a friend request from me, contact me because it's probably not from me.  I haven't sent a request out in ages.  I usually wait until someone sends me a request.

And that's it for me.  Got any random writerly stuffs to talk about?

More Updates and Random Stuff

Since I'm more than a little scatterbrained this morning, what with stuffs and junks, here's another random post.

I finished my round of edits on Ugly and the Beast yesterday and sent the manuscript out for proofing.  If you were expecting a copy and didn't receive it, let me know.  I really think I nailed it, but we'll see what readers have to say.  Hopefully, it's not too messy.  I tried really hard to make it a clean copy, but sometimes we writers miss stuff.

I took the rest of yesterday off.  Kinda.  I did sit down to see if I could get Cinder Ugly jumpstarted again.  Nope.  I suspect I am going to have to either go back and delete a bunch of stuff to get back on track, or just forge ahead and hope I can fix it in edits.  I'm kind of a linear writer, so it'll probably be Option A.

To whoever read Fertile Ground and Early Grave over the weekend, thanks.  Now, if you could wander over to Amazon and leave a couple reviews, I'd really appreciate it.  Like mightily. 

I discovered why I'm suddenly showing more Amazon review numbers than I had.  Amazon decided to put all the worldwide reviews together, so basically I'm seeing the few reviews I have in the UK added to my US numbers.  Still pissed about the ratings thing, but international reviews are okay. 

And that's about it for me today.  Time to wander off and get the day started.  What's on your plate today?

Cranky Stuffs

Be warned.  I'm cranky.

If I see one more motivational poster about writing, I'm going to poke someone in the eye.  With a stick.

PS.  If I see the quote from a wildly popular author where he talks about it not being about the money one more time, I'm going to scream.  Yeah, Mr. Commercial-Fiction Millionaire Dude, it ain't about the money.  Right.  Blow smoke up someone else's ass.  Back when he was struggling to pay the bills, I bet it was a little bit about the money.  In fact, if it isn't about the money, why aren't his books free?  Hmm?

The other day I saw a bestselling author, who only a couple days before announced she'd sent her nth book to her publisher, write that she wanted to quit.  Umm, yah.  I get that even bestsellers get the blues, but come on.  If I had her sales and critical acclaim, I'd be back to cranking out 4 books a year.

Another other day, I got to the end of a book and found a note from the author.  Instead of asking for reviews, they were asking people who enjoyed the book to buy the paperback version of it.  For $30.  Not sure whether I admire the balls or am annoyed by the chutzpah.

You ever get to the end of a book you couldn't put down and enjoyed the hell out of and can't explain why you liked it or why it sucked you in so hard?  I wish I could harness that power.  I mean, I want people to be able to say why they liked my books, but I'd settle for them being sucked in hard and staying. 

I know this isn't an easy path I've chosen, but couldn't it be a little easy just for a little while?  I'd appreciate a chance to float instead of having to swim against the current all the time.  It's tiring.

:shrug:  I chose this.

Stuffs

I was going to skip posting today because I don't really have anything to talk about.  But hey, it's Friday and chances are you're here because you expect me to say something.

I got a survey thing from the last place I marketed.  They were fine.  Sure, I didn't break even on that one, but I suspect it was less their fault than mine.  Not sure why they send out a survey right after the sale is over and ask about page reads in it.  Page reads generally don't come in that quick for me.  Gimme another week and I might be able to accurately answer that question. 

Right now, I'm waiting for ENT to get back to me on whether I can have an ad with them.  One thing about ENT is they're not that good about sub-genres.  They have paranormal, but it's paired with romance - which is totally not the place to put Wish in One Hand.  I went with 'fantasy' this time, cuz, like, it's urban FANTASY.  We'll see what happens.  I gave them a date range and told them I'm flexible, if that helps them decide anything.  Worst they can say is no.

If ENT rejects WIOH, advertising will be with Bargain Booksy again.  But I think BB is almost tapped out.  They recommend advertising a book every 90 days, but I'm afraid of market saturation, so I don't follow their advice. 

Oh, and I discovered a new thing with BB specifically targeting Kindle Unlimited subscribers.  It's $25, but it only reaches 10K people.  And the book has to have more than 20 reviews.  Might give it a whirl in September with Dying Embers (my only 20+ review book.)

Also 'oh, and', this month is the four-year birthday for Wish in One Hand.  Four years... whoda thunk it?

What's going on out there in your world?

Stuffs

Amazon wrote back and told me everything was fine.  :shrug:  So, I proceeded with the marketing yesterday.  And nothing happened.  I'll keep trying, but I know how things go when I don't have paid advertising.

Anyway, here's what I put out to all the FB groups yesterday:

Ready for some exciting reads? Try the Serial Crimes Investigation Unit (SCIU) series. Follow Jace as she pursues a killer burning victims alive. Watch Teri as she hunts a rapist intent on playing God. Tag along with Ned as he tracks a murderer killing the elderly. Snag all the suspense, thrills, and justice right now for less than $5/£5. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) - with links and hashtags and junk.

Lame?  Possibly.  But I was trying something different.  I figured I'd get at least an A for effort, but I suspect I got an E because no sales. and my rankings didn't move in an upward direction, so no downloading for future KU reads either.

In other news, I got back to editing Ugly and the Beast.  It's not quite as awful as I thought.  Oh, it's pretty messed up - being a first draft and all - but I can work with this.  Then I need to get off my dead ass and write Cinder Ugly.  The money might not be there for editing and publishing, but I can have things ready for when it is there.  Sitting around waiting for the magical moment when all the stars align and their light illuminates me is for the birds.

So, it's back to work for me.  Which really bums out my dead ass.  It was really getting into not working.  But not working means not getting paid in the future.  Know what I'm sayin'?

What stuffs are going on in your world these days?  All good things, I hope.

Updates, Such as They Are

I don't have much to talk about with regard to writing/editing today.  I'm still in that limbo place - can't start anything new until I finish UatB and I can't finish UatB right now.  Meh.

Yesterday, the sale for Project Hermes came to an end.  With only my own postings to FB groups, I only sold one book.  I did, however, see movement on some of my other books, so I'm counting it as a win.

I have a sale starting next Wednesday for all of the SCIU books.  DE will be 99c/99p.  The rest will be $1.99/1.99p.  Thru the following Tuesday night.  I didn't manage to set up any paid advertising for this, so we'll see how it goes.  If nothing else, I'll be pimping it on the FB groups.

Someone is currently reading through the SCIU series in Page Reads, one after the other, so that's nice.  They're on Early Grave right now.  I hope they enjoy it.  They must've enjoyed the other two to keep reading them all. 

I do have the ideas necessary to write the fourth SCIU book, but the gumption isn't there.  (See above.)  This may be where I can use my Wrongful Termination title idea, but I'm on the fence about that.  That title was originally meant for one of the Dennis Haggarty books.

I'm planning a sale for the Once Upon a Djinn series for May.  Same general idea as the SCIU sale - the first book at 99c and the rest at $1.99.  Hopefully, by the end of next month I'll have money to pay for advertising.  :fingers crossed:

And maybe I'll do a Dennis Haggarty sale in June.  My goal for 2019 was to do at least one sale a month with advertising.  I'm managing at least one sale a month, but not the advertising part.  Let's hope I can get back on track with that.

All in all, despite the slow March, this hasn't been a horrible sales year so far.  Not the best year either, but I shouldn't complain.  It's been a horrible writing/publishing year, but I have hope for the next nine months. 

Sometimes that's all we can do - hope.

Flash Sale and Other Stuffs

I got a wild hair and decided to have a sale on Project Hermes.  It starts today and runs through Thursday night.  Get it for only 99c/99p - a $4 savings.  Woohoo!

The editing for Ugly and the Beast is not going as quickly as I'd like, so it looks like I'll be pushing back the dates on that.  Once I get this to my editor, I'll have a firmer date for publication.  Sorry about that, but stuffs happen.

The editing isn't going as quickly as I'd like because I'm in that sort of early-year malaise again.  Because reasons.

Funny how reasons can derail everything.  Life gets in the way.  Time gets in short supply.  Gumption runs out the door to play in the sunshine.  Sales, or I should say a lack of sales, get a body down.  Stuffs.

What I need is a magical formula for selling books.  Or to win the lottery.  Since there's no magic and my luck is gross, I guess I'll just have to keep humping along as best I can.

Any questions?  Comments? 

Stuffs

The reason I've been posting a lot about sales and marketing is that is all I'm doing right now.  No new words still.  No editing.  Just sales and marketing.  Which is better than nothing writerly, I guess.

The Sleeping Ugly sale ended last night.  It tanked.  The best thing to come out of it was that someone read the whole thing in KU and then started reading Wish in One Hand.  Sorta how that end-links thing is supposed to work.  Yay.  If that one person reads the entirely of the OUAD series, it will pay for the ad.  Also yay.

I've been spending some time thinking about writing.  Better than last month when I couldn't even do that.  Baby steps, I guess.  Although, it would probably help if my brain would stop skipping from one story to the next.  "I could do this with SCIU #4 and that with DH #3 and here's a page for that Arthurian UF and here's some lines for... and maybe if you did this with..." Stop it already.  Find a story and stick with it.

I saw on FB that my cover artist fell and crumpled herself.  Ack.  I have a spot with her next month for the third Ugly cover.  I don't need it next month (the book isn't even close to being written), but it was only spot she had available so I snapped it up.  She doesn't have any more open spots until sometime in 2020.  Anyway, I hope she gets better quick - and not just because I need her.  She's a super-cool person and really nice and she doesn't deserve to be laid up.

Is it just me or do other self-published authors have nightmares about stuff like that?  Artists and editors injuring themselves so they won't be there when we need them?  :shudder:

While I'm not writing or publishing, I'm hoarding fundage so that when the dam finally does break and I'm ready to put more books out into the universe, I'll be able to pay for them.  Or, you know, if my computer has a meltdown, I'll be able to get a new one.  That kind of stuffs.

Oh, and I'm putting the entire Once Upon a Djinn series on sale next month.  The 3rd through the 9th.  WIOH will be 99c/99p.  The rest will be $1.99.  I have an ad with Bargain Booksy going out on the 5th.  I might try doing some other advertising during that time.  Maybe I'll make the leap and try an Amazon ad. 

I think that's about all the stuff for right now.  Any questions?  Comments?  Stuffs of your own?

Stuffs

I am making progress on my edits.  Slow progress, but hey, it's progress. 

The sale is over.  Sleeping Ugly is back to $2.99.

I was thinking about something this morning.  I saw a book posted on FB with thousands of reviews and I was immediately suspicious.  It was an author I'd never heard of and a book I'd never seen before.  Thousands of reviews?  Umm, right.  Which is kind of sad.  Those could be perfectly legitimate reviews.  Then again, they could be hinky.  These days, you can't tell, though.  =o(

The other day, I took a paperback copy of Sleeping Ugly into the bank to show a friend of mine.  One of the other gals said 'Ooo, she looks mean', which immediately made me wonder if the mean look of Jeni is turning people off of what is actually a fun book.  I told the gal "She's not mean.  She's pissed because she's a model who's cursed to turn ugly every night.'  But I can't be out there to tell everyone why Jeni looks so mean. 

Over at the smoke shop, I gave a copy of Dying Embers to the manager.  I'd never given her a book before - oversight on my part.  I signed it with some lame comment thanking her for keeping me supplied with nicotine.  She laughed, so I guess it wasn't that lame.  Anyway, the new guy was working the cash register.  He looked seriously irritated I didn't give him a book, too.  I told him 'I don't know you well enough to give you a book yet' and flashed him my winning smile.  Not sure that helped.  The last time I talked to the dude, though, he said he only reads fantasy.  Big fan of RA Salvatore.  Can't help him there.  Fantasy is one of the few genres I don't write.  And hardcore fantasy readers don't do urban fantasy, I guess.  :shrug:

I really need to put together some new marketing materials.  I don't have any that show my last three books.  Derp.  I also have a huge amount of old, out of date, marketing materials lying around.  My spare room is like a defunct bookmark repository.  Ugh.

That's about it for me this morning.  Got anything to add?  Comments to make?  Talk to me.

Stuff and Junk

Two stuffs and a junk, to be exact...

If you haven't heard, Kboards has changed their terms of service.  In a bad way.  Apparently, they got bought out recently and their TOS reads in such a way to make anything you post on their forum theirs to do with as they will without your knowledge or consent.  Sounds like this includes private messages through their system.  I haven't used Kboards in years, so I'm pretty sure whatever is there is so out of date as to be useless.  If you are or were active on there, you might want to check it out and see for yourself.

Yet another celebrity was bashing self-publishing.  Equating it to masturbation or some such nonsense.  At the risk of being crass, if this was like masturbation, it would be way less frustrating and we'd all be way more relaxed.  This is more like manning a tiny little booth at the world's largest tradeshow by yourself, where you've got to try and get noticed but you're shoved in a corner where there's no foot traffic.  While you juggle puppies behind a curtain.  Ugh.

I need a new keyboard again.  This POS is already losing its letters and I never did get used to the smaller Backspace key.  Or the closeness of the Caps Lock to the letter A.  I think I found one on Amazon.  I'll probably order it this week.  We'll see if it's better.

That's about it for me right now.  Got any news to share?

Short Stuffs and Mini Updates

I had an idea for Ugly and the Beast the other night.  I didn't get up and write it down and now it's gone.  All I'm left with is the memory of thinking it was really awesome.

Sleeping Ugly should be back to me tomorrow for final edits on my end.  As long as they aren't numerous or lengthy, I should be able to put this up for pre-order sometime before the 25th.  Or would you rather I just put the book up for sale when it's ready?

Part of me wants to put books up for pre-order.  Another part doesn't see the point. As a reader, I rarely pre-order books.  I don't like buying something and then waiting for the cost to come out of my bank account at some future date.  Cuz I might forget about it. 

Obviously, I am not going to have Ugly and the Beast ready to send to AWE any time soon.  So, I'm going to send her Unequal next, in order to have a fourth book come out this year.  From a sales standpoint, I probably should've buckled down and busted my ass to get UatB out next, but apparently that's not how I roll, baby. 

If you're keeping track, Sleeping Ugly will be my 12th published novel.

I had planned to do some marketing for the Once Upon a Djinn series this month, but since the stuff I had planned fell through, I scrapped the idea and went ahead and raised all the prices for those books to $3.99.  Now I have to wait 30 days to hold any kind of sales for those, so maybe next month I'll do something sparky. 

I still haven't done paperbacks for my last two books.  Do any of you care?  Cuz if I thought anyone cared, I'd be more motivated to get that stuff done. 

My cover artist is doing a paperback cover for Sleeping Ugly.  I'm still not sure if I'll go paperback with that book yet, but I'll have the option. 

Okay.  That's it.  Does anyone have any questions?  Comments?  Wisdoms?

Stuffs and Junk

I got a glimpse of the cover for Sleeping Ugly last night.  SQUEE!  Can't show it to you guys yet because it needs a eensy bit of tweaking.  But squee.  And soon, I'll be able to share it all over the place. 

Ugly and the Beast is coming right along.  Not sure if that's the right title for it yet.  I took last night off because I was pooped... okay, and because I'm not quite sure what the next scene is going to be... but I should be back to it tonight.  As of now, it's sitting at 12,700 words.

The sale and the ad for this week is coming right along, too.  There's still today to go on the sale.  All three SCIU books are 99c each.  Get 'em while they're hot.

I think I figured out the reason why these ads are not performing like the ads I placed in 2015.  In 2015, there was no Kindle Unlimited.  So people would buy the whole book and it would sit on their Kindle unread and no one would ever know.  Now, they use their KU subscription to get the book and sometimes they read it, but sometimes it sits on the Kindle unread until it drops off or whatever. It's good because people aren't paying for books they don't actually read.  But yah, it hurts the sales numbers. 

I'm still getting a good return on the ads, though, and I'm getting plenty of residual page reads, so it's all good. 

And that's it for me right now.  Any questions?  Comments?  News?

Updates and Stuffs

First off a little reminder that my Dennis Haggarty mysteries - all both of them - will be on sale starting Tuesday.  99c or .99p each (depending on what side of the pond you call home).

Next, I think the residual sales from my Kindle Countdown Deals are wrapping up.  Mind you, all but one of those sales are KU Page Reads.  But I've had almost 8K pages read this month so far and that's about 2K more pages read than last month, which is WAY more than any of the other months this year.  Sure, 8K is nothing compared to a lot of other writers, but hey, it's better than a sharp stick in the ear.

So, the final tally is $76 spent on advertising.  About $170 made in sales.  Not standing under a waterfall of currency here, but I'll take it.  I'll take every sale I can get because it means someone somewhere is reading my books.  Yay!

I updated my balance spreadsheet this past week, so I know exactly where I'm at with Outgo and Sales Income.  Yeah, it was pretty depressing.  For the entirety of this venture (since Nov 2014), I'm approaching the $10K spent mark and I'm just past the $2700 income mark.  Thank Hubs and my side job for keeping this machine running.  Without that, it would all grind to a halt. 

Editing is underway for Sleeping Ugly.  Meanwhile, I'm writing Ugly and the Beast (Yes, I finally gave SU2 a name) and it's rolling along even if I have no clue where it's going or what will happen.

If all goes according to schedule, my cover artist should start work on the SU cover next month.  Again, I am eternally grateful she could squeeze me into her schedule so I can still meet an August release date.  Without her, I'd be screwed.  And without my editor being available I'd be screwed.  I don't want to even think about THAT.

I'm still on the fence as to whether SU2 or Unequal will be next on the publishing schedule.  I suppose it depend on how SU2 goes.   If I can get it written and edited in time to meet a November pub date, then SU2 will be next.  Fingers crossed.  Whatever happens, you will see Unequal by sometime next year.  Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.

Onward and upward! 

Stuffs

With my other work project finally finished, for now at least, I can focus on my actual work stuff again.  Having said this, though, I realize I am playing catch-up.  I do have a book releasing this week - Early Grave (Book three of my Serial Crimes Investigation Unit series).  Over the weekend, I made a Goodreads listing for it, so that's something.

I know some of you weren't keen on the blurb, but I went with it.  It's in line with the blurbs from the other two.  (I changed the blurb for Fertile Ground, so it's more in line, too.  And creepier.  Can't help the creepy.)

I'm also hip deep in the final edits of Early Grave.  I should have those done over the next couple days and then I'll format.  And THEN I'll upload it to Amazon and make it live so all y'all can finally snag a copy.  So, Friday's still a good day for release and it'll be live earlier if I can swing it.  It's going into the world at $2.99.

BTW, if you missed it, FG is on sale all month worldwide.  It's 99c here in the US and all other prices are adjusted accordingly.  Dying Embers will be free sometime next week (I have to wait until my KDP 90 days is over on Wednesday and after EG is live to set that up.)

I have ideas for three more Dennis Haggarty mysteries.  I still have to write them, so don't look for those any time soon.  Next year maybe.

The way Sleeping Ugly is currently written, it will be a new series.  Which means I'd better get some ideas for subsequent books soon or rewrite SU so it's a standalone.

And I'm still planning on putting Unequal into the world either late this year or early next.  Another dystopian.  Weeee.

So much in my head and so little time to get it all done.  I need a clone.  Or a way to work more hours without going batshit crazy. 

Any questions? 

Stuffs

Hey All.

I'm hip deep in a project for the other job, so pretty much everything else is on hold until this is done.  Which is kind of good since nothing else is expected of me for a little while yet.  Early Grave isn't due back from the editor until the 12th and release day isn't until probably the 23rd.  (Shooting for the 20th, but we'll see how it goes, ya know?) 

I got the proof copy for the printed version of Project Hermes (formerly Blood Flow) back from Createspace.  It isn't perfect, but it's pretty good, so I approved it for sale.  It'll be $12.99.  I'll work on getting the old print version of BF to go away, but right now, it's not for sale anywhere (I deselected all the sales channels), so it's not that big a deal.

I redid the blurb for Fertile Ground and put that on sale for the month of April because April is National Sexual Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month.  If you've read FG, you'll understand why it's on sale now.  If you know me, you know the bad guy gets what's coming to him. 

Once I release EG, Dying Embers will go on the Free bandwagon for 5 days. 

Well, that's about it for the stuffs right now.  Time to get back to the spreadsheets.  After some more coffee.  Loads more coffee.  With extra coffee added. 

-B.E.

A Few Things

1)  I had my dates wrong for getting Early Grave back from the editor.  She said the 28th.  I had it written in my date book as the 26th, I assume because I had originally planned to have it to her on the 26th of January and so the return would be one month later.  Derp.  Anyway, we're still all on track for a late April / early May release.  It all depends on how much work there is to be done and whether life intervenes.  :fingers crossed:

2)  I posted a little snip of Sleeping Ugly over at Silver James' blog this morning.  (Edited to add: In the comment section.)  And reading it this morning reminds me that I still love it.  Look for it to be published by the end of summer, good lord willin' and the crick don't rise.

3)  If you don't remember, Sleeping Ugly is about a supermodel who gets cursed so she becomes ugly when she sleeps and then gets prettier throughout the day until she looks like herself right about the time she's ready to go to sleep again.  Oh, and there's a dude who got the curse, too, only he's normal throughout the day and ugly at night.  So they're working together to figure our who cursed them and fix this crap.  Then the cops show up to question her about the murder of her estranged brother...  It's weird and wild and fun.

4) But first, Early Grave.  Agent Ned Washington of the SCIU has been sent to Toledo to figure out if they have a serial killer who's murdering old people in nursing homes and then catch the heinous bitch.  If you read Fertile Ground, you might remember Ned from the scene when Teri first gets to the Detroit office.  If you've read either of the SCIU novels, you'll remember Lynn - the tech gal.  She plays an important role in this book.

That's about it for me this morning.  If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. 

Rambling About Marketing, Paying Back, and Meeting Expectations

I read a couple really interesting posts over at Mad Genius Club over the weekend - Bestsellers, and writing to market and Writer, Market, Reader.  They both go back to the marketing things I've been talking about off and on.  (Seriously, if you're not subscribed to this blog, you're missing stuff.)

Most of the people who stop here are writers.  (:waves at the readers: Hope I'm not boring you, dears.  I'll try to have something more reader-focused on Wednesday.)  And it's hard being a writer - especially an independent one - and I'm trying to help out my fellow inmates as much as I can.

Pay it forward, so to speak.  (Except I hate that movie so much, just using the phrase makes my skin crawl.)

Over the past 9 years, so many other authors have helped me in so many ways, I kinda want to give back and encourage others to do the same. 

Anyway, sales have been slow from what I've heard and seen.  Everyone hates marketing.  And I'm wondering who I have to kill to get an ad for Wish in One Hand at ENT.  (4 requests, 4 rejections - ugh)  It really got me down over the weekend.  Down to the point of being unable to work on In Deep Wish because all I could think of is 'why am I busting my ass when the first book in the series is tanking?' 

Eh, I got over it.  I think.  I have to do this because I have promised people it would be coming out in March.  Local people who could hunt me down and snip off things of tertiary importance to writing until I produced the book they want. And out there in the world people who could merely be disappointed and then not care when the book finally does come out. 

I'd rather not disappoint any of them.

So, I'll be editing like a madwoman.  And marketing - because as much as I'd like to follow through with my oft-uttered 'screw this shit', I cannot, in fact, screw that shit. 

First, though, errands!  I need smokes.  No smokey, no worky.