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:

Thursday This n That

Getting back to writing wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  Getting back to marketing was okay.  Actually getting back to sales?  Umm... yah.  Not as sparktastic as I'd hoped it would be.  :shrug:

I started this post an hour ago and then got lost in the comments section for a really interesting question about editing and self-publishing.  Just someone asking when it's time to stop self-editing and publish the book (with a request not to suggest paying for an editor, since they have no money to do so).  For the most part, the commenters were spot-on and sympathetic.  A few were snotty, but not many - especially since the group is supposed to be about being supportive and a safe place to discuss this sort of stuff.  (For the record, I did not actually join the group because it asks you to agree to making it a 'safe space' and I don't do 'safe spaces' as a general rule.  One would hope adults wouldn't have to agree to a 'safe space' promise to be civil and courteous to one another.  Those that would, wouldn't necessarily follow the rules - as seem in the snotty comments to that one post.)

Anyway, it was an interesting comments section.  Which is something because most comments sections irritate the crap out of me.

I distracted the cats this morning with pieces of paper.  Sawyer was up to his usually mischief, so I threw a piece of paper on the floor.  He investigated that for a few minutes and then went back to mischief.  So I threw two more on the floor.  Investigate... mischief.  So I took those three pieces of paper, folded them, and made a little tunnel.  Now, Sawyer is laying near them after playing with them and Finn is playing with them.  And Sawyer just got up to attack Finn, so the distraction worked.  Rumble amidst the papers.

The WIP is almost done.  I have to finish the climax, write the denouement, and wrap it all up.  Woohoo.  Scratch that... the first draft of the WIP is almost done.  The book is still nowhere near ready to publish.  And I'm okay with that.

I really should wear my glasses when I write these blog posts.  Thank goodness for the wiggly red lines that let me know when I've truly f'ckd something up.  (Like the word f'ckd. LOL)

Okay, I should probably go do something else constructive this morning.  Have a great day!

Sunday Update - Week 12

 :blink blink:  Sunday, huh?  

Well, the big news for last week was that I finished the proofing for SSS and published it.  It's now available at the major retailers and a few of the smaller ones.  Here's the universal link for them what want it.   I still haven't formatted for print yet.  I'll work on that today.

In other news, I did something I don't usually do.  I started the sequel.  I'm 5650 words into Shroudlands 2 now.  It'd probably be more but my wrists were killing me last night, so I only got about 700 words out.  That's what I get for making buns earlier in the day.  But a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do, eh?

I didn't do any marketing, really.  Shame on me.  I hate marketing more than editing, if that tells you anything.  I sold 3 copies of SSS, and one of those was to me.  I also had someone buy a copy of WIOH, so that was something unexpected.  I'll try to get some marketing posts created and posted to social media tomorrow.

In reading news, as soon as the book was uploaded, I went back to reading and I completed 2 books last week.  Yay.

On the baking front, I didn't bake anything until yesterday, when I made a batch of buns.  I made 12 smaller buns than I did last did, which gave me leftover dough.  I used that to make cinnamon rolls.  Not sure bun dough is exactly right for cinnamon rolls.  They're super soft.  But they taste good and that's the most important thing.  

As for activity, I only had two active days.  Both walks.  But I am up to just over 11 miles for the year.  Weight: 179.8

I discovered yesterday that all five of my peonies survived their garage experience.  New buds are poking up from the spots where I planted them.  Yay.  No news yet on the mums or the columbine.  I'm seriously thinking about putting vegetables in the rest of the bed.  We'll see.  

Lumpy the doe is looking kinda of thick around the middle.  I hope she carries twins to term and that they survive the birth.  We didn't see her with any babies last year and she's such a good mom.  

Monday, I won a sizable poker tournament.  1st out of 225.  Prior to that, I'd only won the small tourneys - a couple of 6-people sized ones.  So, I got that going for me.  Yesterday, I finished 12th out of like 550 people in a poker tournament.   I'm finishing in the money on a regular basis now.  Thanks, stupid Obama for making online real-money poker illegal.  Turd.  I could never do this in person.  I have no poker face.  And I say insulting things to my competitors.  But here, they can't hear me, so it's no big thing.  Oh, and I think you can't smoke at casinos anymore.  Not smoking would totally harsh my game.

And I'll leave you with this for your entertainment... Spirits by The Strumbellas.  (Because I woke up with it in my head.)

What was your week like?

CHILL

 After I got home yesterday, I saw a post in a reader/author group I follow that went something like this: "I ordered an author copy of my paperback from Amazon on the 1st.  It didn't ship until the 13th and it still isn't here yet.  It's only got to go from IL to CA.  Should I demand a refund?"  

I'd like to go over this.  First off, author copies take time to print.  And how fast yours gets printed depends on how many other books are in the queue ahead of yours.  It's not magic.  You don't snap your fingers and poof there it is.  I think they say it normally takes 10 days to print a book.  

Second, Amazon ships paperbacks via the USPS First Class Mail.  Nowhere in the normal scheme of things does first class mail get from IL to CA in 3 days.  Never has.  Doubt it ever will.  It takes 4 days to get from MO to MI, for petesakes. On a good week.

Thirdly, notice the words normal and normally in there.  This is totally not normal as we once knew it.  Normal things... everyday things... take longer now.  Unless whatever you want is in electronic form, it's going to take a while.  

My advice?  Chill out.  Seriously.  CHILL.  The world would be a better place if everyone just chilled out.

No, I did not say that to the author in question.  I blocked her stupid, entitled ass so I never have to see her whiny shit again.  Yeah, I need to chill a little myself.  I have no patience for stupidity, entitlement, or whining.  I used to have a little, but as I've aged, the little patience died a horrible, violent death.

Your book will get there, lady.  No need to go all litigious on Amazon.  Or the postal service.  Yet.  I mean, if two weeks go by and your book still isn't there, by all means, demand your money back.  Until then, get into the lotus position (figuratively, of not literally) and chant calming things at yourself.

And yes, I do understand that you can't set the book for sale until you approve it and you can't approve it until you receive it.  You want it and you want it now so you can start maybe seeing money from it.  (That will take two months to actually reach your account, by the way, so more waiting and chilling.)  It's aggravating and it's frustrating, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

This whole thing is not for the impatient.  On the bright side, at least this isn't traditional publishing which can take a whole lot longer.  

The Landslide

 I'm finding it increasingly hard to stay positive.  About anything.

Yesterday, I started out the day reading that the unvaccinated should be lined up in front of a pit and shot.  Followed that up with the suggestion that all self-published authors are SCABS and are taking food out of the mouths of the traditionally published.  Later came the news that studies show no one likes ebooks.  And then another zippy note that the unvaccinated should be tied to a hill and left in the sun along with a suggestion that eugenics is a good idea when it comes to the UV.

I keep hearing the refrain 'if only everyone would get vaccinated, we could return to normal'.  Umm... I don't think the people tweeting as if this was the late 1930s and the UV were Jews will let anything return to normal.  Ever.  But they're happy to let you believe that if everyone simply complies, we can have all our rights back.  (As if rights are trading cards they can give and take at their leisure.)  They like the new normal.  It gives them power.

As for the suggestion self-pubs are stealing from trad-pubs by their mere existence... Umm, yeah, right.  Here's the deal... traditional published authors have the weight of their publishers behind them with all the money, and therefore marketing, that comes along with that.  If people are choosing to read self-published books instead, perhaps the trad-pubs need to turn their lens inward.  Write better books.  Price them so they're more in line with what the common man can afford.  Be flawless in your editing.  Tada, you sell more books.  

And the other thing... It's a non-issue.  This isn't the first time there's been a study that 'shows' people don't like ebooks.  They're put out by the people who have hardcopies for sale that they can't sell at the price they want and they're trying to convince people to eschew the evil ebook so they can make up the money they've already invested plus a profit.  Look at the sales numbers for ebooks.  I haven't seen them in a while, but I assume ebooks are selling fine - especially for the self-published (whose numbers are never included in these studies.)

Not sure what's going to happen down the road.  I don't want to look down the road at this point.  Give me today.  I can deal with today.  I can maybe deal with next week.  Farther than that?  It's a crapshoot with loaded dice.  

Speaking of next week, it's Wish in One Hand's birthday, so I made it free for five days.  That's about all I can do to try and combat this negativity.  One little thing at a time.  One tiny pebble moved from beneath the landslide so I can breathe.

Sunday Update - Week 11

Whoops.  Way late again today.  At least today I can blame the time change.  Stupid stupid time change.

In editing news, I finished the edits for Duke Noble: Rumor Has It and it's off to readers now.  It tops the scales at 55190 words.  Which is 192 pages of pure story in MS Word (TNR 12 point) pre-formatting.  I'm not rushing my readers.  They'll take as much time as they need.  Once I get it back, figure a week for tweaking and then formatting, and I'll upload it for publication.

I readjusted the cover a bit.  

With new cream colored text.  Woohoo.

Then I made a Coming Soon graphic.  (Look over there ----->)  And I made new banner graphics for FB and MeWe.  

Sixteen books ain't easy to fit on a banner and still have them all legible, lemme tell ya.

Also, I started working on the back cover copy for the book.  LAME.  Lame lame lame lame lame.  When I can produce something that doesn't suck, I'll show it to you.  Today, I'm going to read the backs of all my noir crime books and see if I can't produce something as zippy.

In reading news, I finished the book I was saving for when I got the edits done.  Yay!  It was made of awesome.

In baking news, I made Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake - tweaking a recipe my friend, Silver, posted on her blog last week.  Yummers.  I also did quesadillas and french bread pizza and pot roast.  It was a food filled week.

On the activity front, I spent one day removing leaves from some of my gardens and three days I got walks in.  As for weight, let's just say I stepped on the scale and got right the hell back off of it.  Somehow (perhaps it's all the baking) I'd gained 4 lbs.  Gak.  Then I lost one.  185.6.  I haven't weighed myself since.  

Speaking of gardens, once I removed the leaves, I have hyacinths, crocuses, and daffodils.  Only the hyacinths are flowering yet.  Two peonies are coming up.  Another one is usually later.  And the fourth one died last year.  The lilac has leaf buds.  The Charlie Brown hydrangea is growing up from the ground again.  The irises are doing their thing.  Still waiting on several plants to show me whether the cold snap hurt them.  :fingers crossed:

In general, life is good.

How are things in your world?

Sunday Update - Week 17

First, let's get something out of the way.  Ugly and the Beast went live last night.  Any errors, flaws, gaffs, screw ups, etc. are entirely mine.  It's $2.99.  Sleeping Ugly is 99c right now here in the states and should be comparably priced elsewhere in the world.  And will be through the end of the month.

Yeah, so umm, last week.  Well, it was pretty much devoted to getting UatB out into the world, so loads of proofing and editing and formatting, etc.

If you stopped by yesterday, you'll see I didn't read much last week because of the above.

Since I was launching a new book, I had to update my spreadsheets to reflect a new book in the month of May, which was tedious to the max, but needed to be done.  It's done.  Which is good because I had my first sale last night, too.  (Umm, it was me.  I always buy a copy of my books when they release.)

I did get some exercise last week.  Unfortunately, I gained back some of the weight I lost, too.  I blame that on it also being the week for my shot.  I always gain weight right before I get my shot.  No biggie.

Today, I have to do all the after-pub things - updating blogs and Goodreads and Pinterest and backmatter.  I have to add the series info to Sleeping Ugly's Amazon listing, too.  And marketing!  Blerg.  I'd forgotten how much stuff is involved in a book launch.

In local news, there seems to be a whole new flock of free range guinea hens wandering the neighborhood.  They've taken to visiting our yard.  And they ARE the silly, noisy, rusty-windmill birds I've been hearing since the newish neighbors moved in last year.  :shrug:  They amuse me.

I don't think I baked anything of note last week.  The week is a blur.  I need cake.  Maybe today I'll make some.

So, what's been up with you?

Sunday Update - Week 33

Well, it was a busy week here at Sanderson Acres (wholly own subsidiary of Sanderson, Inc. LLC.) despite the fact that I don't really feel like I did anything.

Writing... No new words, but a lot of writerly things were going on.  I did some polishing work on Unequal to get it ready for AWE (Awesome Wonderful Editor, for the new people).  I set up the print version of Sleeping Ugly, got it loaded and approved, and ordered a proof copy.  I set up the print version of Early Grave (finally) and got it loaded on Friday.  Yesterday, I got the notification there were some issues, which I addressed and then re-uploaded.  We'll see what the review is like today.  I'll either address them or ignore them today depending on their level of crucialness.  (Like a potential blurriness in cover details - which I intentionally made kind of blurry, so no big deal.  The fonts are clear and crisp.  The old lady in her wheelchair?  Hazy on purpose.)  We'll see how the proof looks once I get it.  :shrug:

I also began the slog to update all the backmatter of all my books to show that I now have 12 books published.  It's no big deal either.  Open the file, add in the back matter, save.  Go to Amazon, upload new file, go through their stuff, click publish.  DE, FG, and EG are done.  I was a toad yesterday, but I'll get to the rest of them today.

Amazon found one typo in FG that neither it nor I had found before, so it's all good.  I left the H out of enthralled in one spot.  Derp.  It's fixed in the ebook.  Print books do not get fixed.  The expense of new proofs every time I changed backmatter or fixed a typo would wreck me.

I read a bunch.

We went fishing one afternoon.  Nothing exciting to report.  I caught a little bass and Hubs caught a couple little punkinseeds.  It was just nice to be at the lake.

Now that my back is mostly normal again, I'm back to exercising.  I'm sticking to walking for the most part.  The other exercising, I'm doing a little bit of.  Don't want to push it.  Still, I managed to get back to the weight I was at before the back thing hit.  180.4.   Next stop, 179 point something.  I haven't seen a seven in that position on the scale in probably ten years.

The drought is over here.  Not officially because the weather people do love to clench onto their pet calamities.  But since it's raining just about every day, and the grass is all green, and the weeds are growing like, well, weeds, I'm declaring it over.  Hubs mowed and already it's almost time to mow again.  He also sprayed the driveway weeds with a vinegar and Dawn solution.  I really have to weed the flower beds this week sometime.

I can't believe the week ahead is the last week of August.  Where did all those weeks go?

Your turn.  How did your week that was go?

Three Years

Three years ago today, Dying Embers was released into the world.  It's been a wild ride ever since, but I wouldn't trade this cuckoo trip for anything.

In the past three years, I've published 9 books.  (Shoulda been 12, if I'd kept to my original plan of 4 a year, but stuff happens.)  NINE. That's pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.  I know Hubs is impressed.

Nine books.  Three cover artists (four if you include me), two editors, one author.  I like the cover artist and the editor I have now, so currently it's just one one one.  Which works for me.  And I'm pretty happy with how things are going in my little self-publishing empire.

In the past three years, here's what we did...

2015
Dying Embers
Accidental Death
Wish in One Hand
Blood Flow

2016
In Deep Wish
Fertile Ground
Up Wish Creek

2017
Natural Causes
Wish Hits the Fan

And a look ahead at 2018's tentative schedule is
Blink of an I (Feb)
Early Grave (May)
Sleeping Ugly (August)
Undetermined (either DH3 or Unequal) (November)

Anyway, I'm pretty tickled.  If I'd been paying attention, I might've done a sale or something today, but I wasn't, so instead of giving readers an inexpensive read or a free book, all I have to give you is my gratitude.  Thanks for reading my books.  You guys are awesome.

Sunday Update - Week 6

Hey, Everybody!

And that's about as awake as I get this morning.  It's 5:06 and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

I made some good progress on getting Blink of an I ready for y'all to read it.  Got through the editor edits and started the read-through.  Made it about 4% in before I remembered that I'd had this awesome epiphany the night before.  So I input the epiphany, which is awesome btw, and then I sent the updated manuscript to my Kindle Fire so I could continue working.  My Kindle Fire had other ideas.  It decided to have a brainfart and tell me I wasn't connected to the WiFi, so it couldn't download.  Checked the WiFi connection and the damn thing was 'Connected' with 'Excellent'.  Tried some things, but it was still being a little snot, so I sent the manuscript to my old Kindle.  And there it was with no damn problems.  Yay!  By then, though, I was so thoroughly irritated, I took the rest of the night off.  Like a whole hour.  Today will be devoted to finishing this thing so I can format it and get it in your hands.

I haven't been reading much lately.  I'm about halfway through Shogun, but getting ready for publication takes precedence.

The woods work is coming along.  In fact, we're almost to the point where we said we'd stop.  I'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep going.  It's great exercise and it gets me away from this computer when I can't fish. 

Let's not talk about fishing, shall we?

We did not win the lottery.

The Olympics are underway and I am watching.  So far, it's been kinda disappointing, but I'm watching.  We have one medal so far - a gold.  I'm not saying in which sport because I don't know if it's been televised yet.  All I know is I was watching the preliminaries yesterday, so maybe they showed it last night after I went to bed. 

Okay, that's about it for my boring life.  Hopefully, next week I'll be more interesting.  ;o)

How'd things go for you last week?

Taking Myself in Hand

The end of the year is rapidly approaching.  Where did the time go?  Sheesh. 

I know a large portion of it was spent sitting on my ever-widening ass, I'll tell ya that.  And it's got to stop.  (The ever-widening ass part AND the sitting on it part.)  So here's the plan for 2018...

1)  I will get back to my 'do something active every day' thing.  Every day I'm not gimped up or sick, I will do something active.  This includes any number of the following: dancing, actual exercise, woods work, cleaning, walking, fishing... anything that gets my butt moving instead of sitting.

2)  I will stop being such a whiny baby and do the work I know I need to do to accomplish my goals, regardless of whether I'm tired or discouraged or achy.

3)  I will publish 4 books in 2018.  Which means sitting at this keyboard any time I'm not doing something active or running errands.  And I will be doing writerly things here any time I'm not doing spreadsheety things for work.

4) Since I recognize that the above will turn me into a crispy critter, I will read at least 70 books in 2018. 

Yeah, yeah, I know.  I'll still be screwing around part of the time - watching the boob tube, vegging out with FB, etc.  But if I don't take myself in hand at some point, my plans will fall apart and I'll be sitting here this time next year lamenting the time I frittered away.  2018 will be more working and less frittering. 

What's your plan for the new year?

Sunday Update - Week 13

Last week was the 13th week of the year, and it held the 13th anniversary of the day Hubs and I met in person.  Lucky 13.

Anyway, the week that was...

I got Natural Causes' final edits back from AWE on Thursday.  Worked a little bit on them then.  Ended up taking Friday off.  Worked my buns off last night and am at pg 150 out of 247.  I should be able to get that done today.

Before that, I got some work done on Wish Hits the Fan.  Then I made the executive decision to put WHTF on hold until after the publication of NC.

Yesterday, I also did what I should've done two years ago and made a formatting checklist, so all the steps to formatting a book for publication are written down.  Thus far I've been trusting my memory - a sketchy plan at best.  I'll talk more about the checklist tomorrow on Outside the Box.

Other things... I created a bookmark showing all 8 books...

and re-did my FB banner...

And I added Natural Causes to all my blogs' right hand bars and put Natural Causes on my Mystery page at Outside the Box.

I read two books last week!  Silver James' Seal Moon and Jennifer Lyon's Sex on the Beach Book Club.  Both amazing.  Then I started The Bridge on the River Kwai for a bit of a change.  So far, so good.

I did some fishing.  And some yard work.  And some cleaning.  And some personal stuff as we had a death in the family and I volunteered to do all the flower ordering for the immediate family.  1-800-FLOWERS came through.  And from what I've heard via Mom, everything looked really nice.  Whew.  I'm always unsure how ordering flowers is going to go.  Images of dead or bedraggled flowers dance through my head until someone confirms otherwise.

This week?  Getting ready for publication.  Barring natural disaster, this will definitely be out before the 13th.  Once I have it out and have a buy link, I'll let you all now.  And once I have the link to put in the back matter for Accidental Death, I'll be putting that on some kind of sale.  (Sale or free... Hmm.  Wait and see*.)

Okay, that's it for me.  What's up with you?

* I'm a poet and I know it, cuz my feet sure show it.  They're Longfellows.  ;o)

2015 Wrap Up

I said somewhere that I'd do a wrap up of 2015 this morning.  Okay, here goes...

I was totally going to do a month by month thing, but I got bored.  And if it's boring me, it's sure as hell gonna bore you. 

Here are the highlights:

I published four books in 2015, which means doing all the things that are required to get books up and available.  You know, cover art, editing, marketing, etc.  Lucky for me, all four of those books had already been written. 

Hubs sanded all the yucky orange paint off the house.  It looks so much nicer.

I did some landscaping and gardening, so the yard is pretty much the way I want it now. 

A lot of time and energy went into keeping Max as comfortable as possible with his recurring mouth infection.  In November, we lost the fight and decided Max had fought enough. 

Baen rejected Djinnocide, which gave me leave to publish it myself - as Wish in One Hand.

I ended the year with 1017 books sold in 2015. 

And that's about all.  What are some of the highlights from your 2015?

Sunday Update - Week 17

Well, here we are again.  I can tell you one thing - I got up way too freakin' early today and it's making me loopy, so be warned.  ;o)

Okay, let me just start out by saying that I still can't get past the news story I just read about the college kid who was found dead in his dorm room.  His room was filled with helium but the article said - twice - that his death isn't suspicious.  I'm suspicious.  Unless he was blowing up balloons and the tank leaked, how the hell did the helium get into his dorm room??  I could see it if he was found dead in the science building.  Hubs says I am suspicious of this because I am a writer.

Speaking of Hubs, he's about 30 pages from being finished reading Accidental Death for the first time.  He has been amused, surprised, and enthralled. (I say enthralled because he's inhaling this and he completely ignored the Log Cabin Living marathon I was watching last night.  He loves log cabins and he didn't even look up when I said something about how beautiful this one was.  I'm taking that as a win.)

Yes, I know.  I don't usually have Hubs read until AFTER the final edits, but I needed him to vet some things and I didn't want to have all the edits done only to find I messed something up royally.  Good news - he hasn't found anything wrong with what I wrote.

So, Accidental Death is out with the editor.  And I've contacted a cover artist for Djinnocide (Wish in One Hand).  AND I'm reading through Bloodflow for content and clarity.  Busy busy. But it's all good.

In non-writerly news, I took the garden shears and the limb saw out yesterday and whacked holy-hell out of the vines that are prevalent around here.  You see, we were looking into the back of the property and noticed that the two oaks off the sunporch were looking peaked, and the three trees just off the yard are lagging behind in the leaf-generation stage.  I assume the culprits were the damn vines.  So I killed them.  As I headed out the door, I was amusing myself by chanting "Some must die so that others may live."  The back yard is now covered with dead vines and the stuff still up in the trees is all wilty, so life is good.  I know killing the Virginia Creeper last year seemed to help the small oak off the driveway.  And killing the Virginia Creeper in the side yard the year before has done wonders for the black walnut trees there.  I also got rid of some grape vines and some thorny viney crap I haven't identified yet.  The latter whipped around and got me in the back of the leg.  One scratch.  Die!

I also planted two mint plants.  I shall name them Thing One and Thing Two. 

Today I plan to weed the iris bed. 

What happened in your world last week?  What on tap for this week?

Sunday Update - Week 15

(As Silver pointed out, it is NOT in fact Sunday.  Sorry about that, guys.  Enjoy all of your weekend from here on out!)

Spring is in the air here in SW MO.  Yay!  I love Spring.  It's my favorite season.  The birds are singing their little brains out.  The squirrels are chasing each other all over the place.  The first batch of baby squirrels have been kicked out on their own, in fact.  And the flowers are blooming everywhere.  My yard is filled with wild violets, and tiny white flowers, and tiny blue flowers.  You drive anywhere around here and the woods are shot with pink as the redbuds burst into bloom.  And the hummingbirds are back! :happy sigh:

Of course, all this Spring is making it hard to concentrate on work.  Still, I managed to put my head down and get some beaucoup editing down this week.  Accidental Death is really shaping up.  I don't have a firm launch date yet - still editing which means I still don't have the paper cover done because she can't do it without a page count which I can't have until I'm done editing.  Those kinds of things.  I'm still shooting for some time next month.  And I will have a firm date to go in the newsletter.  Haven't signed up for the newsletter yet?  Go to my other blog and click the tab for Newsletter Sign Up Form.  It'll take you right to it.  Easy peasy.

In case you hadn't heard elsewhere, Baen sent me the most lovely rejection letter for Djinnocide which means that book is now unencumbered and will be taking its place in the publication schedule here.

Trying to generate some sales, I dropped the price of Dying Embers to $2.99 for a limited time.  And nothing has happened so far.  If nothing continues to happen, I'll put the price back to $3.99 and let it ride until Accidental Death launches.  I'll make a price determination then.

I joined an Indie Authors Support Group over at Goodreads.  I'm still new, and therefore fringe, but it seems like a good group of people who are supportive without being catty.  Yay.

I spent some time watching the kerfluffle that is the Hugo Awards.  It's really getting rancid over there - with venom and viciousness and libel and lies.  But like a rubbernecker on the freeway, I couldn't seem to pull my eyes away.  Still, I decided yesterday that I have better things to do than watch the car wreck.  Have to keep my eyes on my own road and hope none of that crap slops over into my lane.  And that's all I have to say about that.

Yesterday, Hubs and I took the first walk around the loop since Winter ended.  It was gorgeous.  But man, am I ever out of shape.  Bleh.  I need to start making that a daily venture.

How are things in your world?

Sunday Update - Week 10

Gah.  It's Sunday again.  And the freakin' time change again.  Let's all spring forward for no rational, objective reason.  K?

Last week was an interesting week and once again, a blur - which means I'm sitting here this morning trying to rebuild it in my head.  Here are the highlights:

I slipped and fell on my ass. Nothing was bruised but my pride.
Max at a big breakfast and then proceeded to throw it all up on the office carpet.
I had some shithead try to steal several hundred dollars from me through Paypal.  The joke's on him - I don't have several hundred dollars, so even if Paypal had let that go through, it would've bounced like a Super-Ball.  I'm a debut, self-published writer here.  There are no funds in my account.  I won't even see a disbursement for the books I've sold until sometime in April, and as it stands, that won't even cover a week's grocery bill.
And that ^ was just Friday.

I spent yesterday cleaning and then reading.

In other news, last Monday was my first day of my allotted 5 free ebook days.  It went well, and netted me two new reviews, but not an upsurge in sales yet.  Monday I also guest blogged at my friend, Laura Bickle's place.  Tuesday I did a paid promo with Kboards.  Didn't see any sales from that either.

I got all the books I needed to mail mailed on Monday, so if you were expecting one, it's on its way.  And my local postal gal said the next time I stop in, bring a paperback with me and she'll buy it. 

In writerly news, I'm working on cleaning up Wrongful Termination because my editor said she has a spot open after the 13th of this month.  I have until Friday to make this as non-nauseating as possible.  I fixed the ellipses addiction I have yesterday.  Now I need to read-through again to make sure I don't have any glaring errors.  She'll find tons anyway, I'm sure, but I want to do what I can before I send it.

I'm also working on the rewrite of Fertile Ground (SCIU #2) and I think I have the path so that Frank slides in seamlessly.  Of course, I have to trash quite a bit of what I've already written, but them's the breaks.

I was working on the edit notes for Bloodflow - and I still am, kinda - but the plot holes are deep with this one.  I knew that.  This book has been like walking through a field of jacks barefoot.

In house news, Hubs only has two walls left to sand.  I've been remiss and haven't taken progress pics, though. The last two walls are the hardest and the highest, but he's way ahead of his self-imposed schedule, so it's all good.  LOL, you should've seen him out there in 20 degree weather sanding away.  Or the day he set the ladder in the snow and worked.  The man's committed.

Anyway, that's about it for me.  What's new in your world?

Free-king Out

Yesterday was my first ever free day at Amazon.  And here's a summation of how it went:

Me: :crawls out of bed, powers up 'puter, gets coffee:  "La la la, let's see how the freebie thing is going.  Wow, eleven books. Cool.  Hey, honey, eleven new people are going to read my book."

Him: "Wow.  Cool."

Later...

Me: :blink blink:  "I'm up to 54 books now."

Him: "Fifty-four books?  Imagine if those people actually bought the book..."

Then the roads finally got good enough for me to venture out where I mailed books to some people, talked about Dying Embers to the postal gal and the ladies at the bank and the gal at the convenience store.  Snagged some foodage.  Came home around 1:30pm.

Me: "Holy shit.  124 books."

Him: :visibly cringes:  "So, this is supposed to help with sales?"

Me: "From everything I've read, yeah."

This goes on several more times until bed - except by then we were both cringing as books walked out the door.  Flash ahead to this morning...

Me:  Final tally 356.  And one new sale.  :drinks coffee, smokes cigarettes, waits for Hubs to get up:

Him:  :snags coffee, pets Max, lights a cigarette:  "So what was the count?  Hundreds?"

Me: :cringe: "Do you really want to know?"

Him: "Yeah."

Me: "You sure?"

Him: "Yeah."

Me: "356"

Him: :silence:

This had better work in the long run.  Or I'm going to have serious egg on my face.  Fried.  With scalding hot butter dripping down my cheeks.

Looking on the bright side, there are 356 new people who could potentially read Dying Embers and then recommend it to their friends who might buy a copy.  Or they could like it so much they buy a paperback to keep on their shelves (cuz it's pretty).  Or they could like Dying Embers so much they purchase the next book and the next and the next. 

This morning, though, I'm kinda freaking out a little. 

Oh, and because who doesn't like free things, my Goodreads giveaway contest started yesterday.  There's a widget on B.E.'s Writerly Space if you're interested in the chance to get a hardcopy of Dying Embers and some swag.  (It's on the right side, underneath the 'Dying Embers is for sale' doohickey.)

Sunday Update - Week 9

Eight weeks into 2015.  Where'd the time go? (ETA: yeah, this was actually nine weeks in.) I could blame it on being busy, but the time flies just as fast when I'm not busy, so I'll just claim some sort of temporal disturbance and leave it at that.

Last week saw the arrival of my hardcopy books and my bookmarks.  The books are awesome, but the bookmarks were tragic.  Never create and order bookmarks when you're tired.  I uploaded files that should've been 160% larger and when I looked at the preview my brain said 'hey, those look spiffy!' instead of saying 'hey, aren't those supposed to go all the way to the edge?'  :shrug:  Anyway, I enlarged the images and ordered a new batch. Those arrived Friday and they really are spiffy this time.  The front says 'Revenge is better hot' in a red to orange gradiation on a black background.  The back says 'Dying Embers by B.E. Sanderson' and a ways to contact me, along with a bit about the book being available at Amazon, B&N, Createspace and 'other fine retailers'.

Now that I have all my swag in place along with my books, I'll be packing them in their padded envelopes and sending them off.  I'm shooting for shipping tomorrow, but I have to see how the roads are.

In actual writerly stuff - as opposed to marketing stuff - I finished this round of edits on Wrongful Termination, and began making edit notes for Bloodflow.  WT is shaping up nicely, and BF is a hot mess.  Today, I'll be starting the rewrite of the second SCIU book - Fertile Ground - which I'll be changing into Frank Carruso's book.  (For those of you who haven't read Dying Embers yet, Frank is a secondary character in there.)  Now I have to remember what Frank looks like.

On a personal note, my freakin' hand is killing me.  The accident that screwed up larger portions of my body left me with a deep scar pattern on the back of my left hand.  And every once in a while, those scars hurt like the dickens.  Or maybe is the mostly severed, but totally healed, tendon for my left flipping-off finger. Either way, soft tissue damage should not hurt after 20+ years, but there it is.  Makes typing fun.

In other news, because of the cold here, Max is back in the office at least through today.  He's living the high life.  He's also a major distraction.  Lucky for me, most of my work up to today has been in the living room with a notebook and red pen.

Coming up this week, I'll be a guest blogger on Laura Bickle's blog.  Stop on by, learn about how I ended up self-publishing, and get a surprise announcement.  (Which will also be announced on FB and Twitter - but Laura's blog will be more fun.)

What's going on in your life?

Sunday Update - Week 7

Other than the obvious - Dying Embers went live on Friday (both Kindle and Createspace) - it was a pretty scattered week. 

I took Max to the vet.  His gums were a little inflamed so they gave him an antibiotic shot.  Otherwise, he's progressing nicely. 

I got the final PDF for the print cover, uploaded all that, and then ordered a proof copy - expedited so it would arrive on Friday rather than the following Thursday.  When the mail came, I was seriously cheezed off because it wasn't in there.  Umm, yeah, I know... expedited doesn't come USPS.  The UPS guy dropped it on the front porch just as I was laying down for a nap.  After I got up, I scanned through it and everything looked peachy, so I approved the proof for sale.

Meanwhile, I had uploaded everything for the ebook copy and set it to 'preorder' for a Friday launch.  I actually managed to snag 8 sales - which is awesome for me since I've heard tales of a sale-free launch day.

Then launch day came.  And I was a total spazz.  In fact, I got so sick of myself, I picked up and went to the used bookstore in town.  It is a testament to my will power that I have not been there since we moved here, because if I had gone, I would not have had the fundage to self-publish - believe you me.  The place is awesome.  The owner is a book geek and computer nerd like me.  And she plays awesome old songs throughout the store.  Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald.  :happy sigh:  Just what I needed to get out of my own head for a while.  I came home totally refreshed - and that was even with a midday stop at Walmart afterwards.  I swear old bookstores are like a shot of B-12 to me.

And before you ask, no I didn't do anything to otherwise celebrate launch day.  It's just not me.  I remember celebrating completing my first novel.  After that, not so much in the yahoo-yippee arena.  I'm not much of a celebrator, I guess.  To each his own.

I did get kinda choked up when a blog follower and avid reader gave me a most excellent review.  And I got teary at the outpouring of support from my friends - who reviewed, and tweeted and blogged. and facebooked about my release.  Plus, out of the blue yesterday, I got a notice that someone I'd never heard of tagged me in a tweet.  They were talking about the release of my book!  Could've knocked me over with a stick.  

What happened in your worlds last week?