New Book Trailer

If It Was New York, Summer 2009 is getting closer to being complete. The pre-order will be up very soon. So here's your first look at the book trailer (kindly created by K.R. Smith). Let me know what you think!

The Finish Line in Sight

This whole poetry book project is quickly coming to an end. It's to the point that I can see the finish line ahead. But if you've ever ran a race, you know that this is the time that you push harder, yet you feel like you're standing still and the finish line will never cross under your feet.

There is still work to do. Every Friday for the past month I've marked my calendar with the words "put up for pre-order" and every week so far it just hasn't been ready. That's what this weekend is for.

If I want to stick to my original 2019 schedule by having one writing, one editing, and one promoting per month, I need to get on the ball about finishing up the last of the editing. This weekend will be dedicated to this, and I hope to have everything put into place by Monday, not getting distracted like I have been. I mean everything seemed to stop my progress, including flipping the calendar above my desk this morning and seeing this photo that is just so gosh darn cute I can't stand it.

After the weekend, I'll touch base again--done or not, there will be another update and some more fun exclusives. I can't wait to share!

New Year, New Tier

2019 is here, folks. I'm cautiously optimistic about it because last year I was able to accomplish most of the goals I set for myself, but there's still caution for the future because 2019 is an odd-numbered year. I tend to not do so well professionally in odd-numbered years. Don't ask me why, it just happens. I'm looking to break that streak this year by again setting the same goal as last year. I'm aiming for four published works by the end of 2019, which I now know is doable since I already accomplished it once. However, this time there won't be unfinished live projects to lean on. I'm making 2019's pieces all new and all polished to a shine when they are revealed.

I'm nearly twenty-five percent into my goal already with the upcoming poetry collection If It Was New York, Summer 2009. This collection will be available for pre-order soon. I've hit a few behind-the-scenes snags, otherwise the pre-order would be available now. But I've got a plan to fix all of that. I just need to strap myself to my computer and get all of it done, though it's difficult because I find myself in input mode rather than output mode. I'm consuming a lot of content, but the original stuff just isn't flowing out at a fast enough rate. 

In other news, if you have been interested in checking out my work or my Patreon page but still haven't done so, I've got a deal for you. There are ten spots available to sign up as a 2019 All-Star on my Patreon page. What does this mean? It means that you get access to all posts and tier rewards available and for only a $1. That includes exclusive excerpts of new projects, cover reveals, early access to ARCs, and my entire backlist--including the out-of-print Melody of Love novella series. Since there are only 10 spots available, I wouldn't hesitate to sign up.

What are your writing goals this year? What do you want to see happen for yourself in 2019?

Focusing on November

It's just barely past the halfway point of October, but I'm spending most of my time thinking ahead to November. That's when NaNoWriMo starts, so that should be fun. At least that's what everyone wants you to think. Mostly it feels like work, but there is the occasional moment that makes a writer smile.

Balancing the day job with NaNo is going to be a little tougher this year. Even after my price change announcement (both here and on the specific Fiverr gigs) I still seem to be a popular person for new and repeat clients. I took advantage of the lull in the Book Spotlight gig and changed the higher tier prices early. No one seemed to notice. That's a good thing.

I think the reason that new clients keep coming in and checking it out is that I finally made it back to a Level 1 Seller after Fiverr decided to change the requirements to get there. I only have to sell about $1600 more to make it to the next level after that. That should only take a couple of years...

I also have a week and a half or so to buckle down on the poetry project. It's solidly halfway done, but there's still a lot to write and revise. You can learn more about it on Patreon. Just $1 gets you all of the content I've posted about it until now, plus all the fun previews and exclusives still to come. Even at just the dollar level, you will also get access to previews and exclusives from some of my other projects as well. It's a pretty good deal (if I do say so myself...).

See you at the starting line November 1!

The Reveal is Coming

I can't honestly say how long I've been talking about a poetry project that I wasn't quite ready to reveal yet, but it's getting closer. To be clear, it's not the poetry project I embarked on that had to do with the whole Instagram-poet-success stuff. They've got their lane, and I seem to have my own. That project felt too forced and didn't seem like me, so it's been put aside. It may be resurrected at some point in the future -- I never say never on a half-finished project.

What I'm talking about is one that I've already given hints to on Patreon as to cover options and what I'm considering using for short excerpts in the marketing, but I really haven't talked about the bulk of what it is yet (see what you're missing out on by not subscribing?).

And I'm going to make you wait just a little longer.

Here are the details I'm ready to give away: the project has 15 completed pieces so far, with notes and bits on about forty more. It's a themed project, which is not something I often set out to do. Usually I come up with a theme and find existing pieces that can fit under that umbrella. It will also contain a dozen or so famous quotes that fit with the theme, which is another concept that's new to my work.

The rest of the details will be coming soon on Patreon. The first update will be tomorrow, and I'm hoping to make this project a little more interactive with subscribers. They'll be able to help choose the final cover design, elements that I will use in marketing the book, possibly even a poem's order of appearance. This one will be independently published, so any and all opinions can be considered before publication.

If you want to be first in the know, make sure to sign up for my Patreon page. All of the updates, polls, and exclusive reveals for this project will be at the $1 per month level, which is a super deal (excerpts of my work are typically only available for $5+ patrons). Hope I'll see you there!

The Art of Deadlines

My Kindle Worlds titles are officially no longer available on Amazon. We all knew it was coming, but I didn't know that I would also be getting a parting ding to my author ranking to go along with it:

So with Kindle Worlds officially kaput, I've been thinking about all of my new projects in progress. My mind doesn't focus on characters or linger on plots twists, but delves into the business side of writing. The next project needs a good launch, so I have been considering giving myself a hard deadline to get it out. I always set deadlines for myself, but the thing with being a freelance writer working on your own projects is that all of your deadlines end up being soft. This is because you pick up a new client, you suddenly get swamped with one-time gigs, or you simply don't feel that your project is quite ready yet. And there's no one to hold you accountable for your deadlines--unless you announce them to the world.

I'm considering putting the next project on pre-order so that I have a hard deadline to meet. It also helps so I can work with all of the marketing options that could generate buzz, and so I know that I'm continuing to move forward with my career. The only question is: which project will it be? Right now it's a toss up between Pieces, which is being released in pieces (ha ha) on Patreon and Wattpad. Putting this project on pre-order for the ebook would give me a strong deadline to complete it, but the problem with this one is that I still don't know how long it will be. I always aim for 100 pages for a poetry project, so I still have awhile to go. And since this project was released for free, I would need to come up with some sort of additional value for grabbing the completed book other than the convenience of having it in one place.

I could also go with something totally new--maybe even something that I've never talked about before. I don't actually think I have a project I've never talked about, but you never know when inspiration will strike!

New Poetry Project

This is one of those weeks where I just can't sit still. I know that I have tons of half-completed projects, but a new one seems to have pushed its way to the front of the line. It's a poetry project that's contained under a very specific theme. I only have two pieces written, but it looks like its heading for something that is chapbook length. It may expand to a full manuscript, but for now, I'm only concentrating on what ideas I've already come up with.

I'm also getting back on the submission cycle. Although there is one publication that I've submitted to twice already (one regular submission, one contest), it is now the one thing I want to conquer. I know that sending in poetry to a single publication more than once is just asking for rejection, but I'm still convinced that I know what they like, and I have pieces that they'll eventually publish. The key is in finding the right combination of pieces for my next submission. One of the publication's upcoming themes is Persona, and I have a stack of poems that meet this theme (from an unpublished manuscript entitled Personas, if you can believe it), so I should have something good that they haven't seen--or they have, just as a single page in a chapbook entry.

There are also a few other places where I'm looking to submit, including places that produce broadsides, which I've always loved. 

Outside of the poetry world, I'm almost finished with chapter five of Love Bites the Big Apple, I've been working on getting the diamond thief novel to a place where I can start revising it, and I've been thinking about putting together an editorial calendar for myself, but that seems like an impossible task at the moment.

That's what's on my desk right now. What are you working on?

PS: My Melody of Love novella series won't be around much longer! Make sure to pick up your copies from Amazon before they disappear.

What's on the Plate for February

It's February, which for writers with monthly goals means that you have to cram more words in a short amount of time. After the January I've had, I feel like it's totally doable.

The year 2018 will go down as the year I finally got back on track. I spent January releasing Melody's Valentine, finishing up the first draft of the diamond thief novel (title still TBD), launched Pieces on Wattpad, submitted a wide range of poetry and short stories to lit journals and magazines, and I even managed to finish up the first draft of a television pilot. The script is pretty terrible right now, but I'll fix that. All of this progress puts me halfway to my goal of having four works published in 2018. It's a pretty awesome place to be. 

This month I have planned to work on three separate projects. First, I'm going to finish the first draft of Avery Night, P.I. It's been a really fun story to write so far, and I already have the plot outlines for the next five books with these characters--I'm in a good place with this one.

For my revision project, 277 Miles is getting the full treatment (thanks to everyone who voted in my Patreon poll and chose this as my next revision project). Like almost every other first draft I've finished, it comes up short in the word count to be labeled a novel. The fix for that is to get into more of the character's heads and dig into their backgrounds. It'll still lead to the same conclusion, just with a wider understanding of where all the characters are coming from.

I will also be working on a brand new poetry project that I have a title for, but not much else. That's a strange place for me to be in because I almost never have titles first. I'm taking the plunge into the modern style with this collection--not what poetry professors label as modern, which is something like a century old by now, but what's going on in contemporary poetry right this minute. I know I've scoffed at it a little before, and it is taking a big hit by critics calling it consumer-driven and populist drivel. I clearly don't want to mimic a style, but instead take the same accessibility to readers that these poets have had and put my own twist on it. Simple, but deep. I guess that's what all poetry is supposed to be, but you know how taste can range.

I'm in the middle of reading some new releases of these poets, so I'll have to be careful that I'm not overly influenced by their style or subject matter. I have quite a few ideas. I'll just have to see where the pen and paper takes me.

What are you planning to work on February?

What's Left

It's the end of Camp NaNoWriMo and I have a poetry manuscript. It's certainly not complete. Some of the poems at the end haven't been edited, I haven't started putting them in order, and I didn't hit the page count I really wanted. But there's something there.

It's not what I expected. Don't get me wrong--I like what I've accomplished. I think I wrote some good pieces. The thing is, I understand the current trend in poetry. I know all the nuances of this particular style. I've read half a dozen authors who have been faithful to the trend. It consists a lot of focusing on the I, You, Me and We with an emphasis on removing all flowery language that often turns people away from poetry in the first place. It speaks like a conversation, and it ends with a full explanation. There's no way you come away from it without understanding the poet's intended meaning. It also mimics what a good haiku should be: focusing on the ordinary, but making it surprisingly extraordinary.

And none of this work fits that mold.

It made me want to chuck it all out the window, if only for a moment. I come from a background of being forced to read poets that made no sense, poets that seemed to have secret meanings behind every twist of phrase, dozens of super-archaic Shakespearean sonnets. That's what influences my work, and that means I have hidden meanings. I make obscure references. I play with metaphors and use all the colors in the crayon box. I'm in no way traditional, but there are hints of tradition in it. And that's not what the current market dictates. You would think a poet wouldn't concern themselves with market trends because poetry, overall, doesn't sell very well on its best day. But I've learned with both indie and traditional publishing, you're working with a ten percent effort on writing and a ninety percent effort on marketing if you want to be successful.

The issue I really have with the current trend is that the trend itself is being diluted with every new book that comes on the market. In my experience, Milk and Honey is the Holy Grail. It can do no wrong. It began the trend that you see. But those other poets, the ones who followed the trend? It doesn't quite hit the same notes when you read it. It doesn't contain the contemplative moments, and there's no sense of urgency when needed.

Because we live in a society where we can get whatever we want when we want, some of us don't want to put in the work to read poetry. Some of us don't want to have to work that hard to feel something. And this trend makes it easy to feel something without feeling stupid for not understand some deeper meaning. The meaning is on the surface, and it's not trying to hide behind anything. I don't write like that. The poets before me made me do the work, so I'm trying to hand down the same skill set to the next generation. I just don't think the next generation has the attention span for it.

I'll still polish it up and get it ready to send out into the world. It deserves that much.

Heading into the Final Stretch

At ninteen days Camp NaNoWriMo is more than half over. My project is currently sitting at slightly over half (45/80 pages) completed. I thought I would easily have 80 pages to cobble together, but it's harder than it seems. I felt like I've written thousands of poems over my lifetime, but really I haven't. Sure, I spent more than a year writing haiku which makes it seem like a large volume, but I'm excluding those from this project because of the length and the fact that haiku just seems to go together as a collection on its own.

Hopefully I'll find some more poems laying around, otherwise I'll have to get writing again. I'm not too worried, because 80 is sort of the center point of a poetry book. Most manuscripts are typically 60-100 pages. I wanted a little wiggle room in case I throw any out of the project. And length is really a smaller concern. The bigger concern is the order of the poems. It's going to take a lot of testing to see what order they should be in so that it flows and it seems like a cohesive entity instead of just random poetry slapped together. We'll see what happens!

Unfolding Life Now on Inktera and Scribd

The roll out of new places to buy Unfolding Life keeps moving along. Now you can purchase the ebook edition of Unfolding Life from Inktera for $2.99! Scribd members can also download the book as part of their monthly subscription.

Getting a wider distribution is an interesting lesson in independent publishing. I've talked with some authors that say some of these not-Amazon sales channels are great and others say they never see a single sale from. Still, it never hurts to get your title in front of more people. I'm currently using Draft2Digital to do this expanded distribution, and it's going well so far. I hope they are able to add other channels soon so that I can--dare I say it?--rule the world.

Camp NaNo update: I'm behind. No surprise about that. As much as I like the story I'm working on, I just have a lot of distractions. And let's be honest, these are distractions I can avoid, but don't. I should, but when you find an episode of American Pickers that you haven't seen yet, there's NO WAY you can write through it. I wish this wasn't a true-life example of my kind of distraction, but sadly it is (Side note: not distracted from other writing projects--just this one!). Anyway, it is still a living, breathing piece of writing. It will get done. Just maybe not until mid-August. And that's totally cool with me.

Fantastic Deals for Your Holiday Weekend

First of all, Happy Canada Day! If you want to pick up Unfolding Life this weekend for just $0.99, it's available at Kobo (you can also purchase the Kindle edition or paperback edition from Amazon for $2.49 and $9.99, respectively). This Kobo deal is available starting today through July 5th.

You know what else is coming up? That's right, Amazon's Prime Day! Yeah, I know everyone thought it sucked last year. But there are a lot of people saying that this year's deals are going to be A LOT better, so if you aren't already a Prime member, sign up today for your membership.





And since it's the first day of Camp NaNo, I just have to do a little bit of bragging. This word count total for Day 1 deserves a mic drop, doesn't it? :-D

Have a great holiday weekend!!

When Planning Goes Awry (Or, How Not to Write a Poem)

Week two of my goal to write 30 poems this month didn't seem to go as well as the first week. It's mostly because I was removed from my notes. During the last week in March I was coming up with these fabulous ideas to poeticize so I wrote them down and kept them especially for this challenge. The problem with all of this planning arose when I went back to those notes, looked at each separate idea and couldn't remember exactly where I wanted to go with it.

I used the notes anyway to do my daily writing, but I know that these ponderings of poetic genius didn't get the treatment they deserved. They turned out poor, with or without editing. Don't fret--they won't be lost to the ages if I commit to a few hours of rigorous revision.

Lesson learned. If an idea for a poem sprouts in my mind, I sit down and I write it then and there. Then maybe I'll get closer to achieving what I want.

On to the part you all are waiting for. The poem I'm sharing this week is a haiku. It comes much closer to traditional haiku with the theme of nature.

--

Fertile air in spring

Blossoms the waiting flowers

Rain mists down on us

-- 

No National Poetry Month would be complete without a pause for some promotion, would it? If you like haiku, I do have my haiku collection Unfolding Life for sale. You can get it from Amazon, Createspace and Kobo. I have it on good authority that more places for purchase will be available soon. ;-)  As always, if you pick up a copy, let me know what you think by leaving a review.

Publishing Year One: Hindsight

**Note to readers: I rewrote this post five or six times. Half of those posts had a positive spin, half went into the other direction. My attitudes about writing and publishing fluctuate on a daily basis. While this post may not be the most positive, know that I do still have moments of unfettered hope about the future of publishing my work. Ask me again tomorrow and the outlook may not be as bright.

Regrets—I have a few. 

It’s a big deal to publish a book no matter how you go about it. But the biggest lessons from it all are the things you have learned while you were standing right in the middle of all that planning and stress and hope. 

There were many things I could have done differently, starting with choosing a completely different form of writing to publish. Haiku is great, but half the world scoffs saying it’s easy, others say that it’s so challenging each one is a masterpiece in simplicity. I’m definitely walking the middle road on that topic, but creating a book of free verse poems or a novel would have probably provided a better vehicle for sales. 

That being said, the book is what it is. I could have tried different ways to advertise the book. I could have given out more free copies to avid readers. I could have made sure that paperback version and the ebook version came out on the same day. I could have just thrown money at the problem with paid advertising and paid book reviews (which I would never recommend). I could have simply waited and waited and waited until maybe someday, finally a real publisher or agent saw some talent in my work. But I didn’t wait around. I self-published because it the best way I knew how to get it out there at the time. 

A Career Changer?

The big question I know that I had at the beginning of this process was whether this would significantly change my career in any way. I’m very open about what I write, how I go about it and the struggles I have trying to make it my life’s work. But even I have to admit when I send a short story or some poetry to literary journals, Unfolding Life is never mentioned in the cover letter or the short bio. Self-publishing still has a stigma because the quality is unregulated. I will tell you this—after spending the past seven or eight years reading A LOT self-published work, the ratio of good-to-bad is about the same as traditionally published books. That’s because it is all about the reader’s perception and how they emotionally connect or disconnect with each story. Yes, formatting and grammatical nightmares are much more common in the self-publishing space, but even a great story can overcome all of that (think of your favorite trilogies-now-blockbuster-movies set). 

Lessons Learned

Learning throughout this process did give me one thing that I don’t regret—it made me happy to know what to expect for any potential future projects. Will I continue to self-publish? Maybe. I would still love to have a traditional contract with a major publisher, but I also know that the contract negotiations would be fierce—I’m no fool when it comes to royalties on ebooks. 

Will I continue to write? Come on. That’s like asking me whether I will continue to breathe. 

My motivation for writing will never change—it entertains me and I can’t think of anything else I would rather spend my time doing. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I actually spend enough time writing—it takes a lot to cut through the demands of trying to make a living (not always succeeding at it) and trying to convince everyone around me I’m not at their beck and call just because my office is located where I live. Then when there is a time to write, I feel so guilty that I’m doing something people consider unimportant the anxiety starts to block out all of those ideas that seemed to be good in my head, but once on the paper seem like a whole lot of nothing. 

My motivation for publishing will need to change if I ever want to enjoy the process again. I can’t think about it as just doing this project to get to the next project. Right now I’m still in the mindset that if Unfolding Life had made more money, I could have hired an editor for my novel In Another Life. And if that project sold enough copies, it would give me the money to hire an artist for my comic book project. With the profits from that comic book project, I would be able to finally find a way to shoot some of the short films I’ve written. It’s a vicious cycle, but I don’t think it’s all that unreasonable. It’s not like I thought about making a full-time living from a single book. I’m certainly not that naïve. I just wanted to reinvest the profits in future projects which may or may not have led to the one perfect project that finally provided the means to write full-time.  

The self-publishing world will absolutely crush me if I dwell on getting paid what I think my work is worth. Yes, I do believe that writers are more than entitled to make a living from writing alone. And by alone I mean no parent, sibling, spouse, sugar daddy, trust fund, anyone or anything else providing additional financial support. This background support is often hidden by both beginning and well-established writers. Very few actually talk about struggling, which leads me and their audience to believe that they don’t. But they won’t tell you that—they’ll lose their starving artist street cred. 

Most consumers (and *ahem* those who hire freelance writers for their businesses) do not believe that writing can or should be a full-time job, and they certainly don’t want to pay a writer what they are worth. I can’t say I blame them. I am that consumer. The ONLY ebook I have ever purchased is my own to fulfill giveaways and review copies. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle and my Kobo that I downloaded for free. I haven’t bought a physical book in the past three years—I’ve been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to write reviews in exchange for free books, so I am that consumer. Unless the book seems like it will absolutely change my life, I’m a little reluctant to pay for it. I don’t have the resources to make as many book purchases as I want, and there’s your full circle—if I made more money writing, I could buy more books. 

So I get it. I get why this project was not what I would consider a success. 

I’m smarter for going through the process, but I’m also realistic. Whether any future writing will ever see the light of day is a serious question I’m still struggling with. I know that hard work is the key, but when you feel like you have given it more than your all and it still brings no results, you have to keep asking yourself whether it is worth all the time, effort, stress and guilt for not spending time trying to be better at making money instead of keeping focus on being creative.

Previous drafts of this post were a lot more positive, but that attitude made it feel like I was lying to myself and to everyone else. I'm disappointed in the sales numbers. I’m frustrated that even though I know a whole lot more about online marketing than most first-time writers going into this, I still couldn’t get the project in front of the right audience. I’m angry that it feels like there’s some secret to success that I just haven’t figured out. 

Right now, I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t want to spend the next six months working hard on another writing project only to have the same outcome. The future of my career as a professional writer in any capacity is uncertain, and it’s not a feeling I like carrying around each day. It’s decision time and I still don’t know where I’m going. I know that wherever it is I have to move forward in some direction, with or without writing projects in my hand. 

Publishing Year One: The Dimming Spark

Now it’s time to get to the deep, painful truth about publishing. You’re not special. I’m not special. So if you think that you can get thousands of sales on Day One with your first published work, you have an overactive imagination. Or you forced your church group/college dorm-mates/professional organization to buy copies. Then maybe you can attain that goal. 

I didn’t expect more than ten or fifteen sales on the launch day of Unfolding Life. Heck, I wasn’t even expecting much more than that in the first week. I did, however, expect to see a steady one or two sales a week throughout the year. Didn’t quite work out that way. I did have a one-year sales goal and I’m so far off from it that I’m simply too embarrassed to give you the number. But we can totally talk in percentages to help me save face. 

The truth is that 22% of my yearly sales happened in the first five days after the book launch. And of the 22%, I bought 6% of the books sold (promotional giveaways). Unfortunately, after the first week of sales, they slacked off. Oh… who are we kidding? They stopped altogether. I kept up my promotional efforts, but I just couldn’t close the deal. 

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Give it Away

So I decided to utilize the tools provided to me by Kindle Select. About a month after publishing, I created a free day to get some book sales, even if they didn’t make any money. For most authors, this tactic is used to boost after-promotion sales. This is the day where I sold the bulk of my yearly sales. The upside of this is that for at least a few hours, my book was listed as the #1 selling book in the haiku category. Three days later, the book slid back into ranking obscurity. 

The downside, aside from the lack of money coming in, was that I used this promotion to boost the number of ever-important book reviews. When I give books away for free, whether through a promotion like this or individually to reviewers, I don’t expect to get 100% of the reviews. I really only aim for a 20% review rate. At this point in the process, I still only have about an 8% review rate—and I’m really lucky to have that. 

Tsk, Tsk Amazon

Although I would rather forget about it, we have to talk about Amazon’s horrible return policy when it comes to ebooks. Amazon has the nerve to let someone return an ebook for a full refund up to seven days after purchase. Um, what? No, Amazon! My book is only 60 pages long cover to cover and the fact that anyone can buy it, consume it, then say they didn’t like and get their money back is just plain stupid. Restaurants may have to do that when you hate your food, but something like a book shouldn’t be given that much time to say, “Oh, nevermind.” Anyone heard of buyer’s remorse? You bought a book you didn’t like. Just suck it up and move on! I have a closet full of terrible books that I purchased. I don’t whine to get my money back. 

This whole thing may make me a little angry, but in reality self-published authors deal with this all the time. My only post-promotion sale ended up being a return. Not only that, it was a return from the person who decided to leave the less-than-stellar review. Now, I think you should be kind enough to choose one or the other. You didn’t like the book? Fine. Either take the $2.99 hit and leave a bad review, or return the book and keep your mouth shut. It’s just plain mean to do both, especially since your review is one of the factors contributing to lack of sales from then on. (*Note: I was a good little author and didn’t engage in a spat over a negative review, especially since it was well written and made valid points. But I did do my research on the reviewer. This person was both a chronic returner AND hated everything they ever read. So there.)

Summer Slump

Then summer came and went. I distracted myself with other projects and didn’t promote Unfolding Life very much. After the free day and the return, I didn’t sell another book all summer. I was a little disappointed because I knew it meant I would never meet my yearly sales goal, even if a miracle occurred. And let’s not waste a good miracle on book sales when I’m still single. ;-)

The only thing I could do was to keep getting the word out. Around Christmas, the opportunity to include the book (as a $0.99 countdown deal) in the Read Tuesday catalog seemed like the perfect way to get holiday sales. I did the countdown deal for the maximum time allowed.  

Not. One. Sale. 

At this point, I was not surprised. Not one bit. Unfolding Life had unfolded, and it lived a very short life.

Absent Stacks of Paperbacks

The one aspect of this process I still haven’t mentioned is the paperback version of the book. I was first confused about KDP Select’s exclusivity rules and thought I couldn’t publish another version for 90 days (turns out it only pertains to ebook versions with other retailers). So I did create a paperback version and put it up for sale on Createspace and through Amazon. I didn’t promote it as hard as the ebook version, and because I didn’t want to have a bunch of copies coming to my door where my family would find out I published something, I didn’t buy any copies to give out or create a Goodreads giveaway with. Yes, they know I’m a writer—but there’s no need for them to read anything I write! I have issues, I know. I still haven’t sold a single paperback copy. Not even to myself.

(*Note: Since originally writing this post at the beginning of March, I have made paperback sales--a nice surprise!)

This was certainly an eye-opener. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about those pesky things I should have done, but didn’t.