Writing & Publishing

One thing I have learned is that when I am not feeling well, it is hard to write. Other than a handful of blog post, like this one, and a bit on social media I am nearly down for the count. A bad cold is whipping me, every day I think it will be better but, so far, not much. Enough about how I feel – read on.

Writing Quote – Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.

Henry David Thoreau

What Am I Working On? Two weeks ago I had a book nearly ready to go to my first reader – it is still there. Hopefully, who knows, maybe today, I will feel like working on it again.

Christmas Books – Don’t forget about my newest book, a book of Christmas short stories – G rated and fun. This one follows volume one that I published a few years ago. Both books, each containing 14 stories, are available on Amazon. Brighten your Christmas season and read a few short Christmas tales, all with happy endings.

Reading - I am doing some reading, presently enjoying C. J. Box’s Trophy Hunt. I thought that I had read all of the books in the series, then discovered I had missed one from several years ago. Like all of Box’s books, this one is an excellent read.

From the Old West – When a cowboy's too old to set a bad example, he hands out good advice.

 Photo of the Week – Like my writing, photo opportunities have been few the last ten days. I did get out this week for two sunsets and found some interesting opportunities.

As always, you can find all of my books here on Amazon

 Or

Follow me here on twitter at @wyohistoryguy

Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

& 

Have a terrific week.

Of Writing, Photos, and Eagles in a Tree

Busy Week – Talk about having too much to do. This week it looks like I will be scrambling to get any writing done. Meeting tonight, early breakfast at the school tomorrow and then three-day school board convention in Casper. Yes. I am on the local school board, going into my third year. I will, off course, take along a laptop and hope for some late night hours to write. On days like this, I most often work on outlines for future products and look at plot twists for my works in progress.

Guernsey Lake looking very Blue this time of year

From the Old West –Men and barbed wire each have their good points.

What I Am Working On – Most of the past few days I have been working on attempting to figure out why my KDP page reads had slipped to nothing. Never figured it out after going through eight days in a nine-day period with zero page reads – not good. The past two days I am back to several hundred each day – about normal for me.

For my readers that enjoy writing, that’s great, because the marketing part of writing is long, troubling and boring. When I started writing it was for the love of it, glad I still feel that way. Otherwise, it would seem too much like real work.

Took this shot from so far away that it looks more like a painting than a photo - somehow it seems to work - I like it.

 Photo of the Week –

Took this on today - on a day I was looking for eagles

As always, you can find all my books here on Amazon

 And

Follow me here on twitter at @wyohistoryguy

Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

& 

Have a terrific week.

Marketing and Selling Books

Book Marketing

I have not spent much time marketing my books, and I am afraid it shows. Most of my marketing efforts would be what people forty or fifty years ago called, by gosh and by golly. That old saying refers to doing something with no real planning; mostly hoping luck will be on your side. I spend some money on a bit of Amazon marketing each month, other than that, I rely on former readers, word of mouth and the few links I post on my blogs – like this one to all of my books. Using keywords and massive doses of social media are not my style. I guess I must be hoping that someday one of my books will hit it big – a little like winning the lottery with about the same chance.

Like so many who love to write, that is where I spend my time. I read much about marketing, but continue my efforts with my, by gosh and by golly approach. I guess at my age - that is what I do.

From the Old West – Army mules are branded U.S. meaning Unsafe at either end

What Am I Working On? – Finishing up front and back materials for my fourth kid's chapter book. With a bit of luck, I will finish today. I had a good week of writing, 5,000 plus total words working on a variety of projects.  

 Photo of the Week –

Terrific afternoon yesterday with my grandson watching the
 Wyoming Cowboys on a beautiful Laramie afternoon

As always, you can find all my books here on Amazon

 Or

Follow me here on twitter at @wyohistoryguy

Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

& 

Don’t forget Monday is coming up.

Writing Update and Fort Laramie

Another month has come and gone, and we have reached May 2018. I remember May 1, May-Day as a big deal when I was a kid. We would do something called a May Pole at school, and after school deliveries of May-Baskets full of candy to our friends and sweethearts – not sure any of that goes on in today’s world. But, the 1950’s in the middle of America were much different than today.

Selling Books – April never seems to be a great month for selling books – speaking of my books only. I was down a bit in pages read, eBook and regular book sales. Still, I am happy to be able to pick up enough each month to pay a bill or two.

Works in Progress – As I was with my last post I am spending most of my writing time working on a nonfiction work on Fort Laramie, and my third Marshal Blade Holmes western mystery. I am also spending time watching my grandson at baseball practices and reminiscing about my days as a kid.

What am I Reading? – The Hair of Harold Roux: A Novel, by Thomas Williams and still reading, A Guide to Photographing Rocky Mountain Wildlife, by Weldon Lee.

Life in General – My wife and I enjoyed spending time at Fort Laramie this weekend in the celebration of the 150 year anniversary of the Treaty of 1868. The crowds were big, and the weather was nice - a wonderful event. I am also spending time tending my growing flats of, tomatoes, onions, and flowers, three more weeks, and in the gardens, they go. Still spending some time, out in the wilds, with my cameras, and doing our walking.

Today’s Photos – From the four-day celebration at Fort Laramie.

Keep on reading, keep on writing, and enjoy the renewing season – Spring

See all my books here on my Amazon Author's Page

From our backyard

Marketing Books

Last week’s (wow has it been two weeks?) eBook give away seemed to be a success. If nothing else it let me know I am reaching a few more people. Next year I will try another with hopes to give away 100 books. Not close to that yet, but when I passed 20 I felt good about it.

Book Sales – Surprisingly my latest book – On Turning 70, is selling pretty well, not only in the eBook form, this month I have sold more regular books with this one than any of my others. Maybe because it is a large print edition has helped with sales to people my age.  I sell a few of my CCC nonfiction book in the soft cover version every month and now that it is warming up my humorous and helpful look at gardening is doing better.

Book Marketing – I have been reading more and more about bookselling and marketing, trouble is, I read about it but do not do much – guess that’s not working. Like many writers I spend too much time writing, messing around on social media and unlike many writers, I spend lots of time gardening, playing golf and shooting photos outdoors, all fun, but not a huge help when selling a book or two.

Writing – Spending most of my time on the third book in my Blade Holmes western mystery series. The book, tentatively titled, Cattleman, is set from Platte County to Johnson County Wyoming.

Reading – Sioux Dawn, by Terry C. Johnston, the book is based on the 1866 Fetterman Massacre, so far a well written and fascinating read.

Today’s Photo’s – Breaking spring in Wyoming

Keep on reading, and keep on writing, see all of my books on my Amazon author site – here. 

New Book and a Wyoming Drive

Feeling better and back to work – that’s me this week. Took nearly five weeks to get back to whatever is normal for me. The first battle with the flu I have had in many years, and the flu won this fight. But now, thankfully, looks like that is all behind me.

Reading - Spending much more time than normal sitting in my recliner had one positive outcome, I did a lot of reading. I spent quite a lot of time reading blogs and free sample pages of books I thought interesting. I found several books I added to my, to read, list.   Speaking of free pages, I love the, Look Inside, feature on Amazon, as it gives me a chance to see if it might be something I will like. I purchased half a dozen eBooks and two physical books over the last two weeks.

On Turning 70 – My newest book and my shortest is out. It is a story of reflection on turning 70 years of age. The book is not only reflective but full of humor and nostalgia. If you are getting, as we used to hear, “up there in years,” give it a try, it’s a quick hour or hour and a half read. This one, like all of my books, is available in soft cover or as an eBook. Here is the link to the $1.99 eBook.

Photo Trip – Thursday we made the hundred mile trip to Rock River, Wyoming to watch our grandson’s basketball game. For readers who do not live in Wyoming – no, a trip of 100 miles for Jr. High sports is not unusual here in the Cowboy state. The trip gave me a chance to drive through some rugged areas great for wildlife photos. All of today's photos are from that trip. You will see some snow coming down in a few of the photos, another, its that time of year, fact.

Meanwhile – Keep on reading, and for my writing friends, keep on writing.

Book Marketing - A Fickle Business

Off all things dealing with being an independent writer and publisher the most fickle of all is selling books. I endlessly read posts from authors on selling books, I also have purchased a few marketing books. What have I learned? Only what I stated above, selling books is a fickle business. I had one week in August with strong e-book and soft cover book sales and several thousand pages read on Kindle unlimited. At that point, I was sure I had, at last, figured it out. Well, not so fast. In the last week I have done almost nothing in sales and one two day period, I had all of one page read on Kindle Unlimited. Considering that last month I had a pretty fair month, for me, with a bit over 12,000 page reads on Unlimited, no pages one day and one the next cannot be called a slow start for the week – possibly a disastrous start fits better.

 

No matter how bad a few days or a week can be it seems that I will always bounce back. Or at least I hope I will.

I think I will not check my sales for a couple of days and see if that helps.

Meanwhile, I will get back to my works in progress. I have set Thanksgiving as the goal for my next two books, (my tenth and eleventh) I also have great hopes to get the third book in my Blade Holmes series, following, Commitment and The Ghost Dance, out by March first.

The photos were taken from our hike in the park one evening last week. The red is a result of smoke in the air from the fires burning in Montana - sure hope they get them out soon and save all their great scenery and the health of the people of Montana. Bring on the rain and snow.

Book Marketing and the Dead Western

Book Marketing

Like all writers I have found that marketing is most difficult. How much is too much? I commonly cut off people I follow on twitter who post too many times a day promotions for themselves or other authors. Not sure how some people have time for anything else. One I quit following must have tweeted two dozen times a day about their book. Another I cut loose seemed to retweet each and every tweet they could find.

Book Promotions

This might be the last chance to download a free copy of my short story click the link and read the short western.

I ran a free book (actually a short story) promotion over the weekend. I limited my promotions to once on each of my blogs and three tweets over three days. Some will tell me that is not enough – maybe not. I did get several dozen downloads but have no idea if that is a good number, or terrible. Nevertheless, this week it will be back to work writing and probably no promotions, other than links on posts like this one. One thing I did notice during the five-day free short story promotion, I sold a few of my other books as the promotion was running.

Is the Western Dead?

I am constantly told that I write in a genre that is dead, or nearly so. Most of what I write could be classified as historical fiction, and I think that is alive and well. The westerns I write may not be doing as well; there are still fans and readers, but not many. So how do the two differ? Historical fiction has real events, real people, and real locations mixed in with fictional happenings, people, and places. Westerns may have a real setting but most, if not all of the story, comes from the active imagination of the author.

Might be a setting for a good story

Making a Living Writing

Mysteries are still popular as part of many genres. Most of my historicals and westerns are also mysteries, something I hope sets my stories apart from many others. Nevertheless, all books, by unknown or nearly unknown authors, have a tough time finding a market. Once in a while, I have a good day or week of sales, but then they often fall off to nothing. Good thing I do not have to rely on my stories to make a living, but along with some writing work for others, I am getting closer.

Here I am heading up the mountain for inspiration - or for the view

One last note 

This could be either good or bad. My wife and I are heading back to Nebraska this week for our class reunion. That wonderful class of 1966. Yep, 50 years and a few of us are still kicking. Should be a lot of fun.

 

Out for a cool morning hike, and then off to a 50-year reunion