A Look Back and a Look Into the Future

A Look Back and a Look Into the Future

2020 has got to be a better year than 2019. For me, 2019 will be a most forgettable year. A writer's life is not always easy, and I hope for each lousy year, I will have two or three good ones. One exciting thing for me is that I now have lived in every decade except the 30s. It might be a stretch for me to make that one, but who knows?

After years of writing around 300,000 words, this year was but a few thousand.  The consequences of writing less showed up in my sales, which were about half of the past few years, as were my Kindle Unlimited pages read. At times I thought maybe I had given up writing, but now I’m not sure. It might have had more to do with me than with writing. I not only wrote less, but I also gave up on a few other pursuits and hobbies. Physical ailments kept me from walking much and slowed me down from other things like photography and playing golf – looking back at 2019, I really didn’t do much of what has become my norm. But, there is always a bright side, we did some traveling, and I read quite a few good books, watched many fantastic movies, smoked some meat, completed some woodworking projects, and liked our terrific garden. I also enjoyed birthday number 71 – at my age, every birthday is excellent.

Writers are as bad as any other group at making and then not keeping New Year’s Resolutions. I have never lasted over a few weeks on any that I made. I do hope that the New Year will be a good one. Maybe I will get around to finishing and publishing the two books I have that have sat gathering dust for the past year.  Each of these books is within a few days of being completed.

My New Year’s Resolution – Enjoy life   --- As Dr. Seuss so aptly said, “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

Today's photos are from an outing earlier this week in Guernsey State Park a few miles from where we live.

Here is the link for all my books on Amazon

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday season. We never mind the snow this time of year and it's a good thing as we have several inches on the ground. Nice White Christmas 2017.

Mystery Book Cover Change

When in doubt, change the cover. At least that has been the conventional wisdom with many authors. What does that mean? If the writer believes the book is a good one, but it is not selling, try changing the cover or the text on the back cover. I liked the back cover text but was never in love with the cover, so I changed it, at least on the eBook. If Ebook sales or page reads on Kindle Unlimited pick up, I will change the cover on the soft cover book also.

This book, Ghost of the Fawn, has been my only attempt at young adult fiction. Those that have read it (not enough) have been mostly older readers and I received a lot of nice comments from them. I don’t want to give up on trying to sell it, not just yet. Maybe I should have been reaching for an older more traditional audience, the people that read my historical mysteries come to mind.

The new cover, shown here

will be a few days in arriving at my Amazon author site – hope it helps, it’s a really good story. Now back to work on one of my works in progress.

Now that we are experiencing some cooler weather in the evenings we have been enjoying some outside time as the sun sets.

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.

Help For Writers and Other Fairy Tales

Help for Writers - Seems to me that more and more websites and blogs are tossing around books I classify as, writer helpers. Kind of like hamburger helper but for writers. When I see a new add for plotting, finishing, starting, editing, character development or one of many other writers helps, I look them up. Not what they are offering but them, what have they written and did it sell, often not, or not so much. Makes me think there may be more money in writing books helping others to write books than there is in any other genre. Just an observation.

Dusting off an old book - Years ago I started writing a book on failing in small business. It was a tongue in cheek look at how difficult it is to be one of the lucky ones that work on to make money in a small business. Think I might drag it out, it was fun. But don’t expect me ever to come out with a book on writing, well maybe, if I sell a few million, which seems unlikely. Several years ago vanity presses were all the rage, pay upfront and got your book published. Today buy the book and self-publish, at least the new way is easier. In all likelihood, few books will be sold, but at least by self-publishing, the writer will not finish in the hole.

First Snow of the Year

NANO Writers - As so many writers plug away trying to get sixteen hundred words a day in a quest to reach 50,000 words during November, the National Write a Novel Month, I have been taking it easy.  I could blame my lack of production on hand pain, and swelling brought on by arthritis, but it’s getting better, and I can type again. I don’t believe I have ever written much more than 30,000 words in any given month, guess that is good for me. Each year I think about attempting NANO, but each year I pass. Considering I was out of state the first week of the month and spend three days last week at a school board convention guess November is a bad month for me, writing production wise. Hey, maybe next year.

Too Much Hiking and Not Enough Writing - but that will end when the cold sets in

Progress Report – The books I had hoped to have ready for Christmas are going nowhere, I have done a bit of work on two of them but now hoping for February. Lazy strikes again, I guess.

Christmas Stories – I am considering some type of promotion for my book of western Christmas stories. Take a look here and read the first one, or most of it at least for free. The book, Under Western Skies, sold well last year and I hope to find some new readers this holiday season. 

Meanwhile, put your feet up grab a hot cup of cocoa and read or write a good book. 

Story Giveaway Results

The Great Giveaway

Last week I tried, for the first time, an Amazon giveaway. Today's post is a follow up from last weeks on that giveaway. For five days I offered one of my short stories, Interview with a Gunfighter, free on Amazon. I had no idea what to expect, five or six downloads or hundreds. Well, it ended up to be a bit over 60, not sure if that is good or not, but I was satisfied. I am not very active on social media other than a bit of Google + and Twitter. I do use Facebook but so far have not set up an author site or have I tried to advertise my books on the site.

Getting a few more book sales  - Take a look here

New Fans

Not sure if the giveaway will create any new fans, but I have had a slight upturn in sales, since the giveaway, so it might be working. I am still in between as to self-publishing and taking two of my books to small houses that have expressed interest in what I am doing.  Both are true small house publishers, no cost to me, and a little upfront money from them.  The problem is that I would still be doing most, if not all the promotion and as I stated earlier, it is a long way from being a strong suite. Some writers say that any type of traditional publishing will help an author’s brand. I am not sure what that means, other than name recognition, but once again, I will give it a maybe, as in maybe that would be good.

I Really Like to Write

When I started writing it was for one reason – I liked to write. I never gave any thought to selling. Guess I never planned to sell many. But other good things have come from the publishing of my books, mainly two very nice writing jobs. Possibly more good will come from the giveaway short story, I have always wanted to be part of an anthology of some sort.

Seems to me if I don't get with the program, these guys will start circling.

Reading News

I seldom mention on this site what I am reading, but thought today that I would. Last week I finished C.J. Box’s latest book, Off The Grid, it was terrific. This evening I will finish one of Lee Child’s earlier Jack Reacher books, Echo Burning. This, like all of his books, was quite good. I read lots of nonfiction as I research for my fiction and nonfiction books, but it is with fiction that I find an escape. I read western’s, historical fiction, murder mysteries, cozy mysteries and who done it’s, mostly, but read the occasional fantasy or horror. I am not a fan of horror but love the way Stephen King writes, so if I am reading something from the genre of horror, King will have written it. I normally read more than one book at a time and always have a book of short stories going. Most of the time I am also reading a book that would fall into the area of the classics, reading a collection of Robert Frost poetry right now.

Keep reading and keep on writing!

Enjoy the first day of fall