Ten days and counting down….are you ready?

Yup Christmas is quickly approaching. Everyone is out trying to buy that perfect present for their loved ones and as far as I can tell they are not looking at ebooks at all. I have not seen a sale in the past 11 days!

Now normally I would be like, okay fine, but with a collection that came out just before Thanksgiving and only four sales on that book so far, well I am wondering what I am doing wrong. The two reviews I received were great. Those who read it love the tales. So what am I doing wrong?

I have tried out two different low cost ad places and have seen no reaction to the ad. Could be the placement, could be the title but who knows. What worries me is that I have planned another collection to be released next weekend.

Holiday Flashes of Fiction won’t be expensive. I plan on only charging 99 cents for it since these are extremely short little tales. So this is a call for you my readers to take a look at my titles, see if there is anything you are interested in. I try to keep my prices low on all ebooks and as low as possible on my paperbacks.

Now back to Christmas. I have been working feverishly on gifts to give…makes me wonder what you readers are doing?

Happy Almost Thanksgiving giving friends in the US

Yup the holiday is coming up. Thursday all the Americans on my list will hopefully be with their friends and families, eating good food and remembering why they are thankful. I have been sitting here in Canada thinking about Thanksgiving and all the things I am thankful for over the past year.

Of course on the top of the list are my loved ones. My sweet husband who works so hard to support myself and our daughter. Who helps me write fight scenes by telling me how it should go and who was so very helpful with those science fiction things like space ships and the weapons and engines they would have. He is a wonderful man who has made my life so much easier and I thought I would take this week to tell him so.

I am thankful for all three of my daughters. From the two who I miss so much who are living lives so far away from me, to the fun and silly now twelve year old who lives with her father and I. My heart has grown so big just loving those three girls.

I am thankful for my parents. My mom and stepdad who live so far away from me. I hope that even with the trials they are going through that they will have a wonderful day and that things get better.

Now this is supposed to be my writing blog right? Yes I have been writing new things. I haven’t dived deeply into a longer project because of just releasing the Echoes of Elder Times collection last week. It hasn’t moved more than a couple copies but i am thankful both for the sales and for the five star review that went up yesterday!

But back to Thanksgiving right? Yes I have been writing some fun little short bits based on this holiday. Thanksgiving happened last month here in Canada but back home it will be this Thursday. So I plan on putting up these little bits on my Facebook author page. One a day (or more) will be put up over there. Some will be funny, some will by dark and some will be personal. This holiday is a mixed bag for me. For years I was the woman who made the feast. At one time I used to feed up to twenty people at my table and it has been fur years now since I have. I miss those days. I miss the crazy day of cooking all those dishes and then the happy and full faces of people who enjoyed what I made. So I will write about them.

Here in fact is one of the quickies i wrote:

Thanking

Place the napkins, light the candles, place the turkey on the table. Sit down, look around and realize that this is a special day. No matter the dishes, no matter the faces, this ay is unlike any other. For this one day a year we thank those who came before us, for those who are with us.

Or that is how it used to be. Now it is a rush to eat so we can go out and spend. What happened to the joy of Thanksgiving, of family and friends in one place? This year, why not settle back and relax. Eat that turkey and remember to thank the person who did all the work. Better yet, thank them by doing the dishes! That’s the ticket.

****

Will this end up in a collection? Maybe. This is a quickie length piece and I don’t yet have enough of those for a collection but who knows.

I have also contemplated putting all my Christmas drabbles, micros and quickies into a book and putting it out around Christmas. Something priced at 99 cents that will be filled with the fun little tales that I have written after doing a lot of holiday research. As for today I am done babbling over here. Time to dive back into writing drabbles, micros and quickies. Hope you all have a great holiday!

And why not this one too?

Another cover for the second of my shorty shorts going up for free over on Wattpad.  This was the Christmas story so of course…well you can see

 

Christmas Snow going live

Just waiting for Amazon to put it live to start plugging my attempt at a Christmas tale.  I am pleased at how this came out.   It is a good tale or at least I think it is.  I hope others will do.  I made a fun little cover for it, something pretty but we will see what happens.

I have of course that other release coming on Friday.  This is a much lighter tale in the end than Fall Into Nightmares will be.

 

Sale is set up

Well anyone interested can go to Amazon…any of them, put in my name and most of my titles are now 99 cents each.  Pick up a short story (or 3) or a novel or collection and have some fun.  I’m on a writing break for the next few days, what with the holiday fast approaching and all.

I will do a finish edit of Christmas Snow before I post it up.  Depending on when my hubby gets the cover done I should have it out early in the week and then Nightmares will be out a week from today.  I hope everyone is interested and ready to read a dark tale of the end of the world as we know it.

A Christmas story, a Christmas sale and the end of the world

Well I finished up Christmas Snow yesterday.  All written and just needing a little editing here and there to make it clean and readable.  Hubby will make me a nice cover and I should hopefully have that little Christmas gift up Monday.  After all a Christmas story needs to be available for Christmas right?  Now I was surprised at how it came out.  Part of me thinks Hallmark moment but heck I like the story.

Now as for the sale, pretty much everything I have up for sale will be dropped down to 99 cents from Monday till Friday next week.  Call it my Christmas sale.  I can’t drop the price on the paperbacks or on Naughty Interludes but the rest will all be 99 cents.  This way anyone who wants to load up on my work can.  Hmm…maybe I should keep them low till New Years Eve.  That way anyone with a new kindle can fill up on my weird tales right?

As for the End of the World…Nightmares is ready for release and I will be putting it up on the 21st.  A nice LONG piece for me with enough darkness I hope to please those of of the world story fans out there.

Now as for new works in progress I think I will be taking off next week from writing to do a ton of baking.  I have to get all the food presents ready in time to give to coworkers and friends after all.  Heck Sunday is make cookies for the kid’s class since their party is on Monday.  And of course she told them mommy would make cookies.  All I can say is I hope this cold or whatever is going on in my head stays away so I can get my work done.

In the new year I will get back to working on Traveler.  I have a better idea where that should be going now.  Hopefully this will work out as another novel.  If I can buckle down I should get it written out by the end of January.  Course there is no guarantee right?  Heck Harry tried to nudge me to do just one more story for him right now.  But really just need to give him a break for a month or so.  Yes I will write a few more Harry the Guardian tales but just not right now.

Okay time to clean up files, back them up and finish up one more knitted christmas hat.

Snow is gone

Okay I was doing okay writing a Christmasy story while there was snow on the ground.  I could put on the carols and sing along as I wrote happily my odd little tale but it rained all day today.  Yes I got some writing done. but the rain has put a damper on it.  I should settle down and scribble more notes, really I should.  Not sure if it is the wetness or the ache that it brings that is making it hard to write.  I have ideas and heck a new character added to Harry’s world.  Yeah I know I am slowly filling in this world which makes it a bit more interesting I hope to my readers.  When I get this and hopefully a sixth story done they will have a full world to read in a paperback form.  Yes I said paperback!  I figure if you want them as ebooks you can keep getting them as they come out but as a complete collection paperback will be the way to go.  Interconnected shorts are probably the best way to read my work.  After all I am a short story writing.  I don’t see any reason I should be ashamed of my worlds and how they connect.

I have had some movement on Endings since it went up as the BOTM.  Not huge but heck four copies in about three days is good movement for a book that had no notice over on Amazon before.  With the 9 copies sold on Kobo, it is quickly catching up to Ice as my best selling story.  What surprised me is people have started actually noticing Naughty interludes!  I have no idea how many but it has a nice relatively low number.  Now the lower the number the better it is doing.  Right as I type this is it listed as 234,291 on paid kindle and Endings is 295,785.  Not too bad for me really.  Gates is at 511,594.  Now yes i know not the highest numbers but we are talking at out of I believe 7 million books on amazon.  That isn’t too bad for a totally unknown author right?  Heck even Distance is holding at 763,488.  I hope someday to have better rankings but right now I just want to see sales and reviews.

I did get asked to be part of a blog thingie.  Basically I join their group and give them access to review copies and they will read, review and discuss.  Now that is something to think about.  After all a few copies of my ebook out there and maybe they can get others to read and pay for it.  Not sure at the moment but today I am not sure about a lot of things.  So I will think about it over night.

 

The day before Cyber Monday

Okay I know but when you think about it I have a lot of work out there that would do well if people knew about it on cyber monday.  People are expected to shop on line and spend a ton of cold hard cash.  I would love if a little tiny bit of it came my way.  It would make life a little easier.

Course I am not sure how I would know if it happens or not.  I have been very confused by Amazon lately.  My ranking as an author has been bouncing up and down like mad.  I meant by thousands of spots.  I keep going from 200K to 800K to 45K to 800K to now 126K.  Now on amazon the lower the number the better you are doing.  My ranking has bounced so much that the chart they give you to keep track looks like a line of W.  Which is confusing.  Then when I go look at my books I had more than half of them showing a rise in ranking anyhere from 8- points to well nearly a million (yeah Gates was way bad and now way good) but I see no sales on my report.  Narery a one.  Okay there was one for Partings on the German Amazon page..that was weird but nothing else.  All I can think is that reporting is off till after Cyber Monday.  I would adore coming online Tuesday morning and seeing a bunch of sales.  I don’t expect them but I would love seeing them.

Then there is the email I got from a guy on linked in who said he was reviewing All That There Was and giving it four stars.  Not a clue where he was doing the review though.  I don’t see it on Amazon, Kobo, or Goodreads.  Now I am not sure, there are a few other places my work has shown up but I just don’t know where else to look.  Would be nice to have a clue right?

I did get a really nice review for Night and Day thought.  James Anderson, a writer who is a Canadian read it and put down that my work is like a palate cleanser, perfect for reading between longer books.  Yes that is a compliment.  And I loved it.

Well the snow seems to be over at the moment.  I think.  We got quite a bit and the kids have been in and out, tracking snow and mud everywhere.  And drinking up lots of my hot chocolate.  Good thing I put in a big stash last season huh?

I typed up the notes I had worked on for Christmas Snow.  3715 words down so far.  Not a lot compared to some authors but Harry’s tales are supposed to be short.  This one may end up longer but we won’t know till i get it done.  I need to put on my Christmas music and dig in but since the hubby is home and the kids are in and out I will sit down and work on it tomorrow.  Hopefully get a lot done while I am alone.

Now I should work on Traveler.  Yes i know it is nearly the end of November and there is no real way for me to write 25K in the few days left but well I did say I was going to work in this one and make a novel out of it.  I think I know where to go now so it will move along.  Time to get more into the mind of the villain of the piece.  I have pretty much set up the heroes after all and the secondary heroes/players.  I need to keep the romantic feel to this story I think.  It is not quite as dark as my other stuff and i think that is a good thing.  After all Nightmares is dark, Endings was darker, Revenge is darker still.  Course when you have characters raped, tortured and killed that is what happens right?

Hope you all have had a great holiday and have a great week.  I will try to blog a bit more than I have been.  Time just gets away from you when you are not looking.  Oh yeah.  If you want to see what poetry I have playing around out there you can go to my google plus blog page, here:  http://sutekothemadwriter.blogspot.ca/

I will also be adding my super shorty short space station stories to my website some time today.  The stories are going to be sticking to under 600 words I think.  Just little drabbles that are fun for a holiday.  So far there is one for Halloween, which is available in two different short story collections out there and then there is one for Christmas.  Yeah I missed thanksgiving.  I will get that one done after I finish up the New Year’s Eve one that hit me between the eyes.  Have fun reading folks!

Finishing work and starting new

Well I got When Shadows Rise up on Smashwords.  It is of course going to be free and it has had 25 downloads over night so that is a good thing.  It is actually quite a big story.  Over 300 pages that I wish I could have reworked to do as an actual totally original novel but well htat is okay right?  It is up, people who would not normally read fan fiction are reading it and that makes me happy.  If they like it they may just go ahead and read the other stuff.

I finished writing up a quick like Christmas story for the SS Wordsmyth collection my writers group is doing and sent it off.  Just a shorty short that is pretty much like a sequel to the Halloween story I did for the collection that was done.  Having fun writing a science fictiony little flash fiction series.  I just might do one for New Years next.  We will see.

Now I am sitting down and working on another Harry story.  For some reason my friend the Guardian just wants another story told.  I am not sure once this is done if I will release it separately or if I will just put it in the collection of Guardian tales I have planned on releasing all together.  Who knows?

Traveler is currently taking a break for editing.  After all ti will give me a chance to come up with where to take it next.  I have gotten Edana past the release of her fire nature.  I think I need to go into just what the two ancients had been doing between getting cursed and the blade being broken.  That should take up some space right?

I need to work on a cover for Nightmares soon.  One more read through on that and i think it will be ready to publish next month.  And then of course i need to do a cover for Revenge and get that ready for publication in January.  And then well I can work on that poetry book.  Maybe.  Who knows right?  So much to do.  And the hardest part is deciding just how many stories are needed in a collection.  I have some tales for Echoes of Elder Times and Worlds apart but I am holding them for now.  We will see what happens.  First I need to see some sales somewhere.

Right now I have 3 sales on Amazon and 1 on Kobo.  I really hope things pick up soon.  Okay back to work.

time to sit down and kick butt

Yes you can do both.  After all I am a writer.  Now I have been busy dong so much that I don’t get the right amount of writing done like I should.  So today after I finish picking up all the packaging from my daughter’s birthday presents I am going to write.  Traveler is being a bit of a difficult mess right now.

Trying to figure out how to stretch yet not pad a story is not something I am really good at.  I like to write as it goes.  Now this one has potential to get to novel length but will i be able to stretch it to the 50K that the nano program says we have to have by the 30th?  I will see of course.  Trying to do research while you are writing is always tricky but when you aren’t sure just what to look for it can be tricky.

I need an acid that will partially dissolve the stone priestess but can be carried in a container that you would find in a fantasy medieval style world that would not be too big.  Took time to work that out.  A lot of people think that when you write fantasy you can just make things up from the whole cloth but I try to make things that aren’t too stupid.

Well the halloween collection from the amazon discussion group is actually doing rather well.  The nice thin about a collection like this is that when it does well it helps rise the ranking of the authors included.  I know my rank has gone up.  And it should hopefully lead some people to trying out my work.

Today I will be working on travel but also on a couple other things.  There is the upcoming Christmas collection from the spaceship.  Now this can be anything christmas related.  I posted a poem but I think i will also write a story.  It has an upper limit of 1500 which is a it easier for me.

The other thing is a facebook group that is doing a little competition for a short story/poem that is under 250 words and is about mothers and daughters/fathers and sons.  I have a lovely little poem…okay not so little.  It is one of my longer ones but it is about aging and mothers to grandmothers.  Should be interesting to see if they like it.
Time to get to work