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.

New Month same old confusion

Well it is November now.  As far as I can tell sales last month tanked big time.  I went from 30 odd in September to 13 in October.  Ouch is all I can say.  Yeah everyone is having trouble but I had hoped for better.  Guess that is the way it goes right?
When I got up this morning I decided to see if anything sold over night.  You know those Halloween stories I wrote after all.  I have the brown bars of shame, as the other authors call no sales, showing up right now across the board.  So ouch..but on an up side I got one of those emails from Amazon where they suggest books and somehow Endings was right there on the top!  Now i know they make those sorta personalized to the account but it would be cool if I was the top on other peoples emails right?  Some of them might just order it!  And then I checked my author rank and somehow I climbed up 100,000 in rank.  Now how did that happen with no sales from well over a week ago?  I am not sure I have a clue.  But it did make me feel better.

I started working on Traveler again.  Since I got talked into the November writers challenge I figured I can work on this story again.  It had been a while since I worked on it and it is very different than what I have up so far.  I have about 10K all ready in the can so to speak.  Now to jar it back into work and get past the lead in I made.
I hope people will like this one.  It is very different from the shorts I have put up.  After all it should be a nice long novel length thing.  Okay time to get myself in gear and work.  While I do have two complete novels and more shorts ready to post it would be good to keep things moving along and finish up as many of the pending stories I have waiting for completion.

Another day another promo

Well A Watery Grave went up for free promo today.  Just in time for the release of Halloween Pranks and Mischief tomorrow.  Here is hoping by having it up free people will be intrigued and pick up the next in the series.  I have been flogging all over Amazon and Facebook.  Doing my best to make sure that at least the titles are out there for people to see with the links.  After all this month has been slower than slow.  Less than half the sales of last month.  Now I don’t expect a lot of sale but it would be nice to stay steady right?  Here is hoping that the coming holidays give me a nice boost.

Came up with an idea for the next Guardian Tale…yeah I know i have a ton of other things I should and could be working on but Harry is a busy guy and likes having his stories told.  With the Frankenstorm in the news everywhere I thought hey..why not a story set with how he would have to help all his contacts during one of the blizzards that are common in NH.  Of course being fictional it would have to be a Frankenstorm to really make it hard on people right?
The trailer for Halloween Pranks and mischielf seems to be a good draw so far.  It has more hits any ways.  Yeah none of my videos have gone viral.  Heck the most popular one on Youtube for me is A Flight of Dragons.  But that is kinda expected.  After all we are talking dragons right? Gotta love them.

Now I have ot decide what to work on.  Should I write, edit, make covers, make videos, sort poetry to be posted and or published or just go be a domestic diva and do laundry and or cook up muffins and brownies.  Oh the joys of being busy.  Guess we will see.

And on another note I know that a lot of you read this to see just who silly my crazy mind is but I thought I could post tags for some of my favorite friends on the boards.  After all there are so many other writers who need a little notice too!

So for my first plug I thought I would do Joanne’s Why Whisper?  A truly epic book about a mother dealing with the pain and loss of her son after he committed suicide.  Joanne is a very eloquent writer who brings you through the pain and the days that a mother goes through.  So many have read her works and given her stellar reviews that having it on my blog is just a way of applauding her courage in writing this.

Here is the blurb in her own words:

Many books address how to live with the death of a loved one. Why Whisper, faces the more arduous task of living with yourself. Suicide seizes more than one life. It takes some life from everyone around it. When Joanne Mazzotta’s 32 year old son Danny took his own life, part of her died with him. In this gripping account of one mother’s journey alongside grief, Joanne bares her soul and her skeletons to bring us an honest and insightful look at addiction, loss, hope, suicide, and the enduring power of love.
You can get this book in either Kindle format or in paperback.  I would say this is a great book to get for parents, siblings and those who are studying psychology.  Here are the link for the kindle edition

The best resource

Now the best resource for a writer is another writer.  They know the programs you need to work with, they can tell you when you do something like switch the character names back and forth and they know that chapter numbers should be numerals and not spelled out.  All this from one of my author friends.  This is going to help Nightmares to be a more professional story.  She even spotted two sentences that I had left open by mistake.

Now other little things is when you change computers you loose programs.  I needed to switch from doc to pdf and my pdf program was missing that function!  SO off the the web I went.  Luckily there are now pages that you can do that right online.  So that file is fixed.

Sales have been deader than dead in the past week.  I was worried until others stated they were having the same problem.  Not a good thing but at least it isn’t just me right?  I noticed even the free promos are barely moving.  Here is hoping that we see an uptick by the end of the month.  But I have a feeling it wont be till closer to thanksgiving US that is.

Once I get Nightmares read and edited I will be happy.  I started working on Wind Lover again and it should move along to a more paranormal romance than paranormal erotica story.  At least that is the goal.

And on a seasonal note I need to get Halloween Pranks read through once more to make sure it is ready for release next week.  Here is hoping it actually sells.

Halloween Pranks and Mischief cover and book trailer

 

Another day another book

Okay life is getting interesting.  I had not expected to find my new erotic collection up yet on Amazon.  I had just given everything to the publisher but he had it up with a cover that I didnt pick but I dont mind.  So there is now a collection of eleven erotic stories with all kinds of fun stuff.  Some have been seen before on literotica and some are totally new.  And at the price of $2.99 that ain’t bad.

Hoping it will sell well.  That is all I can hope for really.  Like Gates I wont be able to look up how many copies are sold on a daily basis like I can with Amazon and Kobo but I will still hope I see a nice little royalty check some day.

I told you readers before that I have had a poem selected for a free collection going up on amazon later this month.  Now I have a flash short fiction going into a Halloween collection that will be over on Smashwords at the end of the month also.  Again a free collection but it is only six hundred or so words so I don’t mind.  Kinda cool to get my stuff out there for people to read.  Same reason that once I have time I will put Sins and Shadows over on Smashwords for people to find and read and hopefully enjoy.

My website is slowly starting to look more professional.  Which is a good thing right?

 

Is it a wasted day?

I have been catching up on my discussion groups and okay watching Predator with my hubby instead of writing, editing, making trailers and covers and all the stuff a good working writer should be doing but is it really wasting time?  You learn a lot on writer/poet discussion groups.

I will be posting the cover and trailer for Halloween pranks and mischief over on the book page in a little bit if anyone is interested.  Be glad to have that one out for people to read soon.

Picked up two more reviews this morning from a reader with the handle Cphe.  While she pointed out my booboos (which is important in my view of reviews) she still gave me nice four stars on both stories.  Not sure she likes the length but well we know by now dear reader that I write short stuff.  My longer stuff is out there but I doubt she has found them yet.  She reviewed two of my under 20 page things.  Glad she read them.

Death was the Bargain and The Words That Bring Peace are both on free download right now.  Last days they will be part of the KDP free promos.  I figured get them all done while I could.  The promos are moving slowly but that doesnt surprise much.  I have less sales than I like but I have some, which is good.

My most recently posted poem on the poet group on facebook got a couple of nice comments.  Nice to think that poets like my short and too the point words.  Heck I put up what  I thought of as a totally unfinished poem and they said it felt finished and like a hiaku!  That was cool.  That I will have a poem in a collection of other poets is also cool.

Looked like no one noticed my entry in the halloween short story contest on the space station.  I was hoping to get a comment but no one mentioned it.  Oh well.  It was a little silly but I think we needed a silly.  While all the entries are really really good most of them are really dark.  Need one or two light ones to make it easier to go on the the darkness.  Still don’t know if Lin got more for her scary doll contest.  For a while I was the only one!

Okay now a friend, Massimo asked me to add his widget to my blog.  Got to figure out how to do that.  I might just put it on my website instead but we will see

Crazy days

Well the router went down and then hubby got real sick.  Took a day out of working on stuff but I am glad I did.  RAther take care of my hubby than ignore the poor guy.

Not that I haven’t done stuff.  I have the cover for Halloween Pranks and Mischief done and the book trailer.  Have edited it up to cleanness and I am reading another writers work so she can have a review ready for when the book goes up.  Got an email back from the erotica publisher and he doesn’t use original art from the author but has images he will license.  I went over and picked out a few for consideration and sent them over.  One more step on that book done.  The poetry book that I have had one of my pieces accepted for should be out at the end of the month.  That will be nice.

Posted one of my poetry videos on the poetry facebook page and waiting to see if they like the idea.  No comments yet.  I have been working on updating my website.  I need to resize the book cover images so they aren’t so big on the page.   Once I get that done I can post up all my work so far.  I think i have the review page up to date.  Which is nice.  So many reviews.  It is sweet.

And a new thing.  It seems I can publish my fanfiction on smashwords as long as I make sure to put in disclaimers and do not add to the premium catalog.  I can work on getting those set up.  After all Sins and Shadows were written chapter by chapter and posted that way.  Which led me to think they were smaller than they were for sure.  Get those up and I can add to my website the links there so people can read those for free.

Of the 22 all ready published stories and books I have only made 11 book trailers.  Need to get my butt in gear and do the rest.  After all that is just one more tool to getting people to read my work.  Sales are grinding along slowly but from what I gather all over sales are slow this month.  I hope they pick up next month.  I would love to actually get a royalty check someday.

Well time to put together another spreadsheet to keep track of what I have done for each book so I know where they are and what I need to do yet.  I know but it helps me keep track of my work and makes me feel like i have done something.

Chilly today

Well it is.  Glad another mom drove me to the store today.

Well Test of Trust, one of my naughty little erotic tales all ready got a paid download.  That is both cool and well odd.  I didn’t really promote it.  So maybe I should post up all the rest of the nasty little things right?  A sale is a sale and I am actually always pleased when people find my work and read it.  Happier still when they review it.

I have started up the website hub for my work.  I figure it is a good idea to have a place where people can go and link to the other pages of stuff.  After all I don’t just sell on Amazon right?  Though I do mostly sell there.

Yesterday I got confused..and I am still.  I was on my smashwords page and looked over at the channel sellers page.  Now I am not sure if it was saying I sold two books to most of them or if they are just listing both titles over there.  A Night of Love had literally just gone up so I am not sure.  I will look back in a week and see if anything is changed.  After all if I am really selling there too that would be good.  Money is money and readers are god.

new book covers

Okay I decided to play book cover creator yesterday.  Not sure how many more I will make today because well it is hard to concentrate today.  So if you like you can see them all here.

 

Yes I have written a lot of erotic tales and well thought I would just put them up for sale too

This one is more tasteful I guess but it is still for erotica

 

It was fun trying to find images to use for erotica, after all I don’t have pictures of mostly naked men and women but you can find them if you look