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!

Busy days ahead

Well looking forward to getting Halloween Pranks and Mischief up for sale.  Thanks to my friends on the boards I have decided to release it Monday.  That way it will be out there for sale for Halloween.  Now A Watery Grave should be on its free promo that day, which will hopefully drive downloads for both.

I have started the thought process for the next Harry story.  Since I have five written this next one will make six and depending on how big it turns out I will put it together with the other five in a collection.  Thinking to make it only available in the collection.  Will release it in both paperback and kindle probably after Christmas.  The idea of an exclusive story for the collections I think will be good.  So expect over the next few months to see some collections in my series.  The next one will be Echoes of Elder Times.  I have two more for that series, so I will release one and then probably in February do the collection.

Of course Revenge, book two of the Saga of Loralil Greyfox is ready for publication but I plan on that in January over on Kobo only.  Since all my sales of Endings, book one, has only been on Kobo I figure why not stick to that.

I am still planning on doing the fanfiction over on smashwords.  It will take some work to get them formatted right.  They will be free of course and they have covers all ready.  It would be so cool to have them in paperback form but you really can’t do a free paperback right?  Which is too bad since Shadows is officially my longest work.

Now yesterday another cool thing.  My poem Fall Musings has been put into a collection of poetry.  If you are interested in reading it and 49 other creative poets work you can go her

 

http://www.lulu.com/shop/universal-muse-an-international-poetic-journal-and-workshop/50-magical-voices-from-universal-muse/ebook/product-20471287.html?fb_action_ids=501494433208158&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%22501494433208158%22%3A542319909115786&action_type_map=%22501494433208158%22%3A%22og.likes%22&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

And on another front I have a short story set to be part of a collection of Halloween fiction, another free book that isn’t ready yet.  Actually I have two from the sounds of it on the other Halloween contest I was in.  This will be fun.

Plus another writer on one of my discussion boards is starting a short story magazine.  I will probably send over A Bargain Made With Fur for that one as it will be a free magazine.  It is a good story that deserves some readers.

Lots of stuff going on as you see.  I have been told I should put together a poetry collection by a bunch of people and I might do that closer to Valentines day.  Right now I just need to write and make video trailers and start on the seasonal stuff.  The school will be doing a mitten drive soon and I have not finished a single set of mittens.  Never mind I thought to toss some hats into the mix since kids who need mittens probably need hats too right?
Oh yeah.  Also there is a blog hop thing going on.  I need to find five writers who haven’t been part of it for when I am up.  I have done what I can so far but I will ask people once i know when I will be up.  Plus I am going to be featured on another writers page which will be cool.  More unintentional advertising.  The more the better, after all I need to show my work to the world if I want to possibly see some royalties.

 

Happy Civic holiday or what the heck is this?

After two years in Canada you think I would be used to the holidays but well?  Today is a civic holiday called Civic holiday.  Basically it is a day off for those who work in offices I think.  I know my hubby has to work today as do his friends, so is it really a holiday?  I don’t know.

Well the free promo of One More All Hallows Eve did really well.  One day promo had 173 downloads and one review.  That story now has five total reviews, all four and five stars.  The new one wanted more Harry…which of course is what the other free promo was.  Hope Everlasting is the second story in the Guardians of the Gate City series and it isn’t dong too bad either.  So far 92 downloads and I gave it a full week so by the end of the week I expect to see more downloads and hopefully a review or three.

I decided that August is going to be my free month for sure.  Obviously had Hallows up and have Hope up but next week I plan on putting Partings up for two more days, then well have Sacrifice up for three days and finally that attempt at breaking into a different genre with Distance (my erotica) going up for free the 20th through the 24th.  Here is hoping it will get some notice and maybe some actual sales.

Been working on the Chaos war like a good doobie.  This is definitely going to be a longer tale.  The first part is all ready past 30 pages in word.  Now I found out that the page length in word does not translate to an exact amount of pages on Kindle.  8 pages at 14 point font is 14 pages on the kindle.

I usually type at 10 point and then adjust when I go to publish.  I do want to finish this story.  I started it back at the turn of the century!  Yeah that was a while ago.  Not the longest it has taken me to write a story, we know that but it needs to get written.  After all I have so many other stories to write, publish and sell.  Well hopefully sell.

I love the encouragement I get over on the amazon MOA discussions.  The men and women over there are really a great resource for an indie writer.  Most of us have been writing for a long time but actually putting those stories up for sale?  It is harder than people think.  In this world of instant gratification it is still hard to wait to see a sale come in. With Amazon you get a nice little report you can pull up any time to see how the downloads are going.  Yes they are slow but it has been only been since April right?

My traditional published book, Gates, I sent an email to my publisher to find out how I could get a report to see how well my efforts were working.  Well you don’t get to find out for a YEAR.  Yes I said a YEAR!  Okay I wont get upset.  After all Gates is just one of the books I put out.  People have bought it yes.  After all it has a ranking in both ebook and paperback.  So I just have to be nice and patient.  I will just focus on writing and promoting and hoping I actually sell enough to pay one bill sometime this year.

Okay I should probably type up my notes on Chaos from last night and then figure out how to get the next important scene set up.  When writing a short you can really just dump the reader right into the scene but a longer story needs set up and that takes time.  I don’t think I will ever write something over 200 pages but you never know.

Happy Memorial Day!

Well writing is always an ongoing process.  I have been writing stories since I was a young girl but didn’t really write them down as such till I left home.  As you who know me know the first book of Loralil took me darn near 30 years to finish.  Yes it is finished and yes it will be put out for sale soon.  Just waiting for people to respond to what is out there all ready.  After all having every thing I have finished out at once would not be wise I think.

Now I mentioned my fanfiction.  Unlike many I know I have not a problem with a writer doing both fanfiction and original work.  Yeah fanfiction in most cases doesn’t pay you.  Unless you are authorized to write Star Trek/Star wars or any other media tie in book.  Or you are really amazingly lucky and the original author/publisher/company loves your fanfiction so much they buy it.  Now that would be a kick I think!  But then the stuff I wrote fanfiction for has been off the air for a while now.  But back on topic.  I said I would put up links for my old fanfiction.  So here they are.

Sins of the Father, my Ranma fanction

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/628352/1/Sins_of_the_Father

This story was written over 15 years ago and people are still reading it.  Makes me all warm to think people are still willing to read this one.

There are two other complete stories and one partial on that account.    and on a second account over there I have a sort of sequel to Sins that crosses over with Sailor Moon

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2157267/suteko1

Also rather popular.  Surprised me.  This one is a wee bit darker than Sins but then when I get a roll on in my stories they get a bit dark.  If you like either of these then I think you would like reading Loralil.

I had so much fun making the book trailers for my stories I am thinking it would be fun to do them for my fanfiction too!