End of year - time for reflection. I got two books to read, right before my second son came, and, wanting to spend time with sons, fell behind a little. They are ok books, but I couldn't plow through them as usual because too much was going on around home.
By virtue of not being on it constantly, the reads slowed down. What's bothering me is, if I don't go out and get them, they don't come in. People aren't out there just picking up the books and reading more of them..
There is slow improvement; a sale here, a sale there, some reads that come out of thin air, that kind of thing. Whereas I had zero total at about this time last year, now I'm impatient if I go even a day without something. But yes, I go a day, occasionally, with nothing.
I can't expect instant success. One problem is that I'm starting with a very limited audience of indie authors who know who I am and know what I write. I have to expand this population basically so that a large population of readers know who I am and what I write. I have faith that when they find me they will partake of my books either in ku or by buying them, but until they know, it's going to be slow. The population has to grow organically. I have to find other ways to make myself known.
A few people have made it clear that they like just picking up what I write, and reading it; they like my style and I give them the impression of a traveler seeing a place for the first time. For now, I live with that satisfaction: that I've found a few readers, and made them happy. It'll have to do, for now.
Fortunately for me it is still not really about the money. The family budget runs without the benefit of my $30 or $40 a month that I make off of this; if I fail, the family budget will be ok. We spend $30 or $40 on a single door dash anyway, and support our kids on other sources which are more stable. But I take pride in the fact that i don't cost the family anything, and it's an uneasy truce that I spend hours doing the reading that allows for that income, getting a measly income, and building the income slowly. The one thing I can say is that if I backed off entirely (due to health or whatever other concerns) I would still have an income of about $20/mo. from people who already know I'm out there and aren't reciprocating in some form or another, the reading I'm doing. It's this income of course that I'm after. I'd like to have a set of books that simply generate some income because of what they are, not because of what I do. I've been encouraged in this regard: keep producing, you're doing fine, I like what you write. But obviously I'm not there yet. And ironically the more I market, the less I seem able to write.
A Happy New Year to all, and to all a prosperous future.
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Friday, December 23, 2022
more woes & general discouragement
I talked to a friend about the ignominy of working the read-marketing sites. I think every author considers it a humiliation of sorts to have to read a book just to get someone to read ours. But I was at the end of my rope - how else could I get anyone to read them, without spending money?
That's an exaggeration, of course - or not entirely accurate. I can spend money, just don't want to, as a matter of principle, as I shouldn't have to spend money to make money. Or, I shouldn't have to risk losing money on the entire affair, which I think plenty of people have done. I lurk around the sites enough to know that the vast majority of new authors make a splash on their first printing, printing maybe a hundred or thousand and selling many to friends and colleagues, and in the end are like me, wondering why the world isn't beating a path to their door. I never did this, but have the same problem: the world doesn't know about me; I don't want to use the traditional publishing channels, and therefore my books sit there on the Amazon virtual shelf wondering where all the readers are.
I care a lot about the short stories, and for that reason have been fretting a lot about the short story audience. Where are they? How do I reach them? I know that lots of authors like my stories and think I should be out there doing well. I'm not. I'm out here wondering why nobody buys short stories. But I know it's just a matter of reaching the ones who do read them, and do spend money.
My author friend said, if you "look indie," they reject you. I'd like to know if there isn't more to that than meets the eye. There is a formula people use for blurbs, and I don't want to use a formula: does that "look indie?" Or, maybe there are fonts that are more common in the book publishing world than the ones I've chosen. Do mine "look indie?" I'm beginning to consider putting "proofread three times" or "no editing errors" on my books just in case I "look indie." But I also realize that I want to look indie. I am indie. Pretending otherwise would be misleading.
At the dawn of the new year I'm doing a little review of the year's activities. It's true, I've become entirely dependent on read marketing for the ratings that I have; what readers I have, are mostly other authors and possibly their friends. I have yet to get my paperback copies out into the world successfully. I hear a few good things every once in a while - that friend was nice to me, for example - and feel that I may have a slowly developing reputation, which of course I need. But I also go long periods - in this case about a month - where I am trapped into not writing because I have failed to plan out my novel well enough - and in the course of intensive read marketing, which I do instead, end up feeling like I've hit my head against a brick wall a few too many times.
Such is the business, and I can only hope it gets better.
That's an exaggeration, of course - or not entirely accurate. I can spend money, just don't want to, as a matter of principle, as I shouldn't have to spend money to make money. Or, I shouldn't have to risk losing money on the entire affair, which I think plenty of people have done. I lurk around the sites enough to know that the vast majority of new authors make a splash on their first printing, printing maybe a hundred or thousand and selling many to friends and colleagues, and in the end are like me, wondering why the world isn't beating a path to their door. I never did this, but have the same problem: the world doesn't know about me; I don't want to use the traditional publishing channels, and therefore my books sit there on the Amazon virtual shelf wondering where all the readers are.
I care a lot about the short stories, and for that reason have been fretting a lot about the short story audience. Where are they? How do I reach them? I know that lots of authors like my stories and think I should be out there doing well. I'm not. I'm out here wondering why nobody buys short stories. But I know it's just a matter of reaching the ones who do read them, and do spend money.
My author friend said, if you "look indie," they reject you. I'd like to know if there isn't more to that than meets the eye. There is a formula people use for blurbs, and I don't want to use a formula: does that "look indie?" Or, maybe there are fonts that are more common in the book publishing world than the ones I've chosen. Do mine "look indie?" I'm beginning to consider putting "proofread three times" or "no editing errors" on my books just in case I "look indie." But I also realize that I want to look indie. I am indie. Pretending otherwise would be misleading.
At the dawn of the new year I'm doing a little review of the year's activities. It's true, I've become entirely dependent on read marketing for the ratings that I have; what readers I have, are mostly other authors and possibly their friends. I have yet to get my paperback copies out into the world successfully. I hear a few good things every once in a while - that friend was nice to me, for example - and feel that I may have a slowly developing reputation, which of course I need. But I also go long periods - in this case about a month - where I am trapped into not writing because I have failed to plan out my novel well enough - and in the course of intensive read marketing, which I do instead, end up feeling like I've hit my head against a brick wall a few too many times.
Such is the business, and I can only hope it gets better.
Thursday, December 15, 2022
Read-marketing woes
Something happened recently that pointed out to me the problems of read-marketing, which has gotten to be kind of a burden on me lately. In general, it's a problem because I love reading and do it at the expense of writing, meaning I haven't produced enough lately, or done some of the other work I need to do. But it has some other issues as illustrated by this story.
One of the sites is read-only (actually a couple of them focus on that) but has a very careful admin, who makes sure people understand the rules and follow them. In general this admin is good but sometimes I wonder if she shouldn't just let a few things go. Recently I've been focusing on this page - reloading and reloading it, hoping that someone will post on the over-100 and under-100 trains. To put it quite simply, the number of books that I haven't read has gone down considerably, as I've been working these sites hard for months. And I've been relatively successful too, both because I like to read, and because I have 27 books that all need a little attention, and any time anyone reads any one of them it's a huge victory for me.
But to get into the train I have to find a book I haven't read, and that's pretty difficult sometimes. To compound it, other people who are like me, similarly desperate, have read many of the same books - we've read all of each other's - and they are prowling at the site the same way I am. I can tell because when a new book comes it doesn't take more than a few minutes for someone to pounce on it. They are just like me! Waiting for a book that can put them into the train.
With the under-100 train, the situation is good, because I can read an under-100 book in a quick evening and get an entire book of mine read - for that I concentrate on the short ones, under-100, but I have several of those so I feel like I'm not putting my audience in the same jam as I would if I kept putting the same book up there. In other words, I can stay successful as long as I can keep finding people who haven't read one of my books.
So this person comes along and puts an 80-pager in the over-100 list. Wrong list, but I figured, if she wanted to read a longer one, and found one she wanted to read, more power to her. Quick I put mine in there and started reading hers. Mine is 120-something, so I didn't feel too guilty putting a longer book under a shorter book. Besides, everyone can read the rules, right? If she's in there with her 80-something, I figured, no problem. Quick, someone put theirs under mine and we were off and running.
But the admin emailed me and asked me to either remove mine, or read the one above that one (which of course, I'd already read), because the 80-pager was against the rules and was removed.
Alas, we are at a kind of "stuck" status again, as a book about controlling alcohol consumption is up, and apparently none of our authors want to read it - it has, before, stopped the train for several days at a time. I'm not especially complaining about it. The guy needs readers just like I do and his book is at least as good as mine; he has a right to market it. But our progress and success seem to be bottled up behind the fact that either his topic is not appealing to a crowd of thirty or forty authors, or too many of us have already read it (I have).
In general this is probably a sign that I should move on, and that's what I'm doing, starting very soon. It's hard though; I'm somewhat addicted to it. Addicted to the rush of market success, addicted to actually having readers in any form, and even addicted to reading what's out there, which I find to be a fascinating occupation for a retired guy. So it goes.
One of the sites is read-only (actually a couple of them focus on that) but has a very careful admin, who makes sure people understand the rules and follow them. In general this admin is good but sometimes I wonder if she shouldn't just let a few things go. Recently I've been focusing on this page - reloading and reloading it, hoping that someone will post on the over-100 and under-100 trains. To put it quite simply, the number of books that I haven't read has gone down considerably, as I've been working these sites hard for months. And I've been relatively successful too, both because I like to read, and because I have 27 books that all need a little attention, and any time anyone reads any one of them it's a huge victory for me.
But to get into the train I have to find a book I haven't read, and that's pretty difficult sometimes. To compound it, other people who are like me, similarly desperate, have read many of the same books - we've read all of each other's - and they are prowling at the site the same way I am. I can tell because when a new book comes it doesn't take more than a few minutes for someone to pounce on it. They are just like me! Waiting for a book that can put them into the train.
With the under-100 train, the situation is good, because I can read an under-100 book in a quick evening and get an entire book of mine read - for that I concentrate on the short ones, under-100, but I have several of those so I feel like I'm not putting my audience in the same jam as I would if I kept putting the same book up there. In other words, I can stay successful as long as I can keep finding people who haven't read one of my books.
So this person comes along and puts an 80-pager in the over-100 list. Wrong list, but I figured, if she wanted to read a longer one, and found one she wanted to read, more power to her. Quick I put mine in there and started reading hers. Mine is 120-something, so I didn't feel too guilty putting a longer book under a shorter book. Besides, everyone can read the rules, right? If she's in there with her 80-something, I figured, no problem. Quick, someone put theirs under mine and we were off and running.
But the admin emailed me and asked me to either remove mine, or read the one above that one (which of course, I'd already read), because the 80-pager was against the rules and was removed.
Alas, we are at a kind of "stuck" status again, as a book about controlling alcohol consumption is up, and apparently none of our authors want to read it - it has, before, stopped the train for several days at a time. I'm not especially complaining about it. The guy needs readers just like I do and his book is at least as good as mine; he has a right to market it. But our progress and success seem to be bottled up behind the fact that either his topic is not appealing to a crowd of thirty or forty authors, or too many of us have already read it (I have).
In general this is probably a sign that I should move on, and that's what I'm doing, starting very soon. It's hard though; I'm somewhat addicted to it. Addicted to the rush of market success, addicted to actually having readers in any form, and even addicted to reading what's out there, which I find to be a fascinating occupation for a retired guy. So it goes.
Saturday, December 3, 2022
Author's Fair - first impressions
I'll have a lot to say about this, but this is the site where I put my innermost feelings about being a writer, so I feel that I can unload it all here without worrying too much about how it is "presented" to the "public."
I just spent four hours at the Galesburg Public Library hawking my wares. I put about 24 of my 27 books on the market, all out on the table, and sat at the table for most of the four hours. I sold nothing until the last five minutes, when I sold two (both A Dozen Crime Stories). Also in those last minutes, I made a couple of trades, thus unloading a few more books, or, to be more precise, getting them out there in front of people. To me it's a big win, getting books out there in front of people, and an even bigger one getting to know local authors and really getting to talk to them. So, though the place was not packed with eager customers, the ones who were there were nice, and I came home knowing a lot more about the area and its people.
I was lucky in the sense that the people directly around me were also Salukis, namely familiar with southern Illinois. I left a significant part of my heart there so it was good to trade books with Salukis and stir up memories and knowledge of the place.
The first thing that struck me was that there were several things it didn't occur to me to bring or even to have. One was little giveaways. The best little giveaways were cards and postcards, but there were also bookmarks and stickers. I thought this was very clever. One person actually asked me for a card and I didn't have one.
Another was the hand-held apps, ~%50, that allowed people to take credit cards as payment. Not everyone had one. But those who did, I thought that was clever. It made their lives easier. For the people who didn't carry cash, they could still have a successful transaction. It may sound obvious, but I decided that the best way to come into the modern world, if I were to keep doing such things as this, would be to buy one of these.
I contributed two books to the library: one to their general collection, and one to a special gift basket they're making for someone who wins it. This has to do with some library promotion; they are working on a brand new library which is a huge deal, but I figured that anything I could do for the local library would be a good thing and since they made that room available to me for an entire morning, it was the least I could do.
There were very interesting authors there - more about that later. I will take out my books and explore what else I learned, as time goes on. Western Illinois is a place where at least the writers are aware of who they are and what they are doing. In New Mexico, I'm sure this was true as well, but it was much harder for me to get involved when the closest town was 40 miles away.
Pix coming. I've just started mulling it over.
I just spent four hours at the Galesburg Public Library hawking my wares. I put about 24 of my 27 books on the market, all out on the table, and sat at the table for most of the four hours. I sold nothing until the last five minutes, when I sold two (both A Dozen Crime Stories). Also in those last minutes, I made a couple of trades, thus unloading a few more books, or, to be more precise, getting them out there in front of people. To me it's a big win, getting books out there in front of people, and an even bigger one getting to know local authors and really getting to talk to them. So, though the place was not packed with eager customers, the ones who were there were nice, and I came home knowing a lot more about the area and its people.
I was lucky in the sense that the people directly around me were also Salukis, namely familiar with southern Illinois. I left a significant part of my heart there so it was good to trade books with Salukis and stir up memories and knowledge of the place.
The first thing that struck me was that there were several things it didn't occur to me to bring or even to have. One was little giveaways. The best little giveaways were cards and postcards, but there were also bookmarks and stickers. I thought this was very clever. One person actually asked me for a card and I didn't have one.
Another was the hand-held apps, ~%50, that allowed people to take credit cards as payment. Not everyone had one. But those who did, I thought that was clever. It made their lives easier. For the people who didn't carry cash, they could still have a successful transaction. It may sound obvious, but I decided that the best way to come into the modern world, if I were to keep doing such things as this, would be to buy one of these.
I contributed two books to the library: one to their general collection, and one to a special gift basket they're making for someone who wins it. This has to do with some library promotion; they are working on a brand new library which is a huge deal, but I figured that anything I could do for the local library would be a good thing and since they made that room available to me for an entire morning, it was the least I could do.
There were very interesting authors there - more about that later. I will take out my books and explore what else I learned, as time goes on. Western Illinois is a place where at least the writers are aware of who they are and what they are doing. In New Mexico, I'm sure this was true as well, but it was much harder for me to get involved when the closest town was 40 miles away.
Pix coming. I've just started mulling it over.
Friday, November 18, 2022
addiction and writing
I actually ridicule myself for my own addictive behavior, hanging onto the page-read counting page, in anguish when it dies out altogether. The last couple days, kind of low, less than the hundred I'd like. Today, 89, but all in India, where the whole thing is worth less than a dime. But it is a friend of mine, whom I regard highly, and I'm hoping she's enjoying my work. I don't begrudge India page reads - for one thing, it helps me break in to the market, as I have so few Indian readers. But also, on an absolute scale, a page read is a page read - if someone is enjoying something I wrote, that's much better than it used to be, and, it's that much more likely that someone will read what I write in the future.
On the general topic of curtailing addictive behavior, the problem as I see it is that I'm reading some absolute crap, that makes me bored with every page, and which, upon reaching the top of a new page, is enough to make me want to do anything else. So, being on my fast and tiny computer, clicking the page-read counter is about the easiest thing to do. But maybe a better thing to do would be to have something substantial that I'm working on, something that makes me sit for a couple of hours concentrating and making it as good as possible, so that by the time I get back to the page-read counter a couple of hours have flown by.
A discussion of "what's in it for us" was rather interesting as some writers are quite frank about reading a wide variety of work and some, it's clear to me, look upon mine much the same as I am looking upon others. Sometimes it is merely a question of genre. Or they don't really care for the traditional fare that mine reflects - a little stilted, old language, square kind of looking at the world. For these people, if there's no fantasy in it, there's nothing, it's empty, or at the very least quite boring. Why would they want to read about reality, when they have plenty of reality in their own lives? And the reality, as they know it, is bad enough to drive them to books?
I am actually finding a rich vein of life in the read-marketing world, where basically I get to surreptitiously evaluate each writer's act, based on what they have, what's presented to the world, how are the ratings, what's happening to the ratings in terms of daily ups and downs, how they present their blurbs and their author-abouts. It's like seeing someone at a party and getting some insight into why they act the way they do, learning snippets of their life one or two at a time until you see what makes them tick. We all have different motivations for writing and then, given the talent or ability, different and varying ways of getting it on the paper. There's enough here to make a collection of short stories based on the different lives of the ones I've met. Or even, based on the addictive nature of caring about such things as page-reads.
I suspect more than one of these writers is into the cups, i.e. the true addiction, alcohol, or more specifically, wine, since we are not really in the beer crowd, although some probably are that too. It reminds me of my favorite book, one which got me started, The Day on Fire (1958), about the life of famous poet Rimbaud, who fell in with the debauchery of writers in Paris but then, angry, set off to isolate himself, traveling extensively in Europe and mostly Africa, where he just hid for many years. Hid. I have no idea if he even wrote during that time; I've kind of forgotten the details of the book. It was good in that as a biography, it was true to fact and knowledge, and at the same time gave some idea of the passion of the guy's life. I admired that in the writing - if you can make history passionate, you've done something, in my book. I'm thinking of the same kind of thing with the Black Hawk War.
Enough of that for now. Back to slogging, and checking the page-read counter every few minutes.
On the general topic of curtailing addictive behavior, the problem as I see it is that I'm reading some absolute crap, that makes me bored with every page, and which, upon reaching the top of a new page, is enough to make me want to do anything else. So, being on my fast and tiny computer, clicking the page-read counter is about the easiest thing to do. But maybe a better thing to do would be to have something substantial that I'm working on, something that makes me sit for a couple of hours concentrating and making it as good as possible, so that by the time I get back to the page-read counter a couple of hours have flown by.
A discussion of "what's in it for us" was rather interesting as some writers are quite frank about reading a wide variety of work and some, it's clear to me, look upon mine much the same as I am looking upon others. Sometimes it is merely a question of genre. Or they don't really care for the traditional fare that mine reflects - a little stilted, old language, square kind of looking at the world. For these people, if there's no fantasy in it, there's nothing, it's empty, or at the very least quite boring. Why would they want to read about reality, when they have plenty of reality in their own lives? And the reality, as they know it, is bad enough to drive them to books?
I am actually finding a rich vein of life in the read-marketing world, where basically I get to surreptitiously evaluate each writer's act, based on what they have, what's presented to the world, how are the ratings, what's happening to the ratings in terms of daily ups and downs, how they present their blurbs and their author-abouts. It's like seeing someone at a party and getting some insight into why they act the way they do, learning snippets of their life one or two at a time until you see what makes them tick. We all have different motivations for writing and then, given the talent or ability, different and varying ways of getting it on the paper. There's enough here to make a collection of short stories based on the different lives of the ones I've met. Or even, based on the addictive nature of caring about such things as page-reads.
I suspect more than one of these writers is into the cups, i.e. the true addiction, alcohol, or more specifically, wine, since we are not really in the beer crowd, although some probably are that too. It reminds me of my favorite book, one which got me started, The Day on Fire (1958), about the life of famous poet Rimbaud, who fell in with the debauchery of writers in Paris but then, angry, set off to isolate himself, traveling extensively in Europe and mostly Africa, where he just hid for many years. Hid. I have no idea if he even wrote during that time; I've kind of forgotten the details of the book. It was good in that as a biography, it was true to fact and knowledge, and at the same time gave some idea of the passion of the guy's life. I admired that in the writing - if you can make history passionate, you've done something, in my book. I'm thinking of the same kind of thing with the Black Hawk War.
Enough of that for now. Back to slogging, and checking the page-read counter every few minutes.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Tonight I'm going to write about the downside of addictive checking of one's pagereads, addictive noticing of one's ratings, etc. I have to at some point admit to my addiction and deal with it. I've become addicted through a combination of circumstances: some extra time, due to retirement; writer's block (I should be creating/producing but am not); lack of control of more meaningful things in raising children/living life, etc. So I sit by the computer reading other authors' work (see my various writing on what I call read marketing, which works to a limited degree; and while I'm there, I check my page-reads. Sometimes several times an hour. Sometimes several times in ten minutes.
Tonight they slowed down; I'd got 52 during the day, and I simply didn't get any more. So here's the downside: there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. If nobody is reading any of your books anywhere, you can't make them. You might be able to call someone up and say, "read a page now!" but if nobody's reading now, nobody's reading now. That 52 will stay 52 until someone picks up one of your books.
Now it so happens that the other night, I experienced the opposite: absolute nirvana, as two people appeared to be reading a single book, the McDonald's book, at the same time. On that night I opened up my page-read count and noticed that it went up about five pages every time I opened it, faster than a person could even read, and all the pages were going under the McDonald's book column. Five or ten pages every two or three minutes. I was overjoyed! I had to go to bed, but I almost sat still, eyes glued to screen, just to watch the little numbers pile up. That night I got almost three hundred total. I try to get sixty minimum and lately I've gotten a hundred; in fact, I have roughly a hundred a day for the entire month of November and today's 52 weakened it a little but I'm ok; I still have over 1500 for the month. It's a good month for page reads. But because I'm obsessive about it, having it go up to 52 and then just stop there is like torture. It's not giving me what I really really want.
Keep in mind that we're actually talking peanuts here. 1500 pages, my entire month's haul so far, only amounts to about five or six dollars. That's nothing. When I see my page reads go up to 52 for a day, I haven't even made 18 cents. I have kids who spend a hundred times that on a single door dash. So I recognize the absurdity of noticing as fractions of a penny come crawling in and then slow down to a trickle or die out altogether. And, I'm actually lucky that someone read 52 pages of my book as that's quite a bit for a single day, assuming it was all one person who was just flying through it. Some of these books they read a story at a time, or they start and just lose interest halfway through, or maybe they get busy and distracted by something more urgent. I know that because I too read to get reads and I sometimes have more than one book on my plate. Tonight I read maybe 90 or 100 pages of one book, but only about 20 of another, and about 30 of yet a third; it was a good day for reading but on the other end only "good" for a single one of those authors. I try to remember, if I want to be assured of getting 60-100 each day, I should be willing to read 60-100 each day myself, and some days are harder than others to crank them out; also, excessive exclusionary reading (at the expense of writing, of course), is simply not possible as a practical reality. So, as there's a limit to what I can read, that's the same limit to what I can expect in terms of page-reads coming in, even though they come in unevenly, a few hundred on some days, barely making 52 on others.
Several people have stiffed me; I'm sure of it; I even know who they are. One guy apologized and went and read my book; he's back in my good graces again. I didn't want to hang around being mad at him so I just spoke to him directly and it worked, surprisingly enough. Now I like him and will recommend his book(s). It's like I know all these authors personally and I like dealing with some of them, and others, I'm tired of their deceptive dealing. They're not willing to pay a read to receive a read sometimes, so they stiff you.
In any case, there I am, by the page-count dashboard, watching as each one comes in. It's like being a stockbroker, watching the ticker as stocks either go up or down. One has to obsess about something, yes?
Tonight they slowed down; I'd got 52 during the day, and I simply didn't get any more. So here's the downside: there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. If nobody is reading any of your books anywhere, you can't make them. You might be able to call someone up and say, "read a page now!" but if nobody's reading now, nobody's reading now. That 52 will stay 52 until someone picks up one of your books.
Now it so happens that the other night, I experienced the opposite: absolute nirvana, as two people appeared to be reading a single book, the McDonald's book, at the same time. On that night I opened up my page-read count and noticed that it went up about five pages every time I opened it, faster than a person could even read, and all the pages were going under the McDonald's book column. Five or ten pages every two or three minutes. I was overjoyed! I had to go to bed, but I almost sat still, eyes glued to screen, just to watch the little numbers pile up. That night I got almost three hundred total. I try to get sixty minimum and lately I've gotten a hundred; in fact, I have roughly a hundred a day for the entire month of November and today's 52 weakened it a little but I'm ok; I still have over 1500 for the month. It's a good month for page reads. But because I'm obsessive about it, having it go up to 52 and then just stop there is like torture. It's not giving me what I really really want.
Keep in mind that we're actually talking peanuts here. 1500 pages, my entire month's haul so far, only amounts to about five or six dollars. That's nothing. When I see my page reads go up to 52 for a day, I haven't even made 18 cents. I have kids who spend a hundred times that on a single door dash. So I recognize the absurdity of noticing as fractions of a penny come crawling in and then slow down to a trickle or die out altogether. And, I'm actually lucky that someone read 52 pages of my book as that's quite a bit for a single day, assuming it was all one person who was just flying through it. Some of these books they read a story at a time, or they start and just lose interest halfway through, or maybe they get busy and distracted by something more urgent. I know that because I too read to get reads and I sometimes have more than one book on my plate. Tonight I read maybe 90 or 100 pages of one book, but only about 20 of another, and about 30 of yet a third; it was a good day for reading but on the other end only "good" for a single one of those authors. I try to remember, if I want to be assured of getting 60-100 each day, I should be willing to read 60-100 each day myself, and some days are harder than others to crank them out; also, excessive exclusionary reading (at the expense of writing, of course), is simply not possible as a practical reality. So, as there's a limit to what I can read, that's the same limit to what I can expect in terms of page-reads coming in, even though they come in unevenly, a few hundred on some days, barely making 52 on others.
Several people have stiffed me; I'm sure of it; I even know who they are. One guy apologized and went and read my book; he's back in my good graces again. I didn't want to hang around being mad at him so I just spoke to him directly and it worked, surprisingly enough. Now I like him and will recommend his book(s). It's like I know all these authors personally and I like dealing with some of them, and others, I'm tired of their deceptive dealing. They're not willing to pay a read to receive a read sometimes, so they stiff you.
In any case, there I am, by the page-count dashboard, watching as each one comes in. It's like being a stockbroker, watching the ticker as stocks either go up or down. One has to obsess about something, yes?
Friday, November 11, 2022
more-a-yer blues
Things are looking grim, as people who promised to read my work basically aren't doing it, or are doing it away from the counter, where the zon would pick up on it and deliver it unto me. There are perhaps four or five out there, who by posting on the trains, pledged to read mine, and are not delivering. Some may read tonight, as there's no real time limit saying they have to read it in the day, and that I can only hope for. I'm grateful that their downloading and reading maybe two or three pages has at least triggerred the ratings bump that I was looking for. But I'm disheartened that, bottom line, I was just looking for readers. These folks aren't reading.
I wrote to one and said, hey, you've stiffed me again. He was about eight days into it, and he had stiffed me before. Last time, he just apologized and read it. This time, I'm not sure what he's thinking. He posts on these trains all the time. What does he do, just stiff everyone he can? I find it hard to believe that you can just space out a responsibility.
Of course I have three possible recourses. One would be to complain to authorities, which I hate to do. The other is to download one of his books surreptitiously and give him a 1, or worse yet a 2. This also doesn't sit well with me and I will probably not do it, since I believe that a rating should at least generally be related to the quality of the work. Finally, there's ragging him but, if he really doesn't want to read it, what does that say? It's depressing. And it could be true for the other three as well.
There is one kind of recourse that feels better to me. That is to just wait until he posts again on one train or another, and post under him. He would need a lot of nerve to complain if I were slow here, since I think deep down he knows that he's over a month slow, owes me a read, that kind of thing. In a sense I just get paid back this way. I'm off the hook, reading his, knowing that now we're even.
I don't like this either, bottom line. Why are authors such dishonest bargainers? It seems like I'm hanging around the wrong crowd. If they think so highly of themselves, and have so little respect for a guy who's basically coming up from the bottom, what does that say for the kind of environment I'm in? When I get where I'm going, why should I even look back?
Before I go any further I should say that the vast majority have not been like this. I seem to have run across a nasty spell here, with one person who gave me a review after only reading ten pages. You think I didn't notice? Somewhere there are readers who want to read my work, and I'll find them. I'm working on a Kindle Vella project now; maybe that will go somewhere.
I wrote to one and said, hey, you've stiffed me again. He was about eight days into it, and he had stiffed me before. Last time, he just apologized and read it. This time, I'm not sure what he's thinking. He posts on these trains all the time. What does he do, just stiff everyone he can? I find it hard to believe that you can just space out a responsibility.
Of course I have three possible recourses. One would be to complain to authorities, which I hate to do. The other is to download one of his books surreptitiously and give him a 1, or worse yet a 2. This also doesn't sit well with me and I will probably not do it, since I believe that a rating should at least generally be related to the quality of the work. Finally, there's ragging him but, if he really doesn't want to read it, what does that say? It's depressing. And it could be true for the other three as well.
There is one kind of recourse that feels better to me. That is to just wait until he posts again on one train or another, and post under him. He would need a lot of nerve to complain if I were slow here, since I think deep down he knows that he's over a month slow, owes me a read, that kind of thing. In a sense I just get paid back this way. I'm off the hook, reading his, knowing that now we're even.
I don't like this either, bottom line. Why are authors such dishonest bargainers? It seems like I'm hanging around the wrong crowd. If they think so highly of themselves, and have so little respect for a guy who's basically coming up from the bottom, what does that say for the kind of environment I'm in? When I get where I'm going, why should I even look back?
Before I go any further I should say that the vast majority have not been like this. I seem to have run across a nasty spell here, with one person who gave me a review after only reading ten pages. You think I didn't notice? Somewhere there are readers who want to read my work, and I'll find them. I'm working on a Kindle Vella project now; maybe that will go somewhere.
Thursday, November 10, 2022
train yard blues
My chronic checking on certain Facebook sites has become comical, or at least I see some irony in it, as I've checked my favorite one maybe three times in the last half hour, and it's stuck at two books (How to Control your Alcohol Consumption and I'll Need You Forever) which I've already read.
Aware that what this means is that I need a new obsession, or at least something to get my mind off this what-we-call loop. I think I found it - Amazon ads. I'm getting a little better at doing them but what I really need is just the confidence to blow some real money getting people to click on my books. No money, no clicks, no clicks, back to the train sites.
On the train sites, I'm not totally confident that I've found every train on every site. It may be that I should cast a wider net, find a few more trains, and visit those more regularly. As it is, there are about eight that I visit every few hours; eight fill up my search window when I open it, so I see all eight, and if I just keep clicking on them in turn, I visit each one obsessively and believe me, mostly they aren't going anywhere. I'm just clicking away touring a dead situation. It makes me want to start my own site.
I've found the (Read Only) site the most fun, if only because it gets lively and when it gets going it really gets going. It's good to have a train carefully controlled too (thanks to the Mod here), and know that you can complain to someone if you don't get what you came for. I got stiffed by this one guy - I know him, yet he still failed to read my book - and I live in aggravation when I feel like I've paid for it with my blood and haven't got anything in return. Now sometimes, my book is read at an off time or a different one is read than I bargained for. OK. I should be able to handle a little uncertainty. But overall I want to feel like I got what I paid for.
Back to the grind, to the mill. I must say, my pagereads have gone up a little, and that's good. At the miserly rate they pay us for, it doesn't amount to much, but it's something, and I'll take it. Chou, and good day.
Aware that what this means is that I need a new obsession, or at least something to get my mind off this what-we-call loop. I think I found it - Amazon ads. I'm getting a little better at doing them but what I really need is just the confidence to blow some real money getting people to click on my books. No money, no clicks, no clicks, back to the train sites.
On the train sites, I'm not totally confident that I've found every train on every site. It may be that I should cast a wider net, find a few more trains, and visit those more regularly. As it is, there are about eight that I visit every few hours; eight fill up my search window when I open it, so I see all eight, and if I just keep clicking on them in turn, I visit each one obsessively and believe me, mostly they aren't going anywhere. I'm just clicking away touring a dead situation. It makes me want to start my own site.
I've found the (Read Only) site the most fun, if only because it gets lively and when it gets going it really gets going. It's good to have a train carefully controlled too (thanks to the Mod here), and know that you can complain to someone if you don't get what you came for. I got stiffed by this one guy - I know him, yet he still failed to read my book - and I live in aggravation when I feel like I've paid for it with my blood and haven't got anything in return. Now sometimes, my book is read at an off time or a different one is read than I bargained for. OK. I should be able to handle a little uncertainty. But overall I want to feel like I got what I paid for.
Back to the grind, to the mill. I must say, my pagereads have gone up a little, and that's good. At the miserly rate they pay us for, it doesn't amount to much, but it's something, and I'll take it. Chou, and good day.
Sunday, November 6, 2022
I signed up on this one writer's site and they asked me point blank if I hired an editor. No I don't hire an editor. I taught ESL for 30 years and did professional proofreading, and I know a comma from a semi-colon. In fact, maybe I know it too well. I find it difficult to tolerate these people (see the best of indie site who can't use a plural apostrophe or don't know from present tense. But all I could do was answer the question. I reflect on the matter and can't blame them for drawing the line somewhere, and saying, I'm not going to just let any old "self-publisher" in.
On the other hand, I sit here trying to market my book, and find that my best choice in actually getting it out into the public is to read this one, about three hundred pages, where the writer is so garbled in her expression that I can already tell it will be a three-hundred-page slog. Surely there is a better way. It is read only; all I have to do is read it, not give a good review or say something I might regret. I find that complimenting bad writing is especially tiresome but I have found ways of saying it that are at least truthful and hopefully will be taken seriously by the writer.
It is a tough uphill battle gathering an audience and I might take my own advice, which is to not let moss gather on a rolling stone, keep moving, keep trying things that work, keep going no matter what. Perseverence is the key. I have twenty-seven books and have barely started getting them out there where people can see them. We are coming into the season when maybe somebody will buy them. One can only hope.
I should tell about the three books I have on my docket at the moment. One, I just finished; it was an excellent book. I do come across these every once in a while. It was a romance of sorts but not all full of the intimate details that the others get carried away with. A woman is digging into her past, gets obsessed with it, and finds way more than she is able to handld. Just an excellent book.
Another one is written by a friend of mine, and is really quite good too, though I'm not that far into it. His books are full of modern British young folks who keep up a lively patter as they go about their lives, and they seem to have the luxury of thinking about sex a lot and expressing it freely, while not worrying too much about the rigors of simply surviving in modern Britain. There's a ball in their future, a bizarre kind of dance, and they are all preparing for it in their own way. But my point is that in stepping into their world, I become part of this extended conversation which, though it has good elements of humor, is kind of endlessly intense. It's well written but I almost have to put it aside for evenings when I have more undivided time.
And the last one is a kind of fantasy where I see words that frankly I don't know, and wonder if maybe I should have read an earlier book, or maybe the author simply lives in her own world and only chooses to share the meaning of such things once in a while, or if you ask her. These guys are living in this fantasy kind of world, with swords and shields and the expectation of using them, and yet these words are being flung around as if we are all supposed to be sharing a mutual knowledge of what this world entails. And then, lo and behold, the poor main character steps through a time warp apparently onto earth. Maybe it's a space warp or some other kind of warp but in any case he encounters a beautiful young damsel and there you go. I am not actually following this particular story very well and it's similar to the others in that I might have to wait until late night to have some free time to actually understand it.
And then I may add this other one onto the mix.
On the other hand, I sit here trying to market my book, and find that my best choice in actually getting it out into the public is to read this one, about three hundred pages, where the writer is so garbled in her expression that I can already tell it will be a three-hundred-page slog. Surely there is a better way. It is read only; all I have to do is read it, not give a good review or say something I might regret. I find that complimenting bad writing is especially tiresome but I have found ways of saying it that are at least truthful and hopefully will be taken seriously by the writer.
It is a tough uphill battle gathering an audience and I might take my own advice, which is to not let moss gather on a rolling stone, keep moving, keep trying things that work, keep going no matter what. Perseverence is the key. I have twenty-seven books and have barely started getting them out there where people can see them. We are coming into the season when maybe somebody will buy them. One can only hope.
I should tell about the three books I have on my docket at the moment. One, I just finished; it was an excellent book. I do come across these every once in a while. It was a romance of sorts but not all full of the intimate details that the others get carried away with. A woman is digging into her past, gets obsessed with it, and finds way more than she is able to handld. Just an excellent book.
Another one is written by a friend of mine, and is really quite good too, though I'm not that far into it. His books are full of modern British young folks who keep up a lively patter as they go about their lives, and they seem to have the luxury of thinking about sex a lot and expressing it freely, while not worrying too much about the rigors of simply surviving in modern Britain. There's a ball in their future, a bizarre kind of dance, and they are all preparing for it in their own way. But my point is that in stepping into their world, I become part of this extended conversation which, though it has good elements of humor, is kind of endlessly intense. It's well written but I almost have to put it aside for evenings when I have more undivided time.
And the last one is a kind of fantasy where I see words that frankly I don't know, and wonder if maybe I should have read an earlier book, or maybe the author simply lives in her own world and only chooses to share the meaning of such things once in a while, or if you ask her. These guys are living in this fantasy kind of world, with swords and shields and the expectation of using them, and yet these words are being flung around as if we are all supposed to be sharing a mutual knowledge of what this world entails. And then, lo and behold, the poor main character steps through a time warp apparently onto earth. Maybe it's a space warp or some other kind of warp but in any case he encounters a beautiful young damsel and there you go. I am not actually following this particular story very well and it's similar to the others in that I might have to wait until late night to have some free time to actually understand it.
And then I may add this other one onto the mix.
Monday, October 24, 2022
Perseverance - as someone once said, that's the main difference between those who make it and those who don't. Those who do, are those who never gave up.
I'd really like to track down who said it. It was someone who made it, and was asked how it was. Was he a genius? What trick did he have up his sleeve? What did he know about the public that he could teach us?
The reason I need this wisdom is that I have come to doubt that I have that much more than anyone else in any of the other great writing categories. Skill, ability to craft a story, genius, overriding ability to see it the way the reader would see it - and then that's not to mention the formal teaching of such things as novels (I've had none) which many of my fellow writers have had but which I have pretty much spurned over the years. I'm playing with an untutored mindset and I'm in the pro leagues but I'm looking at shutout scores and somehow I'm surprised, why, because it's hard to make people see you out there? It's taken me a long time to figure out that starting from the bottom really makes a long journey.
Marketing by reading is really kind of limited. It's a lot of work to get one ratings bump, if you're not a big fan of fantasy, or romance, or whatever is out there. I'm finding it's slogging on me. And yet, also, I'm somewhat drained when it comes to what I'm actually producing. Nothing I've done lately has made it all the way to the edge of being publishable.
Hard marketing has at least given me some good numbers right before the buying season, and that's something to be proud of - I'm not sure I can keep them right through December, but at least I look a little more like an up-and-coming writer, and that's something to be grateful for.
More than that I'm grateful for the fact that I've made a lot of friends out there. If I quit today I at least have a lot of people I can count as genuine friends, spread literally around the world. They are like me, slogging out the novels, cranking out something or other, trying to maintain some semblance of marketing with what they have. I'm sure they can relate to my anguish.
Persevere! What choice is there, give up?
I'd really like to track down who said it. It was someone who made it, and was asked how it was. Was he a genius? What trick did he have up his sleeve? What did he know about the public that he could teach us?
The reason I need this wisdom is that I have come to doubt that I have that much more than anyone else in any of the other great writing categories. Skill, ability to craft a story, genius, overriding ability to see it the way the reader would see it - and then that's not to mention the formal teaching of such things as novels (I've had none) which many of my fellow writers have had but which I have pretty much spurned over the years. I'm playing with an untutored mindset and I'm in the pro leagues but I'm looking at shutout scores and somehow I'm surprised, why, because it's hard to make people see you out there? It's taken me a long time to figure out that starting from the bottom really makes a long journey.
Marketing by reading is really kind of limited. It's a lot of work to get one ratings bump, if you're not a big fan of fantasy, or romance, or whatever is out there. I'm finding it's slogging on me. And yet, also, I'm somewhat drained when it comes to what I'm actually producing. Nothing I've done lately has made it all the way to the edge of being publishable.
Hard marketing has at least given me some good numbers right before the buying season, and that's something to be proud of - I'm not sure I can keep them right through December, but at least I look a little more like an up-and-coming writer, and that's something to be grateful for.
More than that I'm grateful for the fact that I've made a lot of friends out there. If I quit today I at least have a lot of people I can count as genuine friends, spread literally around the world. They are like me, slogging out the novels, cranking out something or other, trying to maintain some semblance of marketing with what they have. I'm sure they can relate to my anguish.
Persevere! What choice is there, give up?
Thursday, October 13, 2022
So lately I've been using this site to complain bitterly about the situation I'm in. But I have to admit, overall, my situation isn't so bad. I'm getting page-reads. I'm even getting a few sales. What I can't get right away, I get eventually. This is especially true of my new book which started out a little slowly but is doing ok now.
But here's today's bitter complaint: I got 212 page-reads today, but it only amounted to 29 cents. That's terrible!
Now I have to admit, the pennies are themselves no longer an issue. If 212 page-reads amounted to 40 or 50 cents, how would that change my life? Not much. I have kids who spend twenty or thirty bucks just in the process of breathing. So the difference here of 28 cents is not really that big a deal.
But here's my conclusion about what happened. Amazon pays us about .45, that's right, almost half a cent, for a page read. You read one page of my book, and that's what it gives me. So, if you read 212 pages, it should have given me about 50 cents. So why didn't it? Because most of those pages were read in India.
I am not sure why Amazon.com would give us .45 of a cent, whereas Amazon.in would give us more like .2 of a cent. It probably has something to do with dividing total revenue into total page-reads, meaning that perhaps KU is much more popular in India, and they have much more in the way of page reads to distribute, or, perhaps they sell KU for less than $10/mo. in India. It seems from what i'm seeing that amazon.in somehow has a different formula (it's definitely not .45/page). For whatever reason.
In fact, .45 itself is quite low, if you map out what's happening. Even for amazon.com, it's a formula that is made directly out of certain revenues divided by total page-reads, and they are very clear about not asserting total control to stabilize it whatsoever. That is, if the bottom drops out of the revenue, they'll simply pay us less and not worry about it, or if, conversely, KU becomes extremely popular and there are unexpectedly millions of page-reads appearing out of nowhere. I am, in a sense, competing against all other authors on KU for those reads that elusive as they are, someone is doing somewhere: reading some page of a book, taking a minimum amount of time on it, etc. I of course am giving some author some of these as I read their books.
I sometimes think that if I got 60 in a day I did pretty well. Lately I've been doing better: a hundred, two hundred. But at .45 a page it'll take well over 200 just to make a dollar. And I'm trying to get a dollar a day just to keep over my $30/month income goal. $30 is peanuts. I might as well be walking dogs for a living.
Fortunately people do buy my books, sometimes. Not often. Not even daily.
And fortunately I'm retired, I'm not living off of these peanuts.
But here's today's bitter complaint: I got 212 page-reads today, but it only amounted to 29 cents. That's terrible!
Now I have to admit, the pennies are themselves no longer an issue. If 212 page-reads amounted to 40 or 50 cents, how would that change my life? Not much. I have kids who spend twenty or thirty bucks just in the process of breathing. So the difference here of 28 cents is not really that big a deal.
But here's my conclusion about what happened. Amazon pays us about .45, that's right, almost half a cent, for a page read. You read one page of my book, and that's what it gives me. So, if you read 212 pages, it should have given me about 50 cents. So why didn't it? Because most of those pages were read in India.
I am not sure why Amazon.com would give us .45 of a cent, whereas Amazon.in would give us more like .2 of a cent. It probably has something to do with dividing total revenue into total page-reads, meaning that perhaps KU is much more popular in India, and they have much more in the way of page reads to distribute, or, perhaps they sell KU for less than $10/mo. in India. It seems from what i'm seeing that amazon.in somehow has a different formula (it's definitely not .45/page). For whatever reason.
In fact, .45 itself is quite low, if you map out what's happening. Even for amazon.com, it's a formula that is made directly out of certain revenues divided by total page-reads, and they are very clear about not asserting total control to stabilize it whatsoever. That is, if the bottom drops out of the revenue, they'll simply pay us less and not worry about it, or if, conversely, KU becomes extremely popular and there are unexpectedly millions of page-reads appearing out of nowhere. I am, in a sense, competing against all other authors on KU for those reads that elusive as they are, someone is doing somewhere: reading some page of a book, taking a minimum amount of time on it, etc. I of course am giving some author some of these as I read their books.
I sometimes think that if I got 60 in a day I did pretty well. Lately I've been doing better: a hundred, two hundred. But at .45 a page it'll take well over 200 just to make a dollar. And I'm trying to get a dollar a day just to keep over my $30/month income goal. $30 is peanuts. I might as well be walking dogs for a living.
Fortunately people do buy my books, sometimes. Not often. Not even daily.
And fortunately I'm retired, I'm not living off of these peanuts.
Thursday, September 15, 2022
New release blues
Mired in the process of a new release, I'm somewhat depressed. If it had gone right, I'd be kicking back, watching the sales roll in. As it is I still get zeroes haunting me - this morning, I got them out of there, but if I don't act, they come back, like ants when you sit down beside a tree.
I never quite finished proofreading my book. One result of this is that when it's all totally done, I'll have a slightly different product than what I have now. And that will mean that ultimately there will be different books out there. It's kind of fascinating, actually, that I could track my books based on who got the first ones, who got the second batch, etc., so that, sometime when I just encountered one of my books in a store or someplace, I would know when it was sold. Amazon has a way of keeping track of changes it approves - so on one level they know when there is a second, third or fourth edition - but what I'm saying is that I could be doing my own tracking.
Back to a depression I'm fighting off. My short story reputation is very important to me. Yet that's a place where I have made very few inroads into the true audience for them. If I had made those inroads, people would be simply buying them now. They're not. This might change by tonight, but don't count on it. Don't hold your breath.
A sale here, a sale there, at least I have numbers now which is important when people all over click on the amazon link. I'm in it for the long haul so if people don't know about it yet that's not especially the end of the world. My next stories may be about Disney, going along with advice I was given to "have a theme" or something that sets my book of stories apart from others; just a collection of short stories alone relies on the author's name which in some cases is not enough.
Many of the sites I'm posting on are scam magnets. This I'm not crazy about. I'm still dealing with lots of scammers, here, there, on my phone even. Why should I pick up scammers just because I'm publicizing the book?
On the other hand, I've barely scratched the surface of sites I could possibly be on. They're all over the place. Just remember the laws: It's total number of eyes that see your ad (divided by two) that translate into clicks, that ultimately translate into buys or downloads. Have to go for the long haul. I will consider an Amazon campaign - something will have to work.
Meanwhile my book is below (next post). It's good. Enjoy!
I never quite finished proofreading my book. One result of this is that when it's all totally done, I'll have a slightly different product than what I have now. And that will mean that ultimately there will be different books out there. It's kind of fascinating, actually, that I could track my books based on who got the first ones, who got the second batch, etc., so that, sometime when I just encountered one of my books in a store or someplace, I would know when it was sold. Amazon has a way of keeping track of changes it approves - so on one level they know when there is a second, third or fourth edition - but what I'm saying is that I could be doing my own tracking.
Back to a depression I'm fighting off. My short story reputation is very important to me. Yet that's a place where I have made very few inroads into the true audience for them. If I had made those inroads, people would be simply buying them now. They're not. This might change by tonight, but don't count on it. Don't hold your breath.
A sale here, a sale there, at least I have numbers now which is important when people all over click on the amazon link. I'm in it for the long haul so if people don't know about it yet that's not especially the end of the world. My next stories may be about Disney, going along with advice I was given to "have a theme" or something that sets my book of stories apart from others; just a collection of short stories alone relies on the author's name which in some cases is not enough.
Many of the sites I'm posting on are scam magnets. This I'm not crazy about. I'm still dealing with lots of scammers, here, there, on my phone even. Why should I pick up scammers just because I'm publicizing the book?
On the other hand, I've barely scratched the surface of sites I could possibly be on. They're all over the place. Just remember the laws: It's total number of eyes that see your ad (divided by two) that translate into clicks, that ultimately translate into buys or downloads. Have to go for the long haul. I will consider an Amazon campaign - something will have to work.
Meanwhile my book is below (next post). It's good. Enjoy!
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Devour That Spaghetti
Monday, September 12, 2022
new book
I just finished a tenth collection of short stories, and I want to gripe about the process a little before it's either approved or rejected on kindle and paperback. Most likely they will simply fix the few things that went wrong and send it down the line, and I'll have two books tomorrow, one kindle, one paperback.
In the end there were times that I didn't know how to fix the formatting problem that their machinery set up, so I simply approved it I figured they would fix those formatting glitches probably having seen such things before and knowing that I really want title page information centered within the title page. I had no idea why it wasn't, and no clue about how to go about fixing it.
Some things like this reflect my dwindling patience. It has been after all about five moonths since my last book, way too long for me, and this has made my marketing kind of stale and I've lost my patience with that too. Because I've lost my patience I let a few things go that I shouldn't have. My covers are not quite perfect. My table of contents does not have the page number for each story, and on the kindle version it's poorly formatted. They will either fix this or not. In kindle they can link the chapters (stories) in the T of C to the stories in the main book, and they'll probably do that, so page numbers there are superfluous anyway. In paperback I end up submitting a pdf and there's where I should probably have page numbers in my T of C.
I get all wound up in the production and thus become somewhat useless in the house where I'm totally distracted and don't even notice whether people are home or not. It's good, though, that I broke the ice on my inability to produce - sure, for several months I was preoccupied with moving - but still I was beginning to feel stale myself and I needed to just see something of mine out on the market. I will work on those covers, I promise. I think you will see a bath of publicity here pretty soon, all sites, all places, all over. It'll be "all guns firing" as I like to say, for a little while, until I figure out what to finish next.
In the end there were times that I didn't know how to fix the formatting problem that their machinery set up, so I simply approved it I figured they would fix those formatting glitches probably having seen such things before and knowing that I really want title page information centered within the title page. I had no idea why it wasn't, and no clue about how to go about fixing it.
Some things like this reflect my dwindling patience. It has been after all about five moonths since my last book, way too long for me, and this has made my marketing kind of stale and I've lost my patience with that too. Because I've lost my patience I let a few things go that I shouldn't have. My covers are not quite perfect. My table of contents does not have the page number for each story, and on the kindle version it's poorly formatted. They will either fix this or not. In kindle they can link the chapters (stories) in the T of C to the stories in the main book, and they'll probably do that, so page numbers there are superfluous anyway. In paperback I end up submitting a pdf and there's where I should probably have page numbers in my T of C.
I get all wound up in the production and thus become somewhat useless in the house where I'm totally distracted and don't even notice whether people are home or not. It's good, though, that I broke the ice on my inability to produce - sure, for several months I was preoccupied with moving - but still I was beginning to feel stale myself and I needed to just see something of mine out on the market. I will work on those covers, I promise. I think you will see a bath of publicity here pretty soon, all sites, all places, all over. It'll be "all guns firing" as I like to say, for a little while, until I figure out what to finish next.
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
New covers
e pluribus haiku 2016
https://www.amazon.com/pluribus-haiku-2016-thomas-leverett-ebook/dp/B01FOLGWCE
e pluribus haiku 2017
https://www.amazon.com/pluribus-haiku-2017-thousand-moments-ebook/dp/B071WNYXTK
e pluribus haiku 2018
https://www.amazon.com/pluribus-haiku-2018-thousand-moments-ebook/dp/B07DCJD3KP
Monday, August 15, 2022
update
A few victories, a few losses on the marketing scene. For one thing, I seem to have sold two kindle copies, a couple of days ago, yet the ratings have not changed at all in Amazon. This seems to happen every once in a while. Maybe ratings aren't tabulated for library sales? Here I am checking ratings daily, even hourly, to see that millions-points bump, and it never shows up. That's discouraging.
Second, I'm in a kind of reads slump. Sales are good, reads are down. And even "good" for me, in sales, is just a couple once in a while. It's not like I'm talking any kind of real success as an author. On the one hand, my brothers and sister are beginning to recognize that I am a real author, with some books and some sales out there, but the world by and large doesn't come knocking on my door. And I've put a lot of work into the situation.
Third, the words aren't flowing out of my pen. I get ideas, I start stories, I get them on paper, but they sit for a while. Sometimes a long while. It's labor, and not joy.
I've got new covers on the e pluribus haiku series, 2016, 2017 and 2018. They will slip into history with a better look. These go years between times anyone reads or buys them, but they at least look better. I am practicing my covers in general. These three help in the process of rebranding. It may be part of my discouragement that I work hard basically on haiku that nobody reads. That may change though. I should just hold my head up and keep cranking it out. It's a little sad that basically I've stopped cranking out haiku also.
Back to the millstone, so to speak. It's been so busy moving here, and getting kids back to school, that I've had very little time to devote to updating blogs, etc. The haiku promo, for example, has to show that I've taken four off the market, and three have new covers. All promos have to have the new covers. It's that simple. People assume that new cover = new book, but in my case, it just means, new cover. I need to get the blatant self-promo site back up to be a little more blatant. I'm working on it. Be patient!
Second, I'm in a kind of reads slump. Sales are good, reads are down. And even "good" for me, in sales, is just a couple once in a while. It's not like I'm talking any kind of real success as an author. On the one hand, my brothers and sister are beginning to recognize that I am a real author, with some books and some sales out there, but the world by and large doesn't come knocking on my door. And I've put a lot of work into the situation.
Third, the words aren't flowing out of my pen. I get ideas, I start stories, I get them on paper, but they sit for a while. Sometimes a long while. It's labor, and not joy.
I've got new covers on the e pluribus haiku series, 2016, 2017 and 2018. They will slip into history with a better look. These go years between times anyone reads or buys them, but they at least look better. I am practicing my covers in general. These three help in the process of rebranding. It may be part of my discouragement that I work hard basically on haiku that nobody reads. That may change though. I should just hold my head up and keep cranking it out. It's a little sad that basically I've stopped cranking out haiku also.
Back to the millstone, so to speak. It's been so busy moving here, and getting kids back to school, that I've had very little time to devote to updating blogs, etc. The haiku promo, for example, has to show that I've taken four off the market, and three have new covers. All promos have to have the new covers. It's that simple. People assume that new cover = new book, but in my case, it just means, new cover. I need to get the blatant self-promo site back up to be a little more blatant. I'm working on it. Be patient!
Thursday, July 28, 2022
discouragement
I see an incredible number of writers giving up - stating publicly that it just wasn't what they'd hoped, and they were turning away. Most of them have a lot more invested, in terms of pure money, than I do. They bought a thousand of their own books. They paid a cover designer or an editor/proofreader. They invested heavily.
I on the other hand have invested mostly time and energy. As I've become obsessed with marketing, I've sprayed every possible free avenue with marketing until my twitter friends, facebook people, etc. are probably sick of it. I've kept up an unrelenting barrage of marketing of what I have and mostly to no avail. Sure I get a few sales here and there. On the paperback front which is especially bleak, I've resorted to buying my own to keep my ratings below ten million or below about fifteen, which is the level at which they stop even showing your rating. This is especially true of haiku, which simply doesn't sell, or at least mine doesn't sell. But I have used my marketing time to get Amazon gift cards so I'm not taking it out of the family budget.
In a sense this is an admission of failure and I know it. With the short stories I know that I have a few readers and will have more if I can crank out another collection of them, which should happen soon. My novel was a success but I also know that I've been virtually unable to write the second one, which is dying to be finished but just needs some attention to its organization.
In general I have about eight projects half done and a couple I even forgot about for a few months in the lead up to the big move from New Mexico to Illinois. A lot of these are close enough to being done that a little spurt of writing would just finish them. Instead I feel somewhat paralyzed by futility.
In my household a kid lives on McDonald's. That means twenty, thirty, forty bucks slips out the door every time we turn around because he likes to include his friends. I'm sitting here making maybe a buck on a survey, getting a book and giving it to a library, and he's out there slurping up frappes on our retirement account because he literally doesn't have a clue and feels like he absolutely needs it, and we have not effectively established a good limit. We are enabling him, I agree, so it's on us, but it piles up the futility. My ultimate goal is to be able to sit back, and let book sales and reads just kind of fill up the account whether I crank it out or not. For now, though, it will be necessary to crank some out. So it's back to work for me.
I on the other hand have invested mostly time and energy. As I've become obsessed with marketing, I've sprayed every possible free avenue with marketing until my twitter friends, facebook people, etc. are probably sick of it. I've kept up an unrelenting barrage of marketing of what I have and mostly to no avail. Sure I get a few sales here and there. On the paperback front which is especially bleak, I've resorted to buying my own to keep my ratings below ten million or below about fifteen, which is the level at which they stop even showing your rating. This is especially true of haiku, which simply doesn't sell, or at least mine doesn't sell. But I have used my marketing time to get Amazon gift cards so I'm not taking it out of the family budget.
In a sense this is an admission of failure and I know it. With the short stories I know that I have a few readers and will have more if I can crank out another collection of them, which should happen soon. My novel was a success but I also know that I've been virtually unable to write the second one, which is dying to be finished but just needs some attention to its organization.
In general I have about eight projects half done and a couple I even forgot about for a few months in the lead up to the big move from New Mexico to Illinois. A lot of these are close enough to being done that a little spurt of writing would just finish them. Instead I feel somewhat paralyzed by futility.
In my household a kid lives on McDonald's. That means twenty, thirty, forty bucks slips out the door every time we turn around because he likes to include his friends. I'm sitting here making maybe a buck on a survey, getting a book and giving it to a library, and he's out there slurping up frappes on our retirement account because he literally doesn't have a clue and feels like he absolutely needs it, and we have not effectively established a good limit. We are enabling him, I agree, so it's on us, but it piles up the futility. My ultimate goal is to be able to sit back, and let book sales and reads just kind of fill up the account whether I crank it out or not. For now, though, it will be necessary to crank some out. So it's back to work for me.
Sunday, June 5, 2022
arrived!
Please forgive a little extra time when I can restore normalcy after a family move from Cloudcroft, New Mexico to Monmouth, Illinois and ultimately to Galesburg, Illinois. It will take a while to readjust and in that time I will not be cranking out the novels as I'd like. But don't worry, they're coming!
Please forgive a little extra time when I can restore normalcy after a family move from Cloudcroft, New Mexico to Monmouth, Illinois and ultimately to Galesburg, Illinois. It will take a while to readjust and in that time I will not be cranking out the novels as I'd like. But don't worry, they're coming!
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
update
In the rush to market books I've lost sight of my creative juices, which would have me perhaps writing a short story even when I'm busy. I wrote this one, but it's true, and I don't consider that creative so much as just documenting. Life is crazy and worth documenting, but I need also to be cranking out things I can put out there.
I am definitely finding that the more I market, the less I write. I market primarily by exchange - I read others' books, they read mine. I do this as a layover so that I can gradually build an audience of pure readers - I am doing that slowly as well. People are finding out about my writing. It's not easy - in fact it's tedious - but it's what I'm doing.
The main reason writing has gone a little by the wayside is that we're moving in about two weeks. Two adults, four dogs, two cats, three teens, and a crapload of furniture, good and bad, new and old, clothes, genealogy, musical instruments, stamps and coins, you name it, it's going. An old doll case & dolls. Packing is on my mind. And the route, through about six states.
Be patient, I will come out of this a better writer.
I am definitely finding that the more I market, the less I write. I market primarily by exchange - I read others' books, they read mine. I do this as a layover so that I can gradually build an audience of pure readers - I am doing that slowly as well. People are finding out about my writing. It's not easy - in fact it's tedious - but it's what I'm doing.
The main reason writing has gone a little by the wayside is that we're moving in about two weeks. Two adults, four dogs, two cats, three teens, and a crapload of furniture, good and bad, new and old, clothes, genealogy, musical instruments, stamps and coins, you name it, it's going. An old doll case & dolls. Packing is on my mind. And the route, through about six states.
Be patient, I will come out of this a better writer.
Sunday, April 3, 2022
One Woman's Voice
One Woman's Voice:
Biography of Elizabeth Mansfield Irving (1852-1939), elocutionist, patriot, women's rights pioneer
Available on Amazon, Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
paperback %5.95 + shipping
Kindle $3.99
free on Kindle Unlimited
ACX version coming
Non-zons (people who refuse to use Amazon), contact me & we'll work something out
This is a story of a woman who wanted to be an elocutionist, on the cusp of the nation's Centennial (1876), when women were not permitted to speak on important topics of the day. A gifted reader and orator, with a beautiful voice, she went into reading war poetry to reunions and encampments of Civil War veterans. She also inherited an insurance business when her husband got sick and died, becoming one of Toledo (Ohio)'s first women business owners. It's the story of using one's voice when one can, and getting one's voice when one is able. Her life corresponed with the rise of elocutionists as a united group, and the rise of the woman's suffrage movement, which ultimately gave women their voice in the political arena also.
Monday, March 21, 2022
Pile of Leaves: Stories of a Rake
KINDLE SPECIAL - personal favorite - Pile of Leaves: Stories of a Rake - short stories from an inspired era FREE on kindle TUE & WED Mar. 22 & 23 https://www.amazon.com/Pile-Leaves-Stories-Thomas-Leverett-ebook/dp/B004IK948M/
Saturday, March 19, 2022
new blog
Of all my writing blogs, this is the one where I have a lot of stories, and speak freely about being a writer. It is not available to google, so I figure it gets its hits from people who know it's here or who connect up from one of my main blogs. It will probably stay that way.
I find that writing on blogs is easier than other ways, and now that I'm doing stories again, I've been using this one to just write stories on. There was a time when I did that here. I may go back to that, but for some reason I've been more comfortable using the novel idea site to just put things up. It could be that they are somewhat experimental when I do that.
So there's this new blog, best of indie, that I hope to use to unite all these blogs together. There are of course my press blog and my blatant self-promo site and I will include them in my reckoning. Since these last two require me to keep publishing things and I've faltered lately, they are looking a little desolate. But if I keep them all connected to each other and keep the ball rolling like a good basketball team does, I should find an opening somewhere.
Look way back in the archives of this blog. You will find some of my best stories here. My plan is to fix up all the writing blogs - make them a set - keep their functions distinct - and allow you to have a good look at my whole mind as a writer.
This one has the best name.
I find that writing on blogs is easier than other ways, and now that I'm doing stories again, I've been using this one to just write stories on. There was a time when I did that here. I may go back to that, but for some reason I've been more comfortable using the novel idea site to just put things up. It could be that they are somewhat experimental when I do that.
So there's this new blog, best of indie, that I hope to use to unite all these blogs together. There are of course my press blog and my blatant self-promo site and I will include them in my reckoning. Since these last two require me to keep publishing things and I've faltered lately, they are looking a little desolate. But if I keep them all connected to each other and keep the ball rolling like a good basketball team does, I should find an opening somewhere.
Look way back in the archives of this blog. You will find some of my best stories here. My plan is to fix up all the writing blogs - make them a set - keep their functions distinct - and allow you to have a good look at my whole mind as a writer.
This one has the best name.
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
This site is a place where I've always talked about writing freely. Looking back over my writing situation I once noticed that the first stories I did were actually more inspired than the later ones, or it could have been that they struck people more because I was somewhat wilder when I started out. Most of those stories are on this blog somewhere, free, and in some cases linked from the template.
This blog is somewhat hidden though, as it never comes up on Google (I told Google "hands off"), so it gets its views from people who know it's here and have come here often over the years. Many of those people are my former students. But I like the character of it and want to keep it to some degree the way it is.
Another blog, A Novel Idea, has gotten a lot of those spontaneous stories these days. That blog is kind of like this one - relatively unknown, not really linked from anywhere, and originally I was using it just to collect possibilities for novels or things that had caught my fancy. Why did I start putting random stories on it? Not sure. I also don't know where I want this to go. In a sense I feel like I should have an author's page, or some place to really show off. On the other hand, I'm much more comfortable with just casually flinging around stories.
So where is this going? Not sure. Change is in the winds, though.
This blog is somewhat hidden though, as it never comes up on Google (I told Google "hands off"), so it gets its views from people who know it's here and have come here often over the years. Many of those people are my former students. But I like the character of it and want to keep it to some degree the way it is.
Another blog, A Novel Idea, has gotten a lot of those spontaneous stories these days. That blog is kind of like this one - relatively unknown, not really linked from anywhere, and originally I was using it just to collect possibilities for novels or things that had caught my fancy. Why did I start putting random stories on it? Not sure. I also don't know where I want this to go. In a sense I feel like I should have an author's page, or some place to really show off. On the other hand, I'm much more comfortable with just casually flinging around stories.
So where is this going? Not sure. Change is in the winds, though.
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