Saturday, February 1, 2020

Residue


February 2020 Blog

No restart is completely clean. There will always be residue from past actions – or inactions.

Own Your Slate: A Haiku
It matters not how
Many times you clean your slate,
You own what was there.
by Ann Wilmer-Lasky

Unfortunately, the New Year has started with flus and rumors of flus and just feeling kind of crappy. Hopefully, that will pass and I can get started on all my sparkling new and tarnished old projects.
“The Chronicles of Acqueria: The Early Years” manuscript is almost complete and ready for its final edit. Then I can get back to revamping my “Sam Rock” sequel. Looking forward to seeing if Sam can get the best of his arch nemesis, Marie Delacroix, and her murder of ravens.
I’m sitting outside in the middle of winter writing this, and it does not make me happy. Since the weather has been so mild this winter, I am afraid the coming summer will be more brutal than last year. I’m not looking forward to that. I’ve also been following the devastating fires in Australia, and I am just heartsick. But that’s another story and an impetus to get “Global Warning” published on time.
So, back to now: I’ve decided to add more promotion to my agenda this year. It’s something that all authors need to do. I abhor it, but it is necessary. How else are your yet-undiscovered faithful readers going to learn what you have to offer?
I’ll be studying places like https://allauthor.com/  and https://eprintedbooks.com/ and https://booksoffice.com/ as well as delving more deeply into what Amazon has to offer. Then there’s https://www.acx.com/ (the Audible.com publishing arm) and their great cadre of talented narrators willing to take a chance on an unproven author.
They all offer promotion ideas just waiting to be taken advantage of.
It takes concentrated effort, though, to follow through on all their concepts and protocols, and one does have to get over the reluctance to “blow one’s own horn”.
Maybe I should try to put on a different hat and pretend I’m someone else blowing that horn.
Also, I’ll be getting back to my copy of “30-Day Book Marketing Challenge” to promote my books (https://smile.amazon.com/BadRedhead-Media-30-Day-Marketing-Challenge-ebook/dp/  )  I never made it past day 3, Perhaps this time is the charm.
I need to make my time spent on social media more productive. I’ve heard it is possible that you can get more results for your likes and retweets and friends than I’ve been getting.
Moreover, if I limit the time I spend on the internet, I can certainly find more time to write. Make all the characters currently rummaging around in my head (basically in limbo) happy to at least and at last take their place on the page.
Then it’s up to Amazon to spread their joy to the world. Well, at least in my little mind it should work that way.
The more I think of it, the more wonderful this age is for independent authors. Everything you ever needed or wanted to know is just a “Google” away.
You can get help with your writing, composition, and grammar. You can research any topic you want from any time period. It’s all there for the gleaning. Then, you can find agents and promoters and editors. It’s all laid out for you.
If you decide to self-publish, all kinds of help is available down to the step-by-step processes and all kinds of templates to format your manuscript.
Even your cover is waiting for you on somebody’s site and at a wide range of prices – from what’s available on https://www.fiverr.com/ to higher priced artists just waiting for you to contact them.
As few as ten years back, you didn’t have such a wide-range of possibilities and “self-published” authors were frowned upon.  Now, there’s just as much chance to be an award-winning author, even if you do it all on your own.
And I surely don’t  mind having my books up there on Amazon right next to Stephen King’s books.             I’d love to have them together on a bookstore shelf somewhere, but there aren’t many of those around anymore.
So, so far this year is full of possibilities, and I am looking forward to exploring as many as I can.
As I cannot erase the past, I intend to use it as a foundation for the building blocks of the present. It may be a bumpy ride, but hopefully it will be somewhat fun as well. At my age a little fun is hard to come by, and I want to embrace all that comes my way.
As to the future, long-range plans are no longer viable, but I should make it through this year, hopefully somewhat intact. We will see what February brings.
This month, I finally plan on finishing “The Early Years” manuscript. I also plan on loosely formatting “Global Warning” and look forward to promoting my backlist of novels and poetry already available for public consumption.


This month, I’m featuring The Chronicles of Acqueria: Blood Moon Treachery”. It is a young adult coming-of-age story of a strong young lady growing up in a patriarchal society. See how she copes. Available from Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y96zzp9u

My featured poetry for February is “The Castleweaver's Tales: A Dozen Glimpses of Medieval Madness: 25th Anniv. Ed” – available from Amazon at: https://tinyurl.com/y9d8czj4


Until next time, keep the faith. Keep writing and keep reading. Enjoy what makes you happy. There is far too little happiness in this world these days.
As always, I welcome your reactions and responses to any of my blogs. I love to hear from my readers. Also, here are links to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, if you care to share your thoughts with me there:
As all of my books are available on Amazon, I’m also including a link to my Amazon Author’s page. Feel free to visit me there also: