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:
Its nice to see an old-school, traditional writer like yourself, embrace and appreciate all the new opportunities and tools offered online. Personally,I'm most excited about the Sam Rock sequel. I miss those guys. I hope the rest of your year is weather friendly, productive, healthy and fun!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words. Sam is anxious, too. Look for him this summer. The year is shaping up good so far.
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