Now we begin the infamous month where everything seems to slow down. Weather gets much colder, family starts mentioning the holidays, a jolly fat guy in red keeps peeking around the corner, ads for ‘Forget Your Family’ sales days are flowing into the email, and book sales take a nosedive. This year has seen a lot of that across the board from what I’ve read. My books aren’t doing too hot if you look at the rankings. Keep in mind that rate of sales are part of the algorithm (I think), so the amount of sales in a period of time is an important factor.
By the way, everyone should buy a copy of His Revenge by John W. Howell. Click the cover.
CLICK THE COVER!
I’ve been doing an Amazon Campaign for The Merchant of Nevra Coil. I’m happy to say that no sales have come from it . . . wait . . . I think I used a wrong word in there. Disappointed? Meh? I hate saying this again, but I’m not sure what to do. People have suggested taking a break from the series and doing something new. Yet I also have people telling me that I have to maintain what little momentum I have with the series. Others have mentioned Facebook and blog tours, but neither of those have worked. As far as the latter goes, I see them all over the place, so I’m no longer sure how much attention they get. It’s the thought that everyone is doing the same thing, so you get saturation. Feels too late in the year to lament or anything.
As far as the writing side, I’m hoping to finish writing The Spirit Well in 2 weeks and then move on to do a final edit of The Mercenary Prince. I’m really hoping to release that book in December and I plan on using the last of November, all of December, and maybe a bit of January to just outline. If anything I’ll write the next Ichabod Brooks short story.
Crossing Bedlam is being slated for February, but I need to figure out what to do about cover art. With the wife unemployed, I no longer have the comfortable funds to go for a higher level on 99designs. I’m afraid that going with the lowest level will give me a choice of a bunch of Mad Max clones, which isn’t this. You say ‘post-apocalyptic’ and that’s what everyone thinks. I might just say in the description that ‘This is NOT a Mad Max world, except for one region’. Every territory is rather unique, which makes this even more difficult. Since this might be another big, ongoing series of mine (1 book released a year like Ichabod Brooks) then I need to be careful. Cover art is very important.
West Park Asylum
Another thing I have to think about is Raven’s Hold, which was rather successful. At least it looked that way. Having put it out for free, I’d feel weird doing a sequel and charging money for it. There is an idea rattling around to bring Corvus and Dawn back to the blog. Though they might only be an October thing with a rare Teaser Tuesday appearance. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed and commented. I’m always up for opinions on how to go about continuing this one in terms of blog, Amazon, October only, etc.
I asked a question last week that didn’t really get answered, so I’m going to try again:
What do people think of making December all Retro Posts?
It would be my older stuff from 2013 and 2014 that newer readers probably never saw. A big reason is that I’m burning out and need to focus on big projects. The only other thing that I might have at that time is Hype for the next Windemere book if all the pieces fall into place. We all know something always goes wrong with that.
Beyond that, Halloween was fun and there’s plenty of candy in the house. Changing the clocks sucks when your body doesn’t really understand, so you wake up at 4:30 AM.
Here’s the obligatory list:
- Continue writing The Spirit Well.
- Plan dinners for the week when parents are away. Not as easy one would think, but the reason would lead to a rant that would get me in trouble.
- Local elections on Tuesday, so son will be home. Looking forward to this only because those commercials will finally end. Can we have a national holiday where it’s legal to pimp smack politicians? Everyone gets one shot and no sneak attacks.
- Should really finish reading one of the books I started.
- Brace myself for more crap being hurled at my face by the universe.
- Fight medical insurance because god forbid they do what I pay them for.
- Think more about the next ‘Raven’ book. Ravens’ Game?
- Maybe sleep in at some point since I conked out for a few minutes while writing this. *hears chaos in other room* This might change to ‘drink coffee and red bull’ before too long.
Kid in Costume
Legends of Windemere 
Do RETRO. Will help your readers catch up. (and give you a break) Thanks for the Plug. I had to laugh out loud at the pimp slap. Great idea. I want Hillary first cause after my slap there will be nothing left.
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You’re welcome. Saw an opening and took it for the plug. Not sure who I would use the slap on. So many choices. Maybe if I get a giant hand and find a way to hit every member of Congress in one shot.
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Could be made out of a wet dishrag.
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Maybe I’ll just promise my vote to whoever accepts the pimp slap. I won’t actually go through on my promise, but I’m sure that’s called karmic revenge.
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Excellent idea.
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I like the pimp slap idea. Hey, would someone get another slap in if they dress as a pimp that day? Also, best of luck with writing, outlining, and everything.
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Thanks. Looking forward to a lengthy period of being low key. After writing . . . 1 short story and 4 novels this year, I could use the break. I’d say if you dress as a pimp then they have to give you money.
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You are a prodigious writer, Charles, and I do hope your book sales perk up. Especially tough if your partner is unemployed. Good luck with all your writing – wish I weren’t so distracted by all sorts of things!
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Thanks. November is rather infamous for being bad. People save money for the Christmas sales and many seem to except everything to be cheap after Thanksgiving.
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My sales have been encouraging. I’m going to let my promotions run out, then contact you privately so we can compare notes. I have zero promotion planned after they expire. There are a few ideas, but they’re still fermenting in my brain.
Oh, and if you want to reblog old stuff, do it. I would maybe add one new thing per week though.
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I’ve got nothing going after the campaign. Especially since it’s about to expire at a failure. At least in terms of sales.
I’ll be doing the Teaser Tuesday and Questions 3, which are new. Not sure if that’s enough for the whole month. Maybe add a poem in from time to time or something.
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That might be enough, honestly.
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Yay! A plan. One that might even work. 😀
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I feel like I should point out you wrote HER Revenge above for John’s book. Sorry if that came across as picky/annoying/rude. That’s some to-do list you have there!
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Thanks. Weird thing is that I was looking at the cover what I wrote it. Must have seen the woman, thought ‘My Grl’, and then unwittingly switched the pronoun. Should be fixed now.
The to-do list is going to be a rough hurdle this week. Too many other events that will get in the way of writing. Doesn’t help that I’m already exhausted.
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Ravens’ Game sounds great.
“Every territory is rather unique” – how about you make the cover a map of the new US?
Retro Posts sounds great. I’ve been considering something similar for my blog, as I’ve realized just how many great posts have gone unread by the vast majority of today’s readership, for no other reason than having been published too early on, when I had no followers.
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I could try, but I haven’t planned out much beyond the 11 States that get used. Kind of making some stuff up as I go. That and I have no artistic ability. There’s an example of my map making ability somewhere on this blog.
If I find an artist to help then I’ll see how that goes.
I think we tend to forget about the early days when nobody was really paying attention. Interesting to see if any old thoughts changed too.
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Lol – the price of success 🙂
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Costs us our memories? That explains a few things.
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Huh? What cost us our memories? Who said that?
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Who ate my sandwich? Why am I no longer hungry?
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Sorry, couldn’t *burp* help myself
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Congrats to John on the release of another book.
Aww. Your son was a ninja turtle. I expected to see a ton of those for Halloween. Instead, kids were Jedis and Marvel heroes.
You have a lot going on. I’m hoping for the best for you.
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We had a ton of Ninja Turtles around here. Not as much Star Wars as one would expect.
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Funny how covers keep coming up in conversations–at least with me. I tell folks I create my own covers and they look at me as if I’ve dropped from Mars. I guess I’m an anomaly. Good luck with your cover art and finances. I hope your wife gets a job soon. An awful feeling it is to suffer through loss of income. I wish you both all the best with dealing with the situation.
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A lot of indie authors make their own covers, but many don’t think it’s common. I have no artistic ability in that field, so I don’t even try. One issue that turns up with some people is that they ignore the ‘first impression’ that a cover makes and figure anything that is even fractionally good will work. So when I have side projects and bring it up, I tend to get a lot of ‘just grab some photoshop’ suggestions.
I hope she gets a job soon too. Feel like I’m tripping over her around here.
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