So, I’m doing a last minute thing because I’m scratching my head. It’s involves the pricing for my paperback books on Amazon.
I was hoping to keep them around $10-$12, but some are proving to be bigger than I expected even with formatting. I should have seen that coming. I was going to head for $15, which worked at first. Then, I ran into a problem.
Amazon has this 40% thing where you can have your books at non-Amazon stores. I clicked on that for the books I’ve formatted so far, but I realized it forces the price to jump up to about $17-$18. That’s with me only getting a couple cents in royalties from that 40% option. People may know where my question is going.
Should I bother doing this extra option? It’s forcing me to jack up the price and I don’t think anyone is going to be ordering my stuff on anything other than Amazon. So, what’s the point?
Genuinely thought that I got nothing done as far as last week’s goal list goes. I ended nearly every night exhausted. Last full week of the quarter means work was kind of crazy, but helping my son with schoolwork was extra crazy. Add in Halloween and other areas of drama to make it nearly impossible for me to do any writing. Still, I can’t say the week was a loss.
To be fair, I never got to any outlining or ‘Phi Beta Files’ prep. Even when I had energy, I used it to do other things. Chores, errands, and the whole adulting thing doesn’t do itself no matter how much I want it to. I didn’t even make a list of books to turn into paperbacks until last night. That’s the goal for this weekend. Shouldn’t be too hard, but I don’t know how to do the headers for ‘Life & Times of Ichabod Brooks’. Do I put the book title on one side and the short story title on the other? Same goes for ‘Quest of the Brokenhearted’ and the two ‘Bedlam’ books. I should look at a few short story collections that I have for ideas.
I mentioned last weekend that my son and I were going to try to make ‘Ice Cream Bread’, which is exactly what you think. It is bread made using ice cream. Not a cold dish, but a hot one. We used chocolate ice cream and self-rising flour along with sprinkles to make a loaf. It was rather crumbly, but this is the end result:
Tasted really good. I probably messed up trying to get it out of the bread pan as soon as it was out of the oven. First time making this dish and I didn’t have this issue with the strawberry bread 2 years ago. It was fun to make and I’m already planning a few more experiments. At some point, I want to make 3 loaves with each one being a different flavor like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. This will be for any event where we’re expected to bring desserts. That happens fairly often. We’ll see how it goes that time. Tough to mix everything up.
The second big event was Halloween, which saw the debut of my son’s costume. I made a post about it on Instagram, which got a ton of likes. That was great to see since we had some issues. The face paint got on everything and my son told me the next day that the wig was really annoying him. So, we have to do some modifications when he plans on wearing it again. Here’s the character and then the costume:
Soul King Brook from One Piece
He wasn’t happy about the picture taking away precious trick-or-treating time. Still, it was a rousing success and some people gave him extra candy. It was a nice change from all of the store bought costumes we saw.
As I said before, I didn’t get to do anything else this week. I’m hoping to get more done next week, but I won’t hold my breath. It’ll be easier if I get most or all of the paperback setups done this weekend. Opens the way for me to write the next Darwin outline and work on the ‘Phi Beta Files’ notebook. I’m thinking of making a post every Tuesday in January for each of the paperback series too. If I put ‘Quest of the Brokenhearted’ up as its own thing then I have 5. Gives me another delay on putting up teasers.
Nothing else major happened. Twitter got uncomfortable and bizarre this week. It used to be that I saw mostly author stuff in my feed. This week, I saw a barrage of politics and disturbing vitriol. I started unfollowing the people who were liking and following the terrifying stuff coming through. Lots of racism and antisemitism as if a floodgate was opened. Though, it could also be people trying to test out how far they can now go before they are banned. Either way, I was strongly considering deactivating my account for a little while. How is it useful for promoting books when people are more interesting in hating others on there? (Betting this is the paragraph that will garner comments.)
Only other thing that was supposed to happen, but didn’t was starting a new Netflix series that I have a personal connection to. They made a series called ‘Blockbuster’, which is about the last functioning Blockbuster Video. For the youngsters, this was a place you would go to and rent movies and video games. I used to work for Hollywood Video, which was their competition. Still, I’m curious to see how much of what they show brings back some nostalgia and memories. It’ll be some nice comedic breaks from formatting books until my eyes bleed.
So, goals of the week?
Writing if possible.
Help son study for last tests of the quarter.
Conference Day.
Take son to ‘One Piece: Red’ on Friday as a surprise.
So, we’ve gone over what Imposter Syndrome is and how it can be triggered. Maybe it can happen without us identifying it right away. No matter the case, we need to find a way to handle this powerful sensation. An author won’t get very far if they don’t gain some amount of confidence. We get them from ourselves, our friends, our readers, or anything that takes the time to tell us we’re real. Harder and harder to find those these days, but that’s really a big thing that’s needed.
All that being said, let’s see if we can touch on how to help ourselves and others get through such a period.
What would you say to someone who is suffering from Imposter Syndrome?
What is one thing you can do to avoid falling into this mentality?
Have you ever felt like a fraud and how did you handle it?
(I tend to be a pessimist. I keep trying to be an optimist, so I should get some credit for persistence then. Yet, I always run into people who knock me back into old habits. So, I wrote this poem in honor of ‘my people’.)
*****
We believe that every silver lining
Has a dark cloud underneath.
We believe that it will rain
On days we want the sun.
We believe the glass is half full
Of contaminated water.
We believe that one should prepare for the worst
And never wish for the best.
We believe that while there’s life
There will be more disappointment.
We believe that if hope truly springs eternal
Our lips will never feel its touch.
We believe a moment of happiness
Is us asking the universe to slap our face.
(Sorry. The November 28th post went live by accident right after this one. So, most people commented on the Hat Shop instead of the real November 2nd post. Didn’t realize it until someone actually commented on this one, so I’m reposting it in the hope of it getting the attention it deserves. Sorry.)
The first time I heard the phrase ‘Imposter Syndrome’, I shrugged it off. Never really thought it would be a factor in my author life. Yeah, I was fueled by arrogance on that one because I’ve come to realize it’s fairly easy to fall into. So, what is it?
Simply put, Imposter Syndrome is when you doubt your abilities and think you’re nothing more than a fraud. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve researched, trained, or practiced. You just feel fake and worthless. Many high achievers get this because they question if they earned their victories or it was handed to them. This can stem from being a natural or practicing so much that you ace the challenge on the first try. Things can be seen as too easy and you start to doubt everything. It can roll into a self-destructive spiral where a person sets out to prove they’re worthless.
Much of this can be caused by internal sources such as doubt, low self-esteem, or routinely comparing yourself to others who may be further along. There can be outside causes as well such as devil’s advocates and haters. A personal favorite of mine are the people who think giving only negative criticism is helpful, so they tear your work apart with the belief that you’ll be happy and make all the changes. All of this can result in a person who loses faith in themselves since negativity tends to be louder and more forceful than positivity, especially with the Internet.
Now, these won’t trigger Imposter Syndrome all the time or right away. Many times it will be a build up to the ‘event’. Usually, the person finally achieves a success or an award after being filled with doubts and getting criticized. Many believe that this will wash away their fears and help them realize they are good at what they do. In reality, a person may think there is a mistake and they weren’t supposed to win. After being told for so long that they aren’t as good as they think or they still need work, reaching the finish line can be fairly jarring. You have full-blown Imposter Syndrome instead of the victory driving them to keep going.
My recent achievement of Imposter Syndrome started at in May/June. After 10 months of not writing anything, I finally got back to my books. It took a few sections to get all of the rust off, but it still didn’t feel right. Many times, I’d feel like a fraud after a full day of writing by focusing on a part that I had trouble getting through. Sometimes, it was a part I hadn’t gotten to yet and I couldn’t shake the idea that I had been away from my imagination for so long that I had no business being near Windemere. Long covid exhaustion and brain fog added to this situation since I couldn’t tell if that was making me an even bigger hack.
One also has to add in the fact that my books don’t sell and my blog doesn’t really get a lot of attention. For a long time, I’ve been thinking that I screwed up my one shot at making this a career and should give up. Having people around me practically saying so doesn’t help here. It’s probably more doubt than I’ve ever had to handle, so I start believing it on some level. So, when I’m stressed or tired, I think of myself as a hack and walk away from my laptop even in mid-sentence. Takes more time than I’d like to admit to get back to it too.
I’m going to talk about Imposter Syndrome on Friday too. It’ll be a Questions 3 since I wanted to give this topic more time. I believe many people suffer from it even if they don’t realize it. What does everyone else think?
This is apparently a big month for authors. I can’t tell if NaNoWriMo is the cause or an effect of this designation. Either way, I think it will be fun to use the Tuesdays in this month to shares some author experiences. Every person has a different journey, which means everyone can be a teacher and a student in this world. How can we start this little adventure?
What was the first story you ever finished writing?
To be clear, I’m not going to say completed with editing. First drafts are fine. It’s all about the first story you wrote from beginning to end, which I’m sure gave you a sensation is unique. You can never recapture your first, true ‘The End’.
Mine goes back to when I was 7. I had already written joke and animal books during my writing time in school. One day, I wanted to try my hand at writing a story with characters and a plot. This was going to be a present for a friend whose birthday was coming up. Can’t remember the exact name, but it was along the lines of ‘The Quest for the Ruby Monkey’. I know that because it involved a doctor, woman, and other person traveling into a jungle to find a monkey-shaped ruby. They had to get through traps, which usually killed a character who wasn’t there before. Eventually, they found the gem and the giant gorilla protecting it. Obviously, this was inspired by the original ‘King Kong’ movie, which I had just seen.
If we want to go for more mature and serious stories, my first would have to be ‘Immortal Wars: The Summoning’. That was my first novel, which I’ve posted here in its entirely.
