Write, write, write…
I just added a 1000wordsaday badge onto this site, because I have finally begun to stop putting marketing before writing. I know that for months I have said that I would do this, but in January I finally did. I averaged between 500-900 words a day for the month of January, but in the first week of February I averaged 1400, so I felt I could safely enter this challenge set up by Debbie Ohi on Inkygirl.com. For those of you who have been following my blog, you may remember that I wrote the first draft of my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, over twenty years ago, which means most of my fiction writing experience in those past twenty years has been rewriting. I am very good a rewriting, but I wasn’t so sure about my ability to write fresh Read more…
Thanks for all the nice support
Hi, I wanted to thank everyone who has commented on my blog in response to the last few posts I have made. I felt sort of odd about mentioning my sales so frequently, but everyone has taken this information in the spirit in which it was offered, as information for and encouragement to those authors who are taking the indie route to publish. I love to think of all of you as a growing and supportive community, and I have enjoyed checking out your websites and blogs in return. I would answer you all separately, but I am really trying to be good about carving out more time to write (something you all are familiar with), so I thought I would just try to give a general shout out. However, if you ever have a specific question, do feel free Read more…
Self-Publishing Success? Yes! Self-Publishing Exception: No!: Why the charges of exceptionalism are just part of the old debate
In April 2009, after my historical mystery, the Maids of Misfortune, had been out for 4 months and I had sold 158 books, I asked on this blog whether I could call myself a “real author.” This was in response to the frequently stated opinion of those against self-publishing that people who took that route were only going to sell to family and friends and weren’t real authors. In fact, a year ago almost all of the blog posts on self-publishing revolved around the debate (and they were definitely heated debates) about whether or not self-publishing was good (because the traditional industry sucked) or was bad (because all self-published books sucked). However, as the year progressed, I began to notice a shift in the tenor of the debate, as the majority of blog posts about self-publishing began to be devoted Read more…
The First Year as an Indie Author in Review: Sweet Success
A year ago, during the last week in November and the first weeks of December, I self-published my first book, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, as an ebook on Smashwords and Kindle, and as a POD book through CreateSpace. I had no history as a published author, no contacts in the publishing world, and no marketing plan. I had a self-created author web-site and blog site, a facebook friends list of about 40, a lovely cover for the book (shout out to my cover designer Michelle Huffaker), and the confidence that I had done everything possible to make my book worthy of being published. I also had hope that if people found my book that they would buy it and like it enough to recommend it to others. In addition I had discovered a vibrant community of Read more…
Is there a point of critical mass in marketing a book when it begins to sell itself?
At the beginning of September I made a pledge to myself to cut back on marketing, step up my writing, and see what effect this had on my sales. So how did I do? Well, I wasn’t completely successful in terms of writing. A trip, a cold, several sets of papers to grade became useful excuses not to write, but I did write 2,000 more words, and have 5 chapters of Uneasy Spirits, my sequel to Maids of Misfortune, completed. More importantly, I am much more engaged in the process of writing. For those of you who have read my earlier posts, you know that I wrote the first draft of Maids of Misfortune 20 years before I actually published it. Well, I also outlined the plot of Uneasy Spirits many years ago, so it has taken me awhile to Read more…
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