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Recording the adventure of being an indie authour. |
| Still trying to get my book into paperback. The person I hired for the formatting failed miserably. So, learning how to format it myself. Lesson learned. Never use anyone on Fivver who isn't a Level 1 or 2. |
| I'm surprised at how exciting it is creating this membership site. It could easily take over my week. There are so many ideas running through my head of cool ways to interact with my mega-fans. I can't wait till it all comes together. Off membership topic, it's 43 out and I've got the van door wide open enjoying the cool morning air. It's always good to air out the van, especially when you've been heating and cooking with propane. I keep the ceiling vents open when I heat and cook, but it's still good to do an all-out airing. Getting ready to set up a table under the canopy and spend the day writing outside. Nothing like fresh air to get the creative juices flowing. :) |
| After a bit more digging and finding out us Conservatives are not welcome on Patreon - I ditched it and am now creating my own website to use as a membership site. Thankfully, I used to design websites, so it's going pretty quickly. It also helps that they have drag and drop these days instead of spending hours coding. Although I do miss the coding days. :) Anyway, Bravenet has an awesome layout and templates. They've come along way since the old days. Right now, I'm designing the home page, where the sign up form, membership access form, and an explanation of rewards for the different tiers will be. Then, I have to special code each members only page. Apart from the members page, my goal is to edit 3 chapters each day till Friday. That will complete the second edit of "The Ghosts of Springhollow." Then, I'll send it off to my readers and get their input before I do the third edit. And now! Off to write up my notes for going live tonight on Facebook. :) |
| Spent the afternoon learning the ins and outs of Patreon and slowly designing my page. For the longest time, I've been wanting to create something special for my mega fans and this is it - our own private hangout. The toughest part was coming up with membership rewards. Then it hit me - let the fans chip in to name different characters, and those on the highest tier get to decide one thing that happens within the story. That'll make the writing even more fun! |
| Starting the week off with a bang! Last night, I stumbled across my original Scrivener receipt from a couple years ago. I was so excited! I thought I was going to have to rebuy the program, and I can't afford to right now. So, this was a great way to start the week. :) I also realised I need to read Craig Ballantyne's book, "The Perfect Day Formula" in the mornings again. I've been losing momentum lately, and that book always gives me the kick in the pants I need. I'll miss listening to Anne Perry's videos, but I can always watch them later. Perry's videos are wonderful. I've watched them so much that when I read her books I can hear her reading the book to me, and then explaining why she did what she did, based on what she teaches in her videos. I've even caught her voice coming up and asking me questions about my own stories. That's when you're beginning to learn! :) Here's to a new week of excitement! |
| I'm batting a thousand this week. I just wrote my blog entry, hit publish, got an error message, and lost my post. It's rather fitting for the week. Yesterday, OpenOffice crashed on me repeatedly and I lost not only the data I'd entered at those moments - but it also deleted all my saves. On the bright side, it only took me two days to figure out where the heck the text box was in OpenOffice. LOL Ah, yes, it's moments like these that make me feel my age. LOL On the bright side, I now know where the text box is, and if Murphy and his dang law will leave me alone - I just might get two books published on Amazon this week. :) |
| The sun finally shining, and the warmer temps are getting the creative juices flowing. Almost finished with my travel journal design. Hope to publish it Thursday, Friday at the latest. Meanwhile, I'm writing a short story a day, and editing "The Ghosts of Springhollow." I've also gotten requests for a book about my first year living in a van, so I'm slowly brainstorming the outline and going through last years journal. Busy, busy day. :) |
| My system for writing short stories right now is a combination of Rob Parnell and James Scott Bell. It's working, and I love it! But there's one thing I've learned while studying Parnell's method of writing - I can't write if I'm calm. It makes me sleepy. I had to go for a walk in 30 degree weather to snap out of it. Then, I had to eat ice cream for a sugar rush. I'm about to head out the door and go for a longer walk to wake up. Nope, me and meditation before writing just don't cut it. But, give me a good brisk walk and I'll come back pumped up and the words will fly. You might be thinking, "Ah! But the walking relaxes you!" Nope. It gets me charged and hyper. The whole time I'm walking, I'm thinking about my book. How can I improve this scene or that. I have a little memo pad and pen with me to jot down the best ideas. By the time I get back to my writer's cave (van), I'm ready to rock and roll with excitement. This week has been a good lesson in learning that every writer has his own style of what works and what doesn't. For me, I write my best when I'm hyper and excited about my story. That's when the fun stuff comes out. When I'm calm, I'm serious, and that means a boring story - and I get sleepy. :) When do you write the best: When you're calm? or Hyper? |
| Super excited about my latest find - payhip.com! Super cool place to start selling my short stories. They provide lots of marketing tools, like: coupons, social discounts, referral discounts, cross-selling, connect your mailing list, you can even have affiliates! I put my latest booklet up yesterday. Still no sales, so I've been playing with the book blurb trying to improve it and see if that helps. The book is only $1.50, but buyers can get 25% off by using all the discounts I'm offering. My profit from each book will be miniscule, but the idea is to get my name out there. Possibly one of the reasons I've made no sales yet is because it's in PDF form. I'm going to change it later today to an ebook and see if that makes the difference. Personally, I like PDF's, but not everyone does. Well see what happens. :) |
| "There are some who measure the worth only by actual, hard numbers." - James Scott Bell's "Self-Publishing Attack!" When I read those words this morning, I saw them in an entirely different light than he intended. Bell is talking about advertising. I saw them in regards to writing success, and it got me thinking - how do we measure the success of our writing? Is it in numbers? Or the responses we receive from those who have been touched in some way by our writing? Or is it in dollar signs? Or, perhaps all three? Each one of us has a different idea of what writing success looks like, and no one's idea is wrong. It's a personal thing. You might write for the sole purpose of earning a living from it. Until that happens, you won't feel successful. Some may not feel successful until they've sold a certain quota of books, or made a certain amount of money. Regardless of what we view as success, we write for the sheer love of writing. For me, I hope to pull in enough money that I no longer struggle to get by. That's my goal. But, success for me is the response I get from those who are being touched in one way or another by my books. If what I'm saying isn't reaching someone, helping them in whatever way, opening their eyes up to a whole new world they knew nothing about, makes them curious - then what's the point? It's rather like Anne Perry says about our characters, both protagonist and antagonist, "if they do not change, what was your story about?" Writing success can be a lot of different things, especially for those just starting out. Success could be just getting a story finished, again, and again. Taking up the pen and writing for the sheer love of writing! That too is success! Think of all the people you know who "talk" about writing, but never do it. Success isn't something that's stagnant. It's something that's alive and constantly growing in the form of milestones we reach along the way. I started out writing stories as a child. As time went by, my stuff was published in the local rag. I did a stint as a reporter for a while. I eventually discovered Nanowrimo. From there, I went on to self-publishing. It's been a long slow process. It took until I was 58 to publish my first book. But, I've done it! And, I'll continue to do it book after book. What is your idea of writing success? Share it in the comments! |
| There's a consistent theme that runs through each of the writing groups I'm in. It doesn't matter whether it's the published authour groups only, or the ones where published and unpublished writers hang, writers are always asking for help getting motivated to write. That's a problem that I struggled with for a lot longer than I want to think about, then I found the solution! It was simple! And here it is: 1. Every morning, before I get out of bed, pull out my Kindle and turn on a book about productivity or writing. Let it play till I sit to write; a) "The Perfect Day Formula" by Craig Ballantyne b) "You Are A Writer" by Jeff Goins c) "How to Make a Living as a Writer" by James Scott Bell (or any of his other books I have.) d) "How I Sold 1 Million Books!" by Amit Offir e) "Freelance Writing Hacks," by Nathan Meunier (or any other of his books.) f) Any book I have by Nina Amir 2. If I'm not in the mood for a book, I turn on Anne Perry's writing videos I picked up on Amazon. Starting my day out with Kindle reading to me, or a video playing in the background, helps me immediately focus on the day's agenda - writing. It gets me excited. It gets my mind racing with ideas, and I look forward to sitting down and putting them into action. So, if you have problems sitting down to write, try doing this for a few days, and I bet you'll see the difference in both your writing and your attitude. |
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