My blog is so ugly but I am a minimalist at heart, making things look pretty to me involves painting things white and maybe putting a painting on it. And leaving it alone. That can make it hard to create things for yourself but when you're on a budget you have to make sacrifices. My budget is currently zero by the way, haha.
Seizures part two, volume two, whatever I'm going to call it, is currently being written, slowly but surely. I'm adding a new character, introducing more elements, and hoping that this one can really catch the reader's imagination. I don't think anyone truly understands what I was trying to do with this book.
Anyway, I mainly just wanted to update this thing. :) Keep an eye out...hopefully by the end of January there will be a new book out in the world.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Update on #NaNoWriMo
My official #NaNoWriMo word count, at the moment, is 3,143. I felt lazy yesterday. Halloween and my partner's birthday usually leave me tired. This year I think the words were exhausted, in pain, but happy. We also had a friend leaving our little slice of heaven in Portugal and heading back to England so it was kind of sad as well.
I'm able to feel excited today about getting back to the world I've created and I'm already seeing parts where I can improve in the barely written but formally outlined story. Now is the time for writing though, and enjoying the process again. Now is the time to just have fun with it and later we worry about editing, about writing devices, and ensuring clarity. For now we rush to 50,000 and hope we come out of it all with something worth the effort.
Life has been far too much like being a grownup lately, with stress, worry, and more commitments than I thought I could handle. I've had some health problems as a result but I'm dealing with them and life. Because that's what big girls do, we get on with it. So now I get back to my day job and try to fight the temptation to just write 200 more that turns into 1000 more. My problem has never been meeting word counts, it's always been not being so eager I just write words because I find it so incredible. Words that may not be clear enough. But yeah, excitement is finally settling in. Let's see where it takes us.
I'm able to feel excited today about getting back to the world I've created and I'm already seeing parts where I can improve in the barely written but formally outlined story. Now is the time for writing though, and enjoying the process again. Now is the time to just have fun with it and later we worry about editing, about writing devices, and ensuring clarity. For now we rush to 50,000 and hope we come out of it all with something worth the effort.
Life has been far too much like being a grownup lately, with stress, worry, and more commitments than I thought I could handle. I've had some health problems as a result but I'm dealing with them and life. Because that's what big girls do, we get on with it. So now I get back to my day job and try to fight the temptation to just write 200 more that turns into 1000 more. My problem has never been meeting word counts, it's always been not being so eager I just write words because I find it so incredible. Words that may not be clear enough. But yeah, excitement is finally settling in. Let's see where it takes us.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Seizures Part Two
I had originally planned to create a new character for a short story for #Seizures. I wanted to make her the exact opposite of Madeline and her friends. Someone timid and hiding in the shadows, someone who survived by not really being there. She might be worth an entire book, though. Or perhaps for later installments. As #NaNoWriMo approaches I find my ideas changing, my direction for the book changing, and my entire plan changing. That's part of the joy of writing, though, isn't it? You end up with something totally different from what you started out with and have no idea how you got there.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
I have no idea what I'm doing...
I have a lot on my plate, but I generally operate well in chaos. It's not bad, it's better than staring at the walls with nothing to do, even if they are interesting walls with odd patterns in them because they are plaster walls, not sheetrock. I'm about to start #NaNoWriMo, I've joined a recreational and sport club, I'm still doing my own business thing, I'm painting, crocheting, and still trying to learn Portuguese.
The most interesting part is that I'm finally starting to understand what's being said to me, even if I can't always remember what words to use to respond. Learning a new language is complicated when you have bits and pieces of five other languages arguing in your head over which is the right word. I mix French and German in with Spanish all the time, despite trying to use Portuguese words. Sometimes Dutch and English gets thrown in there as well. It works for now.
In between all that I'm trying not to miss my family. Sometimes I know what Madeline feels like in #Seizures, cut off from everything and anyone that ever made sense, a world that just doesn't act like you expect it to, and no family close enough to just sit and decompress with. I have my fella, of course, but sometimes you just want your mom, don't you?
Anyway, that's enough rambling for the moment, I just mainly wanted to update. #Seizures will be free Friday and Saturday, October 28th and 29th, and #Seizures 2 will begin life on November 1. That's enough to keep one person busy for a while, isn't it?
The most interesting part is that I'm finally starting to understand what's being said to me, even if I can't always remember what words to use to respond. Learning a new language is complicated when you have bits and pieces of five other languages arguing in your head over which is the right word. I mix French and German in with Spanish all the time, despite trying to use Portuguese words. Sometimes Dutch and English gets thrown in there as well. It works for now.
In between all that I'm trying not to miss my family. Sometimes I know what Madeline feels like in #Seizures, cut off from everything and anyone that ever made sense, a world that just doesn't act like you expect it to, and no family close enough to just sit and decompress with. I have my fella, of course, but sometimes you just want your mom, don't you?
Anyway, that's enough rambling for the moment, I just mainly wanted to update. #Seizures will be free Friday and Saturday, October 28th and 29th, and #Seizures 2 will begin life on November 1. That's enough to keep one person busy for a while, isn't it?
Friday, August 12, 2016
Book Marketing Scams: Or Take My Money, I'm desperate!
So I'm new to this endeavor, if you consider a year of trying to figure out the best way to promote a book in a country where English isn't the spoken language and the fact that you no longer live in a nation where English is spoken as being new. Yes, that is my current problem, I don't live in an English speaking country so I can't promote my work myself by sitting and handing out copies at fairs or any other traditional methods of promoting. So I sit here staring at my multiple Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads account trying to figure out what to do next. Because my books aren't gaining any real interest.
Now, before I decide to give up and call myself a failure I decided to do some research, find a way to do this. There simply has to be a way, right? Please? Somebody? No? Well, fine then. I'll look at marketers...
And all of the marketers I'm finding? Most seem to be scams or something I would call a scam. Let me see, there's the "pay us $300 to promote your book, oh uh we mean your FREE book, and we'll advertise it to our 30,000 subscribers." Wait. Subscribers? That's all? And who makes up this subscriber list? It wouldn't happen to be, oh I don't know, OTHER WRITERS would it? Hoping for the same exact thing they just paid you $300 for?
I did my research, I got all the accounts, bought a website, got the email server list thingy from MailChimp for all of these hordes of email addys I was about to get, and looked at more marketing research. I realized something after the renewal emails started from GoDaddy...authors themselves are a major consumer, they drive an entire industry that's just one giant circle-ahem, that's an entire exploited population. Selling authors the idea of huge downloads for giving away products and PAYING other people to do it has become so popular that for the first month I actually paid attention to my Twitter account it made up the majority of my followers.
"Pay us!" Came the demands in nicely formatted, more than likely 5iver produced advertisements. "We'll make you a star" I read over and over in alluring, eye-catching fonts and colors. Give us some money, along with our other 5,000 hopeful authors and we'll make you a star by advertising to our, ahem, 5,000 subscribers. Geez...really?
Apparently some of these gem marketers have succeeded in making some authors...well, not rich but have drawn quite a few downloads. 20,000, 30,000 more (!!) downloads of your FREE book are promised to hopeful authors, spending money they don't really have in the hopes of becoming successful. All that does, according to the Amazon forum for authors, is draw Amazon's ire. You see, I have done research.
I've noticed a multitude of "best value for money for your free book promotion" posts by authors lately. "How to promote your book with this site or that" have suddenly become all the rage with authors. Then there's the thousands of ebooks doing the same exact thing. Some of them are even free, or pseudo-free, just give them your email address and you'll get the book. That's not free.
In the end, I don't want emails to send out newsletters I'll never write to people that will never read said newsletter because they just wanted the free book. I'd like some loyal fans, people that want to fall into the worlds I create and discuss them with me, that want to know more not because I sold them a $299 cover but because they love Madeline or John Earl and want to know what else happens next.
This isn't a "I hate marketing" post, not at all. I find it interesting and informative to research how to best grow an audience. It's a skill I've yet to master and may never master. BUT, a list of 100,000 people is not a fan-list. Twenty thousand downloads are not promises of sales, especially when you don't get the longed for reviews to go with those downloads. Spending money to make money is a necessary evil in our world, but spend it wisely. That's the point of this post. THINK about what you're spending your money on.
Are you paying someone to market your book to another author just like you or is that marketer really made up of the perfect audience for your book? Is BookBub just a status symbol for authors now or will they truly provide you with your money's worth considering you've done a lot of work already to even be considered by that entity?
My road is hard, it's paved with language barriers and divided by an ocean. The sweet marketing ideas I've come up with would probably work if I was back in America but I'm not, you can tell that by the web address for this blog. I'd spend a good few dollars if I was at home to try to market my books in ways that make sense to me if I was there. But paying someone that has nothing to really offer me isn't an option, I like eating after all. Be careful out there, people. There are scams out there that don't even look like scams. If you're a writer you have to be somewhat intelligent. Look at what you see, observe it, analyze it, THEN make a decision.
I don't really have an answer as to how to best market your book, I'm a writer after all, and not a marketer. I've followed the rules and laws setup by the plethora of other writers up there that tell us all "this is all you need to do". I'm still writing this not angry but definitely frustrated post. Totally frustrated.
Now, before I decide to give up and call myself a failure I decided to do some research, find a way to do this. There simply has to be a way, right? Please? Somebody? No? Well, fine then. I'll look at marketers...
And all of the marketers I'm finding? Most seem to be scams or something I would call a scam. Let me see, there's the "pay us $300 to promote your book, oh uh we mean your FREE book, and we'll advertise it to our 30,000 subscribers." Wait. Subscribers? That's all? And who makes up this subscriber list? It wouldn't happen to be, oh I don't know, OTHER WRITERS would it? Hoping for the same exact thing they just paid you $300 for?
I did my research, I got all the accounts, bought a website, got the email server list thingy from MailChimp for all of these hordes of email addys I was about to get, and looked at more marketing research. I realized something after the renewal emails started from GoDaddy...authors themselves are a major consumer, they drive an entire industry that's just one giant circle-ahem, that's an entire exploited population. Selling authors the idea of huge downloads for giving away products and PAYING other people to do it has become so popular that for the first month I actually paid attention to my Twitter account it made up the majority of my followers.
"Pay us!" Came the demands in nicely formatted, more than likely 5iver produced advertisements. "We'll make you a star" I read over and over in alluring, eye-catching fonts and colors. Give us some money, along with our other 5,000 hopeful authors and we'll make you a star by advertising to our, ahem, 5,000 subscribers. Geez...really?
Apparently some of these gem marketers have succeeded in making some authors...well, not rich but have drawn quite a few downloads. 20,000, 30,000 more (!!) downloads of your FREE book are promised to hopeful authors, spending money they don't really have in the hopes of becoming successful. All that does, according to the Amazon forum for authors, is draw Amazon's ire. You see, I have done research.
I've noticed a multitude of "best value for money for your free book promotion" posts by authors lately. "How to promote your book with this site or that" have suddenly become all the rage with authors. Then there's the thousands of ebooks doing the same exact thing. Some of them are even free, or pseudo-free, just give them your email address and you'll get the book. That's not free.
In the end, I don't want emails to send out newsletters I'll never write to people that will never read said newsletter because they just wanted the free book. I'd like some loyal fans, people that want to fall into the worlds I create and discuss them with me, that want to know more not because I sold them a $299 cover but because they love Madeline or John Earl and want to know what else happens next.
This isn't a "I hate marketing" post, not at all. I find it interesting and informative to research how to best grow an audience. It's a skill I've yet to master and may never master. BUT, a list of 100,000 people is not a fan-list. Twenty thousand downloads are not promises of sales, especially when you don't get the longed for reviews to go with those downloads. Spending money to make money is a necessary evil in our world, but spend it wisely. That's the point of this post. THINK about what you're spending your money on.
Are you paying someone to market your book to another author just like you or is that marketer really made up of the perfect audience for your book? Is BookBub just a status symbol for authors now or will they truly provide you with your money's worth considering you've done a lot of work already to even be considered by that entity?
My road is hard, it's paved with language barriers and divided by an ocean. The sweet marketing ideas I've come up with would probably work if I was back in America but I'm not, you can tell that by the web address for this blog. I'd spend a good few dollars if I was at home to try to market my books in ways that make sense to me if I was there. But paying someone that has nothing to really offer me isn't an option, I like eating after all. Be careful out there, people. There are scams out there that don't even look like scams. If you're a writer you have to be somewhat intelligent. Look at what you see, observe it, analyze it, THEN make a decision.
I don't really have an answer as to how to best market your book, I'm a writer after all, and not a marketer. I've followed the rules and laws setup by the plethora of other writers up there that tell us all "this is all you need to do". I'm still writing this not angry but definitely frustrated post. Totally frustrated.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
#ReviewtheUnreviwed or Review the Unreviewed
Obviously in the world of publishing, whether that be music or books, audio or photos, reviews are important. We all want to know whether other people liked something or not, even though we realize others may have totally different tastes from ours. We have that "keeping up with Joneses" factor to consider don't we? If somebody else liked it and enjoyed it, we want to like it and enjoy it as well. Or hate it, whatever the case may be.
There are millions of books on Amazon, thousands going for free on any given day of the week. The hope is that you'll download the book, read it, and give a struggling artist a review. When it sits there, doing absolutely nothing, you become bitter and twisted, wondering if there's an industry for wine-bottle cork art or if there are just another thousand people out there, just like you, building up their wine cork collection.
I realized this morning, doing more research on marketing, that I should spend at least one hour a week reading and leaving a review for some hopeful author on Amazon because if I'm not doing it and my own success depends on it, then how can I ask others to? So I've downloaded two books from Amazon's Top 100 Free in horror>>comedy section and I'm going to review at least one of them today. Maybe I'll start a movement?
My goal here is to give authors an honest review, without prompting, that could start the ball rolling for them. I deliberately zoomed past the ones with reviews because their star is already rising, or should be. I headed straight for the ones with ZERO reviews. Maybe I'll discover the next super-awesome must-read book? Let's see how it goes. :)
There are millions of books on Amazon, thousands going for free on any given day of the week. The hope is that you'll download the book, read it, and give a struggling artist a review. When it sits there, doing absolutely nothing, you become bitter and twisted, wondering if there's an industry for wine-bottle cork art or if there are just another thousand people out there, just like you, building up their wine cork collection.
I realized this morning, doing more research on marketing, that I should spend at least one hour a week reading and leaving a review for some hopeful author on Amazon because if I'm not doing it and my own success depends on it, then how can I ask others to? So I've downloaded two books from Amazon's Top 100 Free in horror>>comedy section and I'm going to review at least one of them today. Maybe I'll start a movement?
My goal here is to give authors an honest review, without prompting, that could start the ball rolling for them. I deliberately zoomed past the ones with reviews because their star is already rising, or should be. I headed straight for the ones with ZERO reviews. Maybe I'll discover the next super-awesome must-read book? Let's see how it goes. :)
Friday, July 8, 2016
Seizures, or why I had to escape my own cage...
Seizures began as a "what-if". After watching one of America's favorite zombie shows just after having a seizure that sent my brain into overload I had a bit of an epiphany. For over a year I'd been hiding from the world, afraid to go out because I might have a seizure. When people stare at you, accuse you of being a drug addict, or wonder if they should shove something down your mouth you start to become a bit paranoid about going out into a world full of seizure-triggering dangers. Someone will SEE you.
It was much safer, and less starey, if I stayed in the house. Facebook became my lifeline and I joined several groups for people with seizure disorders. I noticed that a lot of people felt as though their lives had never actually started, or with new seizures, that their lives were over. I recognized that feeling, I knew it well, we were BFFs and had tattoos to prove it. Right over my heart. In my head it was the word COWARD in big old yellow letters. I was afraid of the world and afraid for the world.
I felt like a failure as well as a coward; as though I'd given up on life. When I watched that episode of said show I felt like even more of a coward. What would I do, how would I survive, could I survive? I was barely surviving real life without zombies, how would I survive that? That's when I realized I had to find that backbone I used to have and stop hiding from the world.
I learned what triggered my seizures and have become an expert at avoiding most of it. I went back to school and earned a master's degree. I moved to an entirely different country and then another. Then I started writing even more. I've now written my way through three keyboards, smudging the letters off or just pounding them into submission with daily use. I've written professionally and for my own pleasure. I've written several stories, two books in different series, and quite a bit more.
I'm not an expert, by any means, and I'm certainly not Emily Bronte but I am getting by. I'm learning, I'm researching, and most of all I'm living again.
Life became almost unbearable, in the dark, hiding, afraid of someone witnessing a seizure and freaking them out. I was terrified, not of being harmed, but of harming someone through injuring them, through their uninformed actions that could leave me injured, or just scaring them. People don't react well to seeing someone have a fit and the uninformed can do some damage in the process of trying to help. I didn't want to be someone's emotional scar.
Now, I try to live in the light. I have to still deal with seizures, I have to deal with the outcome of a seizure, and live with a heart defect that causes two of the valves in my heart to leak. Life can be tough some days. Some days I wonder if I'll even make it through to the end. But I keep going, determined that I'm not going to live in survival mode, there's no need to. I have a disability. I'm not dead yet. And neither are the people walking around outside. They're just like me, trying to get through each day, hoping for the best.We have to live life, it's all over before we know it. Hiding works for a little while, it gets you through that initial "OH MY GOD" moment when you realize your life is far different from others. After a while, though, when you're ready, you have to step out of that dark hole you're hiding in, that refuge, and become an uncaged bird.
It was much safer, and less starey, if I stayed in the house. Facebook became my lifeline and I joined several groups for people with seizure disorders. I noticed that a lot of people felt as though their lives had never actually started, or with new seizures, that their lives were over. I recognized that feeling, I knew it well, we were BFFs and had tattoos to prove it. Right over my heart. In my head it was the word COWARD in big old yellow letters. I was afraid of the world and afraid for the world.
I felt like a failure as well as a coward; as though I'd given up on life. When I watched that episode of said show I felt like even more of a coward. What would I do, how would I survive, could I survive? I was barely surviving real life without zombies, how would I survive that? That's when I realized I had to find that backbone I used to have and stop hiding from the world.
I learned what triggered my seizures and have become an expert at avoiding most of it. I went back to school and earned a master's degree. I moved to an entirely different country and then another. Then I started writing even more. I've now written my way through three keyboards, smudging the letters off or just pounding them into submission with daily use. I've written professionally and for my own pleasure. I've written several stories, two books in different series, and quite a bit more.
I'm not an expert, by any means, and I'm certainly not Emily Bronte but I am getting by. I'm learning, I'm researching, and most of all I'm living again.
Life became almost unbearable, in the dark, hiding, afraid of someone witnessing a seizure and freaking them out. I was terrified, not of being harmed, but of harming someone through injuring them, through their uninformed actions that could leave me injured, or just scaring them. People don't react well to seeing someone have a fit and the uninformed can do some damage in the process of trying to help. I didn't want to be someone's emotional scar.
Now, I try to live in the light. I have to still deal with seizures, I have to deal with the outcome of a seizure, and live with a heart defect that causes two of the valves in my heart to leak. Life can be tough some days. Some days I wonder if I'll even make it through to the end. But I keep going, determined that I'm not going to live in survival mode, there's no need to. I have a disability. I'm not dead yet. And neither are the people walking around outside. They're just like me, trying to get through each day, hoping for the best.We have to live life, it's all over before we know it. Hiding works for a little while, it gets you through that initial "OH MY GOD" moment when you realize your life is far different from others. After a while, though, when you're ready, you have to step out of that dark hole you're hiding in, that refuge, and become an uncaged bird.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
A New Direction
I'm heading in a new direction lately. A lot has happened, some good, some bad, some awesome, and some heartbreaking. For now, I just want to post an update that the new book will be out soon, and I hope somebody will get it. I think it's a great story but I'm partial, aren't I?
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Hooray, new combo book! :)
You can now purchase "Get Drunk Or Die Trying: Two Tales of the Zombie Apocalypse" on Amazon! This is how Mauritius and I originally intended the book to be produced but life has a funny way of taking your plans and turning them into chicken feed, doesn't it? So yes, there's a "new" book available and a tale that goes with said book. It ends with, who wrote the better story? Have a look and tell us in the reviews who you thought did a better job. :)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BLTB18I?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BLTB18I?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
Friday, January 29, 2016
Kobo Sale and Bourbon or Death
Like books? Like cheap books better? Kobo is having a 50% off sale with a promo code you can use as many times as you like...
"Customers will be able to redeem 50% off of any title published by KWL using the promo code JAN1650 an unlimited number of times starting today—so please, let your readers and fans know about this incredible opportunity to stack up on eBooks while they can."
And if you should happen to want to get my Bourbon or Death book for .50 (with the sale price) you can over there now.
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/bourbon-or-death
"Customers will be able to redeem 50% off of any title published by KWL using the promo code JAN1650 an unlimited number of times starting today—so please, let your readers and fans know about this incredible opportunity to stack up on eBooks while they can."
And if you should happen to want to get my Bourbon or Death book for .50 (with the sale price) you can over there now.
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/bourbon-or-death
Friday, January 1, 2016
Happy New Year, Happy New Blog
So here's my happy little blog for a happy new year. We hope. This is a new adventure for me and my lovely fiancee, my one and only staff. :) Too many irons in the fire at the moment but trying my best to make something of this venture. If nothing else it's an adventure.
I'm hoping to add more content to the website this year and at least one more "In the Beginning" book but, yeah, there's only one me. I'm not the "give it to someone else to do" kind of person so the wait for the next book may be a little bit longer but it will get out there eventually.
To those of you that have read any of my books and found your way here, thank you! And to those confused about how they may have arrived at my little slice of heaven, well, join the rest of us wondering how we all ended up where we are. :)
I'm hoping to add more content to the website this year and at least one more "In the Beginning" book but, yeah, there's only one me. I'm not the "give it to someone else to do" kind of person so the wait for the next book may be a little bit longer but it will get out there eventually.
To those of you that have read any of my books and found your way here, thank you! And to those confused about how they may have arrived at my little slice of heaven, well, join the rest of us wondering how we all ended up where we are. :)
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