- It has been a great weekend. Well the other half of the weekend is just starting, but yesterday was great.
- I met up with my crit partner Susan Bischoff and author Lauralynn Elliott for lunch yesterday. We all drove 3 hours to meet at a halfway point. Yes, we drove 3 hours for a 2 and a half hour lunch. And it rocked. Pot autographed my copy of Hush Money and we all had lots of good shop-talk.
- My giveaway of Forsaken By Shadow to acquire Barnes and Noble reviews has been going quite well. I’ve had 48 yeses or maybes, had 30 people download it from Smashwords with the coupon, and already have several reviews trickling in in assorted locations. I also have some upcoming interviews, guest blog posts, and book blogger reviews that have come out of this giveaway, which was a lovely side benefit. I’ve been quite pleased to be getting solid 4 and 5 stars out of everyone who’s reviewed it for this project so far. There’s always that fear when you have a blanket giveaway that you might get someone who reads it for the sole purpose of tearing it apart. It does happen.
- I have no idea how Barnes and Noble reviews impact findability on BN’s website. When I first started over at Amazon there was this theory that getting 20 reviews really improved your findability there. I’m not at all convinced that it did (not that it hurt from other standpoints). At BN I’m up to 16 reviews (this includes the 7 I started with from the Smashwords edition), a solid 4 star average, and my ranking is slowly creeping up. I’m in the 85k range this morning (from a starting place over 211k when I first uploaded via Pubit!). I have sold 6 copies there so far, with 3 of them in the last 3 days. So I am very very slowly building my ranking. By Christmas I hope to be obtaining similar rankings on BN as I have on Amazon. I don’t know if BN has crawlers like Amazon to find comparable prices elsewhere or if they wait for someone to say “Hey this book is cheaper over here” to discount it. So I will not be at all shocked if it shows up at $1 at some point because I’m starting to think Smashwords will never make another shipment to Sony (I changed my price in August). But that’s totally fine if they do. I get paid on the list price either way, so that’s my gain.
- I am halfway through two quite good YA audiobooks, Need by Carrie Jones and Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready. I had planned to finish Need first, which I started last week, but stupid me forgot to charge my Zune before the trip, so it died an hour into the return trip. I have Audible on my iPhone, so I started Shade for the rest of the drive. They’re so good, I’m actually contemplating willingly MOWING THE GRASS to listen to more. O.O
- I’m having something of a crisis in faith about Devil’s Eye. I’m not putting it down or quitting or anything silly like that (not after already BUYING fantastic cover art), but I am deathly afraid that when I finish this novella (and it has edged past novelette into novella length territory) and pass it over to Pot for critique, that it is going to suck big ones and require huge rewrite style revisions. Which would delay it even MORE. I know the opening is solid, but I’m not at all sure about everything that comes after. I mean, in outline form it works. All the requisite plot points fit their intended purposes. But execution…I can’t at all judge. So I’m just keeping on keeping on and praying REALLY hard.
4 thoughts on “Sunday Summary”
Sounds like a pretty good weekend to me. I’ll be getting to my review of your book this week and will be sure to plaster it around on several places. I actually didn’t know we could do that. lol (Another Indie class there: Help fellow writers by reviewing their work to boost rankings!)
I totally get you on the Devil’s Eye. Sorry, that’s a rough spot to be. I’m there with something I’ve been working on, aiming at a Halloween release that I now realize won’t happen. Bummed for a day or so then set it aside. You’ll work it out, I’m sure. Luck, all the same.
I had so much fun hanging out with you and Susan. I didn’t want to go back home. 🙁
I just know Devil’s Eye is going to be great. I can’t wait to read it when it comes out.
I am definitely hoping it’s one of those cases where writers are the worst judges of their own work. 🙂 Was great to meet you!
I know how you feel about Devil’s Eye. On the one hand you don’t want it to suck, but on the other you know it’s not perfect and want the crit to come back with ways to improve.