In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Thanks
* Topic: Marketing and Promotion
* There’s also a link
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“I believe it was Shakespeare, or possibly Howard Cosell, who first observed that marriage is very much like a birthday candle, in that ‘the flames of passion burn brightest when the wick of intimacy is first ignited by the disposable butane lighter of physical attraction, but sooner or later the heat of familiarity causes the wax of boredom to drip all over the vanilla frosting of novelty and the shredded coconut of romance.’ I could not have phrased it better myself.” Dave Barry
Thanks to everyone who left a comment or emailed me about little Casey. We appreciate it.
Topic: Marketing and Promotion
In today’s “Of Interest” is an article on marketing and promotion for indie authors. I wish I’d seen it several years ago. You know, before I was so in-love with the feeling of my fingers on the keyboard that I’m regularly turning out a new novel every 2 weeks.
Of course, the article wasn’t available then. Likewise, it isn’t too late now, though it’s considerably more difficult to raise my level of care-nicity to the point that I’ll set aside my fiction writing in order to pursue marketing and promotion.
I know me. I won’t do it. Eventually I’ll get my author blog over at HarveyStanbrough.com up and running again, and occasionally I’ll take a stab at promotions (maybe) but I won’t dig deep and set aside my fictional friends.
Like 7 year-olds with brand new tennis shoes, my characters have become used to looking up at me, grinning, and yelling gleefully, “Watch how fast I can go now!”
But some of you are different. Some of you are not yet ‘trapped’ (I use the word loosely and with reservations) in thinking pretty much every moment about your imaginary friends and how much fun they’re having and how quickly you can get back to them.
And it is for you that I listed that particular article. I hope you will read it, learn from it, and devise a marketing and promotions plan that suits what you do and what you will do.
Only one caveat: I still upload directly to Amazon myself. BUT I believe you can download D2D’s Kindle file and upload that to Amazon if you want to.
There’s also a link to an article on physical attraction and science. I included it because I thought it might come in handy for ‘creating’ characters.
Not that you should consciously create characters, but always you should be learning about people, absorbing information (written and otherwise) about Character, so that when you sit down at the keyboard you’re better able to allow your charactes to create themselves.
If you build it (the story), they (the characters) will come.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “How to Develop a Marketing and Promotion Plan as an Indie Author” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/how-to-develop-a-marketing-and-promotion-plan-as-an-indie-author/. And be sure to see PG’s take. This is a post I wish I’d seen several years ago.
See “Paranormal Evidence” at https://paranormal-evidence.com/. In case it’s of interest to you.
See “Earth’s fifth ocean just confirmed” at https://www.space.com/earth-fifth-ocean-confirmed.html.
See “How to Develop a Marketing and Promotion Plan as an Indie Author” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/how-to-develop-a-marketing-and-promotion-plan-as-an-indie-author/. And be sure to see PG’s take.
See “Why Physical Attraction Matters in Romantic Relationships, According to Science” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/why-physical-attraction-matters-in-romantic-relationships-according-to-science/. I say there’s no accounting for personal taste. Eye of the beholder and all that.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 580 words
Writing of WCGN2: The Comancheros (novel)
Day 1…… 1216 words. Total words to date…… 1216
Day 2…… 1913 words. Total words to date…… 3129
Total fiction words for June……… 51623
Total fiction words for the year………… 506112
Total nonfiction words for June… 16650
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 122880
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 628992
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 10
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 63
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.