Hey Folks,
Wow. Not sure what’s going on with the Journal. I posted an entry early on Saturday, yet it didn’t “ship” through Mail Chimp until yesterday and it was dated for yesterday (though the actual post was dated correctly). Weird.
And then I wrote a journal entry yesterday, but I forgot to post it. When I remembered, it was a few minutes after 5.
So I’m leaving that post below. I’ll add minimally to it today and then post it.
***
Well, no writing again today (Sunday). But knowing the novel will race along when I get back to it tomorrow gives me a great deal of confidence.
I could have worked on it a bit today, but I realized I hadn’t pre-posted many of my books in promotional posts over on the big site. I need to do that so I don’t miss posting for a week.
Currently, I’m still posting writing-related tips every other week, and in the interim I’m posting about one of my own works, complete with a link where the reader can go to download a free copy. All I ask in exchange is a review.
So today (mixed in with family stuff) I’m doing some admin work.
But first I had to get it all organized.
I went to https://timeanddate.com. That’s an incredible resource. In addition to free, downloadable PDF calendars, you can find all kinds of converters. So I added TimeAndDate.com to my Writer Resources page under a few different categories.
I also realized I’d missed adding a novel to the freebie list. So I did that. (Added it to Smashwords, created a coupon code, copied the code and URL to a spreadsheet.)
Then I went back to organizing. To my Coupon Code spreadsheet, I added a new column that will contain the date I do a promo post for each novel, novella or long (10-story) collection over on the big site.
And I realized, with only those works, I have 48 works to promote. And that’s not including the 5-story collections. And of course it doesn’t include novels and novellas and collections I’ll put together in the future. Whew!
Forty-eight works, at a rate of one promo post every other week. So that’s 26 posts per year (in addition to the 26 writer-tip posts each year) for at least two years.
Until I got it all down in black and white, I didn’t realize how much work I have to do.
I’ll pre-post a lot of the novels and novellas today, and then I’ll continue as I have time until I’ve gotten them all up.
Also, with the promo posts I’m trying to skip around a bit among genres. One week I’ll post a mystery/crime novel. Then two weeks later I’ll post a western. Then SF. Then back to mystery, or maybe to a psychological suspense or war novel or novella. And so on.
It’s kind of fun, but the whole time I’m doing that I’d rather be writing. Still, even as time-consuming as this is, I think it will probably be the total of my marketing effort. I mean really, what more can I do beyond offering free books in exchange for reviews?
And of course, nothing says after a reader downloads the book he or she “has” to review it. Still, it gets the work out there and maybe increases the readership, so it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Maybe you can do something similar to promote your work.
***
Okay, now it’s Monday. Yay! Back to my writing! Because this is already long, I won’t detail the day, but let the numbers below reflect what happened.
Of Interest
See “I Could Have Been Alex Trebek” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/08/i-could-have-been-alex-trebek.html.
See “Reading And Story Consumption” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/reading-and-story-consumption/. Nothing really new, but maybe a new take. Dean’s coming slowly back up to speed.
See “Cover Art Angst” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/08/cover-art-angst.html. Very good post, thoughtful and iformative.
See “Another Way To Sample The Diving Universe” at https://kriswrites.com/2018/08/05/another-way-to-sample-the-diving-universe/. (And she should have another free story on there later today.)
Talk with you again soon.
Fiction Words: 3913
Nonfiction Words: 690 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 4603
Writing of Nick Spalding 3 (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… 2000 words. Total words to date…… 2000
Day 2…… 1000 words. Total words to date…… 1000
Day 3…… 3597 words. Total words to date…… 6597
Day 4…… 4538 words. Total words to date…… 11135
Day 5…… 3016 words. Total words to date…… 14151
Day 6…… 2534 words. Total words to date…… 16685
Day 7…… 3859 words. Total words to date…… 20544
Day 8…… 3913 words. Total words to date…… 24457
Total fiction words for the month……… 13322
Total fiction words for the year………… 261619
Total nonfiction words for the month… 2660
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 100946
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 362315
Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 5
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 31
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 6
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………………… 193