life update

Little update

I don’t have much to update right now so I hesitated making a blog post, but figured I might as well so y’all don’t forget me.

I’m writing book three in the Course for Adventure series. It’s going well, but it’s early days. I’m not as far along as I wanted, but that’s fine. I’m still set to be ready in time for the deadline I’ve given myself.

Love on Strike, the second book in the Course for Adventure series is all set to go. There’s a pre-order link, and the final version is uploaded on Amazon, so that’s a huge relief. I’m so glad that I got to work with Victory Editing again, I love them over there.

Self-Publishing wise I’m working on some edits for the Fringes of the Universe series. I loved writing that series, but looking back now there are things I keep wanting to tweak. Right now, I’m not making any significant changes, just adding some commas that were left out. The editor I used for those books…well, let’s just say I’m not using them anymore.

Once those edits are made, I’ll be uploading the books onto all platforms, finally. I also plan on creating a boxset.

Personal life-wise, my daughter starts kindergarten this week, and I’m excited for what I hope will be more free time, even though I’ll still have the two-year-old with me; but I’m also sad and scared and nervous. I’ve always got to be nervous or worrying about something. The world would stop turning if I didn’t. She’s going to do great, and my goal is to not cry in front of her. I might have to let my husband take her in on that first day.

So many new books are out right now that I am struggling with picking one to read. Which means I end up playing more Minecraft. I have also started quilting. I came up with a design in Minecraft (huge nerd sitting over here), and I decided I’d give it a try. I’ll try to post updates when I’m done.

 

Release Date Lessons

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The last post I mentioned that I wasn’t at home when First Time Out released, but I obsessively checked the internet, and you all made this the best release I’ve ever had. So awesome anniversary present everyone, thank you so much! 🙂

Lessons I’ve learned from this release that will hopefully make the next ones better.

I really, really, need to make a checklist of things to do before a release. I’m fairly certain I remembered everything, but the anxiety and constantly thinking I’d forgotten something was annoying. A list will help that.

As tempting as it is to do, I shouldn’t check my sales and reviews as frequently as I was doing. It was incredibly exciting watching bars and numbers grow, but if they didn’t, I took an emotional hit. Not every release is going to be this good, and I don’t need to put myself through that emotional roller coaster.

Taking a vacation during a release might not be the best way to handle things lol. I don’t know, maybe it was. I was distracted a fair amount of the time, but I had people emailing and texting, and I might not have been as attentive to my family as I should have been. Since my husband was just as excited, he didn’t seem to mind, but it wasn’t fair. Maybe one day I’ll get to a point where release day is no big deal? Probably not lol

Pre-orders are awesome. So much of the usual work was already done by doing things this way, and I really loved that. It made it possible for me to actually leave things be on the day, so release day was not as stressful as it could have been.

I’m so excited to finally be back writing and releasing books. I’m also incredibly happy with the momentum that First Time Out has had, I hope it continues that way, but if it doesn’t I feel like I’ll emotionally be able to handle it. Which is progress!

Anyway, I’m waiting to get the final edited copy of Love on Strike, and I’ve been working on Course for Adventure book 3 in the meantime. I’m starting to wonder if each successive book in the series is going to get longer and longer. We’ll see lol!

For all of my readers not on Amazon, the final book in my Fringes of the Universe series is out of Kindle Unlimited, and I’m working on getting the entire series on other retailers. Before I do that I’m going to get them edited again. I haven’t had any complaints from readers with them, but I’ve never been happy with their level of edits. I don’t believe another pass through will hurt things at the very least and it won’t change the story, just make it a better read. There will be commas.

Update on the erotica dungeon, unfortunately, Amazon did not rule in my favor and Abducted is stuck there. I don’t have any kind of appeal that I can make so there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m watching my other books, and so far there haven’t been any other changes, but if it does happen, I might re-think writing romance. Apart from the release date of First Time Out, there has been a noticeable drop in the downloads of Abducted, which has led to an overall decline in income. It’s already difficult to get your books in front of readers eyes, but then to be put somewhere that lowers your visibility further is very frustrating.

In other news! I’ve started a quilting project. Recently while playing Minecraft and trying to decorate a boring room, I started making a design and then next thing I know I was thinking, “This would make a cool quilt.”

I’ve never quilted, but I’ve wanted to for a few years now. On our vacation, I found myself in a quilting shop, and then there was a fabric called Bedrock that was perfect and then BOOM fabric bought. So I kind of have to make it now. I’ve been able to cut up all the fabric into 5-inch squares, but I get the feeling that was the easy part. I’ve been posting updates on Twitter so if anyone wants to follow that lovely process just follow me over there.

Finishing a First Draft and New Book Covers
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This is not related to my book covers at all, but I feel like an image is necessary for Social Media and I haven’t yet figured those out lol

This week my plan is to finish writing the first draft of Book Two in my new series Course for Adventure. It’s taken me a little bit longer to write this than the first book, but I knew that was going to happen. I spent a week visiting my family, so no writing then. My sister and niece came to visit for a few days, so no writing. Then I had a few mental health days that I had to take to recover from everything.

While I scheduled some of that time into the deadline I gave myself, I didn’t schedule all of it, so I’m about a week behind where I wanted to be. However, a week behind is within my acceptable range.

During this time while I wasn’t writing I was still able to get some stuff done book related. I’ve been able to read some advertising articles and I’m hoping that later this year I’ll be able to put that new knowledge to use. I’ve also been working on new book covers for my already published books.

Book covers are incredibly important. This will be the fourth book cover for my first book, and the third revamp of my first series. Covers are hard to make, but they can be super expensive. The most I’ve spent on a cover was $250, it turned out amazing and I loved it, however the series tanked and including the entire series, not just the book with the great cover, I have yet to make my money back. So, for now, I’m sticking to self-made covers.

I am not a professional graphic artist. I’ve taken no classes and have no artistic skills in that area, and I don’t plan on offering many tips on that front. I use a website called Canva.com to make all of my book covers. The options were pretty limited at first, and after several upgrades they’re still limited, but I’ve learned to work with them. However, if I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t have bailed on Gimp so fast.

All that being said, I think at this point the covers I create, while not $250 worthy, are not that bad. The difference in quality between my $2-$5 covers compared to the $250 ones is not big enough for me to find a way to pay that price. Now if my financial situation changes? Hell yeah! For now, I’m going to continue to spend my money on editing.

Anyway, I’ve got updated covers to go for most of my series, though; I’ve got one more left to do. I’ve also got covers created for this new series. I actually think they’re the best I’ve made so far, which makes me happy. My plan is to update the covers and the back matter for all of my books in the coming weeks when I submit my newest book for pre-order. Hopefully, I will be able to make my tentative August 5th release day, if not it will be August 12th but I won’t be putting my book up for pre-order until I know for certain.

In non-book news, I have gotten back into Minecraft. Previously, I played only a couple of hours and got tired of looking up recipes for even the most basic stuff, but after updates, and now with a shared friend server, I’m having fun.

I’ve been watching a few comedy specials when I’m not minecrafting or working or taking care of kids. Nothing I can think of the titles for right now, but most of them were funny, and I only bailed out of two.

Reading wise, I picked up a couple books from the library. One was a cozy mystery from an author I love, but I was really disappointed in it. This is the second book in the series that has left me more annoyed than happy, so I might be dropping it, which makes me sad. I’ve got another book checked out that I really want to read and after one chapter it seems awesome, but it’s due back, and I’m going to have to go back to the bottom of the queue.

Oh well, maybe next time I won’t be as busy, lies I tell myself.

Move Update

It’s been a month since I moved and I’ve learned a lot. Namely, moving with children is infinitely more difficult than moving without them. At this point we’re mostly unpacked, still have quite a bit of disorganization, but I’ve started writing again. I’m nervous, excited, scared, happy, and just a myriad of emotions right now. I’ve printed off calendars, organized everything I need, and working with my husband I’ve set aside time dedicated to just getting the words down. I’m curious to see what happens since I’ve never actually done that before. 10+ books written and this will be the first time that I haven’t stolen time in the middle of the day in between everything else to get the words down.

I’m honestly not sure how many of my readers remember my books, but I’m hoping that I haven’t been completely forgotten. More importantly I hope that I’m able to still write a story I feel worthy of publishing. We’ll see!

Part of getting back into this will be writing, at least, a monthly blog. I’m going to try and give updates into my progress, little bits about what is going on in my life, and what I’m currently watching (Legion Season 2), reading (Wedding Cake Crumble by Jenn McKinlay, and playing (Civilization VI on steam). I thought this would be a good way to connect with my readers.

witty closing remark goes here