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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Sunday Update 3/10/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 10, 2013| 14 Comments »

Some of you read my whiny post the other day. I was at the point of giving up because my book sales were so bad right now. My .99 sale in February didn’t do squat. I felt like I was wasting my time. But then, other authors, through my blog and private email, let me know that I was actually doing much better than they were. Which made me feel kind of like a jerk for complaining. It was my early success that made me get so discouraged later. I thought the momentum would keep up, and it didn’t. But I’ve decided to keep writing and see where it goes. $100 a month is still income, right? I just hope it doesn’t go below that. But if it does, I need to keep producing new books for people to buy. Anyway, because of the time of discouragement, I didn’t write all week. And then, Saturday, I buckled down and wrote 1268 words. Not too bad.

I participated in Read an Ebook Week last week on Smashwords. I put all my .99 books on sale as free and all my other books at half price. There was a coupon code on each book page. I had about 300 downloads of my free books. and I actually had three sales of the half-priced ones. I know three sales isn’t much, but I rarely sell books at Smashwords. My sales through Smashwords come from their retail partners, Apple, Sony, Kobo, etc., the most sales coming from Sony. So three sales directly through Smashwords is good. And maybe, just maybe, some of the people who downloaded free books will try a paid book later. Who knows? It certainly didn’t cost me a thing.

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Is Writing What I Really Should Be Doing?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 7, 2013| 23 Comments »

This is going to be a whining post, so if you’re not in the mood for that, just stop right here.

I hear writers say all the time, “It’s not about the money, it’s about doing what I love to do.” Really? I could make myself feel better by telling myself that if I’m not making any money. But it wouldn’t solve my problem, would it? Because, yeah, it IS about the money. I don’t mean that I don’t love writing. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have started it in the first place. But I want to do this for a LIVING. The cool thing about that is I could have the best of both worlds. Do what I love AND make money doing it. And I used to. I USED to make pretty decent money writing.

A couple of years ago, I was averaging FIVE times the income I’m making now, and that was back when I had fewer books out and they were all .99. (This isn’t counting the two months where I made a LOT of money. I left that out of the average.) Now I’m lucky in some months to make even $100. It fluctuates, but every month pretty much sucks now. Yesterday, I was looking at my book sales, and I only sold about five books. What??? That was REALLY bad. When ebooks and self-publishing were first getting started, it was so much easier to sell books. Now, readers have to slog through THOUSANDS of books to even find mine. In January of 2011, my novella, Guardian Vampire, got up to #134 in the Amazon store. That was pure euphoria. I’ve written several books since then that are so much better than GV, but they’ll never see that kind of success. There’s too much competition.

So how do you get people to find your books? I haven’t a clue. I took out an ad in IndTale magazine. I haven’t seen ANY results from that. I did a couple of other things, but they didn’t pan out either. And I can’t afford ads in more well-known venues. I’m terrible at self-promotion. With a full-time job, it’s hard to even have time for that.

This is the bottom line. Should I keep doing this? Will the writers who aren’t really serious about publishing, who are just dabbling, finally stop when they don’t make money, and trim down the competition? Everyone has a right to write and publish, so I’m not suggesting ANYONE stop publishing if that’s what they want to do. But I keep thinking some people will just get tired of it. I’m almost there myself. Not because I’m not serious about this, but because I AM serious about this…as a business. If I’m not making money writing, shouldn’t I pursue something else? “But, but, Lauralynn! You love writing! Keep doing it even if you’re not making money!” No. Because I NEED a business that makes money. And I can’t keep writing AND do something else AND do my full-time job. It’s a time thing. I need to spend my time in a productive manner. I don’t WANT to live paycheck to paycheck. I have $11 in my regular checking account (not my business one) and my mortgage was due on March 1. My husband will lose about 2 weeks pay because of his broken ankle. I need to be doing something in addition to my full time job so this kind of thing doesn’t happen.

Yes, I know I’ve probably shared more than I should have today. No one should have to hear about my financial woes. But this is MY blog. And I need to vent here.

End of rant.

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Sunday Update 3/3/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 3, 2013| 15 Comments »

There’s not too much going on. I only wrote 2 days last week for total of 1745. That’s about half of what I would like to see on word count, but I’m still all about time instead of word count. So I was three days short of what I should have been writing. I’m still trying to get into the good habits again. I feel good about this week, though. I’m feeling more into to my WIP.

If you keep up with my blog, you know my husband cracked a bone in his ankle, so he’s on crutches. That’s caused me a little extra work, but I don’t mind at all. He’s always taking care of me. 🙂

I ordered the Flylady’s Office in a Bag with Control Journal. I’m trying to get my life under control. You know, the cleaning house part? Flylady is all about organization in all areas, but house cleaning is her main focus. We’ll see how that goes.

What’s up with ya’ll?

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Bad Habits are Hard to Break

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 24, 2013| 16 Comments »

I really don’t like to keep mentioning my diabetes on this blog. When I first found out I had it, I was determined not to make a big deal out of it. But it keeps coming up, and I realized it’s because it was, and still is, a huge part of my life. The only reason I need to mention it today is that it has impacted my writing.

When my blood sugar was high, I felt SO bad. I know I’ve said that before, but if you’ve never experienced it, it’s hard for me to get you to understand HOW bad I felt. So what happened was, I just got out of the habit of writing. I was to the point where I wasn’t writing at all. I wasn’t playing computer games, either. I was lying on the couch watching TV. At work, it was all I could do to get up out of my chair some days just to go to the bathroom or go get coffee. So now, I’m feeling SO much better. It’s amazing the difference a change in blood sugar makes. But here’s the thing. I got into a HABIT of not writing. And I’m having such a hard time breaking this habit. I’m doing more housework, I’m enjoying time with my family, I don’t leave “get-togethers” early (because I felt like crap)…but I’m still slacking in my writing.

I think part of my problem is that I’ve stopped thinking of writing as a job. I used to. When I was churning words out, I thought of it as my part-time job and something that I just DO. When I got out of the habit of writing, I started thinking of it differently, so I don’t have my mind back in the right place yet. Lagging book sales have also discouraged me a bit. There’s so much more competition now. I think if I start making myself believe again that this is my job, I’ll have more self-control about getting it done. If I can get my health habits under control, which I have, I can get writing back on track, too. It’s all about changing bad habits into good habits.

I only wrote one day last week.

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ROW80 and Going Natural

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 20, 2013| 15 Comments »

I’m not going to link this in the ROW80 linky tool today because the majority of this post doesn’t pertain to ROW80. And there have been SOME people who get annoyed if you link to the linky and post other stuff that day. Some people do it anyway, but I would hate to annoy anyone. 🙂

Short ROW80 update. WIP is going pretty well. I’m getting a feel for what’s happening in the small Florida town, although I still don’t have a name for the town.

What I want to talk about now is what I did last night. I got all my ingredients for the natural stuff I wanted to make. I like buying from Mountain Rose Herbs, but they were out of some stuff I needed, plus they are slow shipping stuff out (because they are so popular and busy) so I got the rest of what I needed from our local health food store. Anyway, I had coconut oil, sweet almond oil, baking soda, arrowroot powder, emulsifying wax. beeswax, and a couple of essential oils. I was going to buy some more essential oils from my local store, but when I saw the prices, I decided to buy those later from Mountain Rose Herbs. Anyway, I set out to make three things…moisturizer, deodorant, and solid perfume. Now, normally, when one decides to make these kinds of things, SOMETHING is going to go wrong or won’t turn out right. I hate to disappoint you, but I have no funny story to tell. Everything came out AMAZING. The moisturizer is just the right texture. The deodorant felt wonderful. And the solid perfume…well, it turned out right, I just wish I had different essential oils. I mixed lemon with cedarwood. It was okay, but not my favorite scent. That’s just all I had.

So, the moisturizer felt great on my face this morning. I’ll probably use it for hand lotion, too, because I have way too much to just use on my face, and natural products have no preservatives. The deodorant felt so good going on this morning. I wish I hadn’t put any cedarwood scent in it just because I love the smell of the coconut oil by itself. I think if I do the solid perfume again, I’ll put it in something flatter or maybe one of those tubes like lip balm is in. This perfume is REALLY solid, and it’s hard for me to get enough on my finger to rub on my skin. It would be better to rub it directly on my skin.

So, is anyone else experimenting with any of this? If not, are you thinking about it? I’ll have to let everyone know how the deodorant works. LOL

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Making Plotters Cringe-My Writing Process

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 19, 2013| 13 Comments »

Hello, my name is Lauralynn Elliott, and I’m a pantser. Kait and Susan have given me a good talking to about plotting and why I should. I understand the concept. I understand the reasons for plotting. I sort of plot in my head. But, alas, I’m still a pantser. And there’s a very good reason why. Here’s the story:

I don’t know what’s going to happen. Seriously, I don’t. I get an idea. A GENERAL idea. And I know the MAJOR points I need to hit. I almost always know the ending. I know certain things must happen. But if I sit down to write an outline for the book I’m about to write, I have no idea what’s going to happen in the book. So I can’t write the outline. This is going to sound strange, but there’s something almost magical about my hands typing out words. That’s the only way I can make the story happen. I don’t even think I could dictate the story. I HAVE to be typing it out, and the story unfolds as I do. I’m very surprised sometimes by things that happen in the book. Characters do things that I don’t expect. An example: I just wrote a character in my WIP who was going to be this older, snobby, stuffy woman who owned an antique store. As I was writing the interaction between her and the main character, she suddenly became a woman who seemed stuffy on the outside, but really had a good heart and a sense of humor. I had no idea. Now, sometimes, I’ll be sitting at my desk or somewhere, and I suddenly know what needs to happen in the next scene. But even that ends up changing as I write. I’ve never been able to do it any other way.

So maybe I need another weekend with Kait and Susan. Maybe they can beat me into submission. Is it possible for me to change? Maybe. I think if I could quit my day job, my mind would settle down and be more open to plotting. If I want to eventually get into writing mysteries that have very complicated plots, I will probably HAVE to change my method. Although, some of my beta readers tell me they like the twists that have been in the books I’ve already written. One said, “You think up the best twists and creatures.” But, honestly, for something a lot more complicated, plotting is probably necessary. Stephen King is a pantser. But I’m not Stephen King. I don’t have his experience. I think I’m going to start a WIP at some point during the summer and maybe work on plotting on my vacation when I’m relaxed and my mind uncluttered. We’ll see what happens.

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Sunday Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 17, 2013| 18 Comments »

I only managed to write 3 days this week. My goal is 5, so I’m not happy with myself. There was no excuse for not writing on Friday. It was pure laziness. It was me wanting to do other things. Bleh. Yesterday, I was having a pretty good writing day. I was in my office in my comfy chair. Then my son, his girlfriend, and her little girl came over and decided to stay in the room with me. My son’s girlfriend was very quiet, doing her own thing. But my son likes to talk. And he did. Here’s the thing, though. What my son has to say to me is SO much more important than what I’m writing. If you have kids, you understand. Although he’s grown, he’s precious to me, and if he wants to talk to me, then I’m going to let him. The book can wait. I still got almost 800 words in. So my total words for the week is 2417.

Weight loss and healthy habits are still going well. I try to keep that updated on “Fitness Friday” every week.

I have the print proof of Soul of a Vampire, but it looks like there are changes to be made to the spine. The title isn’t centered exactly right (CreateSpace fixed something and I think that’s why it happened), and the font is really too small to see well. Anya said she would fix it. I hate to pay for another proof, but in the long run, I think it’s better to get it right. I let my son and his girlfriend look at it yesterday. My son said he would definitely get it fixed. So I guess that’s what I’ll do. I’ll let Anya look at it tomorrow. This is the first time I’ve had to have a cover redone after seeing the proof. The measurements are SO precise when submitting a cover file.

SHAMELESS PROMOTION: Don’t forget…Soul of a Vampire, Vampires’ Curse, and The Gnome are all on sale for .99 through the month of February. These books are regularly $2.99.

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Short and Sweet Wednesday Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 6, 2013| 17 Comments »

Last night, I finally sat down in my new chair at my desk and wrote 999 words. That’s all. 🙂

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I Have an Office Chair

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 5, 2013| 2 Comments »

My first step toward getting my office more writing-friendly was to get a new chair. I thought about just sticking to the one I had and trying to find a fluffier cushion to put in the seat (not only was the seat uncomfortable, but the hydrolics weren’t working, so it was too short), but I went to Staples and found one that felt SO good to sit in. I had to have it. And just to prove there are still helpful people in this world…. My chair was in a box which the salesman had put in a buggy, and he asked me if I needed help getting it to my car. Since he already looked like he was about to have a heart attack from carrying it, I declined. When I tried to get it into the back of my car (I have an HHR, so it was like an SUV hatch), I realized the box was in the buggy in an awkward position, and I couldn’t just slide it into the car. And it was heavy. Suddenly, this lady (and she wasn’t that young) jumps out of her car, throws her purse into my buggy, and grabs the other side of the box. Between the two of us, we easily got the box into my car. I was overwhelmed by her kindness. Things like this make my heart feel good. 🙂

So now I have a comfortable place to write. It took me almost all evening to get the chair put together last night, but now it’s done, and all I have to do is sit my butt in it and write.

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Sunday Update 2/3/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2013| 23 Comments »

I had a disagreement with my youngest son last night, so my heart is hurting a little this morning. Oh, who am I kidding…a little?…I can’t stop crying. But that’s life, I guess.

This week it’s time to get the ball rolling. The first thing I need to do is finish reading a manuscript for a friend. Then, I need to get Soul of a Vampire uploaded to CreateSpace for print. I plan on doing those two things today. Then, tomorrow, I’m going to start on a new story. I’ll probably make notes on that today, so I’ll be ready to actually write tomorrow. I haven’t gotten a new office chair yet…that might have to wait due to lack of funds. So I guess I’ll just put a cushion in the chair and go about my writing. 🙂

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