# 24 Months to Success



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

_Edit/Update March 1, 2019: It's taking me longer than 12 months, so I've extended the challenge to 24 months. In year 2, I'm having some success. _

January 12th is my last day at my day job.

I have saved enough money to support myself for at least a year, while I take the opportunity to write and publish full time. I have two books published currently, and while they make decent money, it's not enough to support myself. It takes me a long time to publish a book, and with the other obligations on my time, I haven't been able to publish as quickly as I'd like. During 2018, my goal is to bring my publishing income up to full-time level, and get more of the stories in my head out into the world.

The goal is to sell 10,000 books in 2018.

This includes discounted books and Full Read Equivalents (page reads) through Kindle Unlimited. I live frugally, and this will be enough to cover expenses, as well as taxes and other incidentals. If, at the end of 2018, publishing income isn't enough to support me, I should still have enough money left over to keep me for a couple months, until I can find a day job again.

I'm starting this thread to document my journey, and in the hopes it might help people learn from my failures and successes. At the beginning of each month, I'll post a recap of the previous month, and my goals for the upcoming month (as well as when I reach important milestones or events). If I can figure out how, I'll link to future relevant posts in this first one, for ease of navigation.  I figured it out, but it seems to open in a new tab. I don't know how to stop that. Any tips?

To reach the 10,000 books goal, I plan to publish two more novels in my current sci-fi series (around 140,000 words apiece), and two more in a new hard fantasy series with shorter novels (hopefully between 60-80,000 words). I will also be publishing audiobooks for my Seeds of Chaos series.

I also have a not-for-profit story that I'd like to update with a new chapter a couple times a month, for fun, and to have something to write on every day, even if I'm not at the writing stage on my other projects. This will take a backseat to paid writing, if I find myself unable to keep up.

I believe I know myself and my capabilities well, and have no plans to ever work for someone else again. That being said, I absolutely do still have a lot to learn, and much growth to do, both as an author and a publisher.

Relevant Posts
January 1, 2018
January Review
February 1, 2018
February Review
March 1, 2018
March Review
April 2, 2018
April Review
May 1, 2018
May Review
June 1, 2018
June Review
July 2, 2018
September 2, 2018
September 18, 2018--Book Launch Review
Editor Recommendation
October 6, 2018
2018 Recap

2019 Plans
January Review--The Start of High Sales 
February Review--Still Going Strong
March and April combined Review
May Review and Fantasy Cover Reveal
June Review
July Review
August Review
BookBub Featured Deal--International
September Review


----------



## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

Sounds like you have a solid plan and an exciting year in store. I hope it exceeds your expectations


----------



## Benjamin Douglas (Aug 1, 2015)

Good luck Azalea! Watching with interest. Good on you for taking the plunge.


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Hooray! Good luck!


----------



## Vale (Jul 19, 2017)

Good luck! I look forward to reading about your authoring adventures.


----------



## Rob Martin (Nov 15, 2017)

Good luck. I'll be following this with interest.


----------



## Ryan W. Mueller (Jul 14, 2017)

Hope it goes well for you. I'm only six months into my own career. It's been tough so far, but at least I've sold some books.


----------



## solo (Dec 19, 2017)

Good luck, Azalea. May you succeed beyond your expectations. I only have two books currently published with two more on pre-order status (March 201. Just started October 2017. Will be following your experiences which I hope you'll share with us.


----------



## Ceramic (Jun 12, 2017)

Good on you Azalea! I've bookmarked this thread and am looking forward to your adventures and learning from you


----------



## A Fading Street (Sep 25, 2016)

The best of luck with this Azalea. You sound like you are determined and have a good plan so with any luck, when you update this time next year, it will be from your million dollar mansion  Seriously though, if you achieve what you are planning now it will be a fantastic achievement.


----------



## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Best of luck to you! It can be done, and sounds as if you're already on a strong path and have a good plan. Just keep your head on your shoulders and you should do well.


----------



## LeeMountford (May 13, 2017)

Best of luck, Azalea!


----------



## Izzy Wollan (Aug 21, 2015)

Good luck on your journey 

You are a great inspiration, I wish I could do the same thing...one day


----------



## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

I will  be watching this thread with interest. My OH's job is a bit shaky at present but if he can find another one and is still at it and happy by the end of the year, and if I can average per month what I've made on book sales in the past three months, I will strongly think about writing full-time. Like yourself, my outgoings are not huge; I am not looking to be a millionaire or even high flyer, just to have my bills paid, a few holidays per year and be my own boss, especially since I have a medical condition and sometimes even find the 2 days a week I do at 'real life' work too much.


----------



## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Very excited for you, Azalea! I'll be watching with interest. I sometimes think about doing this... Keeping my fingers crossed for you that you make lots of money. Your books look great, by the way.


----------



## Ashly Kim (Dec 30, 2014)

Good luck!  This is inspiring!


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I won't wish you luck, but I will wish you good writing! It's going to be an adventure. I wish you all the best!


----------



## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Good luck! Keep this thread going for accountability.


----------



## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Your books have a really interesting premise! I too am a slow writer/publisher, so I feel your pain. I don't know where you live, but I have found, that having other obligations besides creative ones sometime help rather than hurt my success. (But not TOO many obligations.) If you could find part-time work with health insurance, you might find the schedule and the security make you more productive ... but you've got a year to figure that out.

Good luck to you!


----------



## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

C. Gockel said:


> Your books have a really interesting premise! I too am a slow writer/publisher, so I feel your pain. I don't know where you live, but I have found, that having other obligations besides creative ones sometime help rather than hurt my success. (But not TOO many obligations.) If you could find part-time work with health insurance, you might find the schedule and the security make you more productive ... but you've got a year to figure that out.
> 
> Good luck to you!


This is a very good point. I feel the same way. Then again, we're all different.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Thank you everyone for the well-wishes and encouragement! It puts a smile on my face. 



A Fading Street said:


> The best of luck with this Azalea. You sound like you are determined and have a good plan so with any luck, when you update this time next year, it will be from your million dollar mansion  Seriously though, if you achieve what you are planning now it will be a fantastic achievement.


Thanks, Graham! Haha, I'm like Scrooge McDuck. If I make that much money next year I'll be wallowing in a metaphorical pile of it, watching it multiply as the dollar bills breed with each other. (Compound interest.) Seriously though, I will do my best.



PaulineMRoss said:


> Good luck, and well done for sharing your journey here, so we can all vicariously enjoy your triumphs and less successful moments (hopefully there won't be many of those).
> 
> One thing friends who've quit the day job to write have found is that it's difficult to adjust to the increased number of hours available. It's all too easy to think: well, I have all day, so I'll just check Kboards/FB/Twitter... Somehow, the amount of writing done doesn't increase as much as expected. So (gratuitous advice incoming) butt in chair, and get the important stuff, like the writing, out of the way early in the day. And if you do sprints, you can write for 25 minutes and reward yourself with 5 minutes of social media.
> 
> Hope it goes really well for you!


Thanks for the advice, Pauline. It is good advice, and I plan to follow it. I'm not sure what writing schedule will be best for me once I have more time, but I'll be experimenting to find it. Also, turning off my internet completely during "working hours" might help. 



juliatheswede said:


> Very excited for you, Azalea! I'll be watching with interest. I sometimes think about doing this... Keeping my fingers crossed for you that you make lots of money. Your books look great, by the way.


Haha, I hope I make lots of money, too!  And thank you!



C. Gockel said:


> Your books have a really interesting premise! I too am a slow writer/publisher, so I feel your pain. I don't know where you live, but I have found, that having other obligations besides creative ones sometime help rather than hurt my success. (But not TOO many obligations.) If you could find part-time work with health insurance, you might find the schedule and the security make you more productive ... but you've got a year to figure that out.
> 
> Good luck to you!


This is a good point. If, at the end of this year, I find I'm burning out or for some reason am not dealing well with being full-time, I will reevaluate. But I'm not fast enough yet to keep to my production schedule with a job that has enough hours to get benefits. (30 hours minimum in my state.) I do want to get involved in other things, like athletic events and maybe some volunteering, so I'm hoping those will work to keep my life varied and interesting.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

January 1, 2018

Word choice can be relevant, when we're talking about aspirations. A goal is better than a dream, because the word is concrete and achievable, instead of fanciful. When people talk about their dreams, what they usually mean is they don't have any real plan to achieve their dream, and it seems *unachievable* without some miraculous intervention, even to them.

Sometimes we think we're creating (good) goals, but really we're just listing our dreams. A goal should be an outcome that we can directly affect and reach with our own actions, and not dependent on outside forces. You can (and should) break a big goal down into many mini goals. You can make great progress by hitting those mini goals, when the end result seemed daunting at the start.

But, we still fail to achieve our goals all the time. This is what happens with New Year's resolutions. According to some research by the University of Scranton, only 8% of people manage to achieve their New Year's resolutions. We're used to disappointing ourselves.

I've been setting goals for a long time, and while I'm fairly productive, I struggle to achieve on the level I know I'm capable of. In fact, I find I'm most productive when I feel I have no choice. E.g. when I'm on a deadline, with outside oversight.

That's a lot of words to say that I, as the owner of my publishing company, am setting *tasks* for myself, not productivity goals. This is work that I have to do, whether I want to or not, because this is a job. I think the twist in mindset might be useful. We'll see!

When I go full-time, one day a week will be a no-work day. I want to make sure I'm as productive as possible, but don't burn out.

January Tasks:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Write 82,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight.
a.	1840 words per day till January 12th
b.	3680 words per workday from January 13th to January 31st
c.	Brainstorm (flesh out 1-sentence scene cards) approximately 50 scenes
[*]Plot Hard Fantasy series-15 hours
a.	Figure out the antagonist(s) actions, motivations, backstory
[*]Social Media
a.	2 blog posts
b.	1-2 newsletter emails
[*]Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
[*]Post 2 (already written) chapters of the free story
[/list]

Right now, the most important thing is getting the third book in my sci-fi series out, and so almost all of my attention and time will be going toward that. I expect to sell a couple hundred copies towards my 10,000 goal this month, on the high end. That's quite alright, because things will pick up later.

I'm off to go write, guys!


----------



## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Good luck!


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Plan your work and work your plan, as someone famous once said. Good luck!


----------



## Teresa Rook (Nov 20, 2016)

Good luck, Azalea! Tons of people rooting for you here. Your January goals look solid---go get 'em.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk


----------



## martyns (May 8, 2014)

Good luck!

It sounds an ambitious goal, but it's certainly achievable with hard work, good writing, good marketing and a little luck.


----------



## Boswser (Jul 21, 2017)

This is great! I am really excited for you and I wish you the best. This is such a huge step to take and really, it is so, so cool. You absolutely can do it if you focus on your goal.


----------



## SophiaQuinn (Dec 14, 2017)

Love this plan! It's inspiring and ambitious. Good luck! I'll be checking the thread for updates.


----------



## Dominique Mondesir (Dec 15, 2015)

Good luck, looking forward to your posts.


----------



## dpwoolliscroft (Sep 8, 2017)

Good luck. I'm a big believer in working the plan too. Looking forward to reading the continual updates.

This year will be a big year for me too. First novel is almost ready for release along with a few shorter stories. Then need to get book two finished this year. Will be interesting to see how many sales that is going to convert to given my newbie status.


----------



## CBB (Nov 14, 2017)

Good Luck! I will be watching with interest and look forward to your updates. You're doing what I hope to do someday soon, so my fingers, legs, and toes are all crossed for you. 

You seem to have a solid plan in place, so that's a good indication you will do far better than you may expect.


----------



## Danawilliam (Jun 2, 2016)

Azalea Ellis said:


> January 12th is my last day at my day job.
> 
> I have saved enough money to support myself for at least a year, while I take the opportunity to write and publish full time. I have two books published currently, and while they make decent money, it's not enough to support myself. It takes me a long time to publish a book, and with the other obligations on my time, I haven't been able to publish as quickly as I'd like. During 2018, my goal is to bring my publishing income up to full-time level, and get more of the stories in my head out into the world.
> 
> ...


 I'll be following your progress. Good luck to you in 2018!


----------



## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

Good luck, Azalea. Hope to see you bloom this year


----------



## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Excuse me if I'm presumptuous here. If not you, then someone else may read this.

"3680 words per workday"

That's a practical 4 hours of writing per day if you write about 1k an hour. I see that as achievable, but I do have concerns. That pace hits a novel a month. The first month is the honeymoon period, and then your brain will start getting tired of doing that one thing all the time. I see February hitting you like a rock and you'll be tempted to power through, but that's exactly the time to start managing it.

I'd love to be wrong and find out that you're already well able to handle this.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Thank you to everyone again for the encouragement and comments. There are too many for me to reply to individually, but they are appreciated.

So far, everything is going well. I'm on track with the writing, and I'm excited for the rest of the story. I hope this thread will eventually prove useful, over the coming months.



dpwoolliscroft said:


> Good luck. I'm a big believer in working the plan too. Looking forward to reading the continual updates.
> 
> This year will be a big year for me too. First novel is almost ready for release along with a few shorter stories. Then need to get book two finished this year. Will be interesting to see how many sales that is going to convert to given my newbie status.


I wish you luck!



Squeakers said:


> Good Luck! I will be watching with interest and look forward to your updates. You're doing what I hope to do someday soon, so my fingers, legs, and toes are all crossed for you.
> 
> You seem to have a solid plan in place, so that's a good indication you will do far better than you may expect.


Hahaha, this made me laugh. Good luck to both of us! I'll cross my eyes >.< since you've taken everything else!



thesmallprint said:


> Good luck, Azalea. Hope to see you bloom this year


Punny!  Thanks.



Douglas Milewski said:


> Excuse me if I'm presumptuous here. If not you, then someone else may read this.
> 
> "3680 words per workday"
> 
> ...


This is a valid concern. I of course can't know the future, but I've done my best to set reasonable goals for myself. I won't be writing 3680 words per workday forever. (Unless I find that it is suddenly easily-peasily-lemon-squeezy, of course!) I'll be attempting it from when I go full time till the end of the month, and then at the beginning of February, I'll assess my January progress and set new goals for the new month. If everything is going well, I'll finish this first draft midway through February, and then the majority of my time will be moved to revision. I do hope to do a little new writing every day, by having multiple projects at different stages.

It is important to realize our current limits, so we don't burn out. But it's also important to stretch ourselves to get to that next level. I'll be updating, so if I've been too optimistic about how much I can really handle, everyone will get to see that, and how I adjust to manage it.


----------



## BJAllan (Jul 5, 2017)

I can only echo others in saying good luck and that your plan sounds great. I'm sure I'm not the only one cheering from the sidelines who would love to do something similar to see what we can achieve with a year of focusing on writing without the worry of a day job. Kudos to you for the discipline to make it happen.


----------



## Michelle1988 (Jan 4, 2018)

What an exciting way to start the new year. Good luck, I will be following this post with interest to see how you get on.


----------



## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Congratulations. I second the advice not to waste too much time. I work, but I have a job that gives me a lot of paid time off, so once a month I take some. I always think I have seven days and should get plenty done with nothing else to do, but if I'm not careful I find I waste a few days on Netflix or Facebook. It's something I try to be aware of.


----------



## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Excuse me if I'm presumptuous here. If not you, then someone else may read this.
> 
> "3680 words per workday"
> 
> ...


Yes, I think Jeff Bezos has recreated the penny-a-word days of the dime novel and the boy's-adventure pulp magazines (they were also a dime, I think).

I was fortunate enough to become a writer when it paid well. I started out in college, filing news stories for a dollar an inch. (At the end of the month, I'd paste my stories end to end and mail in the strip for reimbursement.) After fifty years I got up to a dollar a word.

It all blew up in 2007. I was then getting $1000 for an 800-word book review. Came the crash, and that became $350. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos was launching the KDP (then called the DTP). In ten years, he deflated our earnings to less than half a cent a page-read.

It was a fun ride, though. My DTP/KDP earnings went straight up until January 2012, when Kindle Select kicked in and a few thousand self-pubbers became a million or so, each trying to underprice the others.


----------



## Steve Margolis (Mar 31, 2015)

Oh, I so wish I could this.

I am wishing you the very best. Good luck.


----------



## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

What is your year goal? I understand that this is changeable, but I'd like to hear how you plan to pace out the year.


----------



## hopecartercan (Jun 19, 2015)

Wishing you the best!


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Good luck! This is what I did when I started. My goal was to make 3k/month by the end of the year, and 5k/month by the end of the next year. I ended up having my first five-figure month in November. It was all slow progress until it wasn't.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Douglas Milewski said:


> What is your year goal? I understand that this is changeable, but I'd like to hear how you plan to pace out the year.


It definitely is changeable, so my production calendar isn't set in stone. I hope to publish the third book in my Seeds of Chaos series (in my signature) in May, and the fourth book in November. I also want to publish two books in the new hard fantasy series, but I'm only at the beginning of that project, so I don't have concrete variables for it yet. I think the books will be small enough to publish two of them. If it doesn't take me too long to produce them, I'm considering holding the first one till the second is closer to publication, perhaps September for book 1 and December for book 2.

So:
May--Seeds of Chaos 3
September?--Hard Fantasy 1
November--Seeds of Chaos 4
December?--Hard Fantasy 2

I'd love to be able to publish faster than that, but producing a book takes me hundreds of hours of work, a lot more than just writing the first draft.



Crystal_ said:


> Good luck! This is what I did when I started. My goal was to make 3k/month by the end of the year, and 5k/month by the end of the next year. I ended up having my first five-figure month in November. It was all slow progress until it wasn't.


Thank you! I can only hope I have a similar experience, but I know it's a ton of hard work.

I've had a bit of a rough start, pretty much of my own making.  I'll be posting about that next, in the January Review.


----------



## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

Looking forward to your January Review. Best of luck in February!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

January 31, 2018 -- January Review

I've been a full-time writer for the last 19 days. This month has been a mixed bag. On the upside, I really do love writing, and I'm sincerely grateful to be doing this full time now. Half the time it doesn't even feel like work, and I'm gleeful. The other half the time, even on the days where I was feeling tired and wishing I didn't have to work, there is no *other* work I'd prefer to be doing. Writing makes me happy.

Even so, I failed in January. I did not complete the tasks I set for myself. In fact, I failed pretty badly on the most important task, which was to write a good chunk of my current WIP, Gods of Myth and Midnight. Let's look at what I actually accomplished, and then I'll talk a little about the points of failure where things fell apart. The whole point of this post series is to see both my successes *and* my failures, after all.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Write 82,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight. 
*(Reached 43,091 words)*
a.	1840 words per day till January 12th
b.	3680 words per workday from January 13th to January 31st
c.	Brainstorm (flesh out 1-sentence scene cards) approximately 50 scenes
*(Brainstormed 22 scenes)*
[*]	Plan Hard Fantasy series-15 hours
a.	Figure out the antagonist(s) actions, motivations, backstory
*(Put in 14 hours of planning, and figured out a lot about the story. I'm satisfied with my progress here.)*
[*]	Social Media
a.	2 blog posts
b.	1-2 newsletter emails
*(1 blog post and 1 newsletter email completed. I'm fine with this, as well.)*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
*(I did a little work on this, but mostly left the current small ads to putter in place.)*
[*]	Post 2 (already written) chapters of the free story
*(Completed.)*
[/list]

I had expected all this to take me about 137 hours of butt-in-chair, focused work time. It probably would have. I completed about 80 hours of focused work. That would have been a good month for me, were I still encumbered by the day job, but with half the month free to work on this full time, it's not impressive.

So let's look at what I did wrong.

Failure Point 1: 
I got sick, and at the same time got stuck brainstorming the details of a scene that just wasn't clicking. I tried to keep working while I was sick, but I didn't make very much progress at all, for about 5 days. These two things kind of meshed together, so I'm not sure how much progress I would have made during that time if it had been just one singular issue or the other.

Failure Point 2: 
I probably should have scheduled a break after my last day at the day job, but I didn't. I wanted to get straight into writing full time, so I didn't even put a single rest/transition day in my schedule. I thought this might be beneficial, so that I didn't start out lazing around on my full-time days and then have to struggle to raise productivity.

This started out alright, but about a week in, I was feeling a bit frustrated and decided to take one of my scheduled rest days, and play some video games. I discovered RimWorld, and fell into an obsessive binge. I have a bit of an addictive personality, and I can get obsessive about solving problems. Every time I failed to keep my colony of stranded people alive, I felt an even stronger compulsion to try again, until I got it right. I'm serious. I played this game in the background while cooking dinner, for goodness' sake, and almost got sick _again_ because I wasn't sleeping enough. I knew what I was doing, but I was so focused on solving the problems the game presented to me that I couldn't bring myself to care that I wasn't completing my writing tasks. After about 4 days, I shut down the game cold-turkey. I then turned around and stared at the wasted time in horror.

Failure Point 3:
I don't think my goals were unachievable, but they were a little too high. If I didn't complete a task or hit my target wordcount, I didn't have enough leeway to catch up the next day. I should have allowed rest days from writing while I was still at the day job, and my target wordcount for the full-time days should have been a little lower.

I know I can hit wordcounts like these, but I think my writing muscles need some time to grow accustomed to doing it on a consistent basis, just like I couldn't suddenly double my physical workout and expect to keep it up forever. I knew this, but I thought these tasks would be achievable, still. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. 

Failure Point 4: 
I lacked dedication. Some of these failure points, like getting sick or getting stuck on a scene, are reasonable. Others aren't. Most of the failure this month is my own fault. This didn't happen *to* me, I did it *myself*.

So, don't be like me, guys. In any case, the past is the past. There's no point in berating yourself for something you cannot change. My goal is to look at these failure points and address them in the upcoming month. I'm still adjusting to what is necessary to make this all work, and I'm going to get better.

Failure is something that happens, but it's not a state of being.

*Sales/Full Reads*

164

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9,836

I'll be back tomorrow with the February 1st post.


----------



## AisFor (Jul 24, 2014)

Best of luck, Azalea. Great covers BTW.


----------



## infernofrost (Jun 26, 2017)

Good work so far! I will be doing the same thing in a couple months when my FT job finishes and I begin writing. I have been thinking about reasonable goals and your post has helped me assess what my goals will be. There will always be failures, but learning from them and pressing on is the best thing to do. Keep your head up and keep on keeping on!


----------



## T E Scott Writer (Jul 27, 2016)

I think you need to find a way to relax on your off days that isn't gaming. If you are one of those people who can't just spend an hour or two on a game without it turning into an all day session then you need to ditch the games altogether.

I speak as one who knows the temptation!


----------



## C.Cross (Nov 14, 2017)

Kudos on your bravery for taking the step to pursue the career of your dreams, but also for laying it all on the line and being honest about your outputs vs expectations. Will be following with interest!

And please, don't be too hard on yourself. Getting sick could hardly be called a 'failure'!


----------



## LinaG (Jun 18, 2012)

I concurr. Getting sick is not a failure. It might have been a good use of your planned days off.

The gaming thing... well that is different. Many of us have those 'things.' For some it's the internet in general, for some it's TV, or maybe its baking three almond, honey and lavender cakes and tweaking the recipe every time to find the BEST one and your DH coming home to a dinner of cake _when baking cakes isn't anything close to your job, and no one cares about the results except you._

But you've learned something about yourself re the gaming. So now you understand that part of yourself and can move forward.

I hate to bring it up, but feel I should: there are books out there that use gaming as part of the plot... That description is inadequate because it isn't my thing.


----------



## Francoag (Jan 31, 2018)

Best wishes.  Looking forward to reading about your journey.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

AisFor said:


> Best of luck, Azalea. Great covers BTW.


Thanks!



infernofrost said:


> Good work so far! I will be doing the same thing in a couple months when my FT job finishes and I begin writing. I have been thinking about reasonable goals and your post has helped me assess what my goals will be. There will always be failures, but learning from them and pressing on is the best thing to do. Keep your head up and keep on keeping on!


I'm glad this was able to help someone. And yes, I'm chugging right along!



T E Scott Writer said:


> I think you need to find a way to relax on your off days that isn't gaming. If you are one of those people who can't just spend an hour or two on a game without it turning into an all day session then you need to ditch the games altogether.
> 
> I speak as one who knows the temptation!


Yes, I think you may be right. At least for a certain type of game, at least. 



SabineFrost said:


> Kudos on your bravery for taking the step to pursue the career of your dreams, but also for laying it all on the line and being honest about your outputs vs expectations. Will be following with interest!
> 
> And please, don't be too hard on yourself. Getting sick could hardly be called a 'failure'!


Thank you, and yes, getting sick isn't my fault, but it was a point where my plan fell apart. Because I got stuck figuring out that scene, I think it might have been a failure point even if I didn't get sick, but I don't know for sure.



LinaG said:


> I concurr. Getting sick is not a failure. It might have been a good use of your planned days off.
> 
> The gaming thing... well that is different. Many of us have those 'things.' For some it's the internet in general, for some it's TV, or maybe its baking three almond, honey and lavender cakes and tweaking the recipe every time to find the BEST one and your DH coming home to a dinner of cake _when baking cakes isn't anything close to your job, and no one cares about the results except you._
> 
> ...


Hahaha, it sounds like you speak from experience. 

And ironically enough, that subgenre is called litRPG. My current series contains some elements of that, though I started writing them before litRPG got cool, and they don't follow many of the tropes of the subgenre.


----------



## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Azalea, thanks for posting your journey. While I have no choice but to plough ahead in my 9-5, it does give me some downtime to plan out my story, so I'm a little envious that circumstances allow you to pursue your dream. Wish you all the best, all the same.

I'll second what others have said, for years I would lose myself in MMOs and other games, but it wasn't until I set them aside that I started having success at writing. For me, success means staying clear of games that never end, like <cough, cough>World of Warcrack.
YMMV, but I think you'll find you accomplish more if you find a way to channel your downtime in something that doesn't suck you into "just one more turn."

Best of luck. I can't wait to read of you success in the coming months.


----------



## LinaG (Jun 18, 2012)

That's it!  litRPG.  Yes.  hard won experience.  You don't actually want that almond, honey and lavender in a cake.  You want it in a biscotti, with a hint of orange.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

February 1, 2018

I'm starting out the month sleep-deprived. Since three in the morning, myself and the other members of my unit in my apartment complex have been being harassed by a series of people ringing the doorbells and banging on the doors incessantly. Different people, all completely desperate to get ahold of someone, and totally inconsiderate. One of these people hung out in front of our unit for hours chain-smoking after my partner confronted him, and banged on our upstairs neighbor's door for literally an hour and a half. My partner got up several times throughout the night to tell people to go away and stop harassing us.

Not ten minutes after my partner left for work today, someone was back at our front door, ringing the doorbell faster and faster, and banging louder and louder. I'd originally ignored this, but there were sounds as if he were gently trying the door handle and messing with the lock, so I finally went up to the door and looked through the peephole, then yelled through the door. The man, who looked about fifty years old, yelled back that he'd planned to come over around nine. I said I'd never seen him before and asked him to leave. He said we'd been texting and that I told him to come over. I said I didn't know him, hadn't been texting him, and asked him to leave again. He hesitated, as if he didn't believe me or wanted to argue some more, and finally said he must have the wrong address. He left.

My partner came home from work immediately because I was freaked out, and we called the cops. Our neighbor above us said that the person banging on his door covered up the peephole with his hand, so that he couldn't be seen. The police officer said that our unit isn't the only one this happened to in the last few days around this area. They suspect some sort of prostitution/catfishing/craigslist scam is going on.

I consider myself to be pretty tough, but stuff like this is scary. I was afraid the guy would forcefully break in, and I would have to threaten him with a gun to go away. We probably should have called the cops earlier.

Anyway, back to the writing-related stuff. 
New month, new tasks. I get one day off every week, which works out conveniently to exactly 4 days off in February.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Write 72,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	3000 words per workday
b.	Brainstorm (flesh out 1-sentence scene cards) approximately 45 scenes
[*]	Plot Hard Fantasy series-25 hours
a.	Delve deeper into antagonist actions and motivations, and flesh out some specifics of the storyline
[*]	Social Media
a.	1 blog posts
b.	1 newsletter email
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
[*]	Post 3 (already written) chapters of the free story
[*]	File 2017 taxes

[/list]

Some of these goals are a little more lenient than January's, and I have more time to complete them in, since I no longer have to work at the day job for 2 weeks out of February. I believe the key to success here is diligence, or consistency. If I put in the hours, I'll hit these goals.

I expect sales to be a little lower than last month's, without a marketing boost, which I don't have much time to focus on at the moment. Same as before, the next book is my most important goal right now.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

That sounds super scary, Azalea! I'm glad you guys called the cops and that you're all okay. I hope you have a productive month.


----------



## dgcasey (Apr 16, 2017)

Azalea Ellis said:


> The police officer said that our unit isn't the only one this happened to in the last few days around this area. They suspect some sort of prostitution/catfishing/craigslist scam is going on.


I am so glad I don't live in the city anymore. And Honey Bunny can't understand why I want to buy a place in some rural area, far away from other people and traffic.


----------



## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

If gaming makes you happy, do it on your off days. Nothing wrong with gaming, and it's a way of absorbing story and refilling, too


----------



## Dr. Faustus (Jan 21, 2018)

Good luck.


----------



## SueSeabury (Mar 12, 2016)

Best wishes! 
And keep us updated on how it goes!


----------



## Elizabeth S. (Oct 20, 2016)

Annie B said:


> If gaming makes you happy, do it on your off days. Nothing wrong with gaming, and it's a way of absorbing story and refilling, too


Best advice in the thread so far. :-D


----------



## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Azalea Ellis said:


> New month, new tasks.
> 
> [list type=decimal]
> [*]	Write 72,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight
> ...


Seems like you missed a task of the list ...* Move House*!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

March 1, 2018 -- February Review

This month started out rough for me. I was really disappointed in myself for not getting enough done in January, and very determined to do better in February. I knew the key to that was consistency, but for the first half of the month, _I didn't follow my own advice._

Week 1 was alright, though some of my days were less stellar. 
Week 2 was horrible, and I barely got anything done at all. 
Week 3 picked up again, but I still wasn't producing as well as I could have. 
Week 4 was great. I think I figured out the method that's going to work for me.

Chris Fox has some really great resources for writers, and one of those is a YouTube channel where he updates weekly. One of his videos talks about the amount of willpower we all have, and that it is limited every day. It runs out, a little bit with every decision you make. Thus, the way to get consistently good results has more to do with good routine/habits than just desire for those results. I know this, but I still struggle with it.

I talked last month about my media binges/addictive personality. That was still a problem this month, which honestly makes me ashamed of myself. This month, it was the 105 hours I spent reading. I do believe reading is essential for a writer, so I have no plans to cut that out. However, I get too caught up in things, and I lose my ability to moderate. On the upside, I think I've found a method that is actually going to help me manage my work habits better. I've been practicing it for the last part of February, and it's working very well.

At the end of the day, I'll want to relax with some reading before bed. If I find myself reading a story that's well-written and engrossing, I often put off sleep, sometimes for hours. Then, I wake up in the morning tired, the story still running through my head. When I open up my computer (which I do pretty much everything on), the book, if unfinished, is still right there waiting for me. Even if my intentions were to work, I'm tired enough that my willpower is low, and I find myself sucked back into the binge. This holds steady for pretty much any type of media binge I get stuck in.

The solution is to disrupt this unhealthy pattern, and the way I've found to do that is to make it impossible for myself to access any sites that are time-wasters, starting _first thing_ in the morning. There's a little app for Mac called Self-Control, (very aptly named because apparently I don't have enough of it,) which allows you to do this, on a timer. When I go to sleep, I've started using this app to block myself for 20 hours or so, which means that when I wake up in the morning, the biggest lure against productivity is unavailable. I don't have to work, but I can't do much else.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Write 72,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight
*(Reached 38,585 words)*
a.	3000 words per workday *(I took 9 days off instead of 4.)*
b.	Brainstorm (flesh out 1-sentence scene cards) approximately 45 scenes
*(Brainstormed 30 scenes)*
[*]	Plot Hard Fantasy series-25 hours
a.	Delve deeper into antagonist actions and motivations, and flesh out some specifics of the storyline
*(This got pushed to the wayside when I finally increased my productivity, because it's a secondary project. About 2 hours completed, but some really good content during those hours. I'm excited about these books.)*
[*]	Social Media
a.	1 blog posts
b.	1 newsletter email
*(No blog posts or newsletters completed.)*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
*(I did only a few minutes of this, mostly leaving the current ads to putter along.)*
[*]	Post 3 (already written) chapters of the free story
*(Completed.)*
[*]	File 2017 taxes
*(Unable to complete, as I am still waiting on some documentation back from the govt.)*
[*]	*Researched Audiobook production and vetted narrators. This basically took the place of the hours I meant to spend plotting the new series.* 
[/list]

Despite the slightly lower wordcount, I actually spent more time writing this month, and completed more scenes. I found myself stuck a couple times on Brainstorming scenes before writing them, when things just didn't "click." After hours of writing in my notebook trying to figure out what was wrong and banging my head against the wall, I was able to figure out a different way that the scenes would work better. I'm going to be optimistic and say that I think this means I'm becoming a better writer. Finding weak points in the first draft means I will have less revision to do later.

I also realized this month that if I want to have an audiobook out by May, I needed to get started on the process. I spent a lot of time vetting narrators, narrowing down my selection of possible voices with increasingly strict criteria. I didn't plan for this, but it did need to be done, so it ended up taking the place of the plotting I was going to do for the hard fantasy series.

And despite my less than stellar productivity results so far, I must say that I am still loving this. The more I actually manage to get done, the more excited I am about these stories that I'm working on.

*Sales/Full Reads*

*January*
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

*February*
Ebook: 150

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9,681


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

March 1, 2018

I am really optimistic about March. I've got a lot of work planned, but I also have a couple new methods I think are going to help me complete it. One is the internet blocking app I'm now setting up before I go to sleep, so that it will be running when I wake up in the morning. The other is mid-month updates here. I really _hate_ telling you guys that I failed, and I think a little more accountability between the beginning and the end of the month will help me keep on track.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Write 60,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight (or however much is required to finish the first draft)
a.	3000 words per workday
b.	Brainstorm (flesh out 1-sentence scene cards) approximately 36 scenes
[*]	Start Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight-15 hours
[*]	Write 10,000 words for my fun fanfiction, Deal with the Devil
a.	About 1000 words per workday
[*]	Plot Hard Fantasy series-28 hours
a.	Flesh out specifics of the storyline, world, and side characters
[*]	Social Media
a.	1 blog posts
b.	1 newsletter email
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
[*]	Post 2 (already written) chapters of the free story
[*]	File 2017 taxes
[*]	Finalize narrator selection and start production of Gods of Blood and Bone audiobook
[/list]

I should be finishing the first draft of Gods of Myth and Midnight this month. Finally! There is quite a lot for me to get done here, but if I just put in the work, 6 days a week, I will be able to complete all these tasks. I'll be back again with a mid-month update around the 15th or 16th.

I expect sales to be relatively similar to January and February, perhaps a little lower.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

March 17, 2018

I meant to post last night, but I got back late from playing tabletop games (yes I have my certified geek card), and was too tired to write this out.

It's halfway through March, and I'm happy to report that while the month hasn't been perfect, productivity-wise, I have been doing pretty well!

I have taken 4 days off already, which is pretty much my whole allotment for the month. It seems I tend to end up taking about 2 days off a week rather than the 1 that I have scheduled. This would be like taking a weekend from the day job, so it's...not unreasonable. However, I still want to work on taking less time off.

I haven't written every workday, either. Some of my workdays have been taken up by administrative or publishing tasks instead of writing. But I'm actually still _almost_ on track to hit my wordcount goal, when I look at what I have left to do this month, and how long I've estimated these things will take me. As long as I don't take too many more days off, that is.

Mid-Month Update: 
[list type=decimal]
[*] Reached 25,130 words so far, and quickly increasing
[*] Updated AMS ads to waste less of my money
[*] Narrowed down narrators, will be finalizing the terms of the contract today or tomorrow
[*] Taxes ready to go
[*] Posted 1 of 2 (already written) chapters of the free story
[*] A few hours of plotting the new story, not close to enough yet
[/list]

I'm nearing the end of GOMM's first draft, and I'm quite excited about that. Anyway, I still have quite a lot to accomplish in the remainder of the month, so I'm going to get back to work. I'm really looking forward to getting this book published.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

notjohn said:


> Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos was launching the KDP (then called the DTP). In ten years, he deflated our earnings to less than half a cent a page-read.


To offer an alternate perspective, he also made it possible for thousands of people to get off the query-go-round and publish work that had previously only sat in slush piles. Now, many of those people are full-time writers, or are working up to being full-time writers, and even the people who can't go full time yet are still getting their work out there to be read and enjoyed, and are getting paid for it. Sure, they could be getting paid more, but without KDP they might not be getting paid at all.


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

ShayneRutherford said:


> To offer an alternate perspective, he also made it possible for thousands of people to get off the query-go-round and publish work that had previously only sat in slush piles. Now, many of those people are full-time writers, or are working up to being full-time writers, and even the people who can't go full time yet are still getting their work out there to be read and enjoyed, and are getting paid for it. Sure, they could be getting paid more, but without KDP they might not be getting paid at all.


Great response to the usual negativity from this poster.

Azalea, you're doing great. It's a huge transition from working for someone else to working for yourself, and it can take time to get your groove on. You have a good attitude, you're willing to face things head on, and you are willing to adapt and experiment until you find what works for you.


----------



## CBB (Nov 14, 2017)

Azalea, you're doing great. We all have doubts and get down on ourselves when we think we haven't done enough. I will give you an example, when I worked from home (not as a writer unfortunately, it was remote position for the job I have now) I constantly felt as if there was more I could have done that day. When your work place is in your home it is very hard to separate it and you can constantly have a feeling that you didn't do enough. This will just take time as you get used to it. It is a hard transition.

On another note, I just want to say I love your title _Gods of Myth and Midnight_. Just that title alone would stick out to me and I would pick it up. (Insert both clapping hands of excitement for you, and jealous face for not thinking of a cool title like that)


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

she-la-ti-da said:


> Azalea, you're doing great. It's a huge transition from working for someone else to working for yourself, and it can take time to get your groove on. You have a good attitude, you're willing to face things head on, and you are willing to adapt and experiment until you find what works for you.





Squeakers said:


> Azalea, you're doing great. We all have doubts and get down on ourselves when we think we haven't done enough. I will give you an example, when I worked from home (not as a writer unfortunately, it was remote position for the job I have now) I constantly felt as if there was more I could have done that day. When your work place is in your home it is very hard to separate it and you can constantly have a feeling that you didn't do enough. This will just take time as you get used to it. It is a hard transition.


Thanks, both of you. I think you're both right. I never quite feel as if I've done enough, even when I'm putting in longer hours than I would have at my day job. Some of that is that I only track time that was actually productive, and _focused_ work is very draining. I'll spend 9 hours getting only 5 hours of real work done, without actually slacking off too much. So at the end of the day I'm tired, but it feels less productive than if I'd been able to punch in at a time clock working for someone else.

I'm working on getting that "groove on," because I really do think I can do better. There's so much I want to accomplish, but I'm still trying to figure out how to take that from idea to reality. I appreciate you guys' continued encouragement. 



Squeakers said:


> On another note, I just want to say I love your title _Gods of Myth and Midnight_. Just that title alone would stick out to me and I would pick it up. (Insert both clapping hands of excitement for you, and jealous face for not thinking of a cool title like that)


Thanks! *blushes*


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

So March is over already. I kind of missed that yesterday.  Let's look at how I did.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Write 60,000 words for Gods of Myth and Midnight (or however much is required to finish the first draft) 
*(I finished the first draft!! 48,360 more words, for a total of 130,036.)*
a.	3000 words per workday *(I took 7 days off, instead of 4, and didn't manage a consistent 3000 words.)*
b.	Brainstorm (flesh out 1-sentence scene cards) approximately 36 scenes *(Completed, though it was closer to 30 scenes.)*
[*]	Start Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight-15 hours
*(Did about 3 hours, but did not re-read Book 2 and update the series bible, which was the majority of this time allotment)*
[*]	Write 10,000 words for my fun fanfiction, Deal with the Devil
*(I plotted out the next couple scenes, but did not get to any actual writing for this story.)*
a.	About 1000 words per workday
[*]	Plot Hard Fantasy series-28 hours
a.	Flesh out specifics of the storyline, world, and side characters
*(About 2 hours...once again it got pushed to the side.)*
[*]	Social Media
a.	1 blog posts
b.	1 newsletter email
*(Have a topic prepared--finished first draft--but have not posted to blog or sent newsletter yet.)*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
*(Did a bit of this, mostly I lowered my ad spend.)*
[*]	Post 2 (already written) chapters of the free story
*(1 chapter posted. The other postponed, as I want to write an intervening chapter before the next.)*
[*]	File 2017 taxes
*(Still ready to go. Still waiting on the inefficient govt. to send me a single number which I requested over 2 months ago. Much calling and talking to an assortment of incompetent people was done this month.)*
[*]	Finalize narrator selection and start production of Gods of Blood and Bone audiobook
*(Complete. Narrator selected, contract established, production in progress.)*
[/list]

I did better this month. I'm still not hitting all the targets, but I can see definite improvement in my results. I aim to continue this improvement. There's so much I want to accomplish, and I'll never get it all done if I can't work both faster and harder. I realize that can't happen immediately, because unfortunately in real life I'm only a human instead of the superhuman I subconsciously see myself as, but I'm not going to stop working toward that goal.

I'm excited about this audiobook production! I received an offer from Tantor Media for these books a few months back (I'd already been looking into getting audio produced when they contacted me), and after negotiating with them a bit, doing a lot of research, and creating quite a few spreadsheets full of speculative math, decided to turn them down. I'd prefer to spend more money and time up front for greater long-term returns. Of course, we can't know the future, but I think that will be the end result. I'm spending a few thousand dollars and a few dozen hours (with more hours to come).

Places where I'm still missing the target: My side projects. They _are_ side projects, so if I'm not hitting my main goals, work on them gets postponed. However, I'm really excited about the new series, and I want to be able to spend time on it. Right now, I try to work on the main project first, and then side projects if I've got anything left over at the end of the day. Maybe I need to change this up, and set aside one day a week to work solely on them, or something. What do you guys think about that idea? How do you handle working on multiple projects at once?

I also struggle to regularly update blog/newsletter, because I don't always have something new to say, or something to offer my readers. I want to engage them more with stuff where they can have some input in the story, like naming the more unimportant side characters, posting sneak peeks of scenes I'm working on, etc. If any of you are kind of slow producers like me, what do you do to keep your mailing list hearing from you regularly?

I stopped a lot of my AMS spend, which has been creeping up slowly over the last year or so. I wanted to see how much it was actually doing for me. I anticipated about 135 or so sales if I didn't change much, as that has been the natural decay over the last half year. From what I can tell, those AMS ads were bringing in about 125% of what I spent on them, in actual royalty revenue. If I have time to manage them, I plan to up my ad spend again in April, and we'll see if that speculation is based in fact.

*Sales/Full Reads*

*January*
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

*February*
Ebook: 150

*March*
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9572

I'm really looking forward to seeing these numbers jump drastically with the release of the new book.


----------



## CynthiaClay (Mar 17, 2017)

Best of luck! Enjoy your year of writing and many more!

Imagine dancing bananas here.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

April 2, 2018

My work in April will transition a little, as the main project is moving from First Draft into Revision. I also want to spend the time to focus on the side projects that have been being neglected due to my struggles with high productivity. I've been thinking about this the last couple days, and I think I want to take some days to solely focus on the new hard fantasy series. Now is a good time to do that, since I'd also like to take a short break from Gods of Myth and Midnight before jumping into the Revision. I plan to take a week of the main project, so I'll be starting that up again on April 9th.

I don't know how long it will take me to finish plotting the first book in the new series, but I'd love to finish it this month if possible. The goal for the free story is just to write something every day, to keep my writing muscles limber.

As for the Revision, I'm going through a modified and truncated version of Holly Lisle's 'How to Revise Your Novel' course. I highly recommend the course for anyone who's written their first book but not yet published. Maybe even for those who are already published. It's probably some of the best money I ever spent on my publishing business, and it taught me things a hundred books on craft never could.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Plot Hard Fantasy series
a.	Flesh out specifics of the storyline, world, and side characters
b.	Finish Plotting Book 1, if possible
[*]	Start Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	Read through Gods of Rust and Ruin and update Series Bible
b.	Work through HTRYN modified Lessons 1-5
[*]	Write 15,000 words for my fun fanfiction, Deal with the Devil
a.	Write something, every day
[*]	Social Media
a.	1 blog post
b.	1 newsletter email
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads, increasing ad spend again
[*]	Post 2 chapters of the free story
[*]	File 2017 taxes...Finally
[/list]

It'll be many hours of work to accomplish all this, as always. I'm going to try to keep improving my productivity levels, and keep shooting to complete all the tasks I set for myself. Once again, I'll be back again mid-month to report.


----------



## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Really enjoying following this!  Keep it up


----------



## AnyaPavelle (Mar 19, 2018)

Awesome job overall! I like your plan. Don't feel too bad about needing downtime, though, even if you think it's wasted. Sometimes your brain is subconsciously mulling something over while you game or chill on the net. I'm no where near being able to write full time since I need my day job and income, so congrats!!!!


----------



## L_Loryn (Mar 1, 2018)

This is rather motivational if only to see someone going through it and not always succeeding because life.


----------



## Ceramic (Jun 12, 2017)

Thanks for sharing your progress ☺

I'm going to check out books on tevising memoir or non fiction now 😆


----------



## MladenR (Jul 1, 2017)

Oh wow, this is the first time I see your thread despite lurking around KBoards every day.

I find this incredibly exciting and I wish you all the luck in the world. I see we share struggles when it comes to setting up the goals and actually reaching them, both with fiction and blogs. But I am happy to see you are getting more and more productive  

It's visible how time to get used to the change affects your productivity. I have no doubt you will soon exceed your goals!


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

Azalea Ellis said:


> January 12th is my last day at my day job.
> 
> I have saved enough money to support myself for at least a year, while I take the opportunity to write and publish full time. I have two books published currently, and while they make decent money, it's not enough to support myself. It takes me a long time to publish a book, and with the other obligations on my time, I haven't been able to publish as quickly as I'd like. During 2018, my goal is to bring my publishing income up to full-time level, and get more of the stories in my head out into the world.
> 
> ...


Congrats its a good feeling.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

L_Loryn said:


> This is rather motivational if only to see someone going through it and not always succeeding because life.


I'm glad you think so! This brings up an important thought, though. For anyone out there who might be thinking about quitting their job to do something similar, note that I have a buffer, built into my plan a couple different ways. 1) I'm giving myself 12 months, but if it's obvious I'm not going to be able to support myself from writing at the end of that 12 months, I have a couple more months of living expenses set aside to allow me to get another source of income. The money I've saved up will cover me for over a year, even if I didn't make a single penny off writing during that whole time. It will cover taxes, as well. 2) This 10,000 sales goal doesn't just meet my living expenses needs. It also covers those expenses that you often don't think about, because they're not right in front of your face. 10,000 sales would give me enough of a buffer to pay (more) taxes, do paid advertising and other increased business expenses, cover minor health-related issues and the cost of insurance, and still allow me to save for retirement.

I didn't quit my job the first time my book sales doubled or tripled the income I got in my day job, because I know this business is cyclical, and you can't depend on income holding steady. I didn't save up enough for 3 or 6 months of expenses and quit, under the impression that I could make my publishing business profitable enough to support me immediately. I took a good hard look at realistic expenses and income, cut my expenses down as far as I could, and prepared for the worst case scenario.

I've read other people's stories about jumping into full-time publishing a lot quicker than me, or without as much of a buffer. Sometimes that worked out for them, and sometimes it didn't. I only want to point out that it would really suck to be one of the cases in which it didn't. Because life happens, and we struggle with performing as well as we hoped we could, sometimes.


----------



## L_Loryn (Mar 1, 2018)

Azalea Ellis said:


> I'm glad you think so! This brings up an important thought, though. For anyone out there who might be thinking about quitting their job to do something similar, note that I have a buffer, built into my plan a couple different ways. 1) I'm giving myself 12 months, but if it's obvious I'm not going to be able to support myself from writing at the end of that 12 months, I have a couple more months of living expenses set aside to allow me to get another source of income. The money I've saved up will cover me for over a year, even if I didn't make a single penny off writing during that whole time. It will cover taxes, as well. 2) This 10,000 sales goal doesn't just meet my living expenses needs. It also covers those expenses that you often don't think about, because they're not right in front of your face. 10,000 sales would give me enough of a buffer to pay (more) taxes, do paid advertising and other increased business expenses, cover minor health-related issues and the cost of insurance, and still allow me to save for retirement.
> 
> I didn't quit my job the first time my book sales doubled or tripled the income I got in my day job, because I know this business is cyclical, and you can't depend on income holding steady. I didn't save up enough for 3 or 6 months of expenses and quit, under the impression that I could make my publishing business profitable enough to support me immediately. I took a good hard look at realistic expenses and income, cut my expenses down as far as I could, and prepared for the worst case scenario.
> 
> I've read other people's stories about jumping into full-time publishing a lot quicker than me, or without as much of a buffer. Sometimes that worked out for them, and sometimes it didn't. I only want to point out that it would really suck to be one of the cases in which it didn't. Because life happens, and we struggle with performing as well as we hoped we could, sometimes.


That is important to note.

I'm a little bit of the opposite of you (in some ways). I quit my "day job" a year or two ago because, frankly, I couldn't stand it anymore. My mental health was suffering from being forced to do the normal job thing because... money. I hate working for others when I have dreams of my own. It's probably a childish millennial thing.

Before I quit my day job, I took a look at my expenses and figured out things I could do instead to make up the income lost if I didn't make it selling items. Turns out, there are a lot of little things (pet sitting, child-sitting, uber, freelancing, postmates, even grabbing 1-2 days as a server at a restaurant etc) you can do to make ends meet that don't require you to be chained to a desk 9-to-5.

I don't think there's a wrong or right way to decide to go full-time as a writer or work-from-home person, I think some people prefer the cushion of knowing the money is there and are willing to stick it out until it is and I think some people would rather jump in full-force while the fire's hot, so to speak.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

April 17, 2018

April is going well. I took a week off from GOMM, and spent some time plotting the Hard Fantasy series, like I mentioned. Now I'm pushing into the Revision. I mentioned before that I'm in the process of getting GOBB (Book 1) produced in audio. Well, my narrator and her sound engineer are much speedier than I expected, so they've finished the initial audio already, instead of after about another month to six weeks like I was expecting. This might throw off my completion of the April Tasks, because I need to listen through and review the audio sooner rather than later, and the book is pretty long.

So far, my productivity this first half of April is higher than any other month this year. I'm improving. And I feel good, not tired or burnt out at all, though that may change as I get further into the grueling work of Revision.

Mid-Month Update:

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Got through a little less than half my allotted hours for planning the Hard Fantasy.
a.	Fleshed out specifics of the storyline, world, and side characters, but not all of it. If I can put in the rest of my allotted hours this month, I'll get close to finishing the plotting, but perhaps not all the way through. 
[*]	Started Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	Read through Gods of Rust and Ruin and updated Series Bible--This took me almost twice as long as I anticipated.
b.	Started HTRYN Modified Lesson 1
[*]	Wrote a few hundred words for my fun fanfiction, Deal with the Devil--I haven't even come close to writing something new every day. I do have the next chapter all plotted out, though.
[*]	Social Media--I sent a newsletter email and published a blog post.
[*]	Posted 1 chapter of the free story.
[*]	Filed my 2017 taxes.
[*]	Worked with narrator on Gods of Blood and Bone audiobook.
[/list]


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

L_Loryn said:


> That is important to note.
> 
> I'm a little bit of the opposite of you (in some ways). I quit my "day job" a year or two ago because, frankly, I couldn't stand it anymore. My mental health was suffering from being forced to do the normal job thing because... money. I hate working for others when I have dreams of my own. It's probably a childish millennial thing.
> 
> ...


You make some good points here, absolutely. When I was working the day job, I had days where I felt like being there was like keeping my hand wrapped around a burning coal when all I wanted to do was let go. Before I quit, I'd been considering staying on a little longer to build up more of a buffer and fund some other expenditures. Then I looked through some of my writing notebooks over the last 5 years, and saw how over and over again I mentioned how much I wanted to stop working for someone else. How I wasn't happy not being able to work for myself, and how my day job was sucking all the life and energy out of me. I decided enough was enough, and gave my resignation.

However, I'm definitely the type to want monetary security, because I grew up so desperately poor at times that the only food in the fridge was expired bread sold as chicken feed instead of human food, and mayonnaise or peanut butter. I really never want to eat a mayonnaise or peanut butter sandwich again. I need financial independence.

But a 9-5 isn't the only way to make income, just like publishing isn't the only way. Side hustles like you mentioned are great ways to supplement income, either in the accumulation phase, or just to support yourself month to month. _Especially_ if you life a frugal lifestyle, which might be the most important point in my own monetary set-up, and in fact is a huge part of my lifestyle in general.

What we have in common here is that we both looked at our situation and made a plan that worked for us. There are a lot of ways to get where you want to go, but I think forethought is important, to avoid the sudden panic of life hitting you in the face with realities you forgot to take into account before jumping.


----------



## L_Loryn (Mar 1, 2018)

Azalea Ellis said:


> You make some good points here, absolutely. When I was working the day job, I had days where I felt like being there was like keeping my hand wrapped around a burning coal when all I wanted to do was let go. Before I quit, I'd been considering staying on a little longer to build up more of a buffer and fund some other expenditures. Then I looked through some of my writing notebooks over the last 5 years, and saw how over and over again I mentioned how much I wanted to stop working for someone else. How I wasn't happy not being able to work for myself, and how my day job was sucking all the life and energy out of me. I decided enough was enough, and gave my resignation.
> 
> However, I'm definitely the type to want monetary security, because I grew up so desperately poor at times that the only food in the fridge was expired bread sold as chicken feed instead of human food, and mayonnaise or peanut butter. I really never want to eat a mayonnaise or peanut butter sandwich again. I need financial independence.
> 
> ...


I definitely understand your side. My parents grew up very poor and my dad can't understand why I don't mind being frugal now. He'll tell stories about how all the had was beans and his mother would make a pot and whenever they got hungry-- beans. He resents the way he grew up and being without money causes him major, debilitating anxiety.

As for me? I can make my own soap, detergent, shampoo etc. I can and DO sew a lot of things for my household. I get scraps for my dogs from a butcher (as much as I can put in a bag for free if I get there early). My idea of a great meal is beans and rice with spices and I'm okay eating mostly vegetarian. I'm a minimalist. I've made my lifestyle fit a cheap budget.

I think the reality is no matter what, leaving a job to pursue a dream requires a LOT of sacrifice. I'm glad you did what you needed to do to quit.

Also, another reason I like following your journey is because currently we're at similar spots. I'd say this month my borrow/sales rate will be around 100-125 sales. I don't have a sales goal, but I have a monetary goal of wanting to be in the 4 figures per month by the end of the year.


----------



## solo (Dec 19, 2017)

Been following your journey. I am still a part-time writer though my first book's initial 3 months was enough to qualify me for sfwa. But I still have my day job. I hope you do fulfill your dreams and goals. I have no illusions about the path you chose. It's going to be difficult trek but reaching for a dream never is a walk in the park. But you have the courage to pursue it.


----------



## HighestMountain (Apr 15, 2018)

Just read through this thread. It was really interesting to read (thank you for taking the time to write about your month in such detail!) and very inspirational. Looking forward to reading more about your success over the year


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

May 1, 2018 -- April Review

I can't believe it's already May. I know it's a cliche, but...where does the time go?

The first half of April was very good. The second half fell off a little, but not horribly. Still, I didn't increase my productivity enough to hit all my goals. And once again, it's now May. I've had 3.5 months to try and hit the levels of productivity I want. Though I'm getting better, I'm still not able to do it consistently enough to reach that level on a monthly average. So...I'm going to try something different, in May. I'll be basing my productivity goals off of past actual productivity, though it kills me to do so because I hate lowering my expectations of myself. Still, it's more realistic. We'll get deeper into that in the May Tasks post.

Let's go through what I accomplished this month. I only took 3 full days off this month, but there were 3 more days where I didn't get very much done at all. Still, definite improvement. A couple things popped up that I didn't realize ahead of time that I would need to deal with.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Plot Hard Fantasy series
a.	Flesh out specifics of the storyline, world, and side characters
b.	Finish Plotting Book 1, if possible
*(I didn't get much farther with this than where I was mid-month. I just couldn't find the time, though with only a couple dozen more hours I think this book will be ready to start writing.)*
[*]	Start Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	Read through Gods of Rust and Ruin and update Series Bible
*(Complete.)*
b.	Work through HTRYN modified Lessons 1-5
*(Lesson 1 about 3 quarters complete. Lesson one is by far the longest, most grueling lesson.)*
[*]	Write 15,000 words for my fun fanfiction, Deal with the Devil
a.	Write something, every day
*(551 words, and totally did not write something every day.)*
[*]	Social Media
a.	1 blog post
*(Complete.)*
b.	1 newsletter email
*(Complete.)*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads, increasing ad spend again
*(I didn't have time to focus on this.)*
[*]	Post 2 chapters of the free story
*(Posted 1 chapter. Going on hiatus to focus on GOMM.)*
[*]	File 2017 taxes...Finally
*(Complete.)*
[*]	*Compiled all personal and business expenses for future tax purposes. Should have been doing this from the beginning of the year.*
[*]	*Partially completed audiobook chapter-by-chapter review of GOBB.*
[/list]

_________

So, the Revision was my biggest goal this month, and I did put in quite a few hours toward it. However, both reading through Book 2 to update the Series Bible, and getting through the First Pass (where I notate literally all the non-prose problems I can find in the story) needed more hours than I planned for. This means that I didn't get into the much shorter Lessons 2-5. 
_________

Since I'm not hitting my goals for the main projects, I don't have time for side projects, so the fun free story is now on hiatus. 
_________

Since I quit my job, and my business and personal account are at two different banks, I've become a little lax about transferring money properly from the business account to the personal one and paying all non-business expenses from there. I'm not doing any of those shenanigans any more, but I needed to make sure I had clear records now about exactly what I was paying for with what money, because there's no way I'd remember for next tax season. So I spent a day and a half going through and making a spreadsheet of all my transactions. That sounds easy, especially since I don't go around buying things all the time. Let me repeat, it took me a day and a half to straighten out. Moral of the story: Don't be like me, guys. 
_________

Anyone who's ever completed Holly Lisle's "How to Revise Your Novel" course knows that the first lesson is nicknamed "Despair." I have modified the course so that I don't have to read the manuscript more than once, but the first lesson is still Despair. It's not fun to look at something you worked so hard on and uncover all the blemishes, tumors, and disfigurements that you somehow created. The story isn't horrible, right now, but it could be so, so much better. The bright side of Despair is that you can't fix problems without realizing they exist. I am really excited to fix all these problems, and create a final story that's better than I ever expected.

I spend a lot of time on my books--hundreds upon hundreds of hours. This means that I can't publish quickly. But I feel like it's definitely worth it, because I want to write stories that grab people by their guts and don't let go. I want to write stories that make me people's new favorite author when they read them. Maybe some people can just bust stories like that out, but I can't.

Still, I would really like to become a skilled enough writer to get closer to that goal in first draft!  Revision is hard...
_________

I started the audio review of GOBB. Guys, my narrator is pretty freaking amazing. She's relatively expensive, but the price is definitely worth her level of skill and expertise. I've read my first book many times, to the point that going through it again is grueling. However, reading along as I listen to her, I feel like I'm experiencing the book as a reader instead of the person who wrote it. I find myself getting excited and scared and laughing out loud. Also, not to toot my own horn, (though to be honest I am totally tooting my own horn) but it's a damn good book! 
_________

Sales are down this month, partly because I'm not spending much on ads, and partly because it's been a long while since I released a new book. More ads can only do so much to augment this, though I will be taking some time to push those. What I really need is to get GOMM out there into the world. I'm trying, but it's going to be a while longer.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

February
Ebook: 150

March
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

April
Ebook: 72

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9500


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

solo said:


> Been following your journey. I am still a part-time writer though my first book's initial 3 months was enough to qualify me for sfwa. But I still have my day job. I hope you do fulfill your dreams and goals. I have no illusions about the path you chose. It's going to be difficult trek but reaching for a dream never is a walk in the park. But you have the courage to pursue it.


Nothing worth doing was ever easy, as they say. It's so true. It sounds like you're off to a great start, though. I wish you continued success!



HighestMountain said:


> Just read through this thread. It was really interesting to read (thank you for taking the time to write about your month in such detail!) and very inspirational. Looking forward to reading more about your success over the year


I'm glad this thread was able to help in some small way! Thanks for reading.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

May 1, 2018

So far, I've been trying to hit goals based on productivity projections that I thought were reasonable. They still seem doable, in my head, but when I look at my real productivity, it's obvious that I'm not able to hit them, despite trying for the last 3.5 months. I am getting better, but it's still not enough. I think that's an obvious indication that whether my goals are achievable for not, they're too high for the current me.

Instead, I'm going to try basing my goals for May off April's productivity. I'll still attempt to improve, but I will be adding a percentage to what I've already shown I _can_ do, rather than pushing myself for something I think I _should be able to_ do. This means that I'm not going to have time for a lot of stuff. I haven't had time for it so far, so not much will change, except that I won't even be thinking about needing to complete it in the back of my mind.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Continue Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	Finish Manuscript modified First Pass, Despair.
b.	HTRYN Lesson 3, Sentence For Revision cards (outline of what I actually wrote)
c.	HTRYN Lesson 4, Plot Lines
d.	HTRYN Lesson 5, Conflict
e.	HTRYN Lesson 6, Characters
f.	HTRYN Lesson 7, World
g.	HTRYN Lesson 8, Theme & Triage Wrap-Up
h.	HTRYN Lesson 9, Needs & Musts
i.	HTRYN Partial Lesson 10, Focus Outline (outline for 2nd draft, I don't know that I'll have time to finish it this month)
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads, increasing ad spend again
[*]	Track business and personal expenses for tax purposes
[*]	Finish Gods of Blood and Bone audio review
[/list]

That's it. This is an increase from what I accomplished in April, with almost all the hours going towards Revision. The "How to Revise Your Novel" course is a lot of work, even with my modified version of all the coursework. I mentioned this before, but it's totally worth it, both the time, and the money it originally cost me.

I'd originally hoped to release GOMM in May, or maybe early June. I won't be able to hit that target, obviously, but I wouldn't want to release it without it being the best it can be, and I need more time to make that happen. Still, I'm pushing for sooner, rather than later.

I'll be back again mid-month to let you guys know how it's going.


----------



## Ceramic (Jun 12, 2017)

This sounds great Azalea. Especially using the course structure. I used one earlier this year to outline cosy mysteries.

Its great that you're looking at April's output for setting May's goals. That's a really handy skill. Especially when getting super excited, and trying to improve more than you're ready for. 

I don't know about you, but just working is a miracle some weeks for me. It helps with my goals to be intentional, instead of expecting to achieve everything now. Its like practicing and being willing to fail is a relief, after expecting too much and failing.


----------



## L_Loryn (Mar 1, 2018)

Still enjoying this journey of yours. And I admit, I do kind of compare our numbers even though I have more works published and I stick to releasing one thing per month.

My April's numbers were really close to 100 reads/borrows and I've been doing a slow burn AMS ads spend. Like a dollar a day, haha. Which only gets 2-3 clicks for romance but it's better than nothing.

I like that you're taking it a little easier in May when it comes to the amount you write. I have an easy time hitting daily word counts while still making time for the other stuff I want to do. Sometimes word counts are pulling teeth, other times I wake up shocked I already got through my 4k.


----------



## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Azalea,
Thanks for updating this each month. Lots of us struggle with balancing workloads. I'm still a couple of years away from going full time, and you showing how you balance your writing/publishing projects is illustrative.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

I missed my mid-month update because I hurt my wrist (which is fragile and weak because I'm recovering from carpel tunnel) a bit in a dance class I was taking. Slamming yourself from a standing position into a plank might be high-impact. Who knew? It's all better now, and I'm back to report.

May was my best month this year! I still didn't _quite_ hit my goal, but I came very close. I only took 2 full days off, but there were another 5 where I didn't accomplish very much but wasn't completely unproductive. Still, I'm definitely getting better, and I plan to continue that trend.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Continue Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	Finish Manuscript modified First Pass, Despair.
*(Complete.)*
b.	HTRYN Lesson 3, Sentence For Revision cards (outline of what I actually wrote)
*(Complete.)*
c.	HTRYN Lesson 4, Plot Lines
*(Complete.)*
d.	HTRYN Lesson 5, Conflict
*(Complete.)*
e.	HTRYN Lesson 6, Characters
*(Complete.)*
f.	HTRYN Lesson 7, World
*(Complete.)*
g.	HTRYN Lesson 8, Theme & Triage Wrap-Up
*(Complete.)*
h.	HTRYN Lesson 9, Needs & Musts
*(I'll be completing this today.)*
i.	HTRYN Partial Lesson 10, Focus Outline (outline for 2nd draft, I don't know that I'll have time to finish it this month)
*(Incomplete.)*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads, increasing ad spend again
*(Complete.)*
[*]	Track business and personal expenses for tax purposes
*(I actually just finished updating my income/spending spreadsheet this morning, so it didn't happen during May.)*
[*]	Finish Gods of Blood and Bone audio review
*(Complete.)*
[/list]

The revision course I'm going through is (and I know I've said it before) the best money I've ever spent on my publishing career. When I finished GOMM's first draft, I thought I had a pretty good book which needed some adjustments here and there. After going through the first 8 lessons (which is where you find ALL your problems, with the following lessons creating the plan to fix said problems and then implementing the plan), I realize this book could be so, so much better. This happens to me every time, so far. I'm okay with that, despite the amount of work it requires, because the revised version also indicates a level-up in my writing skill. It's important to me that I write the *best* book possible. I want to write stories that make me people's favorite author, someday.

I get excited about this stuff! 
_________

Also, the audiobook for GOBB is finished and ready to go, but I'm not going to do the final steps for publication until I've got GOMM ready to publish, so that my ads for GOBB's ebook will push up the audiobook version on release and possibly make it "sticky." 
_________

Sales were up again a little in May, seemingly due to my higher AMS ad spend. I'm making more off the ads than I'm spending, but I think that margin is creeping further down every month. With a longer series and a full-price first book, staying profitable will be possible, but without it, I don't know that they would continue to be worth the expense. YMMV.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

February
Ebook: 150

March
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

April
Ebook: 72

May
Ebook: 114

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9386


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

DrewMcGunn said:


> Thanks for updating this each month. Lots of us struggle with balancing workloads. I'm still a couple of years away from going full time, and you showing how you balance your writing/publishing projects is illustrative.


I'm glad this is useful. Community (like kBoards) is important because we can all help enrich each other, even if our careers aren't exactly the same.



Ceramic said:


> This sounds great Azalea. Especially using the course structure. I used one earlier this year to outline cosy mysteries.


I'm wondering if I can't upgrade my outlining process for my next book, so I can catch more problems before first draft rather than after. I'm not sure if that's really possible, because before I've written the first draft the story is too...ephemeral, despite my semi-detailed outline. I can't fix what doesn't yet exist. Except maybe I can, and I just don't know how yet? What course did you use to outline your cozy mysteries?



L_Loryn said:


> Still enjoying this journey of yours. And I admit, I do kind of compare our numbers even though I have more works published and I stick to releasing one thing per month.
> 
> My April's numbers were really close to 100 reads/borrows and I've been doing a slow burn AMS ads spend. Like a dollar a day, haha. Which only gets 2-3 clicks for romance but it's better than nothing.
> 
> I like that you're taking it a little easier in May when it comes to the amount you write. I have an easy time hitting daily word counts while still making time for the other stuff I want to do. Sometimes word counts are pulling teeth, other times I wake up shocked I already got through my 4k.


I'm glad you're still around and enjoying it. I hope with practice I, too can find it easy to hit my goals and still make time for the million other things I want to do.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

oakwood said:


> Been following your progress, keep it up!
> 
> Since your books seem to be litrpg and/or game-oriented, for marketing I strongly suggest posting a couple of free chapters or a custom backstory or whatever on https://royalroadl.com/
> 
> ...


Thanks for the links, oakwood! I reached out to the litrpgpodcast and I'm on the list for him to read and review, and we'll see about a podcast.

As far as royalroadl.com, I'm familiar with them, but there are plenty of FULL free stories on there. Because I'm in KDP select, I could only do a couple chapters--a teaser, and that just doesn't seem like a good reader experience or a real way to hook people. I personally would just be annoyed that someone was posting only to get me to buy their book, rather than with a full story. However...that doesn't mean it's not _effective_. I've bought things I never would have normally because I got hooked on a free sample of a story, even if it did irritate me to be tricked.

So, does anyone have any examples of their experience posting a sample only there, or links to threads about it, etc?


----------



## Jenwrites (May 12, 2018)

Azalea, thank you for being so transparent in your journey. It is inspiring to watch you make your dreams come true, and a reminder to us that as much as we love writing, making it a full-time job doesn't mean all of our challenges go away.

Keep up the good work and know we're rooting for you!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

June 1, 2018

In May, I tried to up my productivity from April by 20%. I couldn't do that, but I did beat April significantly. So in June, I'm going to try to beat May by 10%. This comes out to almost exactly the same goal as I had for May.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Continue Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	HTRYN Lesson 9, Needs & Musts
b.	HTRYN Lesson 10, Focus Outline (outline for 2nd draft)
c.	HTRYN Lesson 11, Plots and Subplots
d.	HTRYN Lesson 12, Scene Purpose and Characters
e.	HTRYN Lesson 13, Conflict Arcs
f.	HTRYN Lesson 14, Simple Time
g.	HTRYN Lesson 15, Complex Time
h.	HTRYN Lesson 16, Laundry List 
i.	Write-In, Second Draft (to about 48,000 words, some of which will be new, some old. 
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
[*]	Track business and personal expenses for tax purposes
[*]	Set up the longest lead-time ads for GOMM's launch
[/list]

I'm going to jump right into that work. I'll be back mid-month to give an update on how I'm doing. I'm really looking forward to finishing this book, and I hope I can do its potential justice.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Hey everybody! I'm back for the the mid-month update.

I'm killing it, so far this month! I am *ahead* of my goals, for the first time since I've started this thread, I think. As of today, I planned to be starting Lesson 16. Instead, I'm already a few scenes into the Write-In.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Continue Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	HTRYN Lesson 9, Needs & Musts
*(Complete.)*
b.	HTRYN Lesson 10, Focus Outline (outline for 2nd draft)
*(Complete.)*
c.	HTRYN Lesson 11, Plots and Subplots
*(Complete.)*
d.	HTRYN Lesson 12, Scene Purpose and Characters
*(Complete.)*
e.	HTRYN Lesson 13, Conflict Arcs
*(Complete.)*
f.	HTRYN Lesson 14, Simple Time
*(Complete.)*
g.	HTRYN Lesson 15, Complex Time
]*(Complete.)*
h.	HTRYN Lesson 16, Laundry List 
*(Complete.)*
i.	Write-In, Second Draft (to about 48,000 words, some of which will be new, some old. 
*(Up to 8,798 on the Write-In, most of which are new words.)*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
(Struggling to keep costs down on these without completely losing visiblity.)
[/list]

I've only taken 1 day (almost) all the way away from work so far, but I need to make sure I'm careful with time management on the weekends, because my S.O. mentioned yesterday that he feels like I'm working so much on the weekends that he can't spend as much time with me as he'd like. Maintaining a good balance between work and my personal life is hard, but also important.

I got stuck on some the new beginning scenes for a couple days, but I've worked it out now and will be shooting forward again.

In other news, my rankings have absolutely tanked for the first time since the release of the second book, starting from around June 10th. I've got a few ideas about why.

1. It's been a long time since my last release. However, these books usually sell moderately well on their own, even without ads. 
2. I lowered my ad spend, because it's hard to keep AMS ads reasonably priced. I think a lot of authors in my genre push AMS ads, and the competition is pretty stiff. I need to spend some time working some new ads up from the ground, but I don't have time for it at the moment. I think AMS spend might be related to the next point, too. 
3. Amazon has been A/B testing removing the Also-Boughts, and replacing them with Sponsored ads instead. This could mean that organic visibility decreases, and it's pay to play instead. If this goes through, it'll make business a lot harder for a lot of us. 
4. If, as has been hypothesized in some of the threads about page read removal/bots, a large portion of all the borrows in KU are from bots, and have been for a long time, Amazon cracking down on bot accounts might affect more of us than we realize, and could be responsible for a part of my slump. 
5. It's summer. Ebook sales fall in the summer.

Anyway, I'm not too worried about sales at the moment, since the most efficient thing I can do to affect them is get this book published.

I've gotta get back to work, I'll see you guys again at the end of the month.


----------



## BeMyBookBaby (Apr 18, 2016)

I am in awe of your determination! I wish I had a fragment of it! Way to go on being ahead of target, because I think that is a miracle in this business!

Keep up the good work!


----------



## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

Congrats on beating your goals! 

I'm just coming across this thread for the first time, and it's very useful. You're living the dream of many writers, so thank you for the inspiration.

I apologize if this has been asked earlier, but can you share any of the ways in which you live frugally? Food, housing, etc.?


----------



## Glis Moriarty (Jun 20, 2018)

Inspirational thread.
For responding to unexpected issues and setbacks with analysis, self-reflection and revised plan.
We all know how hard it is to have the fortitude and resilience to do this.
Looking forward to following your success.


----------



## levz (May 11, 2018)

Congratulations on your progress this month.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

P.T. Phronk said:


> Congrats on beating your goals!
> 
> I'm just coming across this thread for the first time, and it's very useful. You're living the dream of many writers, so thank you for the inspiration.
> 
> I apologize if this has been asked earlier, but can you share any of the ways in which you live frugally? Food, housing, etc.?


Thanks, and I'm glad that this thread is helpful.

The topic of frugality is huge. I'm happy to discuss my own life a little, but for anyone who's interested in learning more, let me direct you to http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ It's a blog and forum based around the idea of financial independence, (and early retirement from mandatory labor) through frugality.

A lot of the United States' culture is based around consumerism now, though it wasn't always that way. This comes out in obvious ways, the stereotypical "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality, the new car and watch commercials, etc. Advertising companies want people to believe that spending money brings *happiness*. Most people would agree outwardly that they understand spending money doesn't bring happiness, but when it comes down to it, they act as if they believe differently. It's *normal* to finance your car and your house, have student loan debt, and a couple credit cards which you carry a balance on. It's normal to want the "nicest" things possible, and to feel somehow lesser if you don't have them because you can't afford them.

Secondly, it's easy to fall prey to hedonic adaptation. Once you've started living in a certain level of luxury, it becomes normal to you. It might not make you happy for more than a couple weeks after you upgrade from your previous level of living, but the idea of living with *less* luxury or having to "downgrade" makes you unhappy. This is part of how people live paycheck to paycheck with no money left over even after getting a raise, or how people who make a seemingly large amount of money have no savings and have to declare bankruptcy if they lose their job for six months.

I practice frugality, but it's not about denying myself anything. It's about realizing that my time is important to me. I have a finite amount of time to live, and my *life* is the only real resource I own. Working at my day job, I was trading my life for money, by the hour. (Here, let me recommend a book that covers this idea in more detail. Your Money or Your Life) I'm not willing to spend pieces of my finite amount of life on things that don't actually make me happy, long term.

Now, to specifics about my own life.

I live in a lower Cost of Living state, by choice. If I felt that my happiness required me to live in New York City, there's no way I'd be able to work full-time for myself, because I wouldn't get a raise on my $4.99 book sales just because I lived somewhere expensive.

I live with my SO, and he and I split our joint expenses down the middle. This makes a big difference, especially because he's relatively frugal and doesn't try to push me into a lifestyle where I have to subsidize expensive choices I don't agree with.

I don't do retail therapy. I like to look nice, but I don't need to spend a lot of money to do that. I buy my clothes at the thrift store, and since I'm freaking gorgeous I don't feel the need to spend hundreds on extravagant makeups. (My narcissism may or may not be well-founded, but being secure in who I am makes life a lot easier.)

I don't spend money just because I can. This means I'm not interested in a fancy coffee from Starbucks or the latest model of phone. If something needs fixing, I fix it myself. When searching for a place to live, I realize that I don't want or need the nicest, fanciest place. I'd rather spend a little less and not have granite countertops, and be able to do something actually useful with my money. If I'm hungry and away from the house, I eat the snack I always have in my little backpack, or I buy something that's just enough to tide me over till later. If I want to hang out with my friends, I invite them to do something outdoors for free, or play a game, or I find a discount to do something cheap. My car is over ten years old, and wasn't particularly fancy when it was new. Once again, this isn't about denying myself anything. It's about being cognizant that the little bits of money add up, and then asking myself, "Is it worth it? Is spending this money going to make me happy in a way that lasts longer than the 'new-item smell?' Does it improve my life in any way?"

Sometimes, I decide to go ahead and spend on whatever I'm contemplating. Often, after a step back to really evaluate, I realize my impulse to buy was just that, an impulse, not based in any substance. It's not, "I deserve this!" it's "I don't want this, I want something intrinsically better, the *freedom* that saving my money will bring me." I live a quality lifestyle with nice things. I don't need the most expensive version of something to prove to myself I'm happy (or to try to buy myself some temporary happiness), and I don't need friends or acquaintances who judge another person's worth on the bling they display.

There's a lot I could say on the subject, but I don't want to bore anyone who's not interested, so let me once again direct anyone who is to http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ which has more discussion about the topic than we could ever fit here.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Thanks you to everyone for your kind comments and encouragement!

I'm really satisfied with my progress in June. My productivity increased a lot, and I got a lot done. I had a little more trouble the latter half of the month, but still did satisfactorily. I completed almost all of the monthly Tasks, and *almost* hit the productivity increase of 10% from May. If there were 31 days in June, I would have.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Continue Revision of Gods of Myth and Midnight
a.	HTRYN Lesson 9, Needs & Musts
*(Complete.)*
b.	HTRYN Lesson 10, Focus Outline (outline for 2nd draft)
*(Complete.)*
c.	HTRYN Lesson 11, Plots and Subplots
*(Complete.)*
d.	HTRYN Lesson 12, Scene Purpose and Characters
*(Complete.)*
e.	HTRYN Lesson 13, Conflict Arcs
*(Complete.)*
f.	HTRYN Lesson 14, Simple Time
*(Complete.)*
g.	HTRYN Lesson 15, Complex Time
]*(Complete.)*
h.	HTRYN Lesson 16, Laundry List 
*(Complete.)*
i.	Write-In, Second Draft (to about 48,000 words, some of which will be new, some old. 
*(I got only got to 38,476 words in the revised manuscript. However, I'd anticipated that 26,000 of those would be new words, and I successfully wrote 26,066 new words for this second draft.*
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
*(I kept costs down a little better, but sales went down the second half of the month. See the mid-month post for details.)*
[*]	Track business and personal expenses for tax purposes. 
*(Mostly current on this)*
[*]	Set up the longest lead-time ads for GOMM's launch
*(Barely started, but I have been working on it.)*
[*]*(I also found a couple hours--cumulatively--after finishing my other work for the day to work on plotting the new series.)*
[/list]

I still only took 1 full day off in June, but there were 3 more days where I technically did work but not very much. I also had a day where I struggled pretty heavily with a combination of depression and anxiety. This happens sometimes, and unless something large in my life is causing it, I usually recover quickly. Unfortunately, my creativity is not fueled by negative emotions, so I really struggle to get any non-admin tasks done in times like that.

I decided to bite the bullet and bought Mark Dawson's Ads for Authors course. Now, I'm not totally clueless with ads, but I think there's a lot I could learn. I believe advertising is going to become increasingly important for publishers who want to make a profit. Previously, I'd decided not to buy his course because I didn't have a lot of books out, and for the high price tag, I speculated I could teach myself everything I would learn, just by spending that same amount of money testing ads, and along the way recoup some or all of that money in sales. However, I think this thread has made it very obvious that the bottleneck in my production is my time and mental resources. I don't have time to slowly teach myself all the information in that course because I need to be producing books.

If I find the course doesn't teach me enough new material to be worth the money I spent on it, I'll be sure to request my refund before the 30-day initial period is up.

Sales tanked the second half of June, along with my rankings. I speculated about this a little in the mid-month update.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

February
Ebook: 150

March
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

April
Ebook: 72

May
Ebook: 114

June
Ebook: 79

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9307

Also, sales have fallen low enough on average since the release of my last book that I need to change my signature back down to bronze instead of silver.


----------



## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Love your posts. I can identify so much with most of what you say. I finished my 'real life' job a month ago, so writing is my only income (I'll be getting a tiny pension in the next few months but won't be entitled to old age for over ten years.) I have medical issues and quality of life is now more important to me than what some may regard as 'standard of living.' I've never been very material anyway; I'd rather go out somewhere scenic for the day than shop, and I don't feel the need to wear designer gear or change the decor every year!
You're rather better organised than me, lol, but I have promised myself to start making actual targets and keeping to them. I have started three seperate stories since I left work but I am not where I would like to be--(which would be finishing a short novel in 6 weeks). Not that the hot weather  in the UK has helped--not a warm weather fan!


----------



## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Just bookmarked your 12 Months to Success. I read "Your Money and Your Life" when it first came out was very enthusiastic for a while even joined a group that followed it --now my attitude has changed somewhat--I'm 75 and want to fit in as much as I can before I die so have revised my program. Go to Starbucks often because sadly have very few remaining friends and consider trying to find new ones a huge time sap. Did the thrift stores for several years now get stuff on Amazon I know that is not always a cheap choice but tired of second hand clothes. Never wore make up except for my dyed hair. Started one of Lisle's courses and couldn't get it to work on my computer- requested money back. I'm getting enough income for survival at the minute but could travel more if I set my mind to writing again and did it successfully. I read a book a day usually and would have to really cut that down if I did the writing thing seriously. I have another novel almost finished. Since we own our house we've had to spend months on several projects which have been huge time sap. eg last week a 60 foot tree fell down unexpectedly, second of the same variety that has fallen. They self seed and grow like weeds 60 or 70 feet weeds then fall and thank God no one was killed. First tree doctor wanted $4,000 to remove three and greeted us with, "I thought you guys had passed on to the heavens." Not a way to get my business. Second doctor was nice but hasn't yet given figures. Third had a personality like a cockroach. Anyway the next day or so after much figuring and contemplation my husband downed one of the trees. It was a 70 footer and fell without hitting the roof or even a flower pot-perfect. He cut another that went down in a totally unintended direction but didn't do damage. Except I complained, "For God's sake let me know when you are going to do that. I could have been killed if I'd walked up the driveway." The last three days have been dedicated to preparation for removing three and four which are joined at the hip. See how time can pass in the seventies. I think the last one we will have to pay for because it is in a very bad location and could take our barn with it. We will have saved over two or three thousand or more by taking down those that we did and I didn't mention the smaller ones. Being retired doesn't mean you have all day to write but I'm enjoying reading about your literary strivings.


----------



## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

Hi Azalea, I've been following along from the beginning and finding the journey interesting, so thanks for sharing! I'm curious what your thoughts are for the rest of the year, now that we're at the half-way point. I guess I'm particularly curious because (assuming I understood correctly!) you have one year of finances to get to full-time level, and your goal is to achieve that with 10k sales for the year based off four launches. At half-way, you're at nearly 1k sales and working on the first of those releases, but you don't seem at all stressed about it, or seem to feel that you're behind schedule. Since you seem to be a planner, I assume you were planning a slow start? Are you expecting to ramp up production in the second half of the year, or have you modified your original goals? Apologies if you've already gone into it somewhere in the thread and I missed it! (Please note, since there's no tone or body language on the internet that this is not meant as an underhanded criticism, or something, I'm just curious as to your overall plan for the year and how you're tracking with it. I know my longer-range release plans never quite seem to survive the meeting with real life  )


----------



## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

I'm astonished that your paperback sales are so low. For June, my paperback sales actually exceeded my Kindle sales. (To be sure, by very little! And if Draft2Digital sales are included, ebooks outsold paperbacks.)

This is probably a result of working mostly in non-fiction, one of the few advantages. I price higher than most, though not as high as some. I shoot for at least a $1.50 royalty on expanded distribution, which means a bit more than $4 on Amazon. 

June was a very bad month for me for Kindle sales. CreateSpace and D2D held up well.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

AmesburyArcher said:


> Love your posts. I can identify so much with most of what you say.


I wish you luck! And thanks for reading.



P.A. Woodburn said:


> Just bookmarked your 12 Months to Success.


Thanks, P.A. I'm pretty addicted to reading, so in your position I don't know that I'd be able to give it up in exchange for travel. Good job saving on that tree removal! I'm not sure about what you've got, but around here you can sell some type of woods off in exchange for $200-$1000 depending on wood type and size of tree. You might want to look into it if you haven't already. Especially if you feel the people removing them might not be ethical enough to tell you they're making money on both ends of the deal. If they're weed-like growers there might not be much money in the wood, but it doesn't hurt to make sure.



notjohn said:


> I'm astonished that your paperback sales are so low. For June, my paperback sales actually exceeded my Kindle sales. (To be sure, by very little! And if Draft2Digital sales are included, ebooks outsold paperbacks.)
> 
> This is probably a result of working mostly in non-fiction, one of the few advantages. I price higher than most, though not as high as some. I shoot for at least a $1.50 royalty on expanded distribution, which means a bit more than $4 on Amazon.
> 
> June was a very bad month for me for Kindle sales. CreateSpace and D2D held up well.


Yeah, my genre has a lot of voracious readers who probably couldn't afford to support their reading habit if they bought paperbacks. Mine are at $14.99, and since they are so long, I only get about $2.50 back on a sale (_without_ expanded distribution). But I like to have them, and be able to give signed copies away to the super-fans. Also, when I tell people what I do, and they give me a skeptical look, I can casually mention something that indicates it's a "real" book and not "just" kindle.  Even though they're not big sellers, Vellum now makes it very easy for me to create the paperback, so over time they do end up paying for the amount of work I put in to create them.

I've been thinking about looking into IngramSpark, because I can't say I've been incredibly impressed with Createspace so far. Their binding tends to break/crack halfway through reading the book, and that's not the kind of quality message I want to send. Plus, since Amazon bought them I'm not looking forward to the type of customer service we can experience in the future. We'll see.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

MelanieCellier said:


> Hi Azalea, I've been following along from the beginning and finding the journey interesting, so thanks for sharing! I'm curious what your thoughts are for the rest of the year, now that we're at the half-way point. I guess I'm particularly curious because (assuming I understood correctly!) you have one year of finances to get to full-time level, and your goal is to achieve that with 10k sales for the year based off four launches. At half-way, you're at nearly 1k sales and working on the first of those releases, but you don't seem at all stressed about it, or seem to feel that you're behind schedule. Since you seem to be a planner, I assume you were planning a slow start? Are you expecting to ramp up production in the second half of the year, or have you modified your original goals? Apologies if you've already gone into it somewhere in the thread and I missed it! (Please note, since there's no tone or body language on the internet that this is not meant as an underhanded criticism, or something, I'm just curious as to your overall plan for the year and how you're tracking with it. I know my longer-range release plans never quite seem to survive the meeting with real life  )


Thanks for asking this! I'm sure a lot of this thread's readers are wondering the same thing.

So, it's absolutely correct that I'm behind where I wanted to be at this point in the year. I mean, I wanted to have Seeds of Chaos 3 out in May! Since it's obvious I can't make that happen, I have adjusted my expectations a little. I won't be able to publish the 4 books I planned in 2018. I wanted to put out 2 in this series, and 2 in the new series. Since I have been improving, maybe I'll reach that level of productivity next year.

Now, I knew sales would be lower until I got out the third book, so I _did_ plan for that. In fact, I built a lot of leeway into my plan, which is why you don't see me panicking now.

I saved more than 12 months of expenses. I also saved enough to pay taxes (which ended up being _way_ lower than I'd expected due to an unexpected credit), and enough to pay for a quality producer on a long audiobook. I'd wanted enough that if I found at the 12-month mark that I couldn't hack it, I'd still have a month or two to find another job.

In my plan, I didn't count on a single dollar coming in from Amazon during this 12 months.

I'd only planned for sales of the new series to be high enough to recoup their production and launch expenses, so while not being fast enough to get real work done on them is disappointing, money-wise it doesn't matter yet.

Finally, 10,000 sales is more than I actually need to "survive." It constitutes what I would consider a reasonable income that allows me to save a significant chunk for emergencies, retirement, etc, while also paying business expenses.

I currently still have enough money saved to pay my own living expenses for the next 10 months. Now, the since the release of my 2nd book, publishing has made enough money that if I didn't have to pay taxes or business expenses, that money could support me for 9-10 months. I know that's not enough. However, even if the launch of the 3rd book + audio of the first doesn't make me any more money than the launch of the 2nd, it looks like I'll still have enough to keep writing for at least 1 more long book.

So, I'm absolutely not _satisfied_, but at the same time there's no reason for me to panic yet. I really want to be releasing four books a year, that is still my goal, but it may not happen in my first 12 months of full-time.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

July 2, 2018

I meant to post the July Tasks yesterday but I had a lot going on. I did pretty well in June, but I'm really raring to get this book out, and it has *grown*. I'm estimating the final draft will be at least 175,000 words. When I finished book 1, I added a group of new people into main/supporting character status. Basically, the adventuring group's size doubled. While I won't say it was a *mistake*, it's definitely made my job harder, because all the characters need to seem like real people with their own motivations and lives. This means they all need screen time.

So, I'm going to try and increase my output by 20% this month. That's a little daunting, I'm not sure I can do it, but as always I'll try my best. If I can get a 10% increase I'll still be happy with that.

This month, the list isn't very long.

[list type=decimal]
[*]	Complete Write-In, Second Draft (to about 175,000 words. This is approximately 136,000 words from where I'm at, some of which will be newly written, some of which will be from the first draft.) 
[*]	Marketing
a.	Maintain & tweak AMS ads
b.	Evaluate Ads for Authors course
[*]	Track business and personal expenses for tax purposes
[*]	Set up the longer lead-time ads for GOMM's launch
[/list]

Off I go to make this happen.


----------



## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Azalea Ellis said:


> I wish you luck! And thanks for reading.
> 
> Thanks, P.A. I'm pretty addicted to reading, so in your position I don't know that I'd be able to give it up in exchange for travel. Good job saving on that tree removal! I'm not sure about what you've got, but around here you can sell some type of woods off in exchange for $200-$1000 depending on wood type and size of tree. You might want to look into it if you haven't already. Especially if you feel the people removing them might not be ethical enough to tell you they're making money on both ends of the deal. If they're weed-like growers there might not be much money in the wood, but it doesn't hurt to make sure.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the tree info. The particular trees that we've been cutting aren't good burners, unfortunately. Anyway we got the last two down today, just one more will have to be removed by a professional, Maybe I'll get back to writing now, though our yard truly looks like a war zone with three dead trees strewn across it. Will be checking more of your writing comments.


----------



## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

Azalea Ellis said:


> Thanks, and I'm glad that this thread is helpful.
> 
> The topic of frugality is huge. I'm happy to discuss my own life a little ...


I forgot to stop by and thank you for sharing so much about your life and the role of frugality in it. I've been following people like Mr. Money Moustache for a while, and it's awesome to see that mindset applied to a writing career. That's what always comes to mind for me-every dollar saved means less need to rely on others, which means more time for writing. That could mean more books to sell and more income, but that's less important than the freedom to pursue intrinsically rewarding creativity on my own terms.

Anyway, I'll continue to enjoy following your progress here, like a Moustachian except for your career. An Ellisian?


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

September 2, 2018

Hey guys, I'm not dead, and I haven't abandoned this thread or my decision to share my successes and failures. I haven't updated since the beginning of July because some stuff happened, and I figured my extremely limited time was better spent writing than posting until I could get everything back on track. Now that I'm back, I've got tons to talk about!

What happened? Well, a lot. I was dealing with some more depression at the beginning of July. It wasn't too bad, but it did affect my productivity in a negative way. I haven't been diagnosed with clinical depression and I don't feel in general that I struggle with it now that I am an adult. (When I was a child, from a very young age up through my late teens I struggled heavily with it, but I believe that wasn't because of an intrinsic imbalance in my brain, but because of sub-par and sometimes horrible life situations.) However, I still get "down" every once in a while. I'm pretty sure this is something that affects a lot of creative-types specifically. Unlike some famous writers, I am not more creative when I am unhappy. Rather, I feel like it's hard to just get out of bed and brush my teeth in the morning. Also, let me be clear that nothing _happened_ to cause this, as far as I am aware.

Secondly, my SO's (significant other) father was on a motorcycle and was hit by a car about halfway through June. He survived, thank goodness, but had a _badly_ broken lower leg. When you see horrifying wounds in the movies, where it looks like hamburger has been packed inside a ripped, skin-colored balloon...? That's what it looked like. This was the start of his ordeal. I live in Idaho, and not all the doctors are as competent as others. 2.5 weeks after the accident, after they'd postponed the surgery a couple times due to swelling, they revealed that they didn't actually know how to fix his leg, because there was so much tissue damage. By that time part his outer layer of skin and some of the hamburger meat inside had started to become necrotic.

Idaho doctors said the wound was fine and not infected.

They asked around for some second opinions, and found that some doctors down in Utah could fix the leg by what amounted to plastic surgery, taking a large chunk of skin and muscle out of his opposite thigh and grafting it onto where the other tissue had become necrotic, which would allow them to put the hardware in and start reconstructing the bone. When he got down to Utah, they found his wound was infected. (Duh.) It was a serious anaerobic bacterial infection, but with some correspondingly serious antibiotics, they were able to control it. They did the surgery, and sent SO's father to a rehab center, where he was literally placed in a dirty room with no blankets and ignored for hours. He got a fever as the infection spread again, had an extremely elevated heart-rate, and started bleeding in his intestines, (I don't know the reason behind the bleeding) and was sent back to the emergency room.

He's fine now, recovering from the (first of at least 2) surgery finally, and starting the very first steps of physical rehab.

In any case, due to all the hospital trips and back and forth from Idaho to Utah, my work time was reduced, so I've been pushing as hard as I can to get caught back up.

From June till now, I have actually accomplished a fair bit. June, for reasons above, was pretty sub-par with productivity. However, I absolutely killed it in August, and it was likely the most productive I've ever been on writing tasks in a single month. (Now I need to make time for other people and having a life again.)

My third book is complete. I finished the second draft (184,000 words) and did a line editing pass myself. It's currently being finished up by my paid line editor, and should be back soon for proofreading. Both of these tasks are where I spent the majority of my time, and it was a lot of time, because this book is big.

I published the audiobook of Gods of Blood and Bone. https://www.audible.com/pd/Gods-of-Blood-and-Bone-Audiobook/B07GNWX8QK
It is selling pretty well so far, and other than an announcement to my (quite small) newsletter a few days after it came out, I've not yet done any advertising. 
The sales graph is an almost constant upward trend, and I would really love to be able to break into Audible's bestseller list before the initial 30 days are up, but Contemporary Sci Fi is quite competitive, so I don't know if it will be possible. If any of you are audio listeners and are interested in my book, I have review codes left over and would be happy to provide one in exchange for said review. PM me if you want, no pressure.

I booked an audiobook tour with Jess the Audiobookworm. I wouldn't have done this if it was an ebook, but there are so few ways to advertise audio, and it was cheap enough, that I decided to give it a go. The tour runs from Oct 9-15.

I booked a whole crap-load of promotions for GOBB, to help promote GOMM's (book 3's) release. They run from the 9th to the 15th of September, as I'm hoping to get GOBB out on the 9th. I've tried to find some places that also advertise to the UK, so I'll see if that has any effect over there. BookBub denied me.  Big surprise.

Since I'm going to have a new release this month, and a lot of smaller tasks going on as I prepare for that, there won't be any "Tasks" post for September, but I will be keeping you guys updated as I have a spare moment to do so. I have still _more_ to talk about, but I've got real work to do and this post is already quite long.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

February
Ebook: 150

March
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

April
Ebook: 72

May
Ebook: 114

June
Ebook: 79

July
Ebook: 112
Paperback: 1

August
Ebook: 133
Audio: 114

Remaining to hit 10,000: 8947

I've been told audio numbers report 2 days behind on ACX, so I'm not sure if that 114 number is what I actually sold before the end of August, or if it's what I sold as of 2 days before the end of August. It makes a pretty big difference, since the last couple days have been 33 sales each, for an extra 66 sales which may have been transacted in August. In any case, until I get an actual Earnings Report which tells me differently, which will come in at the end of this month, I'm going to record sales that have been reported as of the end of the month, regardless of when they actually happened.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> Thanks for the tree info. The particular trees that we've been cutting aren't good burners, unfortunately. Anyway we got the last two down today, just one more will have to be removed by a professional, Maybe I'll get back to writing now, though our yard truly looks like a war zone with three dead trees strewn across it. Will be checking more of your writing comments.


I hope your writing schedule and your backyard are back to normal now! 



P.T. Phronk said:


> I forgot to stop by and thank you for sharing so much about your life and the role of frugality in it. I've been following people like Mr. Money Moustache for a while, and it's awesome to see that mindset applied to a writing career. That's what always comes to mind for me-every dollar saved means less need to rely on others, which means more time for writing. That could mean more books to sell and more income, but that's less important than the freedom to pursue intrinsically rewarding creativity on my own terms.
> 
> Anyway, I'll continue to enjoy following your progress here, like a Moustachian except for your career. An Ellisian?


What's great about the mindset is that it can work for everyone if they're willing to try, and that it doesn't require you to be rich to live richly. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Hahaha, I feel like a real superstar! I even have a funny made-up name for my lifestyle followers, now. Like the Cumberbitches.


----------



## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

I'm so sorry to hear about those life hits! Hopefully full recovery is just around the corner!

Congrats on your audio success, and I hope the launch of book 3 goes well. Do you have a launch date?


----------



## VanessaC (Jan 14, 2017)

Thank you for the updates - I've been really enjoying following along.

So sorry to hear about the life issues - they all sound really difficult and stressful, so huge congratulations for having such a productive month in August.

Hope everything is settled down a bit now - personally, I find routine really, really helps me stay on track and I'm grumpy right now because my routine has been disrupted by life stuff - not bad stuff, just stuff.  But, I know routine really helps, so getting back to it this week.


----------



## thanksfortheadvice (Aug 24, 2017)

Good luck with the launch, Azalea. I've been following your thread from the beginning and appreciate your candor and your level-headed analysis. 

Having spent many years living in Idaho as a kid, I can relate to the...er...less-than-optimal medical. Best wishes for your SO's father's recovery.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

MelanieCellier said:


> I'm so sorry to hear about those life hits! Hopefully full recovery is just around the corner!
> 
> Congrats on your audio success, and I hope the launch of book 3 goes well. Do you have a launch date?


Thank you! I hope so as well. I wanted to launch on the 9th, but I just didn't have the time to finish everything by then. I sent out a pre-release ARC on the 9th and then published on the 11th.



VanessaC said:


> Hope everything is settled down a bit now - personally, I find routine really, really helps me stay on track and I'm grumpy right now because my routine has been disrupted by life stuff - not bad stuff, just stuff. But, I know routine really helps, so getting back to it this week.


I find myself getting grumpy/frustrated when life stuff makes me fall behind, as well. I've been conscious of keeping my mood optimistic because...there's nothing that can be done, so why not be happy despite the stressors? Anyway, that's what I've been telling myself and it seems to help a little. Good luck getting back to it! 



pklasky said:


> Good luck with the launch, Azalea. I've been following your thread from the beginning and appreciate your candor and your level-headed analysis.
> 
> Having spent many years living in Idaho as a kid, I can relate to the...er...less-than-optimal medical. Best wishes for your SO's father's recovery.


Thank you! I'm just about to update with my post-launch analysis. 
I think the best insurance here is to just never need to go to the hospital in the first place.  It's not like everyone's incompetent, and there are a lot of caring, skilled medical professionals here. However...I just seem to have experience with a lot of the sub-par ones, too.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

September 18, 2018

As you can see by my signature, the third book in the series is live. For those of you who are on mobile or have signatures turned off, here's a link to the Amazon page so you can see the series covers all lined up like a tiny, cute little caterpillar: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H8FYW81 
I can't wait till my book cover caterpillar has more than three segments.

So let's take a look at the launch! First, let me say that I was rushed to get this book out, which negatively impacted my marketing efforts. Because some of the best advertising newsletters book so far ahead, I had set the launch date before everything with my SO's father went down, which meant that I couldn't easily just change the date to give myself more wiggle room.

My initial plan was to publish Book 3 a few days to a week before the advertisements started, and I ended up publishing 2 days _after_ they started. I sent out an early edition to my ARC team on the 9th, and after a final proofreading pass published on the 11th. I wanted to do some PPC advertisements in the 10 days before the launch to slowly ramp up my rankings of the first two books, but I just didn't have the time. I really couldn't have anticipated what happened, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it too badly, but I'm sure that didn't help the launch numbers. Life happens, guys.

Also, when I released the third book, instead of being updated, my series page completely disappeared. I emailed KDP support and got it fixed, but I'm sure this impacted both sales and readthrough, since for a while, none of the books were linked to each other. Another reason to get things ready well before "go time." Stuff goes wrong.

Let's look at numbers. This was basically newsletters only, and I think it's clear that the effectiveness of these services is diminishing. I haven't booked any promos in the last 13 months, and before that my first in series has been advertised twice before, both times about a year apart. So 3 times over the last 3 years. It's true that fatiguing a list will lead to diminishing returns, but I don't think that can account for the numbers on my books. Which, to be fair, aren't THAT bad, just kind of wimpy. Book 1 was at 99cents for the 7 days of the promotion, while Book 2 stayed at $4.99. Book 3 is $5.99. My genre supports higher prices, and the jump from Book 1 to Book 2 wasn't a problem with the last promotion I did, though it is worth keeping in mind that it could be a deterrent.

(FRE stands for Full Read Equivalent)

September 9th: 
RobinReads ($60)
BookAngel (international) (free) 
*Total Cost: $60*

Book 1 Sales: 30 FREs: 2 *Total: 32*
Book 2 Sales: 1 FREs: 1 *Total: 2*

September 10th: 
FKBT ($30)
*Total Cost: $30*

Book 1 Sales: 17 FREs: 3 *Total: 20*
Book 2 Sales: 3 FREs: 2 *Total: 5*

September 11th: 
BargainBoosky ($35)
ebookDealsToday (international) ($10)
*Total Cost: $45*

Book 1 Sales: 19 FREs: 3 *Total: 22*
Book 2 Sales: 0 FREs: 1 *Total: 1*
Book 3 Sales: 5 FREs: 0 *Total: 5*

September 12th: 
BookBarbarian ($30)
*Total Cost: $30*

Book 1 Sales: 25 FREs: 10 *Total: 35*
Book 2 Sales: 3 FREs: 4 *Total: 7*
Book 3 Sales: 9 FREs: 3 *Total: 12*

September 13th: 
FussyLibrarian ($1
MyBookCave ($17)
ReadCheaply ($25)
AuthorsXP (international) ($10)
*Total Cost: $70*

Book 1 Sales: 22 FREs: 7 *Total: 29*
Book 2 Sales: 5 FREs: 6 *Total: 11*
Book 3 Sales: 9 FREs: 5 *Total: 14*

September 14th: 
ManyBooks ($29)
BookDoggy ($1
Reign of Reads ($15)
BookRunes (international) ($25)
KindleNationDaily + BookGorilla ($72)
ChoosyBookworm ($25)
*Total Cost: $184*

Book 1 Sales: 22 FREs: 6 *Total: 28*
Book 2 Sales: 3 FREs: 8 *Total: 11*
Book 3 Sales: 2 FREs: 5 *Total: 7*

September 15th: 
eReaderIQ/BookBasset ($10)
BuckBooks ($9)
EbookHounds ($25)
PriceDroppedBooks ($17)
ebookBetty ($25)
BookSends ($25)
eBookSoda (international) ($20)
*Total Cost: $131*

Book 1 Sales: 55 FREs: 10 *Total: 28*
Book 2 Sales: 3 FREs: 6 *Total: 11*
Book 3 Sales: 5 FREs: 6 *Total: 7*

*Total Cost of Promotions: $579*

Copies moved of Book 1: 131
Copies moved of Book 2: 46
Copies moved of Book 3: 49
*Total copies: 326*

Copies in the UK: 30
Copies in Canada: 7
Copies in Australia: 5

Notes: 

I made back the cost of promotions during the promotion, which had a lot to do with the size of my books (Book 3 is 925KENPC) and the higher price points. Since I didn't lose money on them, I'm not too upset, but it's clear that some of these promotions aren't worth their price. I'm looking at you, KindleNationDaily. If you're good at CPC ads, you might be better served to pump money into them instead of the newsletters.
ebookDealsToday seemed to work passably, as I got 5 sales in the UK on the 11th. However, that could have simply been a result of launching the book on the 11th, so I don't know exactly where the sales came from. Especially since I got even more international sales the next day, when no international promo was running. (It was BookBarbarain on the 12th, so perhaps they have a smidge of international reach?) eBookSoda also seemed to push a small handful of international sales.
These unit numbers are much lower than what I got during the launch of the second book in the series. I think that's partially indicative of the increasing pay-to-play atmosphere on Amazon, the focus on AMS ads and the disappearing Also-Boughts, etc. Also, newsletters aren't as effective as they once were. We've had threads about that. Still, the money is coming in, and I think selling books is still viable if you're able to adapt and diversify.
Even though my books have game elements (and I've recently rebranded to label them litRPG), I started this series before LitRPG became a thing so they don't follow a lot of the standard genre conventions, and that makes them a harder sell. Even so, the people who do read them really love them for what they are. I just need to push my books a little harder to reach the audience that's right for them.

I'll end this post here, and be back later today or tomorrow with more. I've got some thoughts about my plan going forward.


----------



## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Thanks for sharing your journey. I look forward to reading your updates each month.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Septemeber 19, 2018 -- A Recommendation

I'd like to share something about this latest book's publication process that I think might be beneficial to people for a couple reasons.

I think we all know that editing and proofreading are important, and without an exorbitant amount of time spent, it's extraordinarily difficult to edit your own work to a proper standard. Even _with_ an exorbitant amount of time spent, 99% of us will still miss things, simply because we're so close to the words, having written them. Our brain knows what they should say, so we skip over errors that might otherwise be obvious. I've done freelance editing, I know grammar and spelling, and I know how to make prose engaging and active. I know how to write a story. I still need other people to look at my work.

All this to say, I've hired a few different editors and proofreaders, a couple of them from Kboards and who came highly recommended, and I've been disappointed in their work. I don't mind paying, I just want someone who will do a _good job_. I'm not going to publicly post the names of these people, but PM me if you'd like to know. I've kept trying different editors because I haven't been pleased with any of them. It's hard to find someone who not only knows what they're doing, but is dedicated to delivering quality, and also has a grasp on the type of story you're trying to tell.

This time around, I hired Wade Dial, an "amateur" freelance editor that I knew personally, and the difference in quality was like night and day, compared to some "professionals" I've worked with. I'm extremely pleased. He kept me updated with his progress along the way, and he returned the manuscript when he said he would. He gave an initial list of overarching comments, in addition to the line editing. He fixed my typos and spellos and the places where my grammar was awkward. He suggested alternative sentences when my writing grew passive or confusing. He understood what I was trying to do with the story, and added comments and suggestions to help me bring certain elements to light more clearly. I'm definitely going to continue working with him on future books.

I think I'm not the only one who might benefit from an editor like him. I asked him, and he said he was available for more freelance work, so I'm posting his contact info here, with his permission. I'm not getting any sort of kick-back for the recommendation, I just genuinely want to share my great find with you all.

Wade Dial: [email protected]

His comments are insightful, his grasp of prose is assured, and he works with dedication. Plus, he's a nice guy. If you need an editor, especially if you write fantasy, sci-fi, or horror, send him an email and see if you might like to work together.

Azalea approves this message.


----------



## 101569 (Apr 11, 2018)

Thank you for posting this. You might encourage him to post his own ad here too.


----------



## Cate M (Jul 15, 2018)

Thanks for the recommendation, Azalea. I've been looking for a good editor for a long time now, too.


----------



## solo (Dec 19, 2017)

Hi Azalea. Been away for a few weeks from Kboards. But I am reading your journey. I am a novice in this field but I know *you can do it.*

Sure, sales tank. But that happens. It's happening to me for the past few months. The important thing is people are still reading your work. It keeps your books in circulation against the deluge of the million or so new Amazon books each year. I marked my first year as a writer this month.

Here are a few figures on my end:

Main series of three books so far (Released September 2017, November 2017, February 201 - around 6,000 ebooks / 7.0m pages under KU. People can believe them or not. Doesn't matter to me.

I have other books (2 novelettes, and 1 novel). Wrote them to prove to myself I can write on other subjects. Unfortunately, they're all series-based and I haven't started on the sequels though a few reviews did say they're waiting for them. Lack of a sequel within a specific time-frame does affect the circulation of a book.

I am still a part-time writer. Can't find the time to write most days. Given your figures, people are reading your books. It's just a matter of time. Marketing would help but I am clueless about that aspect.

All the best.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Thanks for your input, solo! 

It looks like you're doing well so far. 

Yep, I am not discouraged and have no intentions of giving up, etc. Going forward, I'm just going to keep trying harder and learning new things.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

October 6, 2018

I'm a bit late this month because my 2011 computer died and I had to order a new one. Now I'm back with more updates!

As far as the VerticalScope/Terms of Service shenanigans going on, I'm less than pleased with them. As you can see, I've removed my books from my signature. It's not that I believe they're going to do anything with our posts, covers, or general information. It's that they _could_, and when we expressed concern, they were a total "south end of a north-bound rhino" about it. It looks like the traffic here has slowed down a lot, but who knows if that will continue to be the case. I'll be around to continue this thread till the end of the year. After that, I'll reassess. Perhaps I'll be over at the new forum.

The main thing going on with my publishing business right now is that I'm writing a novella/short novel in my Seeds of Chaos world. I've already finished plotting it and have started writing, and it shouldn't take me that long to finish completely. I often heard people suggest prequel novels/novellas as newsletter magnets, but I had no ideas for a prequel. Instead, this novella, set concurrently with the end of Book 3, will be my newsletter magnet. It has the same characters as all the other books, and is _almost_ sequential in the series. Basically, it's set during the last chapter of Book 3, which has a passage of time glossed over.

It won't work to draw in completely new readers to the series, but it should ensure that the people on my list are high-quality and actively interested in my books. The novella will also be for sale, to those who aren't interested in joining the newsletter but still want to read it.

After a bit of deliberation, I'm setting it as Book 4 in the series, with clear warnings that it is not a continuation of the main storyline. I decided to do this for a couple reasons:

Amazon doesn't allow numbering like "Book 3.5," which is what I consider the book to actually be. I could just label it as a spinoff using the subtitle metadata, but that means readers are less likely to see it in the first place (because it won't be on the series page), and doubly less likely to buy it. Phil Tucker (of the Black Gates series) has his prequel set as the last book in the series, and I'm pretty sure he just kept moving it to the end with each new book released. Timothy Ellis has a couple spinoffs in the middle of his first series, labeled as middle books in the series. Based on the rankings of the main series books vs spinoff books, I think the extra visibility really makes a difference, compared to having the spinoff books completely separate.

We'll see how it works, and I may decide to change this later if I find I was very wrong.

I finished the artwork/cover yesterday, and submitted it for preorder. It will go live December 20th. Since I don't have my book covers in my signature any longer, if you want to see what it looks like, here's a link: https://www.amazon.com/Azalea-Ellis/e/B012DLAI0K/
It's called Gods of Smoke and Stars. As of the time I'm writing this, it isn't yet connected to the main series page. I don't expect it to be a big money-maker, but I am hopeful that it will bring me new subscribers.

After Gods of Smoke and Stars, I'm giving myself a break from the Seeds of Chaos series until the start of the new year. I need it.

The second thing going on is that I'm almost finished plotting the first book in my Hard Magic Fantasy series. I'm going to start writing that as soon as I finish this novella, and depending on length I think I'll be able to finish it by the end of the year.

Now, to look back at September. I've talked about the launch already, but looking at an overview of the month, things really didn't go too badly.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

February
Ebook: 150

March
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

April
Ebook: 72

May
Ebook: 114

June
Ebook: 79

July
Ebook: 112
Paperback: 1

August
Ebook: 133
Audio: 179 (sales report confirms it was 2 days behind at the 114 number)

September
Ebook: 727
Audio: 523
Paperback: 1

Remaining to hit 10,000: 7631

The numbers aren't incredibly high, but the money isn't bad at all, and now that I have 3 (3.5?) books out, read-through will begin to become a more significant factor. This means that I can more effectively promote Book 1. In fact, I'm in Patty Jansen's cross-promo today!

Have I mentioned that I commissioned the audiobook for the next book in the series? That should be coming out next month. Now, I think it's obvious I won't hit the 10,000 number this year, but I'm in no danger of having to go back to a day job any time soon, so I'll continue to try until I either succeed or crash. And you all get to watch me!

I have a lot of things to do this month, but no clear list of Tasks ready. If I create one in the next couple days, I'll post it here. Until then, it's back to work for me.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

I had a member PM me with some questions based on my last post. I'm posting my answers here, too, since they were good questions. 
*
1. Your launch numbers covered the cost of your promo, but were nowhere near the total sales numbers for the month. Did you do more advertising, or did the books take off organically? *

The numbers I posted about my launch only covered the 7 days of the launch advertising itself, (which Book 3 was only live for 5 of, and a day of which Amazon "disappeared" my series page altogether.)

1 week after launch, Amazon sent out a new release email for Book 3, which didn't blow anything up, but did give me a good handful more sales for Book 3.

Other than that, I've spent about $50 on AMS ads since the end of the launch period. Using sales numbers, they're barely not losing me money, but taking into account my ratio of sales to borrows (often twice as many borrows as sales) I think they're accounting for a small trickle of extra income.

My books haven't "taken off," but they also haven't immediately tanked. They are simply declining slowly, and along the way, people are buying and reading. That's the cool thing about this business. People buy your books in the middle of the night, on weekends, and on holidays. Over time, and especially with more books out, it really starts to add up.

*2. Your audio numbers are insane! Are you doing anything to market the audiobooks?*

My audio numbers really surprised me, too! I really didn't know what to expect, but I figured as long as the audio was profitable after 6 months to a year, it was a success. It's profitable now. I think its sales were helped by a couple things. The narrator does a good job. Even people who _hated_ my book didn't hate her narration. The book is quite long, coming in at 16 hours and 48 minutes, and with its price of $25, it is more appealing to people buying with a credit. It's in a genre that is popular. I think the advice not to skimp on narrator because of cost is good. Mine charges $300 PFH now, which makes my wallet hurt just to think about.

I've got an audiobook blog+review tour happening next week, but other than that and letting my readers and fans know and offering free copies, I haven't done a lot of promotion of the audiobook. Mainly, that's because there's not a lot you _can_ do.

Findaway Voices might be facilitating a shift in the audio market over the next couple years, because they allow you to price your audio how you want. They also offer unlimited free giveaway codes, which means you might be able to do discounted and free promotions. This creates an opening for newsletter promo sites to act just like they do for ebooks, which means we might see more options for promotion coming soon.

I plan to dip my toe into Facebook advertising for the audio once I've got more books in the series produced.


----------



## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

PFH?


----------



## BeMyBookBaby (Apr 18, 2016)

Per finished hour, I believe, notjohn.


----------



## BeMyBookBaby (Apr 18, 2016)

Hey Azeala! Its been a while since your last update! How's it all going?


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

I'm finishing up a novella today, so I'll likely be posting a big update tomorrow. I've stopped visiting Kboards as often after all the hullabaloo, so this thread hasn't been as present in my mind.


----------



## mitch176 (Jul 11, 2018)

Azalea said:


> I'm finishing up a novella today, so I'll likely be posting a big update tomorrow. I've stopped visiting Kboards as often after all the hullabaloo, so this thread hasn't been as present in my mind.


I feel like I've missed this hullabaloo


----------



## davart (Nov 12, 2018)

All my best wishes in attaining your goal!


----------



## 39416 (Mar 18, 2011)

What's your assessment of Jess the Audiobookworm? Worth it?


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

mitch176 said:


> I feel like I've missed this hullabaloo


I was referring to the TOS hullabaloo after VerticalScope purchased Kboards. Like I said, I haven't been around as much since then, but it seems to have blown over by now.



loraininflorida said:


> What's your assessment of Jess the Audiobookworm? Worth it?


I got 5 reviews from her service, and spent 2-3 hours providing info and answering pre-set questions for her tour, along with a $35 charge I believe. She charges partially based on the number of spots she gets you, and I think her services are reasonable for the amount of work it costs her. The reviews were all long and thoughtful. They were generally good, though I think one was a 3-star. I don't mind that. I think legitimate "mixed feelings" reviews are good, especially when they point out legitimate aspects of a book that readers who aren't your target audience may be turned away by.

So, I'm pleased with the results, but not blown away. I don't believe I'll purchase this service for future books in the series, though I don't regret it for this one. I couldn't tell that the tour increased my sales any, but quality, lengthy reviews are nice to have on a product page.



davart said:


> All my best wishes in attaining your goal!


Thanks!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

January 1, 2019

Okay, now for a lengthy retrospective.

Obviously, I didn't hit my 10,000 sales goal this past year, which means I'm trying again for that in 2019. 

These last couple months, after getting Gods of Myth and Midnight out, I struggled a bit with burnout. I still managed to write and publish a novella during that time, as well as make more really solid progress plotting the first book in my new series, along with reading multiple nonfiction research books, so it wasn't a total loss. I've been working on the Seeds of Chaos books for over 5 years now, and I think I just need a mental break from them. I still have ideas for the next couple books, I love the characters and I want to keep writing them, but the thought of starting the next book right away makes me want to go hide under my covers.

Still, I'm pretty in love with writing. That fact makes many lesser struggles worth it. There's something about a good story that I just never get tired of, no matter what medium it comes in.

Let's look at where, why, and how I fell short of my goals in 2018.

I wanted to write 4 books. I wrote 1.5 or 2, depending on how you count it. I published 210,000 words, which isn't horrid, but definitely needs to get better.

I'd planned to be more consistent about updating my blog and contacting my newsletter. Part of that was predicated on my plan to have more releases, so that I would have something new to talk about with my followers. Still, I could have done more, like run giveaways on swag and paperbacks I already have sitting around, etc.

I wanted to do more active marketing this year as well, with countdown campaigns and lots of experimentation with PPC ads. Once again, this was largely dependent upon having books published to make this profitable, and since it took me so long to do that...you get the idea. While I only had 2 books out, my time was better spent working on the next book rather than trying to squeeze money from my existing catalogue.

If you remember, I wanted to write some free chapters for a side project, but I dropped that goal almost immediately when I realized I didn't have the productivity chops to keep up with everything. I'm fine with that, I think it was a smart decision. I've gotta focus on the writing that makes me money first.

I wanted to get 1-2 audiobooks out there, and I almost succeeded. Audiobook #2 is getting its final tweaks now and will be live before the end of the month, I estimate. That project has gone well, and I hope they will continue to be profitable. The initial rush of sales for the first audiobook is over, and I can tell the audible 30-90 day cliff I heard about from others is a real thing. Still, it looks like I'm getting about 20% crossover from ebook to audiobook from that point on. I don't have enough data to tell if that will be consistent long term, but it's more than I banked on when I calculated if audio would be profitable for me to invest in.

How about that novella?

Gods of Smoke and Stars is a little under 100 pages, and it definitely doesn't sell as well as the other books in the series, partially because there's been zero advertising for it's preorder or its release, and partially because it's available free to anyone on my mailing list. Beyond that, it's not a required read, and it doesn't follow on from the hook ending of Book 3. I'm pretty much fine with that. It took me about 10% of the time from conception to launch that a full-length book in the series would.

That brings something else to mind that I'm not sure I've mentioned here. Gods of Myth and Midnight is the longest book I've written, at 184k words. However, it took me the least amount of time, both in total months from conception to publication, and in hours sunk into actual production. It took me less time than the 133k Book 2, and WAY less time than my first novel. I think, and hope, that this bodes well for my future book production capabilities.

Now, let's look at the numbers.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 164
Paperback: 5

February
Ebook: 150

March
Ebook: 106
Paperback: 3

April
Ebook: 72

May
Ebook: 114

June
Ebook: 79

July
Ebook: 112
Paperback: 1

August
Ebook: 133
Audio: 179

September
Ebook: 727
Audio: 523
Paperback: 1

October
Ebook: 516
Audio: 171

November
Ebook: 170
Audio: 56
Paperback: 2

December
Ebook: 223
Audio: 16
Paperback: 6

Remaining to hit 10,000: 6470

Long term, those numbers aren't sustainable. I'm quite alright because I saved a lot of money and I don't spend a ton to get by, but I do have to make this business more profitable if I want to continue writing full time in the long term. Taxes, for instance, are something I have to pay entirely out of my own pocket, and I need to make more than just enough to squeak by if I want to succeed.

At the end of this year, I wouldn't call 2018 a SUCCESS, but it also wasn't an abject failure. I'm still here, I'm still ready to keep trying, and I'm ready to kick butt in 2019.

Do you guys have any questions? I've tried to be comprehensive, but it's likely I've left some things of interest out.

I think this thread was beneficial, so I'll keep updating it for now, even though the first 12 months are pretty much over. I'm working on my plan for 2019, as well as January, so I'll be back with that.


----------



## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Thanks for keeping this diary. It's interesting to see your progress. If I may ask---and do you care to share?---how much did you make? Meaning, how much was your profit? I assume you made profit, not loss, but I could be wrong.


----------



## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

Azalea said:


> I wanted to write 4 books. I wrote 1.5 or 2, depending on how you count it. I published 210,000 words, which isn't horrid, but definitely needs to get better.
> 
> ...
> 
> That brings something else to mind that I'm not sure I've mentioned here. Gods of Myth and Midnight is the longest book I've written, at 184k words.


First of all Thank You for placing a diary of your experiences on kboards. These days few people actually put their information out for others to see. So Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

I did find it interesting that you wrote 184K words for your 3rd book. Taking a look at your other books it seems as though your stories run long, over 100K words. I wondered (You may have spoken about this before) why you are doing so many words per novel?

Michael Anderle talked about efficiency when it comes to Novel writing. He recommends approx 75K per book and if your ideas begin to run long to take those ideas into a brand new book. At first I was totally against him, but the more I considered his strategy, the more I understood it makes sense. Currently of the books I've written, my average word count is around 80K. If you took your 3rd novel and split it, you would have had almost 2 and a half books. Add in your first 2 books in the series and right now you'd probably have over 6 books.

A smaller word count may help against burnout and also give you a bit more money per series. I understand some people like to write longer books. I spent most of 2018, rewriting one of my series, so I can't say that I've stayed with the Anderle process. But I'm just curious to why you stayed with a long word count. I also write Sci-Fi BTW.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

juliatheswede said:


> If I may ask---and do you care to share?---how much did you make? Meaning, how much was your profit? I assume you made profit, not loss, but I could be wrong.


I did make a profit, but I won't get into the specific $ numbers. I don't mind talking about it with people I know in person, but for those who are interested on the internet, I figure it's not too hard to look at sales numbers and book prices and do the math. My numbers aren't spectacular, but posting directly about money seems to be a good way to get drive-by haters of the 1-star variety.



jlstovall4 said:


> I did find it interesting that you wrote 184K words for your 3rd book. Taking a look at your other books it seems as though your stories run long, over 100K words. I wondered (You may have spoken about this before) why you are doing so many words per novel?
> 
> Michael Anderle talked about efficiency when it comes to Novel writing. He recommends approx 75K per book and if your ideas begin to run long to take those ideas into a brand new book. At first I was totally against him, but the more I considered his strategy, the more I understood it makes sense. Currently of the books I've written, my average word count is around 80K. If you took your 3rd novel and split it, you would have had almost 2 and a half books. Add in your first 2 books in the series and right now you'd probably have over 6 books.
> 
> A smaller word count may help against burnout and also give you a bit more money per series. I understand some people like to write longer books. I spent most of 2018, rewriting one of my series, so I can't say that I've stayed with the Anderle process. But I'm just curious to why you stayed with a long word count. I also write Sci-Fi BTW.


I write long books because I want my stories to have *depth*. I am quite conscious of the fact that writing shorter books would make things easier on me, and I would like to try to make that happen, but quality of the story is the most important thing to me. Like most writers, I read a lot, and I have specific tastes that are very difficult to fulfill in shorter stories. When I read books that are over in a few hours, more often than not I'm left unsatisfied, and not simply because I want more of the story. Now, I don't think all stories have to be super long, but let me explain my process, which causes my stories to be longer in general, and some prior decisions that caused this book to be so long specifially.

TLR --I write long stories because I haven't found a way to write short stories I care about.

When plotting a story, I follow a framework based on Larry Brook's Story Structure. It's not so different from other methods of structuring a story, since they're really all based on the same things. Putting the right elements in the right place creates good story pacing and a sense of satisfaction. It's about rhythm. Or looking at it another way, story is like a fractal pattern, conflicts and resolutions within bigger conflicts and resolutions. I find it's a thing of beauty, actually.

First, the Set up. Then, the First Plot Point, which is where the primary conflict makes it's initial center-stage appearance. That bridges into the Response, where the hero is reacting but still doesn't have everything together. Then, the First Pinch Point, where we see the antagonist in a direct form. Then, the Mid Point, where new information changes the paradigm. Then the Attack, where the hero does exactly that, but still doesn't have all the answers. The Second Pinch Point, where we see the antagonist again, really upping the stakes. The Second Plot Point introduces the last bit of new information needed to defeat the antagonist/resolve the conflict. Then the Resolution, where the hero steps up and we get to see them being all heroic.

Now, you can have all the things that make a good story in a short space, but those stories are going to be simple. I don't mean stupid or low-quality. I mean uncomplicated.

I don't consider my writing to be high art, but I am trying to reach for something that's more than brain candy. I don't set out to write things that are super long, but when I'm figuring out the story there are certain elements that have to exist for me to be satisfied I'm creating something meaningful, and so far it ends up taking quite a lot of words. (Let me repeat. So far. I'm working on it, but I'm not a master yet.) Let me be more specific.

My main character is dealing with an external conflict as well as an internal one. Both need to be fully fleshed out, interweave with each other, and have enough screen time to MATTER. Now, if I'd limited the Seeds of Chaos series to only the main character, the books would be shorter, if not exactly short. But I introduced secondary characters. Like...nine of them. Which means all of them need to MATTER. Everyone needs a real personality, real goals, real conflict with the world and with each other. So their mini plotlines interweave with the greater plotline (hopefully seamlessly) and make things longer. Beyond that, the main conflict in the third book has multiple aspects/levels of fallout, and those all had to be addressed.

So when plotting, I look at the main conflict first of course. My characters need to resolve the big bad by the end of the book. They don't need to fix all the problems (or the overarching storyline conflict), but they need to resolve the most immediate and urgent conflict, and make progress toward the overarching storyline conflict. If I decide to end the book before they've resolved that conflict, it would leave the readers feeling subtly unfulfilled. Each element of the story needs to be brought to a NATURAL conclusion. That's why I can't just chop up the story into smaller books. Elements would be missing. The storyline wouldn't be complete, so I'd end up with two much crappier books that don't give the crucial feeling of satisfaction. I do try to make each scene fulfill more than one duty, and every single scene has to advance the story.

To put it another way, I don't just have ideas that run LONG (though I have that, too, to some degree). Rather than a string, these books are like a big knotty rope. I can't leave out scenes where the secondary characters get to be themselves with their problems, because then *why are these people in the story at all?* Now, if I'd just never introduced secondary characters into the story, there goes one of the things making the story longer. I can't leave out story elements, because then...what the heck am I even doing?

For the new series, I'm limiting the cast to the main character plus 3 or so secondary characters. That should help. But the main character is still dealing with lots of different levels and knots of conflict. Why? Because that's how conflicts work. They breed more conflict, and people screw up when they're trying to fix things and end up making things worse, and usually real problems don't just have a simple answer. Effed up things are effed up in effed up ways. When I came up with the concept, I thought the stories might be kept to 60-80k words. I wanted them to be more bite-size, like TV episodes or something. I'm almost ready to start writing, and I know the story will be at least 100k. My goal when writing stories is that conflict is everywhere, because conflict is what makes things interesting. EVERYTHING in the story has to matter. And for things to matter, they have to seem real, which means I need to show that they ARE real. And that takes space.

I do want to make money, but the reason I'm writing (instead of doing something simpler to make that money) is because I've got stories I want to tell, and those stories have to be satisfying to me. So far, I haven't found a story I want to tell that is complete in 75k.

On a side note, the novella I just wrote is only 24k. It was, surprisingly to me, perhaps the most difficult thing I've ever written, because by design/purpose (it's a side story, and not a mandatory read) it lacked those deeper levels of purpose and consequence. I thought it would be easy to knock out, but when my subconscious/muse came to ask me, "Why does this MATTER?" I couldn't answer the question satisfactorily. It was fun and fluff, and that's not enough for me.

Maybe as I evolve as a storyteller I'll find a way to condense some things and cut away others. I'm still learning a lot, after all. Anyway, thanks for asking that question, I had fun answering it. My real life doesn't have enough people who understand story or writing that I get to talk to about these things.


----------



## L_Loryn (Mar 1, 2018)

Kinda forgot about KBoards for awhile, too.

It's good to see you're still trucking!

Your latest release's numbers look pretty good for only having  three books out. Better than mine look, anyway. Though, I tend to feel the opposite on short stories if only because it turns into the game of "how much can I squeeze into a very short bit of stuff". I like that part of it even though, yes, in some ways you can't go as deep as you can with a full-length novel.

I also appreciate your critique on editors. I'm lucky enough to have a good friend edit my work. I couldn't imagine dealing with someone else, to be honest. We work amazingly together and she understands all my quirks, hehe.


----------



## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

Azalea said:


> I write long stories because I haven't found a way to write short stories I care about.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Sounds great and I wish you luck. Seems like we have similar storytelling ideas. The series I'm currently writing has 4 main characters and 7 more characters that we follow in great detail. I do wish many times I could tell more of the side character stories with more scenes, so I understand how you feel. I figured if the series did well, I could write a few side stories to give some of the other characters each a bit more depth.

Either way, it looks like your strategy is working for you. I'll continue to follow along, and I wish you great success!


----------



## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

I find you ebook sales fascinating. Why the drop in April? Surely people aren't THAT busy with tax returns! (To read the writer forums online, it seems that everyone files about the second week of February because the govt owes them money and they want it quick. Bad strategy, it seems to me. I always file the first week of April, and sometimes I think I might follow my daughter into September filing, so as to let things shake out before the tax return is baked.)

And your sales drop in summer, though not always the same month. That's consistent with my experience. So are you writing romantica for the ladies to read at the beach? My theory has always been that it's genre fiction that booms in summertime, while non-fiction and "serious" novels go in the tank.

As for not writing/publishing four books in 2018, I think you are to be commended for that. I sometimes download one of those free Amazon First or Kindle First or Prime First books, whatever they're being called this week, though I rarely get past the first chapter in a novel. And these are the CURATED books! Non-fiction, I find, is often good, especially Amazon Crossing books which are translated from other languages. (I've read German, Danish, and Korean books in translation that I found good enough to praise on my website. I try to read and review three worthy books a month, though sometimes I have to fill in with a movie or video mini-series.) 

I'm glad that people can make a living at this genre rubbish, but I'm not reading it even when it's free, never mind having to pay for it. The most significant cost of any book, after all, is the time one devotes to reading it. Simenon could write four books a year (he published nearly 500, and he died at 86) but he was one of a kind.


----------



## PhoenixFromTheAshes (Oct 1, 2018)

notjohn said:


> I'm glad that people can make a living at this genre rubbish...


"Genre rubbish."
"Romantica for the ladies to read at the beach."
"Their brains turning to mush" re: KU readers.

Tone deaf, much?


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Thanks for the support, everyone. I hope this thread continues to be interesting and/or informative for you guys.



notjohn said:


> I find you ebook sales fascinating. Why the drop in April? Surely people aren't THAT busy with tax returns! (To read the writer forums online, it seems that everyone files about the second week of February because the govt owes them money and they want it quick. Bad strategy, it seems to me. I always file the first week of April, and sometimes I think I might follow my daughter into September filing, so as to let things shake out before the tax return is baked.)
> 
> And your sales drop in summer, though not always the same month. That's consistent with my experience. So are you writing romantica for the ladies to read at the beach? My theory has always been that it's genre fiction that booms in summertime, while non-fiction and "serious" novels go in the tank.
> 
> ...


notjohn, I don't agree with some of the statements and insinuations in your post, though others bear discussion.

First, about the sales drop in April. As you can see in my posts around that time, I spent March and April without spending much on AMS ads, because I thought they were getting too expensive. I calculated they were bringing about 125% return on investment with the limited amount of data I had to work with (and more than that, now that I have more books out) and upped the spend again after April. To go along with that, I think April is when the summer slump starts in earnest, because it's when the really nice weather starts in a lot of places and people start to get out of the house more often.

I don't write romance, so I have no experience with that genre, but as far as I'm aware sales across the board average downward in summer. Someone who actually knows, please feel free to correct me or chime in about this. I do know that the summer slump isn't relegated to only books, but retail across the board. I know that my books, while not necessarily fluffy or lighthearted, definitely wouldn't be considered "serious fiction." I experience the summer slump, even so.

As for not writing 4 books in 2018, it sounds like you think speed of writing is an indicator of quality. Perhaps in some individuals, those two things are correlated, but in general I don't think it's got anything to do with anything. Rather, I think that skilled writers put out good books, while unskilled writers struggle with that. My lack of ability to write faster isn't because I'm writing good books, though I like to think I am. It's because I'm *not skilled enough* to write faster. When I've internalized the ability to create rich stories and good prose without as many mistakes the first time around, my books will come more quickly. That's my goal.

I agree that the most significant cost of most books is the time you spend reading them, and it sucks that you haven't been able to find fiction books you enjoy, but I don't think that says anything about genre novels in general. A good percentage of anything/everything is crap, but there are plenty and more amazing stories out there, often uncurated, and written at whatever speed. I know because I like to read them.

On a more general note, I think people sometimes have this desire to elevate themselves by pushing down on the backs of others. Sometimes this is blatant, and sometimes it's subtle and insidious. It's easiest to do this when you've got an "Us vs. Them" mentality, which is why people like to attack groups of other people with broad statements. It's why stereotypes exist. It's why the opposing side of any war is always the bad guy, and why some people don't want to admit that inequality and bigotry still exist today, or even that *discrimination is a bad thing.*

I've been dealing with a lot of this in my life lately, and my frustration is starting to build. I'm an (mixed) black woman, and I recently went to a party where a man told me to my face that discrimination isn't a bad thing, because there are winners and losers in this life, and that's the way it's going to be. I'm cutting down a lot of the depth of the conversation as I and two other girls spoke with and questioned him to get to the heart of his ideas. He said he was upset with white people for allowing Asians to average higher incomes than them, and that seeing white trash in trailer parks made him sick. He told me he wanted "white people to rise back up." [to their deserved place] He said at a different point that he wanted to live in a country (though he quickly retracted the statement once he realized I and a Native American woman were in listening distance) without colored people. Not joking.

This is not the only similar incident I've dealt with recently. It's depressing. I know I'm smart and capable. I'm not a drain on society. I'm really no different than any other individual based on any extrinsic quality. If anything, I struggle to contain my own sense of superiority when I see how little some people actually think about what they're saying before it leaves their mouth. Do they really believe the ideals they spout off due to any original thought, or are they parroting something they've been taught because it feels good to say mean things about others, to blame others for problems? However, I know anger and counter-attacks really aren't the answer.

But what is the answer? Cognitive dissonance is when a person with a belief (especially one that is important to them, a part of their identity) has that belief threatened or argued against. Even with seemingly solid, incontrovertible proof. Instead of changing their mind, people only double down as an advocate of said belief even harder. To get through to someone and actually change their mind, their mind needs to be open to the idea of change. My story highlighted a somewhat political issue, and I did that because the point of it is so blatantly obvious, but I'm not talking about politics, really. It's about intolerance.

I'm tired of the diminutization of other people. The people on the other end of any divide are still people. Some of them are smart and have good reasons to think the way they do. Maybe we could learn something from others if we went into a discussion willing to accept that we're not superior and we can be helped to learn. Cultures and values may be different. Interests may be different. That doesn't make them invalid. I think everyone could do to think about that, myself included. I wonder, if we had a more tolerant and respectful attitude toward others, would our arguments start to become more relatable to them? I say that, but I, for one, have no intention of approaching the man from the party and attempting to change his mind with reasoned arguments. Frankly, I'd prefer never to meet him again.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

February 1, 2019

*The plan for 2019*

Okay. I had wanted to make this post earlier, but after some irritation I stepped away and got focused on other things.

My focus in 2019 is shifting a little bit. Last year, I wanted to publish 4 new books and grow my catalogue. I wasn't able to do that, and I don't think I can produce 4 books this year, either. I'm aiming for 2 new books, and maybe a third if I can squeeze it in, but I'm not relying on being able to do so. I still want to be able to publish more often, but I think I need more experience before I'm able to do that.

The first book of 2019 will be the first novel in my fantasy series. The second will be the fifth book in my Seeds of Chaos series. It's possible I may have time to publish a third, much shorter title as well.

However, the focus this year is not solely on publishing new work. My catalogue isn't big, but it's big enough for advertising to become more efficient. I'm putting more focus on advertising, as well as connecting with my readers and fostering a relationship with more of them. I'm going to be experimenting with my newsletter and my website and trying new ways to reach people in general. I'll be experimenting with different types of advertising and ways to reach new readers. I have a lot of ideas, but I also have a lot to learn.

In addition to the 2 new books, I'll be continuing to publish in audio.

I'm trying to be more productive this year than last, while also not approaching the limit and burning out. By the end of 2018 I was feeling pretty tired, and I'm still trying to get fully back into the swing of things.

I've started setting my goals 7-10 days at a time, which is interesting and seems to be going well so far. It allows me to get pretty granular about tasks, reaches far enough into the future that I can note things I don't have time for right that minute but want to explore, and also allows me a new start frequently if things go wrong.

Please, feel free to ask questions at any point, as always.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

February 1, 2019

*
January(the Second of its name) Recap*

Alright! I started implementing my new plan this past month. As I said, I am putting more time into the business side of things than I have been, because even though my catalogue is still small, it's finally big enough to do something with.


The new book

I finished planning the fantasy book I've been puttering away at for so long, and started writing it. I'm letting my process differ a bit from the Seeds of Chaos books. Instead of just going chronologically and putting down one sentence/line for each scene, I started out by making the different plotlines visible, and then making sure they were laid out somewhat like music.

To explain more clearly, I had plotlines A through F. Some scenes hit multiple plotlines at once. So, I went through what was happening and labeled each event with it's plotline, it's "musical note." This made it really easy to visualize all the threads at once and make sure nothing was taking up too much or too little room, and also ensure that the beats of each thread happened with the correct frequency, not leaving anything hanging while I got distracted with something else.

I've done something like this before, but only after having finished writing, when I'm going through my Revision process and finding everything I need to fix or could make better. As writers, we probably all weave these threads together instinctively, but this way made it easy for me to *see*, which meant it was easier to find the middle and end of the story without so much painful brainstorming of "what happens *next*?"

For those who are visual like me, here's an example of what it looks like.

Thread A--Main character vs. the greatest threat to their greatest desire
Thread B--Main character vs the secondary threat to their secondary desire. 
Thread C--Building an important relationship
[...]
Thread E--Creepy, sneaking set up for future threats in later books.

Event 1--ACD
Event 2--AB
Event 3 --ADE
Event 4--CB

And so on.

I'm only the first few chapters into writing this story, but I've been taking it easy and making sure it doesn't turn into a source of stress. I'm considering how to build an audience for this story and series. I haven't made any decisions yet, but I have thought of serializing it chapter by chapter for free to build a readership. I've seen this done for other series that are then published (not in KU) and the sales of those books seem to be fairly good despite the people who have been able to read the story for free as it goes along. Plus, there's Patreon as an alternative money-making venue for serialized stories. Like I said, I'm not sure about it, and I don't think a lot of people on kBoards have experience with that model (correct me if I'm wrong), but I've done some research and I think it might be viable. However, it's not for every author or every type of story, and like anything you can't expect instant success. I'm still deciding if it's for me and this story or not.

Audio

The second audiobook in my Seeds of Chaos series went live on the 17th. It is selling pretty well, though the release of Book 2 hasn't lifted Book 1 to the same heights as its own release reached. Still, together they're making pretty good numbers, and I'm sure they'll be into the black (having covered expenses) in a few more days.

Audio definitely has a steep cliff after a new release is over, but I've found the numbers to be a higher percentage of ebook sales than I expected based on others' reports. The new release skews things, but before that audio seemed to be selling at about 20% the rate of ebooks and scaled along with ebook sales when I did PPC advertising. That is quite a nice boost, as long as the audio has paid for itself during the new release window, 30-90 days. The problem is that without publishing in audio you can't know how it will perform, and if you want to put out a quality product the initial expenses can be prohibitively high. Based on what others have shared, I think my audio numbers may be slightly into the realm of anomaly, so do your own research before deciding to plop down a few thousand dollars on something that may not earn that money back in the next few years.

ProWritingAid

I've noticed when listening to the audio that I repeat words too closely together sometimes. Using "we have to" or "her hands" twice in the same paragraph, for instance. This is something that's hard to catch via the eye, but when you're listening it creates some subconscious recognition similar to the way you feel when you hear a rhyme. As a reader, this is something that irritates me when I notice it. My new editor, Wade Dial, caught a few of these instances for me, but like I said it's not always easy to notice when the abuse isn't egregious. ProWritingAid has a feature called "Echoes" that runs a search for repeated words or phrases within a short period, and I'm finding that useful. I'm going through my third book now before it's immortalized in audio and finding a handful of places to tweak my prose.

ProWritingAid has a steep learning curve compared to other editing programs, and though it has a free trial it is a paid program. Still, it may be worth checking out for the features.

Social Media

I'm working on keeping touch with my fans via newsletter, website, and even FB. (I don't enjoy FB so I'm not putting as much emphasis on being a presence there.) I want to be doing a newsletter/blog post every month, and providing value to my fans when I do so. I accomplished that this month and you'll be hearing more about it when I have larger things going on there.

My fourth book, _Gods of Smoke and Stars_, is available as a freebie to my newsletter, and also with making some cool cosmetic upgrades to my emails, I created my first auto-responder to get new signups to download it. I've wanted to set up an auto-responder sequence for a while, but I struggle with figuring out what to say and how to provide value to fans while doing so. Sending newsletter emails does not just come naturally to me, especially as I feel I don't always have a lot of news because I'm such a slow producer. I still have a lot more work to do there, but I have resources lined up to help me learn now and hopefully some cool things to share.

Newsletter signups have definitely ticked up a notch, though the numbers have never been super high and still aren't. This year, I'll be pushing for signups a little more aggressively.

In other news about_ Gods of Smoke and Stars_, its sales numbers are a little higher than I initially expected, at slightly more than 1 sale per day despite it being available free. It is more convenient to just buy via Amazon, after all. However, I remember when rankings would stay in the 100,000-150,000 range with a sale a day, while it seems that's not enough any more. Not that the ranking really matters for this particular book; it's just an observation.

Advertising

January was focused on Amazon ads, which I have prior experience with, and were thus the easiest for me to scale and experiment with. I made an Advantage account to allow me to advertise in the UK, and that was an unexpectedly huge hassle due to Amazon employee incompetence, and took me a couple weeks of emailing back and forth with two different departments that were working on the same issue and refused to communicate with each other, but also seemed unable to find me in their system even when I had ALL the information and gave it to them repeatedly. Perhaps there was some sort of system glitch going on.

Anyway. The UK ads have slightly cheaper clicks than the US ads (but remember a pound is more expensive than a dollar), but I didn't find their click-through rates to be as good, since they default to an ad without any copy, just the book cover. I'm still experimenting with them so we'll see if I can make them more profitable for this series' genre, which I don't think is as popular in the UK.

I spent more than I ever have on PPC advertising this month. It averaged out to about $20 per day. I think this is a little too expensive and will be working to make the ads more efficient, but despite that they were profitable. Chris Fox recently put out a video about why you shouldn't be advertising. It's partially in response to everyone who's been saying this business is now pay-to-play and you have to advertise if you want to be successful. Basically, you shouldn't be advertising if you're not ready (and also if you don't have the money.) I wasn't advertising as much before because I wasn't ready. It would have been a waste of money and time. Now that I have more books out at the current prices and level of quality, I can spend money, and if I don't screw up, expect to make more than I spend. 
Link here: 




Another point to consider is the delay between spending money on advertising and getting paid for that. The advertiser you use will wish to be paid immediately. If you don't have a few hundred dollars that you can afford to miss for a few months, be *careful*. Mark Dawson did a podcast with the MarketingSFF guys and he talked about this, too. If you have a series, depending on the length you could be waiting a couple months or more for a reader to get through all the books. Take that into account in addition to the 60-day wait before Amazon pays one month's revenue to you, and you could be waiting 5-6 months to see all the money return from the point you advertised and a sale/borrow was made.

Side note: I've noticed that my read-through is down this month, with KU book to book percentages being even lower than sales, which is abnormal. I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing that read-through lag due to the increase in traffic to the first book. 54% is the average from Book 1 to Book 2 right now, and that's very low for me. I'll keep an eye on this and see if it picks up when the average has had more time to level out. It's also possible I'm reaching more people who aren't my ideal reader and thus find themselves disliking the book, but if that were the case I don't think I'd see sales numbers being closer to 70% readthrough while KU reads are closer to 50%. More data necessary.

Now, for what you've all been waiting for.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

Remaining to hit 10,000: 9116

To put those numbers slightly more in perspective, to hit 10,000 sales in a year, I need to *average* 27.4 sales per day. In January I averaged 28.5 sales per day. I don't anticipate numbers that high every month this year, because the audio release had a large hand in that, but I do plan to reach the overall goal by December 31st.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

March 1, 2019

February Recap

The new book, and a note on Confidence

I've continued to write the new fantasy book, but due to other things taking my attention, didn't get as much written as I'd hoped. I went back over the first few chapters to add/tweak some things I'd thought of while writing later chapters, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good this story and the writing is.

I find my attitude is often a weird juxtaposition of confidence and insecurity. I write good books, the best I possibly can. I'm getting better as a writer all the time. I know that. Compared to a lot of the things I try to read, my books blow them out of the water.

However, somehow I still find myself doubting if what I'm writing is any good. I don't tell myself it's total crap or anything, but I often find myself wondering if it isn't just mediocre. Part of that mindset may come from how many times I have to read my books over the course of publication.

1. I write the first draft. 
2. I read the first draft 1-2 times while finding problems and planning the revision. 
3. I re-write a good portion of the book in revision. 
4. I do the initial edit of the book before sending it off to editor & proofreaders. 
5. I do a final pass proofread after getting it back from editors and proofreaders. 
6. I follow along in the book while doing the audiobook review. 
7. I may read the book again to update the series bible before starting the next book in the series.

After all that, I really don't want to look at the story any more. I am so familiar with it, I can't judge it objectively any more, and I'm certainly not having fun reading the same story--that I WROTE--for the umpteenth time. With this new story, I've only written the first draft of part of the book, so it's still pretty fresh.

It's nice to read something you've written and find yourself enjoying it like a reader. I should be more confident in my skill, and use that confidence to help me enjoy my work more, and thus do more of it.

Audio and a Recommendation

I finished reviewing my third book for "echoes" with ProWritingAid, and now every time I read something I'm really conscious of overly repeated words. That is the one downside of becoming a better writer. The more skill I gain, the more I notice other people's sub-par efforts, and it diminishes my enjoyment of reading. It's getting harder and harder to find a good story.* When I do find something worth reading, I'm always really excited and then disappointed when it ends.

The manuscript is off to the narrator now, so it will be going live in a couple months. This one is a beast, and should be over 20 hours when complete, so I anticipate it will take longer than the first two to earn out. When the third book is out, I think I will turn more effort to advertising the audio specifically.

*I did recently read a very long, very good series of novels called Worth the Candle. It's written by Alexander Wales under a pen name, and though he originally planned to publish them, all 8(?) novels are currently available free. I recommend them, and I'm notoriously picky, so if anyone is interested, here's the link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/25740126

The Download link in the upper right corner allows offline reading, though for some reason the Mobi/Kindle version doesn't seem to work.

Website and Newsletter

I completely revamped my website, and have been researching best practices and tactics for my mailing list. I am going to be moving from MailChimp to MailerLite, not because of cost (my mailing list is still below 1000 people so neither service charges me anything) but because MailerLite is so much more intuitive to work with, I like the way they are organized based on the individual subscriber rather than by the List, and I can figure out how to do more complicated things in MailerLite that I just couldn't work out with MailChimp. Plus, once I do start building my mailing list into the bigger numbers, MailerLite will be cheaper.

Here's a look at my website. I found some screenshots of what it used to look like, using the WayBackMachine.

I don't think the old website was _horrendous_, and when I first set it up in 2014, it was better than a lot of the author websites I saw. However, it did not serve my purposes going forward, and it certainly wasn't at the level of quality I want as of 2019.



















It took me quite a few hours of research and tweaking to get this all implemented.




























I now have landing pages, cool graphics, a more prominent newsletter CTA, universal audiobook links, etc. If anyone wants to browse, the link is in my signature. I am not finished with the website yet, because I haven't yet completed the switch over to MailerLite, so everything to do with my newsletter on my site needs to be switched as well.

Part of what I'm planning to do with MailerLite is much better tracking, segmentation, and general information on my subscribers. (Both their habits and where they come from.) Plus, since I'm moving into a new genre this year, it will make working with the different series easier.

Advertising

I didn't actually spend that much _time_ on advertising this month. I tweaked some of my Amazon ads and made a couple more, but mostly I just let them putter along. Amazon seems content to spend my money without constant input from me, which I've heard is not the case for everyone who uses these ads. I think part of it is that I'm advertising to an audience large enough that lots of impressions are available.

I set up some promo for a Countdown Deal I'm doing in mid-March. I'm only using the more reputable and high-performing sites, because I'm not trying to hit any lists or get sticky after a launch, I simply want to boost sales of the first book so I can get the read through. The cost ratio is more important than absolute sales numbers. BookBub is still not interested. 

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

Remaining to hit 10,000: 8356

I am still on track to hit my goal this year. However, without new releases I don't think this is sustainable indefinitely, so the most important thing is still to grow my backlist.

Oh, and one more thing. I'm going to hit a lifetime number of one million words of fiction written this March.


----------



## L_Loryn (Mar 1, 2018)

Going strong. Love it. 

Love your new website, too. I think I'm going to devote some time later this year to finally getting a website up and running for myself.

I feel the EXACT same way about reading.


----------



## m123xyz (Oct 16, 2015)

I don't know much but looks like audio is doing pretty great. good stuff thanks for all the work and information.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

L_Loryn said:


> Going strong. Love it.
> 
> Love your new website, too. I think I'm going to devote some time later this year to finally getting a website up and running for myself.
> 
> I feel the EXACT same way about reading.


Yeah, I'm pretty excited about what seems to be sustainable success.

As far as the website, I did some research about how to set it up, and a couple kBoarders had some good suggestions that I ended up using.

Theme: OceanWP (it's free. Works well with Elementor)

Plugin: Elementor (has a free and paid "Pro" version, but many people won't need anything more than the free version.) This allows you to do WSWG design of your site, simply dragging, dropping, and tweaking the various elements of design.

Plugin #2: Element Pack (it adds on to Elementor's options, and is said to be better than Elementor Pro, if you do need more than the free version. 1-time buy, about $25.)



m123xyz said:


> I don't know much but looks like audio is doing pretty great. good stuff thanks for all the work and information.


Audio is doing very well for me, however based on the numbers from other authors that I used to estimate whether it would be worth it to invest, I am a bit of an outlier. I sell a higher percentage of audiobooks to ebooks than I "should." (Also keep in mind these last couple months have had a new audio release spread between them, and the numbers fall somewhat precipitously after the 30-day cliff.) However, I do think people should look into audio, especially if they wouldn't mind spending a few thousand dollars and not earning out on that for a few months to a few years, in order to gain long-term profit.


----------



## jm2019 (Jan 28, 2019)

Fascinating journey -thank you for sharing. I'm about to start the self-publish journey with my first fiction in the next couple of weeks. Excited to see how it goes, regardless of how successful I will be. I hope you hit your annual goal!


----------



## Jeff Hughes (May 4, 2012)

I love this thread.  And I love even more that things seem to have turned up for you, Azalea!


----------



## MattGodbey (Jul 8, 2016)

Thanks for continuing to post your results. It's a fascinating read, and I'm learning a lot from it.


----------



## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Azalea said:


> As for not writing 4 books in 2018, it sounds like you think speed of writing is an indicator of quality. Perhaps in some individuals, those two things are correlated, but in general I don't think it's got anything to do with anything. Rather, I think that skilled writers put out good books, while unskilled writers struggle with that. My lack of ability to write faster isn't because I'm writing good books, though I like to think I am. It's because I'm *not skilled enough* to write faster. When I've internalized the ability to create rich stories and good prose without as many mistakes the first time around, my books will come more quickly. That's my goal.


This is from an older post, but I don't think I saw it at the time. It's about as close to the perfect statement as I've ever seen on Kboards...so thank you.

And thank you for inviting us all on the journey with you. For every person who posts, there are probably hundreds more reading about, learning from and enjoying your comments.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Hey, just an update to let you guys know why I haven't given the March recap yet. Carpel tunnel. I've been struggling with it for the last couple years now, though my wrists have always been a little weak. I've got an ergonomic keyboard and I try to be careful with my bad wrist, but I'm beginning to (well, okay to be honest I've wondered for a while now) that perhaps what's wrong with my wrist isn't something a little rest is going to fix.

About three or four years ago now, I was lifting a cast iron pan out of the oven, and it was too heavy but I kept lifting it anyway, and I felt and heard a tearing/crunching sound from my wrist, somewhat like the sound when you tear a chicken leg out of the chicken's hip(?). It hurt for a bit, but I thought I was pretty much fine. Except maybe I'm not, because after that it didn't take very much any more to hurt me. It got really bad (as I said, almost two years ago) when I braced myself against a dresser with that hand while I leaned forward to reach an outlet in the wall, and since then it's never recovered. If my wrist doesn't get actually better this year, I'm thinking I might go to the doctor about it.

If it's not just stress/swollen nerves, maybe there's something they can do surgically to help me. It would be a relief to be able to _heal_.

Anyway, I'm going easy on all unnecessary typing for the next few days, so the recap will be late by an unspecified time.


----------



## jlstovall4 (Oct 6, 2015)

Azalea said:


> Hey, just an update to let you guys know why I haven't given the March recap yet. Carpel tunnel. I've been struggling with it for the last couple years now, though my wrists have always been a little weak.


When I first started working my 9to5, I suffered from Carpel Tunnel too. There was a lady who worked with me that suffered from it for years. It was so bad for her that she had to wear braces on both wrists everyday and sleep in them too. She taught me a few techniques that fixed it. Not to say these will fix yours because of the injuries, but worth a try.

The concept is to strengthen your wrists. To do this you actually focus on strengthening your hands, recognizing that your wrists are used in hand movements.

First. Put your hands together like you are praying. then pull them into your chest and push down. You should feel a mild stretch in your wrists. Do this for 30 seconds, 3 reps.
Second get a grip strengthener. They are cheap, like $3/$4 at Walmart / Target. Do 20 squeezes everyday day on both hands. (I also flip the grip strengthener upside down and do 20 more)

You need to do this pretty much until you stop using a keyboard.  

This cured me in 2 weeks. So far everyone I've told it to has seen almost 100% recovery in 2 to 3 weeks. You may want to cut out writing for at least the first week to give your wrists time to adjust and not to strain them.

https://www.target.com/p/c9-champion-174-comfort-hand-grips/-/A-14549587?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&fndsrc=tgtao&CPNG=PLA_Sports%2BShopping_Local&adgroup=SC_Sports_Local&LID=700000001170770pgs&network=g&device=c&location=9031632&ds_rl=1246978&ds_rl=1246978&ds_rl=1246978&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm6icsqLA4QIVjVuGCh2YaAceEAQYBCABEgJ1-_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds.


----------



## Jeff Hughes (May 4, 2012)

Feel better soon, Azalea!


----------



## J. A. Wallace (Mar 31, 2019)

Wow! Good luck.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

May 1, 2019

March and April Recap.

My left wrist is pretty much better now, though it only stopped hurting completely a couple days ago. I wonder if I didn't have some sort of...fluid-filled cyst or something, that I accidentally popped, because the pain was receding _very_ slowly, and then went away completely, and suddenly, after some abnormal impacts to the wrist. Something similar happened before, but that time the pain came back after a day or so. This time, it's three days later and still fine, if a little weak. I still don't know what the actual diagnosis is, but I'm going to be diligently exercising and strengthening my wrists, in the hopes that will avoid future damage.

Still, the injury impacted my productivity pretty severely this month. I'm going to be very busy in May, so let's get through the recap of the last two months quickly.

In March, my sales began to slowly decline, and not much I did seemed to mitigate that. I had a Countdown Deal from March 10-14 (5 days), and I booked all the heaviest hitters except for BookBub. I had 116 sales of Book 1, and 20 full reads.

I consider that: Not Worth It. I know the effectiveness of newsletter promos is going down, but I'm not sure if this series doesn't perform well specifically, or if it's simply too old. I have never done a free run, and have only dropped the price to 99c four times since the first book came out in 2015. That _should_ mitigate newsletter fatigue, but either it hasn't, or newsletters just really aren't worth it for me to pursue on this series. I'm not sure if I'll be pushing newsletter ad spend when I release the next book in this series, or whether I should put my money toward PPC instead.

I switched my newsletter to MailerLite, and sent out a giveaway newsletter. I had a lot of swag ready, but my open rates were lower than I was expecting, (around 30%) and I didn't even end up giving away all my swag, even though anyone who simply replied to the email was guaranteed to win _something_. I heard MailerLite was having deliverability problems in 2018 due to being blacklisted when spammers used their servers, but was under the impression that the open rates had recovered. Maybe they have, and my own bad email habits over time were the cause of the lower open rates. I have definitely let too much time pass in between emails a few times. In any case, it's easier for me to use and understand than MailChimp, so I'm still happy with the switch.

I continued to work on the first draft of the new book, examined and re-wrote my blurbs, and did a little work with AMS ads. 
I've started to read more non-fiction, specifically with the purpose of educating myself about things the layman doesn't know or understand, so that I can write more intelligent, knowledgeable characters. I'm enjoying it.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

Remaining to hit 10,000: 7771

In April, I really struggled with productivity. My first priority, which was writing new words, was pretty much shot. (the wrist thing) I struggled to reach even 1000 words per day without (extra) pain, and didn't work out as much as I have been because without the ability to lift any weight with that arm, I was restricted to cardio workouts only, and I prefer at least moderate weight lifting. Overall, the month found me a little depressed, unmotivated, and unproductive. Funny how setbacks in one area can spiral into another, you know?

I didn't mess with AMS ads since March, and sales fell again. Basically, it seems like AMS ads will not continue to spend at the same rate as more time goes on, which really isn't new information, but can make things difficult. Trying to keep up with creating new ads as well as the increasing price competition in my genre is difficult. I'm not on the front page of any ad carousels, yet I still routinely pay 50c for a click, and even that high a bid struggles to keep clicks coming over the long term. It's still profitable, but I'm worried whether its _sustainably_ profitable.

I'm going to keep playing with AMS ads in May, but I really believe I need more of a boost than they can bring when it's been this long since I last published. Of course, I'm doing the best I can to build my backlist, but it takes a lot of time and effort.

I've been considering how I'm going to release this new series for a long while, and believe I've come to a conclusion. I'll be serializing the book and monetizing via Patreon, and once that is finished will release wide. I've long enjoyed serialized stories as a reader, especially because I feel like it does away with the author's incentive to write shorter stories due to the need to be paid more. It allows for deep exploration of characters, world, and plot, as well as interaction with the reader base that is very different from the more traditional publishing model.

Like all publishing, monetization is difficult. This method really isn't one kBoards talks about a lot. I've only seen a couple authors on here who mention success with serializing on Patreon or its analogs, but I've done my research and I don't think that's because the tactic isn't viable. We simply don't see those people who succeed posting here. Just like any method of publishing, most people fail, and those who succeed are outliers with great content and a serious work ethic. I don't think I'd get "rich" with serialization, but I believe it's a legitimate way to monetize, and I'm hoping I can make it into a viable income stream.

My plan is to publish 1-2 chapters a week, for a period of 5+ months until the book is finished. If, by that time, I'm seeing some moderate success, I will continue to serialize and publish wide. If the plan has been a failure, I'll pull down all serialized chapters before publishing, though I'm not sure if it will be wide or in KU.

The entire book will be written before I start to serialize, though I may make changes to the story as we go along based on reader feedback. While I'm serializing the first book of this series, I'll write and publish the next book in my Seeds of Chaos series, and then return to the second book in this series. This allows me to have a closer final release between book 1 and 2 of the new series, while still monetizing book 1 along the way. Plus...I think it will be fun.

My tentative goal to reach by the end of serializing the first book is $300 per month, as that number is large enough to bode well for future growth while serializing the next books in the series.

All-in-all, there's minimized downside if this doesn't work. I'm not really worried about losing potential readers, because the reader pool is bigger than we sometimes imagine. If this doesn't work, I've basically given a free first-in-series to however many people read it being serialized. If it does work, then that's its own reward.

I'll be counting any donations toward my 10k sales goal, but I'm not sure exactly how to measure that yet. I don't anticipate I will start serializing until sometime in June.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

April
Ebook: 254
Paperback: 1
Audio: 84
Total: 339

Remaining to hit 10,000: 7432

As you see, sales were down in April. Part of that is my complete lack of focus on advertising, but part of it is--likely--the unavoidable shrinking of the long tail. We'll see, and I'll keep putting in effort to keep those numbers up. When I made my plan for this year, I actually didn't expect January and February to perform so _well_, so while my numbers are down this last month, overall I'm still optimistic about hitting the 10k goal. I'm averaging 21 sales a day at the moment. What I need is new releases, in any format.

Anyway, in May I will be writing my little butt off, reviewing the latest audiobook, illustrating a cover for the new book, playing with ads, and all the other things that need doing. It's going to be a lot of work. Maybe, once again, _too much_ work. Even so, after April's somewhat unavoidable setback, I really feel like I need to start pushing hard.


----------



## atree (Jan 1, 2019)

Good to see you are still at it and moving forward. I suggest lowering the price of your first book may be as effective as chasing Amazon ads once you factor in the read-through into the series. I know litrpg tends to fetch a higher price, but book one is dead weight and potentially a stop-block since readers are aware its a 2015 product. price it accordingly and see where it goes.


----------



## Jeff Hughes (May 4, 2012)

Glad to hear the wrist is feeling better, Azalea.  Looking forward to hearing how the journey continues!


----------



## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

Although I'm not a medical professional, I do play one on TV, rather I did get into a lot of the theory behind physical therapy due to my own interest in self-healing from carpal tunnel syndrome, and I'd definitely suggest focusing much more heavily on strength training for the upper and lower arms than the wrists themselves.

The reason is it increases your vascularization (the blood vessels grow larger), which increases your blood flow, which increases the amount of oxygen reaching your median nerve as it runs down your arm and through the carpal tunnel. This comes into play because the increased flow should help either sweep out the accumulated chemical irritants in the nerve itself, which are blocking oxygen, or help reduce the inflammation of the surrounding tissues that in turn impose a mechanical compression on the nerve, thus starving it of oxygen. 

Anecdotally, it's helped a lot for me. I also do a lot for the upper back though too, as the position of the shoulders and collar bone can also impact this... not all wrist pain necessarily originates from the wrists, but can be referral pain from further up the line. You could look into upper crossed syndrome to see if that applies...


----------



## RenginTumer (May 1, 2019)

I just started following this thread - it's enlightening, thank you for sharing! Even though I'm not a writer myself it's interesting to see the journey of another independent.

As for your carpal tunnel - I have no idea if it's common practice and how feasible it would be, but what about dictation to get your word count down for the day while simultaneously giving your wrists some rest/training them? I haven't seen many people talk about it here on the boards (though I'm new), but it might be an interesting option. Though the need for editing afterwards might make it more of an effort, I have no idea.


----------



## lea_owens (Dec 5, 2011)

It is an interesting thread. Thanks for your honest insights.


----------



## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

Always interesting to read your updates, Azalea!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

atree said:


> Good to see you are still at it and moving forward. I suggest lowering the price of your first book may be as effective as chasing Amazon ads once you factor in the read-through into the series. I know litrpg tends to fetch a higher price, but book one is dead weight and potentially a stop-block since readers are aware its a 2015 product. price it accordingly and see where it goes.


Thanks for the input, atree! I thought it was a good idea, so I went ahead and lowered the price for 3 weeks, pumped up ad spend, and saw zero discernible uptick in sales or rankings. Now, good tests last for at least a month, but by the time I raised the price back to normal it seemed pretty clear that the price decrease wasn't doing anything, at least not with AMS ads. To be clear, I lowered to $2.99, not .99. I'm willing to try this again later when I have more books out, or when advertising through other vendors besides just AMS.



Mylius Fox said:


> Although I'm not a medical professional, I do play one on TV.


Haha, thanks for the suggestions, Mylius! I think strengthening those forearm and arm muscles is indeed important, and I'm working on it.



RenginTumer said:


> I just started following this thread - it's enlightening, thank you for sharing! Even though I'm not a writer myself it's interesting to see the journey of another independent.
> 
> As for your carpal tunnel - I have no idea if it's common practice and how feasible it would be, but what about dictation to get your word count down for the day while simultaneously giving your wrists some rest/training them? I haven't seen many people talk about it here on the boards (though I'm new), but it might be an interesting option. Though the need for editing afterwards might make it more of an effort, I have no idea.


I've tried dictation 3 or 4 times in my writing career now, and I just can't seem to get into it. I have a Mac, and Dragon Dictate is a little poorer quality than Windows, which might be part of it, but the other part of it is that I can't seem to focus creatively when I'm dictating. I never get into the flow state, so rather than increasing my wordcount, I go down to like 400 wph.

There are authors who use it (Elizabeth Ann West comes to mind. Chris Fox used to as well, but I think he went back to typing after quitting his day job.) and swear by it, though.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

June 6, 2019

May Recap

May was an alright performer, production-wise, and a poor performer, sales-wise.

On the production side of things:

I wrote about 20k for my fantasy series, reviewed 15 hours of the latest audiobook, played with AMS ads (more on this below), and illustrated the cover for my fantasy book. Not stellar, but definitely a solid effort.

On the sales side of things:

As I said I would, I put some time into AMS ads this month to see if my lack of effort on them in April caused the lowered sales. I set up 2-3 ads, and then walked away for a couple days for data to accrue and to give them time to gain traction. Max 4 days.

When I came back, they had spent $200 during that time, and had garnered me...1 sale? Of course, I immediately turned them off, but as you can imagine the AMS ads shot my profit margin for the month of May.

I'm considering that I may have tapped out the current market of people interested in my books in the niche I'm promoting to. Or, maybe competition is just too fierce. Perhaps I need to give AMS a rest for a while and see if I can make any progress elsewhere, like Facebook or Bookbub.

On the bright side, I'm quite happy with the way my new book cover turned out. It took me quite a few hours to complete, but I had a lot of fun and brushed up on my illustrating skills.










I was talking to my partner about how much money I save by being able to do my own illustration/book covers, and he suggested that I should do illustrated covers for other people. I've done freelance illustration in the past, and decided that I did not really want to work on commission for people who want to pay way less than a reasonable amount for the time their "simple, easy" project takes me, once they decide to "tweak" the specifications after I've accepted the original payment amount. (/rant)

However, when he suggested that I thought, "maybe I actually _could_ do that." I would probably like to start out with a handful of premade covers to get a feel for it and hone my skills a little, and then from there I might open it up to the occasional commission. I actually quite enjoy illustration, and I don't get to do it as much as I want. With premade covers I would get to draw what I want, at the pace I want, so there would be little pressure, and if someone needs a series I wouldn't have a hard time creating a few more with the same branding.

So I'm mulling that over, and slowly starting to work on some cover ideas. What do you guys think?

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

April
Ebook: 254
Paperback: 1
Audio: 84
Total: 339

May
Ebook: 226
Paperback: 5
Audio: 57
Total: 288

Remaining to hit 10,000: 7144

As you can see, May's numbers were not spectacular. Gotta try new things and increase my backlist. Mostly the backlist.

I've got to head out the door now, but I'll be back later tonight with some talk about June so far, and my plans going forward.


----------



## Glis Moriarty (Jun 20, 2018)

Azalea said:


> I've tried dictation 3 or 4 times in my writing career now, and I just can't seem to get into it. I have a Mac, and Dragon Dictate is a little poorer quality than Windows, which might be part of it, but the other part of it is that I can't seem to focus creatively when I'm dictating. I never get into the flow state, so rather than increasing my wordcount, I go down to like 400 wph.


I learned to touch type in my teens. Haven't tested myself for a while, but I'm pretty fast.
Learned to dictate in my early twenties. Needed to for my job (tapes for secretaries). Took quite a while to pick it up. 
Tried Dragon over various versions. Always takes a while to get into it again.

What I would say is that the learning curve can be steep; partly it's the controls and how you choose to use them, partly it's Dragon learning your speech and words, and partly its getting into the habits. And composing with dictation is different to typing: that adjustment takes time too. I suspect that you can't get into the flow because your mind is frequently interrupted by the new process (your old one is habitual; the new one isn't and must also say no to your learned expectation of the instructions going to the fingers). Once you are over the learning curve, and have dictation down to a habit, you will be fast, I'm sure. But you will have lost some precious writing time.

I switch quite happily between the two now, but there is still a bit of a lag when I switch to dictation until I'm back in the swing again.

wrt typing. It might be worth trying a mechanical keyboard if you haven't already. Many people claim it helps carpal tunnel & tennis elbow, but the actuation force required needs to be right (too high would make it worse not better). I use one and it's more accuracy (too much time with membrane keyboards definitely hit my accurate wpm).


----------



## chumlychums (Apr 3, 2019)

This is inspiring, Thank you.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Jeanie Gold said:


> That cover is beautiful. I definitely think you should offer your services. What's the harm? If you have a little extra money coming in and you're doing something creative that you love, why not? Can't see any drawbacks other than you have less time to write. I wish I was also talented at something that could be useful like that so in those moments I need to break and do something else for a bit I could be productive.


Thanks for the feedback. You're right, the possible downside is that it takes time away from writing. If I'm careful about that, even if no one wants to buy what I make, I won't really be losing anything.



Glis Moriarty said:


> I suspect that you can't get into the flow because your mind is frequently interrupted by the new process (your old one is habitual; the new one isn't and must also say no to your learned expectation of the instructions going to the fingers). Once you are over the learning curve, and have dictation down to a habit, you will be fast, I'm sure. But you will have lost some precious writing time.


Yes, exactly. I've been touch typing since elementary school. (My mom made me type with correct fingering when she caught me trying to transcribe a book I'd borrowed from the library into Microsoft Words so that I could afford to have my own copy.) I'm sure if I was ever truly forced to dictate to be able to get story out, I would learn. For now, I'm willing to try it again when I don't have an urgent project, but the amount of effort to become appropriately skilled is prohibitive to my motivation to do so.



chumlychums said:


> This is inspiring, Thank you.


I'm glad people find this useful.


----------



## Glis Moriarty (Jun 20, 2018)

chumlychums said:


> This is inspiring, Thank you.





Azalea said:


> I'm glad people find this useful.


It's a wave of honesty and positiivity.
Unlike some other threads here.
And likeability.


----------



## kswalker (Apr 26, 2013)

Thank you for sharing, this has some great insights. You've inspired me to take a new look at some things I'm doing, like a website redesign. I've been making sites since 96 or 97? And it's funny how the trends change. Realized mine was outdated and needed a refresh.

About carpal tunnel... I know you've already gotten a lot of advice. But I just had to say, I spent months trying to deal with CT on my own using advice from online and didn't get very far. When I finally went to see a physical therapist, she tested me and gave me very specific stretches and exercises that I'd never seen, tailored to my problem. And they worked! It's night and day, how much better I feel now. She asked me why I waited so long to get help. So if you still have problems even trying to correct it on your own, I would encourage you to get help, too.

Good luck on your journey!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Glis Moriarty said:


> It's a wave of honesty and positiivity.
> Unlike some other threads here.
> And likeability.


Haha, thanks! *embarrassed blush*



kswalker said:


> Thank you for sharing, this has some great insights. You've inspired me to take a new look at some things I'm doing, like a website redesign. I've been making sites since 96 or 97? And it's funny how the trends change. Realized mine was outdated and needed a refresh.
> 
> About carpal tunnel... I know you've already gotten a lot of advice. But I just had to say, I spent months trying to deal with CT on my own using advice from online and didn't get very far. When I finally went to see a physical therapist, she tested me and gave me very specific stretches and exercises that I'd never seen, tailored to my problem. And they worked! It's night and day, how much better I feel now. She asked me why I waited so long to get help. So if you still have problems even trying to correct it on your own, I would encourage you to get help, too.


Trends definitely do change. Every five years or so, it's probably also a good idea to take a look at our books covers and make sure they're still relevant. Chris Fox had a video about this general concept recently called "Life Cycle of a Book." It's a good watch for anyone interested in a long-term career at this stuff.

Thanks for the advice about my wrist. It is feeling better now, and I've been trying to strengthen it, but you're right, if I keep having problems in the future, I intend to go to a professional.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

July 6, 2019

June Recap

I put in a ton of hours in June. Which is great. However, a good chunk of those hours went towards a project that I had no (and still have no) plans to write immediately. So, while that time wasn't wasted, it really wasn't the highest priority.

Basically, there's this alternate history book, plus a series of non-fiction accompaniments, I want to write, which requires a crap ton of research not only into that time period but into how reality and all the things we've learned since the human race came about really work. As in, what is the actual chemistry behind soap? You may or may not be surprised to find that the vast majority of resources out there about how people created soap from ashes and fats are wrong about how the chemistry actually works? You just don't get potassium or sodium hydroxide directly from wood ashes. It's potassium or sodium carbonate. This is the sort of thing that gets me frustrated and leads to me giving myself extensive chemistry lessons so I can figure out how things actually work.

However, aside from the history and science research, I also plotted the next book in my Seeds of Chaos series and started writing it. I'm not sure if it's because I let this series sit on the back burner and percolate for about 6 months, or because most of the series' threads have already been set up and now are starting to pay off, or because I'm simply getting faster as writing becomes more instinctive, but plotting this book was way faster and easier than I'd anticipated.

Also, spent some time on illustration, and have updates on the audiobook front.

Audio

At the end of May, I signed up for an AudioBookBoom promotion, where they connect you with audio listeners and reviewers who are interested in getting some of your free codes. That happened in June, and I got about 35 requests for codes. Now, ABB cautions you to check out their reviewer profiles/history so that you can make sure they don't just want the free code but actually have a chance of leaving you a review. However, Audible just rolled out their new promo code interface, leaving me with a large chunk of the old codes that are going to expire in September. So I just gave everyone who asked for one a code.

In the email I sent with the code for Book 1, I offered the code for Book 2 to anyone who wanted it after finishing and reviewing Book 1. 30% of the initial group have left a review so far, I think, and about 80% of those asked for Book 2.

At their current low price of $12 (for my genre, at least), I would definitely recommend AudioBookBoom. However, I DO NOT expect that these type of results (and promo spot availability) are going to continue long term. If that were possible, we would see more highly successful review services for ebooks, and while there are a few, they are either very expensive, mostly useless, or booked out way far into the future because their readership/reviewers are inundated.

I think what we're seeing here is that (for once) I happened to take advantage of a marketing avenue/service that's still in the explosive growth phase, because ways to market audiobooks are so limited.

Also, if you have those old Audible promo codes, might as well use them before they expire.

ACX Support Sucks

Just to point out what many of you already know. For audiobooks (at least those exclusive with ACX), you cannot directly update any of your audiobook's information. You have to email ACX support directly, and they will change things for you. (Or not.) I requested my covers be updated (tweaked them a little for the square format), my blurbs, and my metadata.

I received an email back telling me I needed to send them the blurbs in a .docx, and that my covers were exactly the same. I sent the .docx blurbs and explained my covers had been tweaked, were not the same, etc. It takes anywhere from 2 days to 3 weeks to complete, they say.

Two weeks later, my blurb's been updated, but not the metadata or the covers. When I email them, turns out they weren't even working on the metadata or covers, and that part of my request just got tossed out when they assumed I'd sent them the same covers in error. Sigh.

You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to simply allow the right's holder to update their own cover, blurb, etc, even if they do want to us keep sending the audio files through quality control before allowing them to go live.

Illustration/Premade Covers

As I mentioned last time, I had been considering whether to spend some of my time (often time at the end of the day when I've already finished writing) on illustrating some premade covers. I decided to go ahead and experiment with this to see what I could do. It's been a while since I've done any serious illustrating aside from my own covers, and I've been enjoying spending some time with painting again.

I'm experimenting with this and that, refreshing my memory and my skills, and learning new things here and there. I use stock photos as references to varying degrees, but it's still the same kind of struggle you find with any creative endeavor, where you are always striving to improve. Illustration takes a long time, especially with my semi-realistic style, and so nothing I produce is going to be cheap, but I hope to make covers that are at least affordable.

I think typography is one of the biggest delineators between a stellar cover and a good one, so I'll be looking to really hone my skills there. Here's a sneak peek at the first cover, which I'm allowing to sit so I can come back to it with fresh eyes.










I'll probably be starting another of the many vendor threads in a week or two. I'm open to doing totally custom covers for people, but they would cost more than the premades. My writing comes first, so I can only do a handful of covers every month. Still, I'm definitely glad I decided to try this out.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

April
Ebook: 254
Paperback: 1
Audio: 84
Total: 339

May
Ebook: 226
Paperback: 5
Audio: 57
Total: 288

June
Ebook: 196
Paperback: 1
Audio: 105
Total: 302

Remaining to hit 10,000: 6842

As you can see, I need either some marketing magic to a new audience, or better yet, a new release. I'm working on it, and will talk more about that in my "Start of July" post, which is coming next. However, it is good to look back and see that I'm handily beating myself at this same time last year.  That's a trend that I plan to continue.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

July 6, 2019

Mid-Year Assessment and July Stuff

Alright, guys! 

So half the year is now over. I'm not quite where I want to be with either sales or production, but I'm definitely not in a hopeless situation. For anyone out there who may have fallen a little behind their original goals, a great way to get back on the horse is to sit down, assess where you are, and come up with a realistic new goal for the next chunk of time, whether that be the next week, the next month, or the next 6 months. Even if you haven't fallen behind, your old goals may not perfectly fit your current situation, so it's still a good idea. 

Here's where I'm at with some of my more critical goals for this year: 

6,842 sales left to go out of 10,000
1/2 out of 1 Practical Guide to Sorcery
1/20 out of Gods of Ash and Amber
1/1 Gods of Myth and Midnight Audiobook
1/3 Ad platforms thorough experimentation

So, as you can see, I do have a lot of work to get through in the second half of the year, so I sat down with a calendar and figured out what I need to do to make that happen. 

Gods of Ash and Amber is my first priority, because it has a guaranteed, if not gigantic, audience. However, I'm loathe to completely set A Practical Guide to Sorcery aside. 

I'm again going to to try the iterative method of editing and tweaking as I go along, rather than one big Revision (and then editing) after I finish the first draft. One Big Revision was what I needed when I started out, and while I still plan to do a comprehensive Revision when the first draft is finished, I feel like the new method may be a better fit to my evolving skill. We’ll see, I still haven’t finished and published a book using this method. 

Objectives:
10k per week new words written for GOAA
4k per week new words written for PGTS
10k per week words reviewed, tweaked, and edited for GOAA
4k per week words reviewed, tweaked, and edited for PGTS

That's a total of 14k new words written per week, which should theoretically be pretty close to where I need them to be, both story-wise and prose-wise. 

Beyond those main goals, I will spend time illustrating, marketing, and handling the admin stuff as I am able to. I've gone into more specifics for my personal use, but that's the gist of my objectives going forward. 

If all goes well, I should be publishing GOAA in November or December, and beginning to serialize PGTS around that time as well. Obviously, sooner is better. 



Gods of Myth and Midnight Audio is now live in stores

It went live on the 2nd. So far it's a little too early to tell how sales will be, but I anticipate earning out the cost of this audiobook within 6 months, and as always, I'll keep you guys updated. 

As I explore other ad/marketing avenues, I'm going to see if I can't push audio fans directly to the audiobooks. I feel like the audiences between the two formats do overlap, but not completely, so it may be worthwhile targeting for different formats. 



I've been very busy lately. Every day I'm pushing to complete a series of tasks that are at the far reaches of my grasp, which is a little tiring. But, I also feel like I'm managing to increase my productivity in a way that isn't as stressful and which should help protect me from burnout. We'll see how I manage going forward. 

I think that's it. Back to the writing for me!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

August 5, 2019

July Recap

Back again, guys!

I hope you all are doing well. July was a pretty good month for me, with a big boost to my productivity that I'm pretty excited about, because it seems to be sustainable. My focus was spread across a few different things, which I'll go over below.

Gods of Ash and Amber--The next Seeds of Chaos book

I wrote about 100 pages for GOAA, which could be better, but isn't too shabby. I've mentioned this before, but in the past, I've let a book sit till I'm completely finished with the first draft, then gone back and done one big Revision for story, plot, characters, etc, followed by a line editing pass. I've been trying this new thing where every couple weeks I go back to the previous chunk of chapters to edit the prose and tweak the plot/characters/etc. It helps me enjoy the writing a little more when I know there's not this big pile of problems waiting in what I've already written, and helps me come up with ideas to weave the story together a little more tightly. I think it's going to help me produce books slightly faster, too, despite making the first draft a little slower.

I think I'll be able to get this book out before the end of the year, which will be the quickest I've ever completed a novel of this size. (We'll see, I'm not making any promises, just tentative observations.) If so, that would be wonderful, and hopefully something I can carry forward.

Scheduling and Productivity

As you guys know, I like many people, struggle with productivity. A lot of you are probably the same. If so, I encourage you to keep looking for a system that works for you.

I think I may have found my own, though improvement is always possible.

I've always set goals for the month, and have a pretty good estimate of how long each goal will take me, in hours. Still, I'd struggle to meet those hours of focused productivity--basically, I'd burn out halfway through the day, or I'd get distracted with something fun, or distracted with work that really was not a priority but still ended up sucking away the hours. I knew I _should_ be able to hit the goals I was setting, but when push came to shove, unless I was up against a hard deadline, I had a hard time actually making it happen. Determination wasn't enough, because as I got tired it wore off like a shiny new paint of coat in a sand storm, and was gone when I really needed it.

In addition to the goals I set for the month, a while back I started setting goals weekly. I just write them on a colored notecard. This helped a little, because every week the goals started anew, so I never felt discouraged by the amount of work to be done or any failures from the last notecard. It allowed me to get a bit more granular with the goals (which meant I could tick them off more easily), while still keeping sight of the larger picture. It helped a little, but it still wasn't the thing that made the biggest difference.

In addition to those two things, I've very often kept a daily To-Do list. What I'm doing now isn't much different than that, but it seems to be making all the difference.

First thing in the morning, I sit down with a little lined notebook and work out what I'm going to do that day. I put the hardest things first, that usually being writing, and the type of tasks that might otherwise distract me and suck up all my time and energy go last. Here's the trick that seems to be making difference:

I set easy goals, and I note exactly what time I should have them finished by. One hour on, thirty minutes break time. Here's the best part. I give myself about thirty minutes before the schedule officially starts to putter around and get a head start on completing the goals, which allows me to sneakily stay AHEAD of them throughout the day. Because I feel like I'm "winning," I want to maintain my lead and even get further ahead, and so I'll sneakily work a few minutes during the scheduled break time, too. I do try to make sure I'm actually using at least half of the thirty-minute break time as an actual break, or at least switch to doing something very different to give my brain a rest.

Because the goals are relatively easy, and I've "cheated" to get ahead, I'm able to stay relaxed as I work, without any stress that I'm falling behind.

The first three to four working hours of the day (which are broken up by the scheduled breaks every hour) are spent on writing work. By the end of that time I start to get tired, but since I'm already ahead, and it's pretty easy to tell yourself, "You don't have to write, but you can't do anything else. Just keep staring at the page and write a few sentences if you have an idea. It's only an hour, and then you take a break," Or "and then you're finished, so don't you want to see if you can finish this scene before your time's up?" it's bearable to keep working.

After I finish that, I move onto marketing or admin or illustration for another 2 hours. Generally, this stuff sucks me in and I blow right through my breaks without even stopping, and by the end of the day I've done more work than I actually scheduled, as well as more work than I would have finished previously without a deadline. I feel successful and I'm still not so wiped out that I can't do anything the next morning.

CAVEAT: Like most productivity methods, it's really important to get enough sleep. The more (good, restful, unstressed) sleep I get, the better I perform the next day. Waking early in the morning is also a really big piece of this for me, because seeing that it's noon and I haven't even got halfway done with the writing yet VS. seeing that it's noon and I'm 3000 words in are very different feelings.

An easy way to keep track of schedules like this is the Marinara Timer. www.marinaratimer.com It has the Pomodoro beat schedule available, but also allows you to create your own custom time chunks, and lets off a little ding whenever you reach the end of a chunk to remind you that it's time to switch to the next thing.

Marketing/PPC

I've been doing a lot of research and testing on both the Amazon (which I'm more familiar with) and FB (which I haven't messed with for years) platforms. This is where a good chunk of my time was spent in July, and though I do think I'm getting better, I definitely haven't cracked the code yet. It's a ton of work, and while it is a priority for me, it's definitely not as important as getting out new books, since my backlist is still not very big.

My takeaway so far isn't very useful, and is basically that marketing is hard. I have a lot of ideas left to try, and hopefully I find something useful that I can talk about next month, even just basic principles.

Box Set

Partially for marketing purposes, I'm going to be releasing a box set of my first two books. I'd previously assumed I would wait till I had more books out so I could box up the first three in the series, but I was watching a video on marketing and the author mentioned that the box set they advertise is pretty big, at around seven or eight hundred pages, and I had the random though that that was the size of just my first two books put together, and maybe not even that big. The random thought got me to considering, and I came to the conclusion that I just don't write quickly enough or small enough books (so far) to feasibly box up three books. So I decided to do the first two, and we'll see if that works alright.

I'll be doing a brand new cover for it, as well as a paperback and audio version. I'll be doing some marketing push, but I don't have enough unallocated funds to hope to get into the top 1000 or higher, so I'm not planning to spend money I don't have on a gamble that I'll make it back when Amazon picks up and starts pushing the book.

Newsletter Giveaway

I think I'm going to make up a little realistic-looking dossier on the super-powered team members of my Seeds of Chaos books. Like a CIA folder with "Classified" stamps and little illustrated photos of the characters. I plan to give it away to my newsletter members, releasing it to them at the same time I release the box set. I'll ask them for reviews at the same time, so that I'm offering value at the same time that I ask something from them. My newsletter isn't very big, so I don't actually anticipate I'll be able to get a ton of day-one reviews on the box set, but I've had the idea for the dossier for a while and this seems like a good time to make a move on it.

Illustrations

I completed the third premade cover and went ahead and set up a little thread here on kBoards about it. I enjoyed making them, and I think I learned a little bit, too.



Who knows if people will be interested, but I'm going to do a few more premades over the rest of the year. I'd love to hear thoughts from you guys on this.

You can check out the vendor thread for my illustrations/covers here: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,314675.msg3826519.html

Audio

The third book in my series came out in audio at the beginning of the month. The series got a bit of a boost, but not very much, and the difference between this audio release and the first one are stark. Now, this book will still be profitable eventually, it's just going to take a lot longer. The problem is simply that there isn't enough of a boost to any specific book to get Audible to take notice, and that's because there aren't any easy ways to market when you're exclusive with ACX, except marketing to the ebook.

I'm going to be looking into pushing traffic there via FB, since Amazon Ads don't allow you to market an audiobook, but I'm trying to figure out FB on a more basic level first.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

April
Ebook: 254
Paperback: 1
Audio: 84
Total: 339

May
Ebook: 226
Paperback: 5
Audio: 57
Total: 288

June
Ebook: 196
Paperback: 1
Audio: 105
Total: 302

July
Ebook: 193
Paperback: 5
Audio: 207
Total: 405

Remaining to hit 10,000: 6437

I've gotta get back to work, guys. Thanks for reading! I love reading your comments, so if you have thoughts, whether it be about my plans, my progress, or your own goals and experiences as it relates to this thread, feel free to post them.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

September 4, 2019

August Recap

Hey everyone!

I'm feeling quite energized and exuberant this morning, maybe because I've had the rare cup of coffee and it's hitting me hard. This is why you shouldn't get addicted (build up a tolerance) to caffeine!

Gods of Ash and Amber

I only wrote about 50 pages for GOAA in August, mainly because I took about a week off and had a little staycation. I'm back and hitting hard so far in September, though, and still on track to finish this book before the end of the year. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to publish in December or not, but the book will definitely be out by January.

I've been struggling a little with getting the words out for this story, but at the same time I'm really looking forward to having the whole thing down on paper.

Chris Fox put out a video lately about finding your intrinsic motivation, and I've been trying to be mindful about that for this story, and enjoy the process as well as the end goal.

I've switched to working only on this book, rather than splitting my time between it and the other one, because I'm still just _too slow_.

Productivity

I'm still really liking my new productivity method, though of course it doesn't do the work _for_ me. I still have to have the motivation to get started and keep going on my own. In fact, I'm using the method already today, and off to a productive start.

Since I took some time off last month, my overall month wasn't as productive as some others this year, but I was able to get a good amount done on the days I worked, and made progress on the Omnibus I'm putting out as well as the new book.

Marketing/PPC

I improved my profitability with PPC ads in August, via working on my blurb and ad copy. I didn't get a lot _more_ sales, but my cost per each one decreased significantly. I've updated my blurbs a few times over the last few years, and while I always _felt_ like I was improving them when doing so, I think I was still missing the most important part of blurb writing.

The point isn't to explain your book or sound smooth or any of that. The one and only point of blurb/ad copy is to hook a potential reader. You want the tagline/hook at the top, but you don't want that to be the _only_ hook in your blurb.

Each line should either hook the potential reader into reading the next line, or hook them into reading the entire book through interesting, unanswered questions. It should answer only enough questions to raise curiosity, and if you can get them to read all the way through the blurb with interest, it's more likely for that sustained interest to lead to a sale.

I still have a lot to learn about all this, and I'm by no means a master at either ad copy or PPC marketing, but I think it's a good lesson. I'll be continuing to update things as I learn more, and hopefully will continue to do so in perpetuity.

Illustrations

I haven't had time to do any more premade covers this month, but I have plans for a few more, one of which I've started. I'm still available for custom covers, with a turnover of about 3 weeks.

Audio

The audiobooks are still puttering away, and I'm still in the red after the last book, but am on track to be profitable...eventually. I haven't had time (or the confidence in my skill level) to do any audio specific marketing yet, but it's still in the plans.

The Omnibus (Books 1 & 2)

Other than GOAA, this is the big thing I've got going on at the moment. I'm going to put it on preorder so that I can set up promotions well ahead of time, but the earliest it will go live is the end of October.

I'm almost finished with the cover, which is more difficult and dynamic than the other covers in the series. It screams "fantasy-action/adventure" so I'm very interested to see how it performs in comparison to the current ones.

In 2014 when I illustrated GOBB's cover, I don't think I could have painted this instead. I didn't have the skill. Even right now, it's a bit of a stretch to my abilities and I feel like I've learned from pushing myself. Hopefully it turns out well, after I complete the finishing touches! I will post it here once it's finished, so you guys can see what I mean.

It's possible the Omnibus cover will be more on target to the market, but without testing my speculation means nothing. If I find that _is_ the case, I'll likely be updating all my covers over the next few months.

I'm not sure if I'll be doing a print version of this Omnibus, but it will definitely be in both ebook and audio. I'm hoping to be able to give it a boost in both stores, and hopefully get some new eyes on the series. My promotion budget isn't gigantic, but I've got a few hundred dollars to invest in this release.

By the time this book goes live, the preorder for Gods of Ash and Amber will be up, so I also hope to be able to catch a few more follow-on sales after Book 3.

The BookBub (International)

Talking about sending traffic to my books... I got a BookBub!

It's international only, at 99c. I know it's not going to have the impact of a US Featured Deal, but I still think it's an opportunity and I'm excited to see how it goes.

I'll be back later to talk about the BookBub in its own post. It's on the 6th (Friday).

Goals

My main goal right now is finishing Gods of Ash and Amber. I don't want to keep the readers waiting any longer, and it's been since December of last year since there was a new release in this series. I really, really want to chug right through it.

My secondary goal is the Omnibus and all the side stuff that goes along with that.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

April
Ebook: 254
Paperback: 1
Audio: 84
Total: 339

May
Ebook: 226
Paperback: 5
Audio: 57
Total: 288

June
Ebook: 196
Paperback: 1
Audio: 105
Total: 302

July
Ebook: 193
Paperback: 5
Audio: 207
Total: 405

August
Ebook: 173
Paperback: 5
Audio: 91
Total: 269

Remaining to hit 10,000: 6168

Sales-wise, it seems August was actually my worst month this year. I'm not down about it, because things should be picking up moving forward.

September has the international BookBub. October/November has the Omnibus. And if I can move fast enough, December (or January if I can't) has the new release.

2019 is 8/12ths (2/3rds) complete. I sold 3530 units last year.

This year, I've already surpassed that, at 3832 units so far.

I'm not sure that I'll be able to hit my sales goal this year, but I'm still _trying_ to do so. Even if I miss, I'll have improved by a lot.

And in case you guys haven't noticed, I think positivity is a really important characteristic for anyone trying to achieve any difficult or long-term goal. I may not be making oodles of money...but I'm also not starving and I can pay all my bills. I'm living the good life, and I'm _happy_. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.


----------



## Betty Blast (Sep 3, 2019)

Good Luck! Thanks for showing your numbers, it's inspiring.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

September 5, 2019

International BookBub Featured Deal, at 99c

I've applied for a BookBub quite a few times, though not as many as some of the stories I hear. My Books are in KU, so I was pessimistic about ever being accepted with this series, except perhaps with a boxed set or something.

I'm not sure why they accepted me this time, but only two things changed from my previous submissions. I'd updated my blurb, and in the comment section I mentioned the number of 4 and 5 star reviews across all the different platforms. Honestly&#8230;it could have just been timing, and my submission was sent at a serendipitous moment.

I'm not doing any other newsletter-feature promotions along with the BB, because I just don't think the monetary return would be there, and it's not like I'm trying to hit some list or reach the top 100. My small PPC spend will continue unabated, and if I have time I might tinker with some BB ads over the next few days until I raise the price.

This Featured Deal cost me $160, and I'd like to go into this knowing what I hope to get out of it.

BB says the average number of sales for what I've got is 390.

At $0.35 each, if I hit the average number of sales, I won't quite make back the money spent on the promotion. However, seeing as I'm in KU, I should also get some page reads out of this. There are 2 books and a novella after this one, so I should also get some readthrough.

To encourage immediate sell-through, I've discounted the second book in the series to $2.99 for the duration of the promotion, and put a little note on Book 1 about it.

I've discounted the price in all regions, even if the deal isn't going out to the US. I figure there might be minimal spillover.

What I hope to gain:

At least 390 sales, to hit the average
Make my money back on the day of
Increased KU activity (I'm a little vague on what to expect with this one.)
Increased sales of the remaining books in the series. Over the next two to three weeks, I'd like to see at least 15% sell-through to the next book in the series. 
5 more reviews
10 mailing list subscribers


If I can meet those metrics, I'll consider the promo a definite success.

(And if I can't, it'll be a learning experience for me, and hopefully you guys, too.)

I'm going to wake up early so I can refresh my sales page constantly like a little child.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Alright, the BookBub has started. Since it's only international, I didn't receive it in my own daily email. 

If anyone has received it in the UK/CA/AU/IN, I would love/appreciate you forwarding the email to me so I can see the ad copy they used. 

My email addy is [email protected] 

Only a handful of extra sales so far.


----------



## ID Johnson (Apr 27, 2017)

Azalea said:


> Alright, the BookBub has started. Since it's only international, I didn't receive it in my own daily email.
> 
> If anyone has received it in the UK/CA/AU/IN, I would love/appreciate you forwarding the email to me so I can see the ad copy they used.
> 
> ...


Best of luck to you! I had an International only Bookbub around this time last year and did end up making my money back within 24 hours but two things I remember I just wanted to share with you. The first one is that the sales from Australia didn't start showing up until day two, and the second one is that I sold none in India--not a one. I'm pretty sure I've read other places that this is often the case. Oh, and I ended up getting a featured deal for the same book early this year. The first time I applied for it after the International only, I didn't get it, but the second time I did, so hopefully you will have the same luck.
Bookbub days are exciting! Don't feel bad if you're constantly updating your stats because that's a huge part of the fun, in my opinion. I hope you sell a ton of books, find a lot of new readers, and that you get lots more Bookbubs in the future!


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Betty Blast said:


> Good Luck! Thanks for showing your numbers, it's inspiring.





ID Johnson said:


> Best of luck to you! I had an International only Bookbub around this time last year and did end up making my money back within 24 hours but two things I remember I just wanted to share with you.


Thanks, guys.

Back again with a quick update on the BookBub, and some other thoughts I've been tumbling around, which have only recently started to cohere for me.

The BookBub did not meet the initial goals.

I had 135 sales across both stores, which is obviously much less than the 390 I hoped for. That's approximately 35% of the goal.

And, of course, that means I also didn't make back the money spent on the promo yet.

I did get to number 1 in multiple subcategories in both Canada and Australia, and into the top 5 of my subcategories in the UK. It's too early to tell for some of the other metrics, such as sell-through and reviews. I've had increased sales in all international stores for the last couple days, and I'm still #1 in my top 3 subcategories in Canada, and in the top #100 for my subcategories in the UK and Australia. I might earn out the cost of the ad tomorrow or the day after, which isn't too shabby, really.

I have a number of thoughts why the book may not have sold in the quantities I'd hoped.

- I don't think the ad copy they came up with was very good. My book is somewhat multi-genred, which does make it hard to market or quantify, but I felt like the person who wrote BB's ad copy didn't understand what draws readers to this book and made the copy very generic, leaving out the important bits. However, they write BB ad copy for a living, and I don't, so it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about here.

- My book is exclusive to Amazon, which means I missed all potential buyers from the other stores. I think, especially internationally, Amazon doesn't have the monopoly it does here in the US. I that's the case, my potential buyer base could have been cut down significantly.

- Perhaps my little notice about discounted Book 2 (which was at the top of Book 1's blurb) distracted people from the actual important part, the first hook.

- My book has a subtitle that could have _helped_ counteract my first point about a blurb that was too generic, but BookBub doesn't have that in there system, and so neither did the ad.

- My cover sucks? Or, perhaps it just isn't properly enticing the _right_ readers by signifying what they'd get inside. I think this might really be an issue, one I'll be testing out with the Omnibus cover.

- This series just doesn't have broad appeal. Sometimes that happens.

- People borrowed the book rather than bought, and I actually moved a lot more units than Amazon will quantify.

I'd guess that it's a combination of all of these things.

The best of all these options is that my covers need to be updated, because that's something that I can do something about which will have long-term results.

I'm just finishing up the Omnibus cover, so when it's done I'll have something else to A/B test against my current covers. (Using FB ads as well as just the general response to the Omnibus preorder.)

However, what if it's just that this series doesn't have that special sauce which will draw in a wider reader base? That's the worst case scenario, but not the sort of thing that's worth getting upset over.

I've got Book 1 in another series 75% written, and a detailed idea for a 3rd series ready to go.

Seeds of Chaos is far from a failure in my book (no pun intended), but I'm not sure the series can make it to the big leagues. Not that it needs to, really, but obviously more sales is better. I've been working on it for 6 years now, and I've had a lot of fun and learned a lot along the way. However, I'm also growing a bit tired.

I'd originally planned to write 5 books in this series, but as I'm getting closer to the end of GOAA, it feels like a natural place to wrap everything up. I don't think the story needs another book, and unless I have an idea that needs to be written, I want to end things while the story is till tight, rather than potentially ruining the story by dragging things on without need.

So, at the moment, unless I receive some inspiration otherwise, this book is drawing the overarching story to a close. I doubt releasing the final book is going to make much difference to sales except for my funnel being a little longer, giving me a few more opportunities with marketing, but I am looking forward to seeing what can be done with multiple series to my name, one of which is finally complete.

It feels like 2019 is already drawing to a close, since the next few months are pretty well planned out for me, and I'm definitely looking ahead to 2020 with interest and excitement.

I'll be back in a few days with the Omnibus cover for your ogling pleasure.


----------



## Glis Moriarty (Jun 20, 2018)

Azalea said:


> I have a number of thoughts why the book may not have sold in the quantities I'd hoped.


I notice that the price has already reverted. 
When I look at Bookbub emails, it may not be for a week or longer. Prices that have reverted don't get bought. I always go direct to the stores because the Bookbub links usually just say that the deal is over, even when the store price is still reduced. I don't know how many people do this, but I would generally leave the reduced price up for a week.


----------



## kswalker (Apr 26, 2013)

Sorry to hear that the sales via Bookbub were not what you'd hoped. Maybe you have at least learned something from your experience.

I also struggle with knowing if a series has enough mass appeal to support a high volume of sales. I will say that of my three series, the one which is completed has made the most sales, even when I'm not promoting it and even when it had subpar covers. I think there are definitely readers out there who wait until a series is finished before they try it.

Because of this, I want to take time to cap off my second series with the third book and see if that helps improve sales. At least I can show that it's complete and the few readers out there aren't wondering about the next book. I'd originally planned for it to be much longer, but I can wrap up the plots I have running in the third book without adding the more complex stuff I wanted to continue. I think it's better to finish it off and move on to something more popular.

It's just about making the time to write a long, complicated book when I know, at least right now, it's not got a lot of people waiting for it and probably won't sell much.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Glis Moriarty said:


> I notice that the price has already reverted.
> When I look at Bookbub emails, it may not be for a week or longer. Prices that have reverted don't get bought. I always go direct to the stores because the Bookbub links usually just say that the deal is over, even when the store price is still reduced. I don't know how many people do this, but I would generally leave the reduced price up for a week.


Glis, I don't think it would have been worth it to keep the price at 99c, because the volume of sales wasn't there. I left it up for a little over a day after the day of the BookBub, to catch some of the stragglers, but leaving it up for longer would have lost more money than a little extra volume could make up for, I think.



kswalker said:


> Sorry to hear that the sales via Bookbub were not what you'd hoped. Maybe you have at least learned something from your experience.
> 
> I also struggle with knowing if a series has enough mass appeal to support a high volume of sales. I will say that of my three series, the one which is completed has made the most sales, even when I'm not promoting it and even when it had subpar covers. I think there are definitely readers out there who wait until a series is finished before they try it.
> 
> ...


Hopefully I'm always learning!

I understand waiting for a complete series. I'm one of those readers who like to binge a series, and, like many other readers I assume, might not pick up the next book in the series if the time between releases is so long that I've forgotten my interest in whatever I read. Or sometimes, I pick up a newly released book after a long wait and just can't get back into the story unless I re-read from the beginning. So I almost never pick up a series that doesn't have at least a few books ready and waiting.

Good luck with your second series. I imagine tying it off will relieve some of that mental pressure in the back of your mind. The nice thing about books is that once they're written, it's done. It's not an hourly job, and as long as you promote them, they can continue to bring in residual income for a very long time.

In a few years, you/we might even revamp the series with updated covers, etc, and do another push to fresh eyes.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

As veteran of 17 (almost 1 Bookbubs, as well as someone who runs a deals list, and Australian, here are a few thoughts.

Glis is right is saying that many people don't open emails on the day. I've found this to be an increasing trend. With my little (25k subscribers) deals newsletter I've found that if an x number of people have opened the email after two weeks, the percentage of those people that end up opening the email within 24 hours of it being sent is dramatically decreasing all the time. It used to be that I'd get 90% of all opens I was going to get on day one, these days it can be as little as 50%.

When I have a Bookbub, I leave my book at 99c or free for at least a month. Bookbub is about through-sales. Your book stays on their website for as long as it's discounted. That's free publicity. And it gives you time to organise cross-promo to support the Bookbub. It's a promotion. You can try to count on Bookbub to pull all their weight, or you can add a bit of your own weight for a longer-lasting sales spike.

So if Bookbub emails me that they want to run the book, I 1. pay the invoice, 2. go to my dashboards and discount the book immediately. Then I start running cross-promos (which cost nothing). The book is at the promo price from about 3 weeks prior to the Bookbub date to 4 weeks after. Last time I had a 99c cent box set promo, I'd earned out the Bookbub before the Bookbub had even hit. As result of the more sustained peak, the book is still selling at $9.99.

International: The Australian Kindle store is anaemic. The people who buy there are loyal (KU reads are quite good, %-wise, and punch above their weight) but OMG there are so few of them! Kobo is huge in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Apple is huge in Australia, Google Play is huge in Australia and South Africa.

Bookbub: single-volume 99c book deals often suck. They're the ones most likely not to do well. I've never had one not earn out, but that may be because I'm not doing them anymore. I only do free and 99c for box sets only.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

October 1, 2019

September Recap

Hi, I'm back again and in a great mood for no particular reason.

Guys, a little bit of advice from Azalea: Life is better when you go through it smiling. 

September had about 20 good days out of 30, and near the end of the month I got almost nothing done due to "life stuff." I won't go into detail (it's nothing severe), but suffice it to say I'm most creative when there are no major stressors or depressors in my life. I'm not the "tortured" artist type; my creativity is not catalyzed by pain.

I don't suffer from clinical depression, but a lot of creatives do, and I just want to remind anyone out there reading this that there is hope at the end of all dark tunnels. If you need it, reach for a helping hand. Sometimes, just getting through the day is so difficult it's hard to find the energy to even look for a fix the underlying problem, but don't forget that the future can be better than today. Sometimes you just need a little spark of light.

BookBub Followup

So I wanted:

At least 390 sales, to hit the average
 *--Did not happen, got 144 sales/borrows across all countries over the 6th and 7th*
Make my money back on the day of
 *--Did not happen, but I did make my money back over the remainder of the month, plus some. *
Increased KU activity (I'm a little vague on what to expect with this one.)
 *--Got this, for sure.* 
Increased sales of the remaining books in the series. Over the next two to three weeks, I'd like to see at least 15% sell-through to the next book in the series.
 *--Ongoing. KU readthrough has well exceeded this, while sales waver between 10-12% sellthrough in the UK, Canada, and Australia. *
5 more reviews
 *--2 so far*
10 mailing list subscribers
* --No noticeable increase yet. This metric was probably wishful thinking. I usually get about 2 subscribers for every 100 people who reads Book 1, so I might end up getting a handful out of this, but probably not 10. *

However, despite the numbers not being as high as I wanted, over the course of the month, with readthrough, the BookBub did pay for itself. Taking into account my standard sales in the international countries as well as the cost of the BookBub, it did in fact make me money. In fact, my international net _profit_ doubled last month. So, while not stratospheric, definitely still worth it.

Gods of Ash and Amber

I'm still on track to finish this book before the end of the year, though I'm going to give myself some leeway on a publishing date because getting editing and proofreading done around the holidays might take a little extra time. I think I'll be putting up a preorder at the end of this month, and I'm going to set the release date at the end of February, even though I shouldn't need that much time. I'd like to have a release where I'm not rushing at all at the last minute (for once). Once I'm ready, I can always move the release date forward. (Move it back? ...Which way is "sooner?")

Productivity

I noticed my motivators for getting things done were skewed a lot more towards "punishment" than reward, other than the simple pleasure I would get from crossing things off a list and having accomplished my work for the day. I actually had a hard time figuring out a reward that would actually motivate me, as I'm not a fan of frivolous spending, edible treats, etc.

I added a little money jar at the side of my desk, and I put set amounts of cash into it when I meet certain metrics (mostly wordcounts). I call it my Streak Jar. I have to write _something_ every single day for the money to be safe, and if I miss even one day, I lose everything I've accumulated during the month. It can be as little as a single minute of writing, as long as I make some progress each day.

I actually lost all the money I'd accumulated at the end of September, but hopefully extenuating circumstances like that won't recur often.

10% of the money I make doing this will go to Heifers International, a charity I really like. The rest is to be spent only on non-business items, personal things that I would otherwise put off buying, but that will enrich my life. Like some vertical garden planters I've been wanting, going to see the doctor about things that hurt, or dance lessons I've wanted to take but didn't feel I could justify the $70 per month on...

Marketing

I did some A/B/C/D testing on Facebook to see whether the original covers or the omnibus cover were more effective.

Omnibus cover wins, hands-down, as far as cheapest clicks goes. Now, my numbers were still small since I didn't want to waste a ton of money, but I ran two sets of A/B/C/D ads for 10 days, and the trend was clear. I don't know which cover converted _sales_ the best, but it's likely for click cost and conversion to correlate--though not certain.

I'm still puttering away at making the dossier for giveaway as I have time.

I also booked some promo for the Omnibus for the beginning of November, starting a couple days after it's released. Nothing fancy, just some of the best performing newsletter sites, which I'll support with some moderate PPC ads.


Omnibus Cover


















I can never quite make illustrations as perfect as I imagine them, but I'm overall satisfied with this. For now.

Do you have any thoughts on whether the flat cover or the 3D mockup will be more effective? I plan to A/B test this a little, but I'd love to hear thoughts from you guys. The flat cover is a little easier to see, while the 3D cover gives a quicker at-a-glance idea of what's being offered.

*Sales/Full Reads*

January
Ebook: 523
Audio: 361
Total: 884

February
Ebook: 541
Paperback: 3
Audio: 215
Total: 760

March
Ebook: 501
Paperback: 3
Audio: 78
Total: 585

April
Ebook: 254
Paperback: 1
Audio: 84
Total: 339

May
Ebook: 226
Paperback: 5
Audio: 57
Total: 288

June
Ebook: 196
Paperback: 1
Audio: 105
Total: 302

July
Ebook: 193
Paperback: 5
Audio: 207
Total: 405

August
Ebook: 173
Paperback: 5
Audio: 91
Total: 269

September
Ebook: 382
Audio: 67
Total: 449

Remaining to hit 10,000: 5719

I got a handful of full-series purchases on audio, which were returned the day after, so I kept seeing my numbers fluctuate back and forth. This kind of behavior (buying all three books, only to immediately return all three) is likely people pirating the work. It's not that hard to do, and with the higher prices of audiobooks, there's more incentive to do so. *Shrug.* Of course, it could also be a glitch in the reporting system, but...

Who knows.

I've got a lot to get through this coming month. It seems like I'm always saying that, huh? In the next year or two, I'd really love to hire a part time assistant.


----------



## Azalea (Mar 22, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> As veteran of 17 (almost 1 Bookbubs, as well as someone who runs a deals list, and Australian, here are a few thoughts.
> 
> Glis is right is saying that many people don't open emails on the day. I've found this to be an increasing trend. With my little (25k subscribers) deals newsletter I've found that if an x number of people have opened the email after two weeks, the percentage of those people that end up opening the email within 24 hours of it being sent is dramatically decreasing all the time. It used to be that I'd get 90% of all opens I was going to get on day one, these days it can be as little as 50%.
> 
> ...


Thanks for your thoughts, Patty! I always read your publishing posts with interest, and follow you as a reader as well.

I understand what you're saying, but here's my thinking.

This _was_ a single-volume 99c deal.

I can't get any sales from Kobo, Apple, or Google Play, because I'm in KU.

I only have 1 series of books, and it's not very long, so either readthrough needs to be _very_ robust, or I need to make money on Book 1.

As for cross-promos, I really just don't have a network of authors to do that with right now. I did consider trying to set some up. First, I don't have any relationships with anyone who writes similar books, so I thought about reaching out to some authors. But I had a hard time thinking of any whose books are similar to mine that I could feel good about recommending to my list. I don't mean to be untactful, but many of the similar books I have attempted to read are so poorly written that at some point I just gave up on the genre. Secondly, my own list is all organic and quite small, so I wondered how much use another author would actually get out of a cross-promo, and worried about short-changing them. Thirdly, I think I probably have some apprehension about cross-promos, just because it's something I haven't done before and don't know how to do well/properly.

I would like to explore that in the future, but it'll take a bit of work on my end to figure everything out. I suppose I could contact authors in the broader sci-fi & fantasy genre, not just LitRPG/GameLit, especially since this series so cross-genre and ill-defined. There may also be good authors closer to my own genre that I just haven't explored yet. I need to build up more & closer contacts in the author community, I think. It's silly to be shy, I know logically, but I end up being so anyway.

By the day after BookBub's email, I was already moving only 5-9 units in the international stores, across Books 1-3, so I just really didn't see the math being worth it long-term. Not with the way Amazon's algorithms push "churn" so heavily. I thought it pretty likely that number would continue to fall, though perhaps I'm wrong on that. If the series was longer, or the appeal was just a little greater, or if I had more than 1 series and didn't depend on this one, I might have let it run discounted for longer.

Going forward, I am interested in experimenting with BookBub's Free deals, discounting the upcoming Omnibus, and hopefully getting a US deal. But that's all up to BookBub. 

I'm also planning to go wide with my next series.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Here is me saying that you can get the crosspromo for free if you go to my website and follow the links in the menu.

Crosspromo is not really about doing the grunt work of emailing other authors and asking to be promoted. Most of them never reply anyway (yeah, I know it's rude. I have some things to say about that). At least that's my recent experience. You become a member of one of the many crosspromo Facebook groups and go from there. Watch what other people do. It's a "paying it forward" kind of community.


----------



## ID Johnson (Apr 27, 2017)

Thanks so much for the detailed update! It's great that you take the time to type this all up and share it with us.
Story Origin is free and they have a newsletter swap feature you can use for cross promoting. You do have to do a little bit of research on who you're cross promoting with, but you don't have to email anyone. You just apply for a spot in their posted email. The Facebook groups Patty mentioned have also been great places to find people to cross promote in my experience. Best of luck to you!!


----------

