Monthly Archives: January 2023
Happiness is a Warm Office
As I mentioned in the last post, our upstairs heating is rather wonky where the craft room (and upstairs bathroom) gets the bulk of the heat and the rest of the rooms are left to do credible imitations of iceboxes. Ramón’s office has three computers in it which helps with heat to a degree, but this situation has required us to purchase a space heater for our bedroom which lives in front of the window and does its best to hold back the cold.
The first space heater we ever got, however, seemed to stop working after a few years. Because I am who I am, I stuck it behind our bedroom door and got another space heater for the room, always thinking, “Yeah, I really should haul that downstairs and throw it out” when I cleaned.
In other words, the space heater is still in here and it occurred to me that it wouldn’t hurt to bring it into the office, plug it in, and see if it might fire up again. So I did. Lo and behold, it’s heating up nicely (Ramón came in and sniffed suspiciously but I reminded him that the damn thing was covered with dust and I was about to clean it off) and the chill draft playing about my feet is starting to abate.
Even better, Jessica just inspected it and gave it what I can only call an approving meow. I suspect I know what her favorite nap place is going to be for the next few days.
In other news, I have written 12,790 words in January. Which is pathetic, to be honest—I should have done 40K minimum. So that is now my goal for February, which is good because I need to get Crystal Blade finished and out by the beginning of March and having a word goal will help with that.
Anyway—onward to February and the return of warmth this weekend!
Kinda Hard to Write When You’re a Popsicle
Winter Storm Mara has well and truly hit our neck of the woods, and unfortunately my office window has the insulation qualities of a piece of Kleenex so it’s fricking freezing in here if I close the office door. And yes, I know I supposedly have heat in here, but for reasons we don’t understand because the baffles were supposedly reset to fix this, the bulk of the heat upstairs winds up in the craft room, which is great for Ramón when he’s resuscitating an ancient computer but not so great for me, or his office or our bedroom to be honest.
On the other hand if I open the office door to get some heat in here, at least two cats decide to join me, and at least one of them wants to be petted. Or sit on the back of my chair. Or stretch out on my desktop and rest his head on my hand while I’m trying to write. So I’m kinda screwed no matter what I do, unless I decided to pop for a space heater which I may well do (looking at Walmart’s website and apparently I can get the kind we have in our bedroom for $56. I know what I’m picking up come payday).
So I haven’t exactly gotten a lot done today, but to be honest it’s 25°F out there and I’m just glad that our power and heat are still on. I may put everything on my laptop and write in bed at this point, I don’t know.
My GOD, I Woke Up Productive
So far today, I have:
- Cleaned the master bathroom (swept the floor, dusted everything, cleaned the toilet/tub/shower cubicle/sinks, cleaned the mirrors, wiped down all the counters and cabinets, bleached a few places where the J Crew kinda missed with the litter box)
- Put clean sheets on the bed
- Washed both duvets
- Put the Christmas decor (3 storage boxes), a drill, the kneepads, and other items back in the garage
- Put my Workmate portable stand away so that I could park my car in the garage
- Cleaned off and dusted the foyer table
- Put my backpack/laptop bag away in the bedroom closet
- Shredded the 2015 bills and receipts so that I could start filing this year’s receipts and bills
- Tossed out two garbage bags full of shredded paper and other garbage from my office
- Made dinner
- Vacuumed my office and the upstairs
- Sewed 2 motifs for the quilt
- Did more editing on Shifter Woods: Claw
- Made a list of everything I have to get done tomorrow morning before the freezing rain hits in the afternoon
Frankly, my dear, I’m pooped.
I Think I Have a Solution
As you may know, Bob, I mentally cast my characters with actors because I’m a very visual writer and I see scenes in my head when I’m writing. In fact, I usually create headshots of whoever I cast and add them in Scrivener so that I can look at them on the right side of the screen when I’m writing. And I think I may have stumbled over the problem of why finishing Shifter Woods: Claw has been so difficult.
The people I mentally cast as Matt and Angela have the perfect chemistry for the story, and I admire them both as actors. Problem is, I’m not attracted to the male actor at all. I love his work, I love his interaction with the actress I cast as Angela, I have no problem with the man whatsoever—he just doesn’t do it for me.
So picture me sitting there and scrolling through pictures of actors in their forties, trying to find the ideal Matt. Which turned out to be kind of a struggle because most of what Hollywood considers to be pretty leaves me utterly cold. I needed someone who was American, mid-forties, could pull off being the head of a Search and Rescue group and a wolf shifter, could do grumpy yet sexy, and was hot in my unique opinion.
After literally an hour of searching, I finally found someone who works. And no, I’m not going to name him because it doesn’t matter who I see in my head when I write—the reader will pick their own favorite actor, which is how it should be. But suddenly the story has taken on a much deeper appeal and editing this should be hella easier.
Well, That’s Disheartening
So I sent out a newsletter today, as you do, which was actually the first one of the year because this month has been a bit hectic. I covered a little of what’s been going on, passed along the projected release date for Shifter Woods: Claw, and did a little promo for Storm Season (because what’s the point of having a backlist if you can’t promote it to people?).
As a result, seven people unsubscribed. Don’t know if I bored them, they didn’t want to read about a MMM urban fantasy romance, or what. Maybe they were annoyed that I didn’t add my section about jewelry and jewelry making, I dunno.
But I dutifully cleaned them from my mailing list, got rid of the two hard bounces, and I’m now down to 577 subscribers, bless each and every one of their tolerant hearts. I suppose I’ll need to take a look at some of the newsletter builder promos on BookFunnel and see if I can rebuild some of those numbers. To be honest, though, if someone doesn’t want to read my newsletter then I’m totally okay with them unsubscribing. Big numbers would be awesome, but in the end I’d prefer my newsletter readers to be people who genuinely want to hear about my books and the crazy stuff that happens while I’m writing them.
Or who want little jewelry and gem tidbits, either way. In any case, if you’d like to subscribe to my newsletter you can click the link in the first paragraph and it’ll take you to the signup page (and yes, people who sign up get a free book because free books are 🎵awesome🎶).
As for me, I have to go back to work. This novella won’t edit itself, you know.
Son of a…
There I was, innocently moving some music that I’d burned from CDs years ago onto my desktop and adding covers when I accidentally clicked on “Smooth Operator” by Sade.
By now everyone should know what this song is about, but years ago it prompted an idea for a contemporary romance where a newly elected female CEO of an up-and-coming tech company gets talked into attending a high-class kinky auction and wins the services of a handsome older gigolo, only to find out to her shock that she already knows him (and had a crush on him in her teenage years). She doesn’t want to be CEO—she’s on the spectrum and served as the company’s CTO while her older brother was the CEO until his suspicious death. She hires the gigolo to act as her platonic companion and social interface while she sets out to find who killed her brother, which boggles him but he’s aging out of the job and is happy to have one last gig to finish off his nest egg. And then hijinks occur, as they do.
It was a cool plot and I had a lot of it worked out in my head, but it was a contemporary romance and I didn’t really have time to do a Natasha M. Stark story so into the mental story trunk it went. And then I played “Smooth Operator” a few minutes ago and the story came roaring back, only this time it’s a near-future SF romance. Goddamnit.
Thing is, the MMC isn’t a cyborg or an alien. He comes from a rich family that owns mines out in the asteroid belt but loses all his money when his father dies and it turns out dear old Dad was broke, which is why the MMC chose to go into high-class prostitution (and has some enhancements that allow him to act as deadly bodyguard as well as lover). And SF romance these days needs the MMC to be some big, hulking male who is somehow “other,” otherwise it doesn’t sell. And I don’t have time to do another book right now.
Grah. Why you do this to me, brain?
Being a Small Business Owner is Tough
I wish I could say I started out in indie publishing as part of a carefully coordinated plan to jump from being a traditionally published author to being an indie author. Truth is, I did it on a bet—another writer challenged people to write an 80,000 word book, get it professionally edited and covered, and publish it in six months. I said, “I’ll do it in six weeks” and that became Empress of Storms, still my most successful book to date by orders of magnitude.
And Empress took off like a freaking rocket. I now realize that I was surfing the last months of indie publishing’s golden age; if I could go back in time to 2011 or so I would skip working with my original publisher entirely and publish all my books myself because people were making bank on ebooks back then. In three months Empress made more than all of my books with Evernight had combined. As I am not stupid and would like the Brit to be able to retire someday, I decided to jump into indie publishing and turned that bet of a book into a series while I waited for the Olympic Cove books to age out of my contract with Evernight.
Empress was the only book that earned me five figures, however. That golden age of indie books raking in tons of money is long gone and nowadays the market is glutted with indie books. If you want to make a career out of indie publishing, you have to realize that you are now a small business owner who needs a good, solid business plan to manage all the hats you have to wear.
As such, I’ve paid for courses on how to make Amazon and FB ads work for me, I have an accountant who tracks my assorted income streams and is worth her weight in gold come tax time, I’m on social media mainly to promote my work (and chat with people at the same time because an account that is only about SELL SELL SELL quickly gets ignored), I keep an eye on marketing trends and how to recognize the next big thing, I’m constantly tweaking blurbs and SEO terms to get better visibility, I read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s business of writing blogs religiously and joined 20 Books to 50K™ in order to learn how to improve my business acumen and sell more books (don’t get me started on registering copyrights, designating a executor for my literary estate, and all the legal paperwork that comes along with this gig)…
…and man, I’m tired. I’m hoping to get to the point eventually where I can afford a virtual PA who can help me with promotion and social media, but at the moment I’m doing it all myself plus all of the other things I have to do (cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, budgeting, managing JJ’s needs, etc.). I’ve been able to streamline some processes, and clawing back weekends so that I only do bookwork instead of writing then has helped, but I really need a nice break at some point where I can sit around somewhere warm and drink margaritas.
That being said, I wouldn’t trade this for traditional publishing. Yes, indie is a ton more work but with all the effort I put into it I also reap all of the rewards. The bulk of the purchase price of a ebook goes to me, not to some publishing company in NYC who may or may not be showing me my actual royalty numbers. And when I start selling audiobooks (coming soon, I promise), I’m not going through ACX. I’ll most likely use BookFunnel as my fulfillment app and sell them via some sort of storefront app (I really want to sell ebooks, print books, and audiobooks directly from my website and use PayPal as the payment app but apparently PP is wickedly difficult to implement that way. I may need to find a PP wizard to help me out with that).
So yeah, lots of work, lots of tiredness, but in the end I believe the payoff will be worth it. Still want a vacation and a margarita, though…
*Touches Fingertips* So…
As you know, Bob, I took off the week between Christmas and New Year and quilted my little heart out while listening to old episodes of my favorite podcast Pod is My Copilot (personal journal podcast that features three friends who have precious little boundaries, will talk about anything, and have frequently made me laugh so hard that I almost peed).
And it got me to thinking. From 2007 to 2015 I produced a podcast called Don’t Quit Your Day Job. Originally it was supposed to be a writing podcast starring my friend Jerry and myself where we talked about science fiction and fantasy (this was before I started writing romance). Jerry had to step away for a couple of weeks right at the beginning so I drafted my best friend Patrick in as guest host, and he worked so well that he joined the show permanently once Jerry came back. Then I recruited my sister Stacy to be our news girl, and Stacy and Patrick together are some of the most hilarious people in the world, especially when they can pick on me.
So for about eight years we had a really good, funny show that ranged all over the place. Unfortunately Stacy had to drop out after awhile due to lack of time, and then our remaining schedules got so complicated that it was really difficult to get everyone on Skype long enough to record. So we made a dignified last show and that was the end of it.
Or so I thought. Because as I was listening to the PiMC eps and hearing them call out DQYDJ and add little asides to me, I pulled up old episodes of our show and listened to those and my God, we were funny. I also realized that I missed podcasting and hanging out with Jerry, Patrick, and Stacy. Since circumstances have changed for all of us in the intervening eight years I thought I’d float the idea of maybe doing a monthly podcast with the usual suspects.
First person I asked was Stacy. I said, “So, I’ve been listening to old eps of DQYDJ and I was wondering—”
“Yes.”
“Uh, okay.” Turned out that with all of her kids out of the house she now has more than enough time to record, and if we wander off into adult topics (which we did a lot) she doesn’t have to worry about mentally scarring her offspring.
Next up was Patrick, who I thought was going to be a tough nut to crack. Turns out he was totally up for it and said that he would pull out all of his recording equipment and make sure it was functioning.
Finally, I asked Jerry, who is incredibly busy at the moment with his own media empire and a number of other podcasts. To my shock he also said yes, adding that he’s at a point in his life where he really wants to be back on DQYDJ.
TL;dr: I will be starting a new podcast in February called Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Second Shift. We’ll be talking about writing in various genres, acting, and life in our assorted locations, but I can already promise you that the topics will be wandering all over the place and will definitely wander into weird, profane, and hilarious territory.
And somewhere, Jeffrey Combs just shuddered and doesn’t know why. Heh, heh, heh…
Things Are Moving Along
Shifter Woods: Claw currently stands at 30,533 out of a projected 35K (although it might go a little higher). I’m not even going to promise when it’s going to be finished because every damn time I do something happens to stall me (giving a dirty look to my giggling Muse in the corner) but it does seem that I’m on the home stretch. Of course, now that I’ve said that something will happen that will suck up all of my available time, just watch.
Anyhoo, I’m currently working on a dream sex scene set on the shore of Lake Michigan with the lights of downtown Chicago in the distance (my story, my rules, and I’m from Chicago and I love Lake Michigan with a passion that passeth understanding), and once that’s done I have one chapter that will be the big real-time love scene between Matt and Angela, one chapter that will be the villain trying to kidnap Angela and throw her under the bus to save his own skin from the Chicago Outfit, and one wrap-up chapter.
And then I have to edit it, whee. I desperately want to get back to Crystal Blade or any of the other books, but if I do that Claw will be left to molder and I want to get it done, out there, and the Esposito County Shifter box set published. So I’m imposing some damn discipline on myself and finishing this before I get to do anything else.
My beloved editor also has a cameo in here as the beta of the wolf shifter pack. She laughed like a drain when I told her about it, which made my day. Pro tip, kids—always keep your editor happy.
Sphincter…Relaxing…
My Amazon KU sales are continuing to pick up, thank Cthulhu, so clearly I did the right thing by turning the automatic renewal back on for the bulk of my titles. Still, I’m going to be significantly short this month on expected income, which kind of blows because I would really like to take Ramón to Sarasota for a weekend sometime in April and I need sweet, sweet publishing income for that. Even if I published two new titles next month I wouldn’t see that money until the end of April so obviously I need to kickstart the Shopify store and start selling signed print versions of my books with swag.
I need minions, I really do. Or a PA, but I can’t afford one right now so it’s all on me.
In the meantime I’m thisclose to finishing Shifter Woods: Claw and will get that out before the end of the month, and as soon as Shifter Woods: Growl finishes out its KU period in February I’ll release the Esposito County Shifters box sex on all platforms with Howl, Snarl, Growl, Claw, and Roar. Which reminds me, I got a very nice 4 star review for Growl last week and the reviewer didn’t understand why different sites had different numbering schemes. I had to explain that I’m not J.R. Ward and can’t mix MF stories with MM stories in a series and get consistent read-through (seriously, the moment I took out Roar and made it an associated novella my sales increased. Go figure).
To which the reviewer said, “Well, just so you know, I’ll read all kinds of combinations in a series.” Which warms my heart.
I also just remembered that I have to start designing the ECS box set cover. Must take a look at other paranormal romance box sets and see what’s currently in vogue, tra la.
Nicola Cameron Writes 