Tag Archives: pricing

Morning Pages Entry – July 12, 2014

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Well, hey, it looks like I’m not just getting downloads of my first free book, but I’m actually starting to make some sales of my second book. It’s only priced at .99 right now, but I am starting to make sales of it, which is pretty cool. There have been 2 sales in the last few days. It possibly means, that not only has someone cared enough to read through the first book, but they decided to buy the second one, which is sort of cool. Actually, it’s really cool … I think. I’ll take it, as a good sign at this point. I still haven’t started promoting any of the books yet. Once I do start, I’ll just start with the free one, but that’s ok. I want at least the third book to be out there, before I start doing any promotion. That book, should hopefully be over 200 pages, and I can price it at 2.99. Then we should start to make a bit more money off of things. Oh, and the second book, now has a ranking on it, and it’s under 100,000, which seems to be the number you have to break, to at least make a few sales. It’s at 88,670 right now, which is pretty cool. Not sure, if it’s been moving up or down the last few days, will have to check on that. But, it is starting to look like we’re getting a bit of traction, which is really awesome. I do definitely need to get the next one out there and see what happens. I think it will be much better than the other two, so who knows. I’d like for the rest of the books to be 200+ pages, which means, I’ll likely have to do better than 50K for each book. Maybe around 60K. So, I do need to desperately get my word count up higher. Always room for some improvement. So, were back out in bayfield again, with Steve and Marks family. The cottage colony cabins are as bad, as we were thinking they might be, which is a good thing. And, they have full fridges and stoves, which is pretty cool as well. I took, Una and Tristan down to the boat and walked along the beach yesterday while the moms and dads went grocery shopping. I think, they were grateful for the short reprieve from the kids. They are a bit of a handful. I’ve forgotten, how time consuming those little people can be. But, that’s cool. They were fun spending time with. Kids do like the beach. I tried patching up the dinghy a bit more last night, but I’m not optimistic about how good of a patch it was. The store didn’t really have a good patch kit at all, but Wayne of course had everything I needed to try and patch it. We’ll see how good it works. You’d think, that store would have had something decent to work with. All they had was a temporary patch kit, and a grossly over priced set of glue, that I’m going to try and take back later. Pat at the store, is notorious for over charging for shit. She even charged me like 3.50 just for a little piece of material for patching. That’s pretty crazy. So, it’s sort of neat, that I’m starting to get some real sales from the book. Even if it’s not a lot of money yet. I do need to get the next in the series out. I should, likely do up a cover for the third book, and get it up on the site. Or at least put a thumbnail of it in the back matter of the other two books. That would be sort of good. Let readers know, that there is another book coming out in the series. The next big deal, would be to start building a mailing list. There should always be a “coming soon” section in your books I think, which would give subscribers a chance to buy your book for cheaper when it first comes out. That would be a really good idea. I know a lot of other authors do that, and it gives readers a good incentive to stay subscribed to your list. It’s cool, how things are starting to come together and get traction with the books. I just need to blow things up on a much larger scale to make things better. More eyeballs, more sales, and all that good stuff. Time to get back to work.

TIGERBLOOD: yep DAILYMOOD: really good LOCATION: boat bayfield WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: 2:15 plank TODO: get the dinghy in the water TV: none BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 170 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: cold cuts, veggies, carrots DINNER: pizza (didn’t eat the dough … just the toppings) SNACKS: raspberries, grapes, almonds, 2 lara bars ALCOHOL: 2 beers BEDTIME: 12:00 AWAKE: 7:30

 

Morning Pages Entry – July 09, 2014

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So, the brothers are coming today. Or, at least 2 of them are. Mark and Steve along with their families. I think it’s the first time Una and Tristan meet each other. Ray, Joyce, Jackie, and James are coming as well. I was hoping to have the dinghy and outboard in Bayfield by now, but it appears the van has a fuel leak in it, and it’s booked to go to the garage tomorrow morning before that can happen. Then the battery in it died last night, I think when I was running the air pump off the back to fill up the wagon wheels so Tristan could us the wagon. And it’s making a funny clicking sound when you try to start the van as well. Here’s hoping, it’s nothing too serious, and it’s just the battery. If it’s the starter, I’m not sure how I will get it out of the drive way without a tow. Ahh, here’s to being optimistic. Yesterday, by downloads for the free version of “Endings” my first novel went back up for the first time in 5 days or so, and it looks like someone actually bought a copy of it off of Amazon.com. It’s not showing as free in every country, so that must be why I’m making cash sales off it. Oh yea, and I finally did get a readers review of the book as well. I’m not sure the person actually read the book. It’s a pretty generic review. Makes me think, that the person who wrote it, is just building up some sort of profile on Amazon for other purposes. Like maybe gaming the system in some way and selling the service of reviews later on down the line. At least they gave me a 5 start review, which, I’m sure couldn’t hurt to give the book a bit of a boost. Maybe it will start selling a bit more. Who knows. I still haven’t sold a copy of the second book yet, except for that first one that sold on one of the Draft2Digital platforms. Not even sure which one it sold on, but it did sell for 2.99 so that’s alright. It was kind of a random sale though. Someone probably bought it by accident. So, time to get the third book out there, then perhaps I could start doing a little promotion. Or not. Maybe just get the fourth and fifth ones written. Still need to get my word count up there, if I mean to start making more sales. Any sales? That’s more like it. I like the idea of just writing, and not having to promote stuff. It’s interesting seeing how the first book is starting to get a little traction. More like a trace of traction. And, it is only a free book. Probably, if I can get more of them out there … and at a longer length then thing should get better. Especially, if I could get them consistently over 200 pages. I think, then readers would be more likely to make those kinds of purchases. Then you can set a 2.99 price. That’s where you really need to be at. 200 pages, is likely more around 60 to 70K words, which if you can get your production up, should be doable on the schedule you sent to Emily. I’m sure, she wouldn’t complain about editing 60K or so words instead of 50K Just need to get your word count back up to 5K per day. Haven’t quite gotten there since the week I did it. Not quite sure yet, why I haven’t hit those numbers again. It does seem to be more difficult. It could be because I’m just not so verbose with the writing. My inner critic has more of a voice, and that’s not entirely a bad thing I don’t think. I don’t want to give him too much control. But there’s certainly no reason why you can’t write at a pace that will put you back up into that word count bracket again. It’s just I think a question of getting into the zone, and not worrying so much. Write write write … la la la. Have fun with it. I don have fun with writing these morning journals. They’re not a big deal, and I still do them every day without fail. Just like I’m about to finish this one. I should just launch into my novel, the same way I launch into these. Head first without looking.

TIGERBLOOD: some DAILYMOOD: good (mostly) LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: 1800 PUSHUPS: 4:00 wall sit TODO: write, jump start van, inflate dinghy TV: broad street bullies documentary, magic johnson & larry bird documentary BOOK: none GAME: Vessel, Dead Space 3 EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 170 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: none SNACKS: orange, almond butter, apple ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 12 & 1 AWAKE: 7:00

Morning Pages Entry – July 02, 2014

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Let’s talk about inspiration and habits and getting motivated and excitement, and whatever else comes to mind. First of all, you need to defeat the bastards of procrastination and fear. Those two evil buggers really need to go by the wayside. Remember, write for the love of writing, and nothing else. Let nothing else get in your way. It doesn’t matter how bad or good it all is, you just need to get into the habit. The habit of loving what your doing. They go together pretty well actually, and I know, I really know, that if you stick with it for long enough, nothing can stop you. So, just write … go write your ass of, and don’t worry about anything else. Just make some shit up and get on with it. It’s doesn’t have to be spectacular, it doesn’t have to be pulitzer winning, it just has to be good enough. Good enough for what though? Good enough for someone else to find it interesting to read … more specifically, good enough for someone to pay for. And to be even more specific, homefully it will be a whole lot of someones. Way more then just one to be sure. Actually, hopefully more like thousands … even tens of thousands would be good. The thing I still don’t know yet, is what does that “good enough” look like … or sound like … or read like … or smell like. WHAT IS IT? I read some of my stuff, and I usually think, “this is pretty good” or even occassionally “this is REALLY good”, but then I don’t know how biased I’m being. I do know, that I read some stuff and I think, BLEH! I can do better then that, or at least as good. Maybe, it’s just not my kind of thing, or maybe the bar is lower then I think. I suspect that the bar is pretty low in some niches. But what is it in mine? I sold a few books, in the first few days of the release of the first book, but I haven’t sold any since on amazon. I think, I’ve sold a total of 5 copies on Amazon for 99 cents, and one on Draft2Digital for 2.99. But, nothing else since then. Not sure, why that is. Why would I sell a copy a day for the first five days (actually day 2 sold 2 copies), and then have things peter off. Not sure what’s going on there. I need to get the third one out there though. I do really need to finish it. I wanted to have it done before the family arrives, at least a rough draft. Or, at least the new scenes should be roughed out. Part of it has already been proofed by Emily. I think, I only need about another 25K words, and I could likely have that done in five days, if I get my shit together. So, why don’t you do that. Right after your done with this shit, you should crank out 1250 words. Get it done. Just fire up Scrivener or WriteMonkey, and write a bunch of words to see how far you can get Chaz down the hall and towards the lower labs where Christa is. That’s what you need to do. He can run into patient zero on the way, knock a few soldiers and maybe lab personnel around, and see what happens on the way. Be crazy, and maybe a few surprises will pop up along the way. Be creative, be nuts, come up with silly stupid and wacko kind of stuff for Chaz to deal with along the way. Maybe, he could hear a conversation from a few sciencetists along the way. Maybe he could have a conversation with patient zero … or whatever is left of her. What would have happened to that character along the way over all these years. Would she have continued to evolve. I think, that she should. Maybe she would be aware of all the fighting and dying. Maybe she would know what is going on in the labs around here, but somehow, they’ve figured out a way to keep her in check. Get inspired … get creative … let one crazy idea fuel another, and just go with the flow. You have some scenes where you want Chaz to go, and some hurdles you want him to overcome. Find that feeling …. that feeling where you just want to write and write and write. You can do it … get down to it.

TIGERBLOOD: yep DAILYMOOD: happy, pissed LOCATION: boat bayfield WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: none TODO: write write write TV: none BOOK: none GAME: none EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 170? BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: sausages SNACKS: orange, grapes, half an apple, 4 lara bars ALCOHOL: 1 light beer BEDTIME: 4:30 AWAKE: 9:30