Things I forgot to post last time
I forgot to mention a couple of things in the last post. Interesting stuff, of course. I blame the weather for the memory lapse. Blaming the weather is still a thing, isn’t it?
A cold front swept down from Canada mid-week, broke the heat wave down to spectacular, summer perfection with lows cool enough for hoodies & highs warm enough for shorts. Unfortunately all that cold air came with a whopping huge load of smoke particulates from the “Holy fuck, is ALL of Manitoba going up in flames?” fires. So the windows stayed shut with the AC on, the air filters got cranked up, and I wore N95s outdoors. Because your lungs never EVER forgive you for pneumonia.
ANYway. One writing thing I forgot to mention: I have put Relics From a Traveling Show on sale for 99 cents in ebook form during August. Why? BECAUSE I CAN. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell total strangers. (JUST KIDDING. Not really.)
The longer answer to “why sale now?” is this: it’s a weird book full of whimsy and silliness, and August is peak silly season, so when better? Besides, it’s one of the two titles not on Smashwords, so it wasn’t on sale in July with the other books. Which leads me to wonder if I ever mentioned a bunch of my ebooks were on sale over on Smashwords all through July. Maybe? I know made a blog page banner, and posted about it in the Fediverse. Good enough.
Another bit of writing-related trivia: I figured out how to do better searches in WorldCat (a big library database) and I have confirmed that Relics is on a library shelf in New Hampshire, and in one in the UK. I am OVERSEAS. That’s awesome, right? Yay!
My own library still doesn’t carry it in paperback, despite me being a local author. I even gave them a review copy back in April. Why, no, I am not bitter about that, NOT AT ALL (she says, lying through her teeth) but hey. Some library in the United Kingdom has good taste in acquisitions, and that’s a win, right? It might be in other libraries, WorldCat isn’t a universal thing, but until and unless someone sends me shelfies of them, I won’t know. And as far as ebooks go, it’s on Hoopla, listing in Ohio and in Illinois. So there’s that to be happy about too.
Oh—for those who like numbers and financial transparency and all—here are the results of that Smashwords sale: 7 freebies and 4 sales. Not exactly crashing the NYT bestsellers list any time soon, eh?
Would I have sold more if I’d promoted that sale more? I’d like to think so, but years of experience say it wouldn’t have a difference. That’s not sour grapes on my part. Just realism. his blog has a readership of a couple dozen max, and my own all-out online presence might reach another couple dozen (who already have my books, let’s be real.)
No amount of me talking to myself here is going to move my books. The only thing that reliably moves my online sales off flatline is other people talking about them. Word of mouth is still the shiny gold ring of bookselling. In the online world, that translates to boosts/reposts, especially quote-posts that add context. But I rarely get those except from a few, reliable sources. (I see you. I love you all, more than I can say)
So. Yeah. Anyway. About books. There are lots of reasons mine don’t sell themselves. They don’t “pitch” well. The market is flooded with reading material, and budgets are limited. Nothing about my writing is designed to be catchy, pithy, or soundbite-able. And on top of all that, I write slowly, so I don’t have a big catalogue for people to browse through.My plots are too dark to attract readers who want coziness and too slow for those who crave action. My characters are unique and lovable, but not widely relatable. And I, myself, am not personable enough for anyone to pick up my books because they think I’m interesting.
That’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s enough. Let me digress to be perfectly clear, I am VERY comfortable promoting my writing. I LOVE talking about Justin, Alison, Grace, Elena, and Jack and all the rest to anyone who wants to hear about them. That second phrase is the core of the problem with online promotion.
I have a low tolerance for repetition, and an even lower tolerance for interacting in the face of disinterest. Posting about books online is throwing energy into an unresponsive void in hopes of blindly reaching someone somewhere somehow. My tolerance for that is nonexistent. Void-shouting is actively hazardous to my mental health, and anyone who says it’s easy or necessary for success can fuck off into the sun. (Not that I feel strongly about that or anything.)
In short, it’s me. I’m the problem, it’s me. And I’m okay with that. But it does mean I don’t have the same faith in “promote more/better/harder, be authentic/be online/be a brand” gospel preached by many commercially successful indie authors.
When I get my own self in front of any semi-interested audience, I find new readers every time. That’s what I can do, and I have to trust to the world to take care of the rest.
This post wandered far afield from the couple of things I intended to write about, so I’m gonna wrap it here. Thanks for reading. Have some pics.
Garden progress. (Click the image to get the whole pic) The tomatoes might make it to the pergola roof this year. I’ve harvested the last kohlrabi and planted greens for fall, and I’m overdue for another basil harvest. Hoping for peppers soon.
Someone loves watching the world out the window, even if that means knocking cups off the back of the couch.