NaNoWriMo Day 30

Day 30 is here and I pulled in just over the line at 50,065 words!

See my fabulous bragging banner:

And just in case you haven't had enough celebrating:

I love it, Ms. Hunter - dragon slayer.  Or novel slayer.  Slayer of both dragons and hunters.

But best of all, now I have time to work on some other projects. #1 of which is finishing reading the Wheel of Time series (I've been working on this for a year and half already).

I'm super pumped I made it through Nano this year.  It was a tough go for me, writing in a genre new to me, and working full time with a young child.  Yep, lots of work, but I persevered.  I made it. I'm a winner!

Congratulations to all the other winners out there!  I hope you enjoy your new found free time as much as I will.

Kindle Free Book Promotion - Round Three

Today is the second day of my current kindle free book promotion.  Kindle markets the "free book promotion" as an excellent marketing tool for self-publishers.  But does it work?

This is my third round of "Free Book Promoting", which means that I've been selling exclusively through Amazon Kindle, and have opted to be part of the Kindle Select program.  Every 90 days, you are allow up to 5 days of either free book promotion or Kindle countdown deals, or a combination thereof.  So far, I've chosen the free book promotion route mainly because I'm selling my book fairly cheaply already (currently listed for $2.99).  What I've seen, is quite a few downloads of the free book on day one, and less downloads as the promotion goes on.  After the promotion, I've seen a few extra sales (one to three), and maybe one or two borrows on the Kindle Select platform.

What this means:
This could mean a few things, the first being that my book just isn't that popular, which well, let's be honest, seems to be the case.  Though if you've read it and loved it, please share!
Or that the platform only works if you are doing intense marketing of your own, outside of the Kindle platform, such as blog posts, twitter posts, Facebook ads,  book reviews, etc.  Which mainly, I am not.

Most of what I've experienced with self-punishing is that there are few tools there to "help" market, but it still comes down to how much work the author is willing to do, and how much money you're willing to shell out.

Speaking of which, I still haven't heard anything from GoodKindles, to whom I paid $20 for a listing on their website.  I think it's about time I checked into that...

NaNoWriMo Spotlight

Things have gotten interesting just as they got insanely busy!

First, I would like to thank Chris Kelworth for spotlighting me on his NaNoWriMo Spotlight blog. If you want to read my interview, you can find it here:

http://kelworthfiles.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/nanowrimo-spotlight-by-j-e-hunter/#more-5254

There are many more great interviews with NaNoWriMo authors on this website, so you may as well read more while you're there.

In other news, NaNo has begun to fall apart.  It began with a crazy week of work at my day job, and is currently being blown about by a blizzard.  Though really, you think that would make me stay in and write, which is maybe why I'm finally getting around to blogging.

Also, Self-Publishing is as frozen as the weather... big sigh.  But the good news on that front is there I've decided to put Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch up for free for two days starting tomorrow!  So tell everyone you know.  You can find Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.ca/Tales-Redheaded-Sea-Witch-Black-Depths-ebook/dp/B00JV2O05Y

And just to leave you all feeling as cold as I am, here's a picture of outside right now:

Nano 2014 Day 17

I...can't...go...on.

(head falls on keyboard, hands lifeless on table)

(cat nudges writer, a stirring of life)

Maybe...

Maybe I can make up word count tomorrow?

.......

To Be Continued...

A Few More Self-Publishing Marketing Strategies

In the Self-publishing world, it seems there is nothing more important than marketing.  Too bad I have a degree in Engineering instead of Marketing.  But in the past couple of days I've found a few more tools to put to use.  The first is trying to get my book listed on a few sites, one specifically for YA books - YA Books Central.  This website has an indie section and only cost me $3.99 to list my book on.  You can view the listing here.  So far it has been viewed 25 times, which is more times than it would have been viewed had I not listed her.  Since I listed, I've had one more "borrow" with Amazon Prime, but hard to say whether or not that was directly related to listing on this website.

http://www.yabookscentral.com/yaindie/17514-tales-of-a-redheaded-sea-witch

I've also put down $20 to advertise on GoodKindles, but have not yet had any confirmation of this yet.  This is probably the most expensive advertising website  - other than Facebook - but as I've posted before, working a good paying day job allows me to feel comfortable with this kind of extravagance.  If I was trying to make a living from a self-published book, I'm not sure I'd been willing to spend this kind of money before earning anything, hence the difficulty!


And in NaNoWriMo news:

I'm only one day behind - so I consider that to be one track.  Yay me!  It's been a difficult slog this year, mostly because my Dad broke his leg in two places, winding up in the hospital for over a week now.  Next year I'll have to make sure family is clear on what my priorities are during the month of November, and how to just not have breaks ever.

That's the thing with NaNo though, there is always some unforeseeable/unpreventable incident which will happen, threatening to pull you off course.  The hard part is writing through that, keeping to the commitment in the difficult times, forswearing television and phone calls, pushing that sewing project to the side, and pretending the new Soda Crush game you just downloaded to your iPad doesn't exist yet.  Turn that focus to your Novel - the piece of art only YOU can create.  And just keep writing.

Sadly ignored sewing project

Kboards review

I paid $15 for a kboards "Ad". 
Return on investment = $0.

Well, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed.  I wasn't expecting much but I thought I'd maybe get one sale.  Here is the link to the site.
My Ad went up on the 7th of November.  I found it.  It looked nice there.  But didn't do much else with it, just seeing what Kboards could do on their own, and it turns out, not much.
Sure, maybe I would have got a sale if I had bumped it around the interwebs a bit, but then that's just me doing my own marketing, isn't it.
So, overall, I would say not worth it.  Looking over the kboards blog now, there were a lot of postings, and mine was quickly buried under a heap of others.  One things for sure, the owners of that site are sure to be making good coin.

There are a couple more advertising sites I'm going to try.  Look for the next update soon.

Too Much Day Job

Ah, last year.  I was at home with a young child, who kept me busy when he was awake, but blissfully took two hours naps where I could easily get all my NaNo words in a day.  Last night, I got home around 9 pm after an exhausting day of work (8am-9pm), and had to force myself to sit my bit in the chair and type.  At 300 words, I almost went to bed, at 750 words, I was pretty sure I was going to power down and go to bed, at 1200 words, I finally began feeling like I was getting close and that I could finish even though I was exhausted, smelly, desperately wanting a shower and my soft downy comforter.  At 1667 words - the daily goal - I wasn't done my chapter so I KEPT GOING!  I finished off close to 1800 words and felt a smug sense of satisfaction that I had pulled through.  That is just the best NaNo feeling, don't you think?  It's like this drawing I did at work, when I was a having a moment of NEEDING TO BE CREATIVE.  I'm not sure if it's and explosion or the sun, but it feels marvelous!

Nano Day Three and KBoards

Day Three of NaNo.  So far day one and two have both been smashing successes.  But, as both of those days were weekend, this is the first challenging day.  Hopefully, by the time I get home from work I still have enough energy to mash out my 1667 words or more.  I wrote1667+ words on both Sat and Sun, which I'm hoping I can keep up, because I know EPW will be longer than 50,000 words.  Usually I am for 80,000 with my novels, which is a good number for potential future publishers.

On Friday, I paid for a KBoards book promotion.  I received my email stating my book will be featured on November 7th - this coming Friday.  I look forward to see what this site can do for Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch.

1, 2, 3, Nano!

Yay!

NaNoWriMo 2014 is underway!

The title of this years novel is:

Emerald Paragon of the Wilds.

Yep, that's right.  Came up with that one at work.

And as for the NaNo stash...

Mmmmmm, Yum!