Day 192

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

02 May 2017

So in typical fashion, I’ve been putting off diving back in until the last possible moment, lol. Mostly good stuff; I definitely didn’t get through my full list for last month, but I probably knocked off nearly half of it, and that’s saying something, considering I kept on adding stuff.

The biggest addition has been a nascent startup plan! The bookish chocolate shop is gaining steam, and I’ve been distracted with correspondence, sourcing trips, research, and building intricately detailed spreadsheets. Still a ways from launch, or even really knowing if it’s feasible or not, but that’s one more thing to have on the go!

Totally haven’t done any trip planning, or even let people on the other side of the pond know where I’m at, so bad on me for that, but wow it’s been busy. Freelancing was also irritatingly slow to pick up - I’m up and running with two new copywriting services, I have two audiobooks under review with ACX (by award-winning Irish author Conor Kostick!) and a few more raw files that I should clean up for auditions on my hard drive - but of course it all came together only last week, so most of the month was spent in chasing work, angsting about working, and generally not making money. The good news is, I should have enough traction to hit it hard in June, which is when Blind the Eyes next goes out for editing. The bad news is, I don’t really have time this month for everything…

On the marketing front, I’ve been only moderately lazy; my IG is now over 1.5K and gaining ground slowly - probably because I haven’t actually learned to improve my photos and I haven’t been particularly consistent or interactive. My FB is slooooowly gaining ground, mostly by way of author groups, but hey, at least I got enough followers to have my own shortlink! And metrics! Which reminds me, I really need to update my website links… And speaking of website, I managed to do a bit of minor redesign to tie in the graphic banners I made for FB and Twitter back to the site and headline BtE over the Wattpad stories that - I know! - I haven’t updated in like two months and counting… But I’ve got the first beta edition of Blind the Eyes up and running on Wattpad with daily releases that no one’s reading, so at least I’m active? Promises to blog on my own site have, of course, gone nowhere at all, but it’s not like anyone’s complaining, and I still haven’t launched a newsletter, but my mailing list has a whole four subscribers (thanks guys!) so that’s cool. Mostly it’s because I know I should offer some actual content and sign-up freebies on the newsletter, and in the absence of those I really don’t see the point of spamming people, lol. Planned to record the first 1, 10, 5, or some random number of chapters of the current edition as a freebie preview ebook, but got busy and a little discouraged and never did it. May still do it. Depends on how bad the editorial feedback is that I’m resisting reading, lol. Also need to plot and write short stories/novellas as freebies. Some good ideas that have gone nowhere… but I saw my nephew lots, read a bunch of books, improved my freelancing standing and generally had a pretty decent month, so there!

On the writing front. Ok, deep breath. Yeah. It’s ok, I think. I was super encouraged to have beta readers for the first time from my social media channels - two responded to the call on IG, and one from an author group on FB that I participate in. Only one response so far, which was crushingly bad actually, so that was terrifying, since she’s probably one of the readers most in the target demographic… but other responses have been shining, including my editor’s emails (again, haven’t read her full reports yet)… so I’m gonna have faith in this process and my own stubbornness and keep pushing forward. Despite the crushing, panic-attack-inducing effect of less-than-glowing feedback, it is super valuable in helping me see things from a reader’s perspective and at least flags things I may want to pay more attention to. Hopefully a few of the other beta readers get back to me with their detailed feedback within the next week or two and I can collate responses to get a better idea of how the book will be received. Oh, and there’s someone on FB putting out feelers about issuing an Indie-author specific book box, so that’s hugely exciting. I’m a little concerned, because startup lol, and also they don’t seem to be screening the authors/books very closely, at least at this stage, but if it actually makes it to production and is well coordinated, I think it’ll be totally awesome, and it’d be amazing to have my books and/or the bookish shop involved!

M’kay, I think I’ve killed about as much time as I can before taking the plunge. Time to find out just what I’m in for on this round of rewrites. Wish me luck!

Tuesday

Start Time: 4:45 pm

Location: Abbotsford; home; couch

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