The Day
Rolled out at 3 this morning. Still feeling a little under the weather – ulcer stuff – and then padding through the living room, I was hit by a wood scorpion. Fortunately he caught me on the outside of the left heel and apparently hit a callus.
Either that or I’ve developed a tolerance for things that sting. Fire and intense pain for about a half-minute, then a very small, dull and subsiding ache for another five minutes, then nothing. I am SO lucky.
Sadly, the scorpion did not fare as well once I found my sandals and a flashlight.
Still, kudos to the little dude for being willing to attack something that’s like a b’jillion times his size. I’ll never quite understand why they get that really quizzical look on their face just after you smash ’em. Like “How in the world did you do that?”
Anyway, as befitting a tough little dude, I gave him the closest thing I could arrange to burial at sea.
Checked email, got my coffee and started in combining two spreadsheets. One contained info on all my electronic publications, and the other was print only. Took close to an hour, but I got new columns added to the larger one and the info transferred over. Now it’s all in one place. More on keeping records in the Topic of the Night.
No walk again today. Just administrative stuff and writing.
Okay, it’s now 10:30 a.m. I’ve finished switching over the spreadsheet information and I’ve moved all eight of the books in The Wes Crowley Saga over to D2D. Gonna take a break, then come back to write a little bit.
Wrote a little, but a necessary trip to the store popped up.
Hoping to get a walk in the morning. Try to twist myself back into a more normal (for me) routine.
Topic of the Night: Keeping Records
My Fiction spreadsheet includes columns for the Title and Author (since I occasionally still write under various personas), which Collection each short story is in, Word count, ebook Price, Ebook ISBN 13, and the Publication Date.
Then I have URL columns for my new distributor, Draft2Digital, and a URL column for each major bookstore. That currently includes Kobo, Inktera, Oyster, Scribd, Tolino, Apple, B&N, Amazon and Smashwords (both distributor and bookstore).
I reach a few other major outlets through Smashwords (Baker & Taylor Blio, txtr, Library Direct, Baker-Taylor Axis360, OverDrive, Flipkart), but I don’t have individual URLs for those. As D2D adds each one, I’ll add a column.
If you’re wondering, I keep the URLs in case a reader emails wanting to know where to find a certain book or story. It’s nice to have the information handy. This happens a lot more often than you might think.
On the other side of all those URL/venue columns I added the new information: the print edition ISBN 13 (Yes, you have to have a different ISBN for print and ebook), number of pages, print price, and the URL for the CreateSpace eStore. (You can’t buy ebooks there. CreateSpace has its own print book store, but it’s not brick and mortar. It’s only on line.)
If this seems like a lot of extra work, after the initial setup, it really isn’t. I view it as a necessary part of being my own publisher. From the time I publish a book or story, it takes about five minutes (if that) to enter all the information on my spreadsheet.
And just so you know, I don’t know a lot about spreadsheets in general or about Microsoft Excel in specific. But I’ve figured out enough to keep a good record of my publications. The point is, if I can do it, you can too (if you want to).
Today’s Writing
Honestly, the way the day started, first with the unusual dance with a scorpion and then all the admin/publisher stuff I did, I wasn’t expecting to get a lot of writing done and I didn’t. But I’ll take it.
It’s great to hit goals, but the main thing is to keep the story moving forward. I’ve been doing that on this one in fits and starts. Forward a bit, back, forward a bit more, back. Nope, that isn’t the opening. That scene comes somewhere AFTER the opening.
Okay, write a new opening. Ah, that’s better. I’ve written three openings for this book in five days. (grin) But I’ll get through all the fits and starts soon (I do this on pretty much every novel) and the thing will start flowing. Sure looking forward to that. (grin)
Hang around. It’ll happen.
Fiction Words: 1187
Writing of Book 9 of the Wes Crowley saga
Day 1…… 3213 words. Total words to date….. 3213 words
Day 2…… 1046 words. Total words to date….. 4259 words
Day 3…… 1858 words. Total words to date….. 6117 words
Day 4…… 1023 words. Total words to date….. 7140 words
Day 5…… 1587 words. Total words to date….. 8327 words
Total fiction words for the month…………… 19558
Total fiction words for the year……………… 461958