Hey Folks,
Rolled out a little late at 3:30. Checked email and Facebook stuff. Then I went to work on a huge Christmas Sale for StoneThread Publishing. We’re practically giving them away (grin).
This sale went “live” on Facebook this morning (Monday, 11/28). But we wanted to give you guys a little better pricing.
Note that all prices are valid only through StoneThread Publishing. Even if we decide to run a sale through various vendors, those prices will not be this low.
Shameless Promotion
From now through December 24, ALL ebook novels, 10-story collections, 5-story collections and poetry collections, are on sale for $2.50 each. The complete Wes Crowley Saga (10 novels in one massive book) is only $13.
All ebooks are DRM-free. Share with your whole family! And No Shipping! 🙂
Of course, these prices are valid only through StoneThread Publishing. To order or for more information, please email orders@stonethreadpublishing.com.
Print Addict?
Additionally, from now through December 21, ALL PRINT BOOKS are on sale for $7.50 each. Free standard shipping! These are not stocking stuffers. These are quality trade paperbacks.
Many print titles are available signed by the author. That would be moi. (grin) For a complete list or to order, email orders@StoneThreadPublishing.com.
* * *
Finished up all of that and the topic below around 6:30, then realized I hadn’t added my latest novel, The Consensus, to my website yet. Doh! So I raced over and did that.
Then my wife mentioned it might be a good idea to prepare a flyer for her to pass out where she works. So I did that.
* * *
I started on the novel again, then remembered I have to download 10 pics from CanStock. sigh. First I have to select them.
Every now and then I sign up for a subscription to a stock photo agency so I can download pics on the cheap to use for covers.
My current subscription allows me to download up to 10 pics per day for a week. All that for $30. So around $0.42 per picture, as opposed to around $7 per picture if I bought them one at a time. It’s a great deal if you use a lot of cover pics and know what you’re looking for generally.
But that ate up a couple hours.
Topic: Selling Books to Writers
I’m talking about fiction books and fiction writers here.
If you’ve written a really good book FOR writers (for example, Punctuation for Writers or Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction or Writing the Character-Driven Story), knock yourself out.
But leave your novels and short stories at home.
When I was presenting regularly at writers’ conferences around the nation, I saw a host of fiction writers trying to sell their books to attendees. For a very short while, I was one of them. Generally, this is a bad idea.
Why? Because those who attend writers’ conferences are writers. They don’t want to buy your books. They want You to buy Their books. (grin)
Even “name” authors (think Stephen King) have a difficult time selling fiction to other fiction writers.
So why am I making an exception to this general rule?
Because I DO buy novels and stories written by Stephen King. I also buy (some) novels and stories from Dean Wesley Smith, Isabel Allende, Lawrence Block and others who meet three requirements:
they are farther along the road than I as writers;
something about their work blows me out of my socks; and
I aspire to learn from them.
When I see myself as a student of another writer, what better way to learn from them than to read their work for pleasure, and then go back and study the passages that blew me away?
And that’s why I’m making an exception in Shameless Promotion above. As I told another writer recently, if you think maybe the stuff I’m teaching you is good, I appreciate that. But years of (sometimes repeated) lessons have taught me that we generally get what we INspect, not what we EXpect.
So in the promo above, I’m offering you an opportunity to see first-hand whether I know what I’m doing. (grin) Naturally, I hope you will take advantage of it.
Of Interest
A new topic over at Dean’s place in Courage in a World of Artistic Freedom (http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/courage-in-a-world-of-artistic-freedom/). This is a really great post. I hope you will read it.
There should also be a new story of the week over at Kristine Kathyrn Rush’s site for her Free Fiction Monday thing. (http://kriswrites.com/2016/11/28/free-fiction-monday-fate-2/)
Today’s Writing
Finally, I moved to the novel at 9:30. Wrote for about a half-hour and realized I’m writing two novels at one time. How can I tell? Maybe the story’s just getting convoluted. They do that sometimes.
But this one isn’t just taking odd twists. It took a hard turn and wandered off into a whole new story. And the two main stories are far too divergent to ever get back together. Even the main character is different. Same name, same guy, but he acts different and even talks different than he did in the “other” story.
That happened to me once before, though I don’t recall which novel (or novels) came out of it. Anyway, I didn’t get enough writing done to record it, so I’ll count this as a nonwriting day.
For any new subscribers out there, don’t worry about it (if you were). When I started this Journal I made a pact with myself to record the bad as well as the good, the rough times as well as the smooth. This is one of the rough times. (grin)
I’ll spend the balance of the day finding where these stories are conjoined. Then I’ll do a little surgery. I suspect I’m gonna have to chunk a few thousand words and start fresh a ways back.
Anyway, see you tomorrow.
Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 930 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 930
Writing of Snubbing the Gods (tentative title)
Day 10… 2829 words. Total words to date…… 22264
Day 11… 2493 words. Total words to date…… 24757
Day 12… 2099 words. Total words to date…… 26856
Day 13… 0670 words. Total words to date…… 27526
Day 14… 1061 words. Total words to date…… 28587
Day 15… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for the month……… 18729
Total fiction words for the year………… 673884
Total nonfiction words for the month… 17500
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 256340
Total words for the year (fiction and nonfiction)…… 930224