The Journal, Tuesday, 1/17

Hey Folks,

First, my deep gratitude to Michaele for letting me know the Journal wasn’t in her inbox this morning. My apologies. I forgot to check the category box. (grin)

It was a good post. If you’re interested, you can find it at http://harveystanbrough.com/daily-journal/6042/.

The baby needed to be close this morning for some reason. Who knows what’s in a little cat’s mind? But that’s fine. The time we get to spend with loved ones is limited and it can end in a blink. I try not to take a minute of it for granted.

With the novel I’m in a Catch 22. And I always do this. When I know the end of a novel is approaching I hesitate to write. Why? I don’t want the story to end because I enjoy writing it. You see my conundrum.

This is why I like to start another one right away. Though (for me) they aren’t nearly as much fun in the early going before the characters and situations mature.

Topic: Exciting News About Pronoun

You will remember I tried Pronoun once before. I was enticed by the fact that they distribute to Amazon, thereby alleviating that particular headache.

Also, Pronoun doesn’t take a cut of your royalties. Their service is free.

However, I was less than satisfied with their interface. And what put a nail in the coffin for me possibly using them was that authors weren’t allowed to pick and choose to whom Pronoun distributed their books. It was all or nothing. So I chose nothing.

Now things have changed. Here are the highlights from the email I received from them this morning:

We are increasing author royalties to 70% for all books priced $9.99 or less and sold in the US and Canada. Yes, even books priced $2.99 and below will earn 70%. For many authors this will translate to double what they were previously earning.

We’re giving authors more choice over distribution. You can choose where you want your book distributed when you publish your book.

We’ve added the option to price your book for free [sic] on all retailers. Based on our data and your feedback, we know that is an important marketing tool for authors.

We’re offering Author Pages. You can now send your readers to one place to find information about all of your books — whether or not they’re published by Pronoun. Plus it’s free.

You can now set up pre-orders for your books across all retailers including Amazon. That means you can effectively plan your book’s marketing campaign with complete confidence.

So the bottom line is, I will try Pronoun again, probably with my current WIP.

Just FYI, books distributed by some distributors seem to sell better for some reason than books distributed by others. For that reason, recently I’ve been tracking sales (loosely) from venues supported by Draft2Digital vs. those supported by Smashwords.

Of course, you can’t distribute the same title from two different distributors. But I have enough titles out there — around 250 now — that I can compare sales numbers from one distributor to the other. I will report any findings here later.

You can find the full official press release for Pronoun at http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pronoun-announces-a-better-royalty-rate-significantly-increasing-self-published-author-earnings-300391506.html.

Of Interest

Nothing at Dean’s today.

If you enjoy casual research, by which I mean mining small gems that might add to your knowledge base, I recommend getting a free subscription to Smithsonian’s newsletter. Here are a couple of examples that piqued my interest from the recent edition.

If you enjoy space stuff, in this video you can watch as a Space X rocket delivers a payload to orbit and then successfully lands back on the launch pad. This is a first, something that was science fiction and is now science fact. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-mishaps-spacex-gets-back-orbit-180961812/

I also recommend the incredibly interesting http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/necklace-similar-one-owned-anne-frank-found-nazi-death-camp-180961810/ too. Nothing proves guilt like the rush to cover up a crime.

Today, and Writing

Rolled out right at 2. Per usual I didn’t get started writing early for various reasons. The biggest reason is that I simply didn’t open the file and start on it.

Finally outside around 4 with a cigar and the novel. The day was as socked-in with fog as I am. I opened the novel, but mostly cycled back, adding very little. (That’s a good thing.)

Back outside for a bit, but too damp-cold out there to write (stiff fingers) so back inside to write all of this. Now (8 a.m.) back to the novel.

Very very weird day. I wrote almost nothing — DID almost nothing — all morning. From the time I got up until around noon, I wrote maybe 500 words, all in cycling.

Mostly I was staring at the manuscript, willing something to happen.

Then around noon, I glanced back over my reverse outline and picked out a main character who hadn’t appeared in the story for awhile. I put my fingers on the keyboard and started writing with that character in mind.

By 1:40, I had another 2000 words. It’s a good feeling knowing I’ll at least make my word count today. Easily. And the end of the novel still isn’t in sight, though I still sense it’s close.

Back tomorrow.

Fiction Words: 3410
Nonfiction Words: 870 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 4280

Writing of The Claim (novel, working title)

Day 1…… 4391 words. Total words to date…… 4391
Day 2…… 3632 words. Total words to date…… 8023
Day 3…… 1416 words. Total words to date…… 9439
Day 4…… 2673 words. Total words to date…… 12112
Day 5…… 4284 words. Total words to date…… 16396
Day 6…… 3159 words. Total words to date…… 19555
Day 7…… 3834 words. Total words to date…… 23389
Day 8…… 4953 words. Total words to date…… 28342
Day 9…… 4982 words. Total words to date…… 33324
Day 10… 3618 words. Total words to date…… 36942
Day 11… 3133 words. Total words to date…… 40075
Day 12… 2964 words. Total words to date…… 43039
Day 13… 3410 words. Total words to date…… 46449

Total fiction words for the month……… 48077
Total fiction words for the year………… 48077
Total nonfiction words for the month… 11810
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 11810

Total words for the year (fiction and nonfiction)…… 59887

2 thoughts on “The Journal, Tuesday, 1/17”

  1. Harvey,

    I’m impressed by what I see happening with my ebooks at D2D. But what do you mean by the following, which I copied from your post:

    Just FYI, books distributed by some distributors seem to sell better for some reason than books distributed by others. For that reason, recently I’ve been tracking sales (loosely) from venues supported by Draft2Digital vs. those supported by Smashwords.

    Of course, you can’t distribute the same title from two different distributors. I will report any findings here later.

    I have my ebooks with Smashwords, and just listed them with D2D and they seem to have accepted them with the exception of one.

    • If you allow D2D to distribute your books to Barnes & Noble, for example, you can’t also allow Smashwords to distribute to Barnes & Noble. Is that what you were asking about?

      Also, Smashwords distributes to a LOT of venues that D2D doesn’t. So I usually let D2D distribute my books to the six (I think) venues they have, and allow Smashwords to distribute to everone else, except Amazon. That one I currently submit myself.

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