Sunday, January 20, 2013

Sales, compliments, shorts, numb pinkies, and contractions

Hello and welcome to another installment of Overly Verbose, where I type furiously and three people read it.  It's been a while since I've posted anything so today I'm gonna post something.  It'll be rambling and long as per usual, but that's what the three of you hapless people that will happen upon this have come to expect.

Sales.  Words With Fiends is selling like shit.  Dropping like a stone.  It's moving copies about as quickly as the continental drift.  But that's ok.  I never expected to sell as many as I did (which, frankly, was hardly any at all).  Who's to say why?  It's a short story, it's a buck, I'm pretty much unknown, it's not porn, there is no guy with a rippling six pack on the cover, and there is an overflow of indie and small press authors advertising their work on facebook, goodreads, blogs, twitter, etc.  I suck at self promotion.  I'm awful with twitter.  Basically, I have no idea what I'm doing.  But that's ok as well because, those who actually have read it have been giving me...

Compliments.  There are currently seven 4 and 5 star reviews of it on Amazon.  There are several ratings and reviews of it on goodreads, all of which are positive.  It's marked to be read on GR by at least ten people and I know a few more people who intend to read it.  At this point it's not about sales so much as reviews and getting my name out there.  The more people who review it, the more it's seen, the more people may stop by here or my Amazon author page and think 'hmmm, I dug this story, maybe I'll look out for more from this dude.'  Hey, could happen right?  And, as it turns out, a little birdie on twitter told me that a very favorable review will be dropping on a review blog tomorrow.  I am most assuredly looking forward to that!

Shorts.  I have completed yet another short story.  It's really not THAT short (about 13k words) but still, I think it qualifies.  It's for an as-yet-to-be-announced anthology.  That's right, the thing hasn't even been pitched yet, but an editor I know told me what it was going to be about and that it was coming up.  So, I took an idea I had roughly outlined a few weeks back and banged the effer out this week.  It's still in first draft so it's a little rough, BUT, (and not to toot my own horn here), I fucking love it.  It's fun and quirky and I had a bunch of fun writing it.  Hopefully the editor will overlook that it's a bit longer than it should be and dig it half as much as I do.  I was also approached by an author I know that he will be spearheading an anthology sometime this year and that I should keep an eye on my email for more details.  Can't wait for that!

Numb Pinkies.  I've had this nagging damn numbness in my left pinky for a few weeks.  It blows. On a good day, I can type 84 words per minute.  Not so now.  Got to the point where my a's were coming out as q's.  It's a pain in the ass.  Got to the point where I actually went to the doctor.  I never do that unless I'm on my deathbed so you know it must have been bad.  Anyhoo, I have to wear a splint at night now and I also have to make an appointment to go to get bloodwork done.  Could be anything: pinched nerve, carpel tunnel, who the hell knows?  Gonna be a long road in diagnosing the problem.  But in the meantime, I just type slower and take more breaks.

Contractions.  The handful of you reading this may or may not know that my wife is due to have a baby any day now.  Like, literally any day.  Woke up last night saying she was beginning to have sporadic contractions.  So that means it could be today, tomorrow, Wednesday, who the hell knows?  The not knowing is the worst part;the uncertainty is driving us nuts.  But, all is going well to date so we hang our hats on that.  At the end of the day, you can only wait and see what happens, plan accordingly and react as best you can.  Wish us luck!

So that's it for this installment.  I made it extra verbose since it's been well over a week since my last post.  Pardon the typos.  A) I'm too lazy to go back and fix them and B) my pinky is bugging me.  Until next time!

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