Disturbing experiments

Recently I’ve been engaging in disturbing experiments. Not in much of my time, mind you, because round about Friday I got sick-ish. Not sure with what honest, only that I ot only felt like sleeping all the time, I also couldn’t concentrate on anything, despite caffeine and adderal.

Much better today, but I was doing the usual catchup that follows such episodes, of course.

As you guys know — probably at least and note this is important for the post — I had eight books revert relatively recently: the three shifter books, where there really isn’t much to do to the first three (though if you really want to do a Series Bible for me, and are willing to charge under $100 a book, email me) and which I put up all at one go …. um…. a week and a half ago (I THINK?) and the Darkship Books, where I’m doing a more careful page by page thing, because there were some continuity errors and also — because I was young enough as a writer — a lot of stuff that didn’t make it to the books, and which I need to evaluate.

I plan to finish Bowl of Red and All Hot hopefully in the next couple of weeks to go up. But I’m also finishing another book, and working on a couple of other projects, (one of which is a completely different “field” and the first time I’m working in it. Yes, more reveal once I’m absolutely sure) so things are a little crazy.

But I hadn’t put up anything in a while, because 2020 was a waste of time and space, so I’m kind of doing other things. Things like using keywords acquired through amazon rocket publisher (results mixed) and such.

As usual, the books sold about a bazillion right after going up. Actually a surprising amount for reissues of books that old, which leads me to believe some people never saw them, and certainly never saw the later two.

But then… you’ve seen it right? the sales do the nose dive. (the KU never falls off that completely. But the sales do.)

So, here’s what I found. Linking one of the books somewhere, like FB or MeWe or the blog pushes those sales back up almost instantly. Like I did two low-key postings late today, and suddenly I had five sales within an hour. And they were all for the book I linked, (Gentleman Takes a chance, the middle book.) It will probably go to twenty within the next 24 hours.

Here’s the problem, though: So, should I be linking one of my books every day somewhere? (I suppose I could include Twitter in the rotation. I haven’t been on Gab in years, and don’t know if I can break into my own account at this point.)

Wouldn’t that get pretty boring for the people for whom my books keep showing up over and over and over again? I mean, we all have seen people like that. All they post, over and over and over is “buy my book.”

Of course, I suppose I could post snippets from the books, and maybe I’ll find them while I’m making the bibles? One can hope?

And then the link. do you think that would be more palatable?

I mean, it’s obvious from the sudden, noticeable upsurge in sales that most people aren’t seeing the books. So–

So, what do you think? Do you get bored out of your gourds seeing it over and over again? Or do you understand the exigencies of “actually getting people to see it?”

Throw me a line, because I’m really bad at this stuff.

Oh, and the links below use my associates # which kicks a fraction of the sale back to me, which reminds of something else.

As you know — or should if you’ve been around here any amount of time — I’m pretty bad at all sorts of publicity and selling in general. So, for years now I’ve been doing the Sunday Promo post. People send me their books (I ask they not send the same one more than once every month or so) and I put them up, with my code. (The email to send to is in the intro.)

It started mostly as a way of letting me skate by ONE day of the week without having to write a post. (Mind you, I’m open to guest posts, but I haven’t got many recently.) And after a while my husband said “why don’t we get an associates number, so you make something out of this?”

Something is right. I usually made $50 to $100 a month.

Then a couple of months ago under “dangerous experiments” I was looking at a day when I had (I THINK) one book to promote (this was not necessarily so, as sometimes the email helpfully deletes it without showing it. No, I don’t know why. But I only found that out recently) and I went “you know, my friends are as good at promotion as I am. They don’t send me something once a month. Heck, they don’t send me anything unless it’s new or on sale, or something.”

So out of what the heck, I padded it with books by friends.

And I kept doing that. The average earnings for that is now around $400 a month. (Sometimes only $350.) Not quite enough payment for the maybe 10 hours a week that I spend just writing posts, but much, much better than a kick in the pants.

And it makes me go “um…. Maybe the reason I haven’t made a ton of money for all this, is that I haven’t worked on making money?”

Stop laughing. Remember I was trained by trad pub on the crazy idea that “if it’s good enough, it will make a ton of money.” And yes, I knew the idea was crazy from the beginning, but it’s sank in. Maybe I’ve just not been good at publicity?

So, what do you think? And should I start echoing one of my books somewhere every day? Or everywhere every day? And how do I do it without people getting sick and tired of seeing the same thing all the time?
Any ideas?

Draw One In The Dark

Something or someone is killing shape shifters in the small mountain town of Goldport, Colorado.
Kyrie Smith, a server at a local diner, is the last person to solve the mystery. Except of course for the fact that she changes into a panther and that her co-worker, Tom Ormson, who changes into a dragon, thinks he might have killed someone.
Add in a policeman who shape-shifts into a lion, a father who is suffering from remorse about how he raised his son, and a triad of dragon shape shifters on the trail of a magical object known as The Pearl of Heaven and the adventure is bound to get very exciting indeed.
Solving the crime is difficult enough, but so is — for our characters — trusting someone with secrets long-held.

Gentleman Takes A Chance

Family! Can’t live with them and can’t eat them.
Tom Ormson, owner — with his girlfriend — of The George, a diner in downtown Goldport, Colorado is well on his way to becoming a responsible and respectable adult, despite his rough start and the fact that he turns into a dragon.
But then the unpredictable Colorado weather, the ancient leader of a dragon triad and an even more ancient shifter-enforcer combine to destroy his home, put his diner at risk and attempt to kill him.
All this, of course, has to happen while Tom’s friend, Rafiel, is trying to solve a series of murders-by-shark at the city aquarium, and Tom’s newly-reconciled father is attempting to move to Denver.
Fasten your seat belts, a wild ride is about to begin.

Noah’s Boy

Tom Ormson and Kyrie Smith are suffering the growing pains of young romance and young business people. Tom worries obsessively about the new fryer in the diner exploding.
As though he didn’t have enough on his mind, though, life decides it’s time for a sabretooth with vengeance on her mind to come to town, and for the Great Sky Dragon to try to arrange a marriage for Tom.
Meanwhile, out at the old amusement park, the one with the really good wooden roller-coaster, a series of bizarre murders is taking place.
And, as if that were not enough, Conan Lung, dragon shifter, ex-triad member and waiter extraordinaire starts his country singing career with an original song “If I Could Fly to You.”
When Kyrie is kidnapped, it’s all Tom can do to make sure he protects her while not eating anyone.