Monday, April 7, 2014

Everybody Wants You

Oh, boy, it's been awhile since I blogged, but things have been hectic.

Last month, my family marked the twenty-first year since Freckles joined our Lord in Heaven. March is always a difficult month for us and my son Pooh's worsening health made this year even trickier. I'm actually typing this blog from the hospital where he's been since Wednesday.

I've also been struggling with writing the last month for obvious reasons. And not so obvious ones. Nick from Damaged and the Dragon was giving me fits. The guy felt like a stranger, yet I needed to get into his head. Finally, he opened up to me and I was able to get into a writing groove. I'm still expecting to finish both Dragon and Used this month.

After hitting the best ranking of my short career, Gator continues to sell better than I expected from a standalone novella. There are so many unknown factors about why one book gains attention and another book never does. Whenever new indies get frdustrated, I tell them I published nine books before one sold well. If you love writing, don't give up.

Once again I'm running behind, but I still have high hopes for 2014's publishing schedule. My goal is to finish the open Angela series (Gigi, Vivi, and Blue) this year. I have over a dozen ideas for Bijou alone, so I need to prioritize what I'll focus on in the future.

This last week, Miranda worked her sweet ass off designing a teaser for Dragon. I just have no talent for marketing. If it was left to me, I would take a picture and stick words next to it. Bam! Done! Candy Girl is a godsend when visuals are needed. She's also helping design the cover for Used.

The last week hasn't been all stress and work. I also enjoyed lots of laughs at the expense of the asshats. Namely Mel from STGRB. In a nutshell, she accused me of creating a rival hate site plus she thinks I'm Miranda. I won't go into the specifics. Let's just say she's obsessed and clueless.

Mel learned the truth the hard way and now has egg all over her face. All last week, she kept mocking how I didn't respond to her allegations. Why would I remain silent if I was innocent of her lies?

After years of working and living around jayholes, I've learned sometimes silence is golden. When I was young, I thought I needed the last word to win. The reality is silence or carefully worded non-answers hurt idiots more. Why? With time, they will bury themselves in their lies and paranoia. It's all about the slow sell.

So I refrained from rolling my eyes publicly at Mel and she doubled down on her dumb. Works for me. I support the jerks in the indie publishing world attacking each other rather than readers.

This is the first year I've done taxes since I've had substantial sales to report. Eek! People kept warning me to squirrel away money for taxes, but I didn't listen. It wasn't awful, but a little startling nonetheless. Squirreling for next year is my new hobby.

Well, I better get back to Dragon and Used if I ever plan to publish them this month.