On the road again. And again. And again

Normally September is a slow month for me in terms of book signings, a warm up for the upcoming writing months (usually Oct & Nov). Normally. This year? Yeah, not so much. I'm rolling through September with four weekends of signings. The good news is books are selling. Hooray!

Let's see, where was I since the last post? It's all a blur.

My local writing group did a joint booth at Art in the Park. Eight authors enjoyed beautiful weather and signed many books. The Marvelous Mr. Millie happily served as my flock representative. He basks in all the attention and often gets so relaxed with all the petting that he falls asleep on my table. I have to wake him up so people can take his picture. Some day, maybe he'll have his own book.

Mid August, author pal Joan H. Young and I took our annual road trip to Paradise, MI in the upper peninsula. It's a 5 hour drive for me but 6 hours when I detour to pick up Joan. Having the company for the long drive and weekend is well worth the extra hour. 

Joan writes mysteries for adults and a series for kids as well as books about her hikes on the North Country Trail. Check out her blog here.

She's also crafty and surprised me with this stuffed chicken she made. The chicken has been named Eggatha. She keeps me company on my writing chair.

What does it look like when you cram two authors' outdoor setups in one car for a road trip? It does not look like daylight inside and there's zero rear view mirror. LOL However, we did manage to fit a chicken and didn't have anything under our feet or on our laps, so we'll call it a Tetris victory. 

This was the view out the back of my booth all weekend. we were on the shores of Lake Superior. Amazingly, for the first time in three years of being at this festival, we had gorgeous weather. 

Next up was my last renaissance festival of the year in South Bend, Indiana. Peep and Dottie got all the love the first day and then Millie and Elsa switched out for day two. The chickens are very popular at this event every year and I sold out of my children's books that weekend! Thankfully, I had more books on order because my schedule is full for a month yet. 

Most recently, I did a children's book signing at Gilbert and Ivy, a small indie bookstore in Vicksburg, MI. Peep got lots of attention by sitting on the table by the window.

 

In writing news, Nugget the Space Chicken and the Haunted Cave of Korabumba, is live for pre-order at all of your favorite online retailers and will be released into the world on September 8. And hey, that means I can now show you the cover!

i9 is still in edits. Why? See above. I've been busy. ;)

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers.

This brings us to our regularly scheduled Insecure Writer's Support Group section of my monthly post.

This month's question is about your thoughts on using AI in your writing. 

I feel like we've covered this from a couple angles recently so I will say the only thing I've toyed with using AI for in a writing capacity is to brainstorm tag lines for the i9 blurb. There were a couple good starting points there but they needed a fair amount of tweaking to be accurate for my book and work with my blurb. 

Using it for brainstorming, eh, maybe. That's my current opinion. 

Upcoming Releases, IWSG, and So Many Signings

I've been busy (when am I not?) since last month. Projects are sort of falling into place. Are they at the orderly points where I'd like them to be? Nope, but we're rolling with it. #flexibility

Since the last episode of Does She Ever Sleep?, I've done a comic con that was my best sales event of the year so far, an art festival where water streamed through my tent, enjoyed a hometown art fair with perfect weather and lots of friends, had one signing canceled due to thunderstorms, and did a paid presentation on self publishing at my local library. I've also received the interior illustrations on Nugget #2 and finalized the cover of i9. #progress

Which brings us to ARC reader sign ups for Nugget the Space Chicken and the Haunted Cave of Korabumba. If you have any young readers or are interested in a kids sci-fi story, the sign up form is here. Do I have cover art yet? Nope, but I have a blurb. I'll be sending out ARC copies at some point this week.  #vaguedeadlines 

The mushroom forests and deep caves of Korabumba might be a beautiful home for humans. While exploring the planet, Jasper and Opal's father runs into trouble and calls for help. Their mother is out of range. It's up to Jasper, Opal, and Nugget to find him

They set off to work together on a rescue mission. Except their father down in a deep, dark cave filled with ghosts, fairies, a who knows what else. 

Is the trio brave enough to help their father or will they chicken out?

Let's get to the cover reveal for the adult sci-fi standalone I9, shall we? Tune in next episode for the blurb because I have a cover, but not the blurb. See what I mean about rolling with it?  #coverreveal

The audio narrator is still busy editing chapters of Sahmara so that is currently out of my hands but also in my juggling routine. Woohoo!

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers.

And that brings us to the ISWG portion of this episode. This month's question is: What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?

Since a friend is dealing with a troublesome publisher right now, I'm going to say: Not paying authors on time / being transparent with sales / not paying authors at all. 

She signed what sounded like an ideal contract with a publisher she was reading slush for stating they would provide formatting, ISBN, editing, and publication of her novel and all profits would go to her. They paid no advance and would not be taking any split of the royalties. Sounds too be good to be true, right? Yeah, exactly. 

What it did not state was a payment schedule or when sales reports would be relayed. She ordered author copies at cost and was happily out selling her book. Now, I will clarify that the majority of her sales were in person with the books she purchased so she did collect and retain payment on those. What she did not receive was payment or record of any online sales through the publisher's website, Amazon, B&N, etc. And there were sales. Not an astronomical number, but some. Some she wanted to be paid for. Asking a lot, I know.

It was well over a year after her book released before the publisher finally agreed to pay out what was owed and transfer rights to her, washing their hands of the whole hassle of having to track sales and actually pay the author. The crazy thing? They have other authors in house and NO ONE is getting paid what they are due because they aren't even asking. Apparently this is how the publisher is making money. I just can't even. *shaking head* 

Know your contract. Keep on top of your publisher. Ask for what you are owed. Stand up for yourself. #endrant

July Brings New Chicks

July is my relaxed month for the summer. I say this looking at the fact that I have three events scheduled, but one is a one day bookstore book signing that's not too far from home so yeah, we'll call two weekends away relaxed(ish). My year is half over with 17 more events to go. #buckleup

In non-writing news this month, Laya has been taking a break from meeting readers to hatch a few eggs. We welcomed three new chicks to the flock over the weekend. 

How's writing going with 21 events down so far for the year? Yeah, not so much writing happening. Big surprise, I'm sure. 

• Nugget the Space Chicken and the Haunted Cave of Korabumba is written and off to the illustrator. #progress

• Interface is glaring at me.

• i9 is also glaring but I have been working on the cover art so sorta progress?

If you're in the market for ebooks, Smashwords is having their big July sale. You can pick up Dreams of Stars and Lies or Not Another Bard's Tale for only .99 or dip your toes into The Narvan with One Shot at the Sphinx for FREE.

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers.

And that brings us to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question: Is there a genre you haven't written yet that you'd like to try?

I've written western and mystery, though that was a long time ago, but I've always wanted to give a choose your own adventure type book a try. I've had one percolating in the back of my mind for about a year now. Looking at my to-do list, it's going to stay there for another year or more before it gets any real consideration. It would be fun though, assuming I can pull it together.

 

Back at Home Base, Hooray!

 

After 11 weekends of events in a row, I'm finally back to a more manageable schedule. This month's events are only traveling to and from home with no overnights or long distances. Hooray! Do I endeavor to break this record of insane booking? No. No, I do not.

 

Did I intentionally schedule myself so heavily? Sort of, but when doing so, I had not planned on having exchange students. I also didn't plan on having storm damage that wiped out my entire home network including work stuff that put me a week and half behind at my day job, nor did I plan on having a major day job equipment issue that required an bringing in a tech to fix that also set work behind a week before the storm damage happened. All of those things required a lot of $ that I'm not exactly swimming in because continuing to breathe air is expensive these days. It's been a stressful time, to say the least.

The good news is that day job work is back up and running so $ is coming in to pay bills. The exchange students have been fun, but are nearing the end of their time with us so that will free up evenings a little more for writing time. Because, holy cow, I do not write when under stress. I'm even out of stuff to watch on Netflix. You may have a problem when you look at the 'because you watched this, you may also like this' lists and you can say that you've already watched all of those suggestions that look even remotely interesting. So I've been reading. This is a good thing I suppose, because it's making a little dent in my towering To Be Read stacks. Yes, I have multiple stacks. Four of of them, actually, and that's not counting what's lingering on my Kindle. Wooooo boy.

Ok, enough of the state of the author... on to positive things. I'm hoping to add another book or two to this stack before the end of the year. 

That means it's time for the monthly project update.

I9 is glaring at me and supporting fans are nagging me. Yep, I know I need to get on this one, but I haven't had the brain for it lately. Edits take a lot of brain.

Interface is also glaring at me, however, I'm so used to angry looks from this book that I can shrug it off. I'll get back to it. Really, I will. Yes, really, I mean it this time.

Nugget #2 has been the only project making a little progress because kids' books are my brain level right now. That said, I'm only four chapters from the end, yet I still haven't written those four chapters. (headdesk)

Sahmara's audio book is still in progress. The narrator tells me she's on chapter 7. This one is out of my hands currently so, um, yay? I guess? To be fair, our agreement was for a fall release, so that's on track.

One project is on track! woohoo! Small victories.

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers.

Let's get to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question: What books impacted you as a child or young adult?

All of the books.

Oh, you want examples? Ok, fine. 

As a kid I was a huge fan of the Black Stallion series. I still have all those books. It was my 'I like horses' phase, even though I rarely got to ride a horse—as in it was a one or twice a year thing— but..but...horses! I also read a lot of Linda Craig mysteries, because horses! But also because: mysteries! My mother was an avid reader of mysteries so that's where I went in my first forays into chapter books and series. That included the entire Trixie Beldon series at one point. I think I'd gotten over horses by then. After that, I veered hard into Tom Swift books and then vanished into Narnia. I've been on a fantasy/sci-fi jag ever since.

Did your childhood genres stick with you?

I'm Still Alive. The Kicking Is Questionable.

It's been a busy streak of weeks. As you can see from my event list on the side over there --> , I'm in the midst of 11 weekends in a row. June 7&8, I'm very much looking forward to you. That said, I'm also having fun meeting readers and making book sales. It's fun to write books and all, but it's also nice to pay bills and that means getting my books out there for people to find.

Events have been going fairly well, my favorite for the year so far was Viking Fest in Whitestown Indiana. I had a fun booth neighbor and other than some light rain on Friday, the rest of the weekend was gorgeous. Books were sold, beer was imbibed, acts were enjoyed, and I got to introduce my newest little chicken into the world of meeting people and traveling in the car. Peep did well.

My least favorite event of the year was this past weekend at the Southern Indiana Renaissance Faire. This was a new to me event and pretty much all the things went wrong. I've been doing events for ten years and hands down, this is was the biggest mess I've ever had to deal with. Yep, it even beats the year we had hail at Viking Fest making it so cold that I didn't realize I'd broken my finger loading out until later during the car ride home when my hand thawed out, and the Sturgis event where the organizer thought it would be a great idea to place the author tent at the far end of the field with nothing else around to make it a 'destination' for patrons to venture over to. Hint: they did not venture over.

Rather than rant about all the bad things, I'll skip to the star of the show. 

It rained intermittently for four days. When I got there to set up, it looked like this:

By the Sunday, the area in front of my booth looked like this:

We could not drive in to load out and so all the vendors had to carry or cart their items through 6 inch puddles and shoe sucking mud all the way to the parking lot to get out of there. 

Having done shows for ten years, I'm prepared for a lot of things, but this was a challenge I'd be happy to never repeat.

Onward to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question: What are your greatest fears as a writer?

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers.

1. A reader discovering a plot hole or inconsistency that I missed. This is what my brain tells me is going to be revealed every time someone starts a conversation with #3 on this list.

2. Inadvertently reusing a name from another one of my novels. With 18 books currently published and several more in the works, this one becomes more challenging every year. Is this actually a huge deal? Probably not, but in my head it is.

3. Anytime someone comes up and says: "I read your book." Readers have no idea what kind of anxiety this lead in instills in a writer. And? Did you hate it? Loved it? Give me a little something with those words so I can either relax or brace myself. 99% of the time, it's good things, but that line still makes me wince.