Great Trip

From Facebook

My daughter and I had hours of fun on our trip to visit UNC.  I believe she's decided to be a Tarheel unless Boston University or George Washington University come up with some big bucks in scholarships.  Even during the horrible traffic around DC there and back, we managed to laugh and keep our spirits high. And we got home in front of the Halloween snow storm.

Hopefully, I'll catch up on blogs and get some editing done today before this wet, heavy snowfall brings down the powerlines as predicted.  We have enough firewood in to keep the chill off one room if needed.  Usually I found the first snowfall of the season lovely but getting it in October kind of takes the charm off the experience.

The only good news is the weather will keep me at my writing work. 

While in Chapel Hill, my daughter and I did our usual routine of investigating any local independent bookstores we can find as well as Barnes and Noble.  We found a terrific store called Flyleaf Books.  My daughter invested in two thin books of French poetry published in the 1920's and I found an early book by an author I've been meaning to sample.  If she decides to attend college at UNC, that store will see us again.

We also made our tour of the coffeeshops. She's of the Starbucks generation but I was thrilled to find a Caribou Coffee shop.  I like Caribou better and their cafe was very comfy.  I wish we had one of their places around here.  Today though is a hot chocolate day.

So Caribou or Starbucks for you? Snow or sunshine today? Hot chocolate or hot coffee or wine?

Busy, Busy, Busy

From FB

So much to do, so little time. The housecleaning will have to wait. I'm traveling to University of North Caroline today with my daughter for a college visit.  We did a lot of visits this past summer and this is the last school on her top three list for us to check out. Financially it's the best fit as compared to George Washington University and University of Boston.  And it is warmer.  I'll be out of blog touch for two days until Saturday.

When I return, I have to jump on my edits for my next fantasy romance. Courage of a Tiger will be released in mid December from New Concepts Publishing.  I hope to have the edits done by Monday. Then I need to dive back into the edits for Beyond the Gate, second book in my epic fantasy series, The Futhark Chronicles. 

Two weeks from Saturday, I'm part of an author panel at a local independent bookstore, The Midtown Scholar.  I'll be speaking on writing fantasy and romance. I'm excited but I have to put together a 5-7 minute talk and be ready for questions. I'll also get to sell my books. (Remember all those remainders)

It's the end of the grading quarter at work so I have some extra work at the day job.  But I love being busy and having deadlines.

How busy are you for the upcoming month? Have you visited your local independent bookstore lately?

Remainders....

A little while ago, I reclaim my rights to my fantasy series from the publisher who had broken my contract. I know I did the right thing by taking them back. I decided to self-publish since the original publisher had already released the first two books and I didn't expect to be able to find a new publisher for a series already started.  By next year at this time, I'll let you know if it's worked out in any financial way.

One of the ways my first publisher broke my contract was when they decided they wouldn't publish my second and third book in The Futhark Chronicles in mass market paperback as well as ebook.  The first book, The Keepers of Sulbreth, received excellent reviews and sold rather well.  After I took my rights back, the publisher offered me an opportunity to buy the 'remainders' of the print run of my first book.  I'd heard or remainders but didnt' realize my book would have any. 

Of course I had to purchase huge quantities to get the massive discount and pay a big shipping bill.  They had over a thousand, but what did I need that many books for? What could I do with them? I purchased a much smaller quantity to use as prizes, send out for reviews and even sell a few at the rare booksignings I have at independent stores.

I've compiled a list of reviewers to send some free books to and today I thought of my blogger friends. I know some of you have already purchased my book(thank you, I love you all) but for my bloggy friends who would consider a review, I'm offering three FREE print copies to the first 3 people(in the USA) who email me at:
sgourleyauthor@gmail.com


No strings or promises required. Hopefully, you'll like The Keepers of Sulbreth enough to say something good and maybe even purchase the second book.  I'm waiting to hear from you.  In the meantime, I'm almost done with the edits on book#2, Beyond the Gate.  Then you all can read about my exploits with Amazon and Smashwords again. LOL

So, have you ever had any of your books go out of print? Have you purchased remainders? How many of your own books to you have sitting in the corners of your house?

Simple Problems

Sorry for dumping frustration after frustration on my bloggy friends. I actually keep personal problems to myself but I know my blog readers will understand the issues I have with my writing career.  Most of you have been there, done that, and offer advice and sympathy. 

Some things I've been working on are taking much longer than I expected. Much, much longer. There are other projects I'm anxious to restart and really dig into but I can't until I've dealt with my current frustrating work.  It keeps me awake at night, but today I took a deep breath.

I'm not as successful or prolific as some authors I know.  I don't have a 'big' contract with a traditional publisher.  No writing conferences are asking me a year ahead of time to be the keynote speaker. My laptop is old and slow, my desktop older.  My printer has some trouble pulling the paper in. It really doesn't like the expensive stuff.

But, I have numerous contracts for my romance books with a pretty great small publisher, New Concepts.  I have been invited to be part of an author panel at a local independent bookstore. My laptop is still kicking and I'm buying more memory for it.  And I don't really need to print out much stuff so I'm not investing in a new printer anytime soon.  Things are going okay. 

Sometimes I overthink problems when the solution is simple.  My new mind set is to keep it simple, step away when I get frustrated and ask for help more often. 

On the good news front, I read in our local paper today that a 'Books A Million' is taking over the location of our late Borders.  I've never been in a BAM, but I'll be thrilled to have a bookstore close to my house again(and a coffeeshop).

Can any of you tell me about BAM? What's your most recent simple solution?

Words I Need

I hate Smashwords. It's official. I spent a half an hour today with one of our school's tech teachers asking her what the heck a 'field code' is and how did it get into my manuscript?  Smashwords told me I need to fix it, but I don't know what the heck it is and can't see it.

So I've interrupted editing work on my next book to try and figure this out.  Major frustration and headache.  I enjoy the funny pictures and quotes I find on facebook. How am I relieving my stress?

Watching 'Revenge' helps. I love that quirky,creepy show. I'm feeling a little vengeful  A little exercise.  The last few weeks of stumbling through self-publishing has really increased the intensity of my workouts.  I feel so good about the weight loss right until I sit down at the durn keyboard again. 

Tonight I'll be putting on some music, perhaps the soundtrack for 'Lord of the Rings' since I feel kind of like the guys on the horses trying to break the siege of Gondor.  A little fight music, some hot coffee and I'll be ready to tackle the mystical problem Smashwords has told me I have.

Anything frustrating you lately? Have you ever heard of 'field code?'

 

Book Give Away

I write in two different genres.  My first love for reading and writing is epic fantasy. I love the medieval settings and the combination of swords and magic.  But I have found it more difficult to market my fantasy books than my romance books.

Most of us know the numbers.  Over half of all genre fiction being sold is romance.  Romance writers do lots of promotion and there seem to be more places to buy or request exposure for your book.  Coffeetime Romance in a great site and my favorite it The Romance Studio.  An author can join TRS and do lots of free promotion.  One of the promos involves giving away one of your books and gaining a list of names to add to a mailing list should you want to keep one. 

I've promoted my romance books on TRS and Coffeetime.  Did it help sales? I don't know.  I also don't know of any such promotional sites for my fantasy books.  So today I'm giving away a print copy of The Keepers of Sulbreth at TRS.  It's the first book in my epic fantasy series but I'm searching out all avenues of promotion and hoping for the best.  You can hop over to the book-a-day giveaway page and sign up for a chance to win it. 

Do you know of any promotional or review sites that do for fantasy books what TRS and Coffeetime do for romance?  Have you ever paid to promote your book. Was it worth it?

Pay It Forward

Thanks to Alex Cavanaugh, we have another great day of sharing and networking. Today a whole bunch of bloggers are 'paying it forward' by linking to three other bloggers who have helped us along the way in our career paths.

I'm sure many people are having the same difficulty with this as I am.  So many people have helped me, how should I narrow it down to three?  There are a group of people who helped me early in my career and a large number of people who have helped me recently.   So I'm going to combine some of the old and the new friends.

Natalie Damschroder is my 'go to' girl for so many things.  She really knows her way around the publishing world. I've sent her lists of questions and she gets back to me right away with the answers.  She's a multi published author, a busy working mother and a good friend.  I met her through my local chapter of RWA back in the days when I was a member.  You can meet her at Indulge Yourself.

In my recent venture of reclaiming my rights to my fantasy series and self-publishing it, I again turned a fellow, local writer.  Cate Masters might be the most prolific writer I know.  She has self-published some of her novels and was indispensable to me.  I might have sent her a dozen emails to ask her advice and help.  She also finds time to blog nearly every day.  I can't say enough about her knowledge and willingness to help other writers. She's also the driving force behind a group blog formed by numerous writers from central Pennsylvania, The Susquehanna Writers.

Someone who might not even know how much she's helped me is L. Diane Wolfe.  If you have a book to promote or want to know anything about blogging, publishing or just read some speculations about where this crazy business is going, you need to visit Spunk on a Stick.  And you'll get a good laugh at least once a week.  Probably Alex and Diane gave me the most clues on how to grow my blog audience.  Thanks.

I hope you find some more great blogs to follow with this little blog fest.  I'll be visiting lots of new blogs but I won't catch up to everyone until Saturday because I'm going to visit my son at college(PSU) today. Can't wait to meet some new friends.