Get Off Your Ass!

I have a mug that has a black and white cartoon on it of three angels screaming. The caption says, “A message from God: GET OFF YOUR ASS!”

Recently the news has been reported that spending long periods sitting is as dangerous to our health as smoking. I assumed it was because being sedentary contributed to our collective asses getting bigger, but even regular exercise is apparently not enough to compensate. I hadn’t heard any explanation of this until today, when I stumbled upon this post by Linda Stone about computer apnea.

Apparently we tend to hold our breath or breath shallowly when we read email and do other computer related tasks. This is a bad thing. It causes a complicated cascade of physiological responses that lead to the fight or flight response. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately–I’d rather not be facing a grizzly, thank you) we ‘re sitting at our computers. As Stone says, our bodies are all dressed up with no place to go. This leads to all sorts of health problems like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar levels, increased hunger signals, etc.

We think of breathing as automatic, but apparently there’s something about sitting in front of a computer that interrupts our natural rhythms. This is bad news for writers, and a lot of other workers in western style economies.

We can’t change our entire work culture, but we can breathe. Deeply. And sit up straight so our lungs can expand. And get off our asses once an hour so the blood gets moving. (I know one writer uses a 48/12 pattern. Forty eight minutes of writing, twelve minutes of out-of-chair time. His mind has adapted to it, so when he sits down at the computer again, he steps right back into the story.)

Two years ago (with my husband’s help) I created a workstation combined with a low speed treadmill. I used it faithfully for about a year, and then, gradually, my recliner became my preferred work location. (Bad writer. No biscuit.) It looks like I need to get off my ass. Again.

 

Stress Less, Write More

I’ve talked and written about some of these points (like Pareto’s Law) before, but it’s always good (and necessary for me) to revisit these topics. Kristen Lamb discusses avoiding procrastination and increasing productivity with great perspicuity. Her post was just what I needed to read today.

Stress Less, Write More.

DANGEROUS TALENTS will be featured on Kindle Romance Novels at 5 pm (EST) today. Check it out!

My Self Publishing Journey: Using Kindle Select

Having just launched DANGEROUS TALENTS, I am, of course, very interested in giving my baby the best start in life. There is no shortage of advice out there on how to to that. I’ve written before in this series about how I’m doing that, and I haven’t read anything since then that will change my approach, except for one thing: using price manipulation.

Joe Konrath wrote that the only thing he’s ever noticed make any significant difference in sales was getting more good quality, professionally produced books out, and price manipulation. Recently I heard about the success that Kris Tualla, a fellow writer had experienced using the Kindle Select free promo. Shortly after that, I read a blog by Phoenix Sullivan on the same topic. The handwriting was on the wall (so to speak). My sales for LIGHTBRINGER on sites other than Amazon were negligible. I didn’t have anything to lose by giving Amazon exclusivity. So six weeks ago I decided to give Kindle Select and their free promo a shot.

The theory is this: by making your book free for a few days, it moves up in the Amazon ranking system, and that makes your book more visible to readers, which helps you make more sales after your book goes back to paid. Easy peasy.

Did it work? It’s too soon to say how this strategy will play out over the long term, but in the short term: Yes.  In the 30 days after going back to paid status after the free promo, I sold 10 times as many copies of LIGHTBRINGER as I had sold in any previous month on Kindle. LIGHTBRINGER started appearing in the “Customers who bought this item also bought” line-ups of other books, increasing its visibility.

Not surprisingly, I decided to use this strategy when I released DANGEROUS TALENTS. So far, in the four days since DT went back to paid status, I have sold more books than I think I would have otherwise. Obviously, there’s no way to know that, except to compare with the sales of my other releases. (One warning:  Don’t panic if you don’t see a surge of sales right away. There seems to be a 24-48 hour lag while Amazon’s algorithm’s kick in, before sales pick up.) I haven’t done a social media blitz about DT, but I have mentioned it a few times on Facebook, Twitter, and some loops I’m a member of.

As for LIGHTBRINGER, sales seem to have dropped off again to a level only slightly better than they were before the free promo. I’m contemplating the possibility of running another free promo with my remaining free days in month or so, to see if my initial success can be repeated with a second promo.

This is exciting stuff for a control freak like me. The Kindle Select price manipulation seems to be a low risk, low time investment method of improving visibility and thereby sales.

There are arguments to be made against granting Amazon exclusivity. And it’s not absolutely necessary to do so to make your book free for a time. One advantage going with Kindle Select does give you, is making your book eligible for Amazon’s lending program, in which they pay the author a percentage of a pre-set fund per borrow. That fee fluctuates each month depending on the size of the fund and the number of borrows. I understand the amount has been as low as $0.70, and as high as $2.10 per borrow (but don’t quote me on that).

Some readers out there only have Nooks and won’t find your book if it’s only on Amazon. But from my own experience, I’m not sacrificing very many Nook sales (and I can go back to selling on B&N after 90 days if I want to). I do have a friend who has sold more stories on B&N than on Amazon in some months. You’ll have to decide for yourself if this is a good strategy for you.

And finally, some authors have an allergy to granting any one retailer exclusivity, especially Amazon. Again, that’s a personal decision. For me, for the next 90 days, I’m going to follow Mark Twain’s advise: I’m going to put all my eggs in one basket, AND WATCH THAT BASKET!

 

DANGEROUS TALENTS Is Now Available on Amazon

DANGEROUS TALENTS, a romantic fantasy novel, is now available on Amazon.

I really enjoyed writing this story, and I hope you enjoy reading it. It combines my love of fantasy (with magic, swords, and elves) with my love of a good romance. Like tales told by C.S. Lewis, Diana Gabaldon, and Joy Chant, the heroine is a contemporary woman who has to cope with an unexpected change in circumstances:

Celia Montrose has been trained to deal with any emergency—except being thrust into another world. Crisis management training hasn’t prepared her for meeting the descendants of the lost Vinland colony, or coping with kidnapping, murder, and magic.

Lord Dahleven is trying to avert a war when he rescues a strange and beautiful woman in the drylands. Though he fears Celia may be Fey-marked, Dahleven can’t resist the powerful attraction he feels for her. But is Celia in league with the enemy, or will she provide the key to saving his people?

Alone and off-balance, Celia finds herself falling for Lord Dahleven. But dangerous forces are at work, and one of them is offering Celia a way home—for a price.

What Did You Give Up, To Get What You Got?

Maybe the perfect life in perfect balance isn’t the ideal goal. This excellent blog reminds me of the saying, “You can have it all, just not all at the same time.” What I like about this post is that the author is also saying that it’s okay to not even want to have it all.

It is, perhaps, not the having, but the striving, that is the real joy.

What Did You Give Up, To Get What You Got?.

My Self-Publishing Journey: Ruthless Clarity

As I take this self-publishing journey, one of the changes I’ve observed in myself is the way I think about how I spend my money and my time. When I was pursuing traditional publishing I wasn’t as careful about how I spent my time.  When I sold VEILED MIRROR to The Wild Rose Press I did editing on their (very relaxed) schedule. I was a business owner even then, but I didn’t really think of it that way. That all changed when I decided to self-publish. As a business owner, I have to allocate my limited resources for the best effect, and there is no shortage of products and projects clamoring for my time and money.

Initially, I took the approach that every minute (and every dollar) should count. It seemed obvious that I shouldn’t spend time on activities that won’t move my career forward.

Let’s stop for a minute to examine that. What does it mean, to move your career forward? It’s a very personal question, actually, and underpinning it are the questions of why do you write, and why do you want to publish? Understanding the answers to these questions is vital to keeping us on track. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Bob Mayer observed in his book WHO DARES WINS, that understanding the intention of a military order can determine whether it’s successfully carried out, especially when circumstances change.

Once you’ve figured out what your bedrock objectives are, I recommend writing them down, and saying them out loud. Be honest! It can be a little frightening to do this, because putting feelings into words lays it all right out there. Your motivation is no longer a mushy, vague concept. It’s a clear, hard-edged statement. It may reveal something about you to yourself that you hadn’t acknowledged before.

Why do I write? I like writing better than any other job I’ve had. I write because I have stories inside me that I want to tell. I would write just as a hobby, but at a much slower pace. I revise because I want other people to enjoy reading what I write. I publish and sell my stories because I want the respect and validation that comes from successfully testing my work in the marketplace.

Knowing that about myself helps me make decisions about where to spend my time and effort and money. It’s important to remember: all knowledge is good. And if you don’t know what your real goal is, you’ll never be satisfied with what you get, because it probably won’t be what you really wanted.

That’s where the ruthless clarity comes in. (I looked up ruthless, in preparation for writing this. It means merciless, unrelenting, unyielding. And clarity is “freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity.”) Once you know what it is that you really want, you can cut away the distractions. That doesn’t mean you have to become a single-minded grind. Everyone has multiple goals from different areas of life. Goals in job, family, health. It’s hard work to figure out what’s really important to us, and even harder to juggle them all. Sometimes the people we care about want us to have different priorities. You may need to learn to say no to them. Or you may decide that the goal of meeting other people’s needs is more important  for now, than achieving a personal goal. Knowing that, and choosing it consciously, will make deferring other goals easier.

The word “ruthless” gave me pause when I looked it up. It’s a harsh word, with a lot of negative connotations. It’s also a strong word. Ruthless clarity is a way of defending ourselves from the clamor of distractions that can destroy our time and eat our lives. Articulating my goals has made making career and life choices clearer, if not necessarily easier. I still struggle with knowing which priority to spend time on, and with wanting to fit one more thing into too little time. Sometimes my life isn’t balanced, and I don’t always make every moment “count.” And that’s okay. But at least I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going, even if I take a detour now and then.