What a contrast from last week. Yes, three inches of snow last week. Bare ground and crocus blooming this week. Life in the mountains. However, I think we’re on the upside of spring these days.
Sigh. This was one time where, yet again, I don’t really want to write this accountability post. I’m in one of those periodic down phases of production and sales. No one is checking out the books, my promotional energy is fading, and I’m really struggling with the whole thing. Another week where I have the perception that nothing happened.
And yet, it did. I experimented with the new-to-me creation of videos in Book Brush and made a couple for Broken Angel‘s book birthday. I don’t know that they’ve had much of an impact, and yet…baby steps, baby steps, I need to keep telling myself.
I made some progress on writing Federation Cowboy, and have an outline for completion. It’s going to be around 60k words, which is probably about right for the sort of book it is.
I started exploring further options for online discussion and promotion, especially since Twitter is now being a pain about Substack posts (this one will probably get throttled, but we shall see). I also took a social media class given by Allison K. Williams through Jane Friedman. That class requires a bit of digestion and consolidation of notes, along with a specific action plan because there were some excellent suggestions that were helpful. I. Just. Have. To. Do. It.
One of the grim things I’m considering is activity tracking for a few days. Just note everything and figure out what I’m doing when and where. Part of this is about energy management. I suspect I’m doing better than I think, but part of all this is finding balance.
And maybe, just maybe, I need to consider readjusting my goals. I’ve already put aside the dream of making it big. It hurts to admit that, but I am most likely always going to be an obscure writer with a handful of readers. I can’t go to in-person gatherings, and it’s becoming obvious that this is a necessity these days. Oh, I interact with people on social media, but that isn’t everything and you can only tell the same group of people so much about what you’re doing. I’ve paid for some advertising and promotion, but am reluctant to do the big social media expenditures because if I don’t see results from smaller $$, then what will I see from bigger $$$? I don’t have the $$ to pay for hiring someone to do it, and frankly, that aspect of promotion is far too daunting for me.
Obviously, while the above paragraph reflects reality, I still have a tiny wisp of that dream. I get just enough feedback to suggest that it might happen, or it’s close…but it has been close for so many years that it’s kind of ridiculous to consider.
Ah well. Time to get back to writing work instead of agonizing.
