Lazy day off

I’ve done a couple of minor book promotions in the past weeks. I don’t think I’m ready to let go of Will O’ the Wisp yet. I’m very pleased with it, and believe others would like it too – if they could only find it. (Look! On the right, there it is.)

None of my promos are really doing anything. I’ve had over ten thousand people see my Amazon campaign, four of them actually clicked the link. None of them bought it. I set this up to target products instead of other books. It hasn’t cost me an entire dollar yet. I’m pretty sure Amazon will cancel it soon, but 10,000 people know it exists.

I’m going to do some more, but it’s becoming $20 here and $20 there for zero return. I don’t mind, up to a point. Maybe I still have dues to pay in the promotion part of being a writer. I have other schemes in the works too.

I actually pandered myself out on Twitter this week. I wanted my post about The Research Phase to get into the top ten on my sidebar. These posts get a lot of action from new readers, and I thought it was fun. There were a lot of retweets, but the reports indicated they were just looking at, or saving, safari Lisa. Nobody clicked on my cool book pile (There are some cool books in that pile). A few Twitter people read the post, but I never got enough likes to put it on the board. Oh well, that’s blogging.

My participation in the quote challenge did just as well, and it wasn’t even my quote. Blogging has always been that way, and it no longer baffles me.

I haven’t started that research reading yet, which will mostly be skimming. There are a ton of small history items and lingo in the African books. Terms like Ingwe (leopard), Rinderpest, and things like sausage trees can add some flavor, but I need to make sure they’re right for the area.

I need to do some online research into propaganda. The minimal amount I’ve done looks mostly like logical fallacies pushed to the extreme. The problem is my “hero” in this outline has to start a war. That’s an awful thing to do, and it’s tough to get readers cheering for him. It lends itself to a save the princess scenario, and as long as there is a huge double cross to foil the bad guy – who actually wants the war – it might work. I don’t know if I’m smart enough to pull off a huge double cross. (Maybe I should re-watch The Sting and Maverik.)

I added some index cards to two of my outlines, but this time they are in some kind of order. Neither one has a complete Act One. I need to turn my attention to the remaining two outlines next.

One of my short stories has languished for weeks. I have a hard time moving to the next one until I finish this one. (Have I mentioned that I’m a very lineal writer?) I found out that Neil Gaiman wrote something similar, that I’ve never read, and I let it stymie me. No longer! I finished that bugger today.

I want to put out a book of short stories and micro fiction. My intent is to ask 99¢ for it, but I want to deliver some value for what I ask. Right now I have 19,298 words comprising multiple stories. I’m guessing I need double that word count.

I may have to inquire what the word count was on The Black Bag and Ichabod Brooks.

I’m about to give up for today. We have tickets to Jurassic World tonight and I’m hoping it’s fun. I have a problem with them creating a whole new dinosaur, but I’m willing to spot them one. Crichton didn’t write this one, and I’m dubious. Still dinos on screen once more is worth the admission price.