Today is the day

I warned you about it on Friday, and the day is finally here. You can grab your copy of The Yak Guy Project for free today. To quote pop culture, “Free, free, free, free.”

This is my attempt to ease your isolation by offering something fun to read. I suppose you could grab a copy to read this Fall, too, if you want. Anyway, here is a cover and blurb, plus a purchase link.

Imagine waking up in the desert with no idea what happened to you. You have clear memories of situations and places, but a complete loss in personal matters… like your own name. This situation is bad, and you have no idea how to get home.

When you’re rescued by a talking yak, the situation gets exponentially worse. You’ve obviously lost your mind. The immediate needs of a ride off the salt pan and searing heat, along with a drink of water, outweigh the concerns about your mental state.

This is exactly what happened to the Yak Guy. In fact he’s been placed in an alternate world and given a chance to start over in life.

Can this selfish, almost parasitic, young man learn to start over in a world where charity is hard to find? Life is brutal and short here, but he’s going to have to adapt or perish.

The Yak Guy project is loosely based around The Fool’s Journey from the Tarot. Those with experience in Tarot will spot people and situations from the Major Arcana.

I linked the cover, but this is also a purchase link: http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B07D1QY9Y7

Feel free to share this post by using the buttons below. Maybe one of your friends would like a copy.

Time for a Freeby

Everyone is self isolating, if not outright quarantined right now. It get’s boring, even for those of us who can work from home.

Add into that, a whole bunch of people who lost their jobs and are trying to file for unemployment right now, and we could all use a break.

Reading is a good way to spend a few hours, and all authors would love to have you check out their wares. I don’t want anyone to accuse me of taking advantage, so I’m going to do a free promotion. Even folks who lost their jobs can take advantage of a freeby.

Don’t freak out on me just yet, because I set it up to run on Monday. This post is just so you can line up ahead of time, while practicing your social distancing skills. I’ll run out another post when it goes live.

I try to have a method to my madness. Yak Guy is an older title these days, and I never thought it got as much love as it could have. The reviews are all positive, but there just aren’t enough of them. Hopefully, you follow my logic. I’m not linking the cover, because the freeby trots out on Monday.

This is the one where I based the characters off the Fool’s Journey from the Tarot Deck. Yak Guy is The Fool who goes on the journey. He meets other Major Arcana characters along the way. Obviously, I had to weave in a few others, but it made for a fun way to tell a story. I was kind of proud of my Wheel of Fortune. (It’s an entire city with multiple choices of roads leading out.)

For today, you might want to give your yak an extra ration of oats, maybe use some saddle soap on your rigging. The journey begins Monday.

Lisa says he likes carrots, too.

Wednesday author chores

Today is my flex day again. I really want to be working on a couple of manuscripts, but I have other duties to attend to.

I started off with Lisa Burton Radio. I have two authors who are looking for a bit of promo, so I wanted to get their shticks out the door. I spent a couple of hours on those, then shipped them out. One of them already returned his, and while I’m tempted to work on it again, I’ll probably put it off for a couple of days.

Viral Blues got its first review, and it’s outstanding. Things like this make me glad to know that someone had a good time with the story.

I need to tour this book around, so I spent some time writing tour posts. I have a bunch more to write, but can only do so much in one sitting. Three of them were shipped out, and that’s a reasonable start.

Additionally, I received a post that I’m going to host, then assembled and scheduled it. This is part of the Something Wicked tour the Story Empire authors are going on. This is going to be a fun group event, so I hope you guys will come along. I’m including Something Wicked as part of the tour for Viral Blues.

As I catch up with the tour posts, I may put the touch of a few of you to host something. I’m a couple of weeks away from that, but working that direction.

I think the sidebar is up to date now.

Yak Guy has moved out of the spotlight. You can still find him by visiting my Amazon page, along with all my other books. I added Viral Blues to the carousel, and gave it Yak Guy’s premier real estate. If you click on the larger covers, they go directly to those books.

All in all, it was a productive day. No new fiction, but there are other tasks an author has to attend to.

Old What’s Her Face is home now, so productivity is coming to an end. It’s time to enjoy a few hours like other people do with a day off.

A whole bunch of stuff

The weekend is upon me and I need to figure out what to do with it. This is my two day weekend, so I’m not planning any new fiction, not a single word.

I scrambled to come up with my next Story Empire post, and already have it scheduled for Monday. Then I found out I’m not only up Monday, I’m up Friday, too. This means I have to write and schedule one more. I ought to be able to handle this easily enough.

I also need to schedule a couple of promotional posts to go with my weekly theme. These are kind of fun, because I get to sift through a lot of fun music videos.

While I’m on the topic of blogging, I’ve seen something interesting in my stats again. I’m getting a bunch of weird searches leading to my blog. Sexually weird searches. I really have no idea why Google, or Bing, or whatever leads them here, but I have a message for them. “Hey you perverts! While you’re here…

Seriously, dudes, Lisa is about the most exciting thing you’re going to find here, so this image is for you. I suggest reading Yak Guy, it might actually help you with your lives.

Aside from blogging, I need to save a couple of files on the Mac. These are completely formatted manuscripts, and I can’t put them in a folder on this iPad. I usually save them to the Mac’s home screen so they’re easy to publish or email out. I plan on signing up for NetGalley again, and they’re just easier to send out that way.

I also need to contact the promoter I’ve used in the past. Like all things in the book world, they have a schedule, so if I want promo in October I need to contact them before October.

There is a folder in my email right now about a promo I’ve already signed up for. My goal is to fill out the form to the best of my ability, then send it back. I’ll have to send the purchase link after I actually have one. Fortunately, I’m on good terms with this host, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

If there is any time left, I’ll sort thought my victim volunteer list and figure out how many promotional blog posts I can write ahead of time.

Aside from that, I have one more critique of HMS Lanternfish to address. It isn’t super important, but if the hours are available I’ll deal with it. That ought to make a full weekend.

Next weekend isn’t looking super productive either, even though I get three days. It’s fair time, and we always go to the fair at least once. Sometimes author projects take a back seat. The thing is, that I don’t feel bad about it this time. I’ve been super productive this year and some family time has been well earned.

Wishing all of you a great weekend.

Make a plan, work the plan

This post poses a conundrum for me, because it could fit into Story Empire, too. It winds up here, because it’s partially about my vacation plans. This one is another stay-cation for me. I want to write and just get some down time.

I’ve gotten to a place in writing where I can get a lot done, and there are a few tricks involved. These take time to farm, but harvesting them really speeds things up. First, I have about six storyboards going at all times. This doesn’t leave me pondering what I might write next. This is a common problem among fiction writers. Think of this like a farm, because it’s a long term project. Some boards are complete, others are partially complete, and some are just a collection of loose notes on index cards. Whenever a decent idea hits me, I make an index card and add it to the appropriate board. (Or start a new one.) Today, when I finish one project, I can dive right into the next one.

Next is my Pinterest app. I don’t know too many authors who use Pinterest, because all of the focus is on promotion. I don’t tend to use it like that. I have character boards, setting boards, and more specific ones like Pirates, or The Hat. When I surf through them, I get a lot of inspiration for my stories. It’s nice to refer to when describing a visual aspect of a tale.

Third is my new concept of more than one story at a time. I’m learning that it’s possible, and super productive. My current theory is to make them very different stories. Character traits don’t seem to bleed over this way, and character arcs don’t get muddled because the stories are so different.

My vacation starts tomorrow, and won’t return me to the office until next Thursday. Now I need some kind of plan.

• I need to cut down a significant portion of my peach tree. This isn’t productive on the writing front, but works well on the staying married front.
• Hauling the tree residue away has to be part of this mix, and is a chore in itself.
• I need to buy and read one book. This one is a short read, and ought to work well for me. Then there are reviews to post on multiple fronts, too. Copy and paste helps here.
• HMS Lanternfish hasn’t even set sail yet. It’s time to stock her with pirates and supplies, then hit the open sea. I’d love to get 30,000 words down, but 20K might be more realistic.
• I need to get some blog posts written for The Viral Blues. It will be release time before I know it, and I want to be ready. Might hit up some of my favorite hosts to check their availability during my break, too.
• There is a loose plan for some group promo at Story Empire. I need to dedicate some thought to that, and see what kind of posts I might need.
• I have the formatted manuscript for Viral Blues in hand. I need to check it on every program I have. Stories about Lizzie and the hat have a few silly graphics as part of the shtick. These can be a nightmare formatting wise. Again, I want to be ready. I won’t know for sure until I push it through Amazon’s machinery, but any errors I can identify now will make that part easier.
• Blurb writing. (La la la. I can’t hear you.)

I’m probably leaving stuff out, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I’m hoping to take full advantage of the Halloween season for Viral Blues. I’m still waiting on a couple of Lisa Burton promo posters, and should have the last ones in time. This means the easy link for The Yak Guy Project will be replaced by one for Viral Blues. If you haven’t read Yak Guy, all you have to do is click that cover image in the sidebar. He’ll live forever on Amazon, but you’ll have to go looking for him.

I’m still considering a pre-release for Viral Blues. My results with these have been mixed. What is the current consensus with you guys? Do pre-release books gain your attention, or just annoy you?

Some Yak and Wisp love

A couple of my titles got some love this week. Stop by Tori’s place and see what she thought about them.

#AmReading + #AmWatching – May 30th 2019 #Reviews

It’s time to take a look at what I’ve been reading and watching during this past week.

If you want to know more about the book, or the author, click on whichever it is you want to learn more about, and it will take you to the appropriate page on Goodreads. Clicking on my rating should take you to my actual Goodreads review for the book in question. Please bear in mind that the format I’ve reviewed on Goodreads may not be the format I actually read.

Read the rest of Tori’s post.

Date night, kind of

Friday was my only writing day. I went through the Serang MS with the intention of deleting a chapter. I know we’re supposed to kill our darlings, but in this I failed. I deleted 10 words.

Part of this has to do with setting up some tragedies that wouldn’t be as tragic if treated as backstory. While Serang is a character from Lanternfish, her story does not have the comedic undertones that Lanternfish has. She is a serious character in that book, and her origin story is serious too.

Who knows how it will be received? I never do.

After I finished that project there was no time left for new words. Old What’s Her Face is off Saturday and Sunday, so that might be it for writing this weekend.

I may rough out some cover ideas tomorrow in anticipation of hiring Sean Harrington to start my artwork.

Speaking of Sean, he made me some cool pointers. I have a whole collection of them. Mine are more monstrous than the typical fingers you can find on Pixabay. Their purpose is to give direction on my blog.

It works like this. My sidebar has linked covers to my two most recent titles. By clicking on the covers you can grab a copy of The Yak Guy Project, or Voyage of the Lanternfish. I recently shared three wonderful reviews of Lanternfish, and I have the intention of writing more adventures for the crew.

You can also find a slideshow featuring all of my covers. There is a link to my Amazon page if you’d like to check out the older titles. There’s going to be another story for Lizzie and the hat. You might want to jump on board with The Hat about now too. I’m thinking of holding it until October. It will fit the Halloween theme pretty well.

I had a gift card to Old Chicago Pizza, so we decided to go there tonight. It was kind of disappointing this time. Our server didn’t know anything, and simply told me they were out of every beer I wanted to order. Finally, I told her the guy at the table across from me just received the beer I tried to order. Lo & behold, they did have it and she brought me a pint.

The pizza was off tonight too. It’s almost like there was old dough in the freezer or something. We’ll still go there, but we’re chocking it up to a bad night. Didn’t recognize a single person working there, and we go there a lot.

After that, we went to check out the new Albertsons on Fairview. This is their version of competing with Whole Foods. They have over two acres under one roof. They have some cool stuff, like jackfruit and a million kinds of salami. It’s one of those places where you would make impulse purchases. With lines about a quarter mile long at the checkout stand, my impulses didn’t happen. Maybe we’ll go back in a couple of weeks when the newness wears off.

As for writing, well… I have Wednesday off. I have one chore to take care of though. I have to go to town to get my truck sniff tested. The test doesn’t take long, but the travel back and forth does.

I think I could have accomplished more, but this cold is lingering. I’m still phlegmy and coughing. I feel a lot better, but I still missed one day at work last week. This thing can’t go away fast enough to suit me. It makes my mind foggy, and that isn’t good for writing new words.

2018, better than last year

It’s time for my annual assessment of the past year. It was noticeably better than 2017, but it almost had to be. This isn’t to say that it was good, just better.

In 2017, I did something to my back that I still can’t figure out. I spent weeks unable to do much more than complain. My back is sore every day now, but I haven’t had any kind of relapse.

All of the pets are alive and well, unlike last year. Otto had a bad back last year too, but glucosamine and drugs seem to keep that in check. We lost a puppy last year too, and never want to repeat that process.

I released two books in 18, and am content with that schedule. As a general theme, nothing that used to work for promotional purposes seems to work any longer. I used to run the occasional Facebook push or Amazon ad, but they seem to do nothing today.

I hired a promotion company when I released The Hat. This worked extremely well, and the cherry on top was access to Net Galley. This turned out to be my most popular title, and has the most reviews too.

When it came time to release The Yak Guy Project, the promotional company was gone. I couldn’t find their website, and they never responded to emails either. Unfortunately, that seems to be a common thing in promotions too.

Both books were released with an extensive blog tour on my part, and that always helps. Still, Yak Guy did not perform as well as The Hat. Everyone who read it seems to have enjoyed it, but I’d like to have gotten it in front of more people.

As a positive sign, both books were well received. I don’t have people burning yaks in effigy or anything like that.

I blogged less in 18 than any other year, at least on Entertaining Stories. My blog stats are slightly down too. The most popular posts were all Lisa Burton Radio posts. This makes sense, because it’s a regular slot. I suspect there are people who come by only on Thursdays to check these post out.

There are a few things I’ve always done that remain moderately popular. The Idea Mill posts perform well, but not as well as I like. My October micro-fiction has its fans too. None of these are huge, but they perform well.

My stats show a good lifespan for older posts. This means some kind of Google connection exists, because people still find them. I got a great number of people coming from StumbleUpon and Flipboard in the first part of the year. StumbleUpon stopped operations earlier in 2018, and became Mix. Flipboard just stopped working for me. I smell some kind of new algorithm I haven’t figured out yet. I still share many posts to Mix, but haven’t seen a single visitor to my blog from that site. Mix is likely a waste of time, and the interface isn’t easy to use either.

My blog auto-feeds to many places. Google Plus is one of those, but they’ve announced they are stopping. I still get visitors from Twitter and Facebook, but Google Plus never did much anyway.

I didn’t post as many tales from the writing cabin. These are the ones where I interact with Lisa Burton, my assistant. Other guests are my Muse, the raven of Doubt, and occasionally characters from my books. These were always popular, and I should get back to them.

On the other hand, instead of taking the time to write about my progress in a fictional environment, I posted drips and drabs about my next book. These were popular posts, and there are people interested in reading Voyage of the Lanternfish when it comes out. (Soon.)

Is there a happy medium between writing cabin posts and just writing about it? Could there be a sweet spot where turning those same posts into a writing cabin post would have performed better? I’ll never know, but maybe I should try this. It wouldn’t have been too hard to have the writing cabin overrun by root monsters, or take a boat out looking for the gigantic jellyfish.

Some of this could be due to my participation at Story Empire. The writing cabin posts were a bit of fiction, but designed to illustrate one author’s struggles and growth. Story Empire is all about helping others, and many of my ideas go there now. Let’s face it, I only have so much to share at any given time.

In 2017, the Boyacks lost about half of our income. This was based upon a small mining royalty that is gone now. This means where we are now is the new normal. It’s been an adjustment, but one we must make. It means budgeting has to go into new Lisa Burton posters, book covers, and promotional expenses.

I’ve recycled some of the blog art this year, but let’s face it, one post a year ago shouldn’t render the posters useless. I have a bunch of them, and may do it again.

All in all, 2018 was better than 17. Two good book releases, and none of them were collections or anthologies. I’m not saying collections or anthologies are bad, I love them. I’m just saying these were more extensive works. They were both well received if not wildly successful.

Paying the Bills, on #LisaBurtonRadio

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s edition of Lisa Burton Radio. Just me this week for several reasons. The main one is that I didn’t want to stick a guest during the week between the holidays.

Still, Christmas is over, and mine was wonderful. Bunny and I hung out at the writing cabin, and it was nice and quiet.

Speaking of Christmas, what did you get? I know this crowd, and every one of you got an Amazon gift card. You’re all readers and writers, don’t deny it. After you finish your purchases, there is likely to be a bit left over, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Craig is my author. Officially, it’s C. S. Boyack, but we all just call him Craig. See, he writes books too. His are all ebooks, so you’ll need a Kindle or one of the apps to read them.

He has a lot of titles these days, so I won’t break them all down. There are novels, collections of short stories, one group of short stories that tells an over-arching tale, and even a couple of free anthologies he’s appeared in.

Craig lives in the world of speculative fiction, so you’ll find fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction among his titles. Sometimes more than one in the same book.

2018 was a fair publishing schedule. Craig released a novel and his first novella. Call it whatever you like, but it’s 50,000 words or so. We don’t like novelette or some of the other designations.

The first one is a novel called The Yak Guy Project. This one is about a rotten young man who wakes up in the desert with no idea how he got there. He’s rescued by a talking yak, and taken on an adventure that provides quite a bit of room for personal growth.

Let’s face it, the guy had a lot of room for personal growth. Know what I mean? Think of it like a coming of age story for a new generation. You can pick up your copy for $2.99. There’s bound to be that much left on your Amazon card.

This is the one that follows the Major Arcana of the Tarot if that appeals to you. You don’t have to understand it to enjoy the ride. If you do, it might be interesting to try spotting the places where a card is represented.

The next one is called The Hat. This is the shorter one I mentioned. You can actually read it in a long afternoon. It’s about a girl who crosses paths with an old hat. Only this isn’t really a hat. He’s a being from another dimension trapped in the form of a hat for all eternity.

They are worlds apart, so they argue a lot. She’s twenty-one, and he’s been in a box for twenty years. He missed cell phones, the Internet, and most of the daily technology we have today.

These guys are both pretty capable, but together they form a symbiosis that let’s them do even more. Think of them like paranormal superheroes, and they’re on the trail of some nefarious baby snatchers.

It seems like a lot of story, and it is. But you can pick up your copy for 99¢. That’s it, 99¢. Come on, you know you got free shipping on your Amazon Alexa unit. Check the reviews and I think you’ll become converts.

Oh, and I have it on good authority that Lizzie and The Hat are going to make a return engagement in 2019.

That’s it for me today. We’ll start having guests again after the new year. I usually throw in a bunch of links and stuff at this point, but you’re already here. I’ll add some cover art, make them link to the purchase site, and toss this link in for good measure.

Craig’s Amazon Author Page is https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00ILXBXUY Just in case you want one of those free anthologies or a different title.

That’s it for me, I’m outta here. Don’t forget to use those sharing buttons today. Craig’s done it for over a hundred episodes of Lisa Burton Radio, and he’ll do it again when your character appears on the next Lisa Burton Radio.

Sharing the love

Sue Coletta is an awesome writer. Her murder mystery/thrillers are among the best. Today she is sharing her love of some of her favorite authors, and I made the list. Check out Sue’s awesome blog, and some of her wonderful titles while you’re there. Here is the link to the post https://www.suecoletta.com/share-the-love-writers/