And Now…Something Completely Different

That’s right, two weeks in a row of Monty Python references! And another week of looking at where I’m headed with my blog and writing.

First off, a big THANKS to everyone who commented and voted on my dilemma of how to proceed. It’s always great to get some input and to know that a few of you would still like to hear form me on a regular basis.

And now, the results of my dithering….

Amazon Exclusivity

Um, remember how I said I wasn’t going to spend another 90 days being exclusive to Amazon? I waffled. But with good reason, I swear. I’m taking a course on how to properly do Amazon ads. While my current method of slapping up an ad with a gob of random keywords works a tiny bit, there are better strategies I could be using.

Since my focus over the next little while will be on how to nail down and hone advertising on Amazon, I figured I might as well stay in KDP Select until September. I’ll also be trying to crack the code of some other advertising options during this time as well as working on my book descriptions (yet again) with the hope of really having a strong system in place before returning my books to all the other retailers such as Apple, GooglePlay, Barnes & Noble, etc..

Ye Olde Blogge

The blog decision turned out to be the easiest one of the bunch: I’m going to a weekly post and that weekly post will primarily feature the exploits of Finn McSpool & Company. Of course, as my long time readers will now, this blog is a mercurial thing and changes with my mood and schedule, but for now the plan is to do three weeks of Beastie posts with a writing update toward the end of the month…probably featuring Finn “helping” me in some way since I know y’all come here to see him, not hear from me!

There are multiple reasons for this choice…

1. I want to free up more time during the week for writing and to make a slightly better effort at social media (yeah, how many times has “be better at social media” been on my goals list?).
2. I want to devote a little more time to communicating with the folks on my mailing list (sign up here, hint hint) and making them feel special with things like getting to be the first to see cover reveals, preview chapters, etc. Since these are the people who actually WANT to hear from me they should be getting more than just a couple quick paragraphs once a month.
3. I would eventually like to try out Patreon (yes, I might become one of THOSE people) and like they say, “If you’re giving the milk away for free, he’ll never buy the cow.” Okay, that’s referring to something MUCH different, but you get the point.

I may switch up which day I post on, but for now I’ll stick to Saturdays unless anyone has insider knowledge on which days generate the most blog traffic.

The Next Writing Project

Oh no, I still didn’t decide! Well, I sort of decided, but not really. Okay, maybe.

One suggestion (from the ever-clever Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties) was to divide my week between two books. Since I can’t claim to be ever-clever, I find it hard to devote time to two books at the same time. However, the suggestion did mesh a bit with another idea tumbling around in my pea brain.

In between drafts of Main Book Project, I need to take a break of anywhere from one to four weeks from that project. Although I will do things like design covers, build the book’s webpage, and other publication chores, I could make better use of this time such as doing the groundwork (research, outlining, first draft…you know, the fun and easy stuff) for Next Book Project.

So what is Next Book Project? Um, um….stop pressuring me!! No, really, right now I think it will be the next (final) two books of the Osteria Chronicles series. Plotting and drafting will start during my breaks from my current Main Book Project, and I’m hoping I can draft both books all in one go and have them ready to publish within a few months of each other next year. When these two books graduate from being Next Book Project to Main Book Project, I’ll get cracking again on that Cassie Black series  hinted at and try to figure out how exactly I want to tackle my historical fiction writing dreams.

Phew, see what I mean? I thought I could whip this post out in thirty minutes and an hour has already gone by…and I’ve yet to include any more of the Python boys (don’t worry, I’ve got your fix just a wee bit lower in the post!.

Finn and I will see you Saturday with more tales from Kilkenny, Ireland! See you then…and if you have any requests/tips for Best Blog Day, do let me know in a comment.

And one final Python clip before I let you go…