Take That, Neil! (May’s Writing Round-up)

Hello Bloglandia!

Egad! I blinked and May disappeared.

Anyone else experience this blinky-time warp phenomenon?

I guess that means I need to make the most of June…or just never blink again. I better put in an order for a case of eye drops.

Anyway…if you’re not in the mood for reading today, you’ll get a fair bit of the content of this post (plus some additional news) in the video below.

And if you can’t bear to watch my goofy mug, you can always just listen to my rambling.

A Rare Day of Gloating

I don’t usually gloat very much because if you saw my book sales and royalty income you’d 1) have an enormously good laugh, and 2) know I have nothing to gloat about.

But there are rare moments when something comes along and snaps me out of my imposter syndrome.

That something came in late May.

So, as you might know, last month saw the release of the final book of the Cassie Black Trilogy, The Untangled Cassie Black. To give the series a little push, I discounted the first book, The Undead Mr. Tenpenny, and ran some promotions for a few days.

Part of the benefits of running a promo in this manner is to climb in the Amazon rankings and hope the Amazon gods show you some love.

Well, my friends, the Amazon gods did show me some love. Or maybe it was that bag of Twizzlers I sacrificed to them (because no human should eat those things).

Within a couple days, Mr. Tenpenny had climbed into the top hundred of a few categories, the top fifty of a few more, and the top ten of one category.

SQUEEE!!!

Mr. Tenpenny then nudged himself up to Number Eight in that category.

Gasp!

And you know what, everyone? That put him one spot higher than Neil Gaiman.

Double gasp and triple squee!!

Of course, Neil is the master and is far more powerful than I am. By the next day Mr. Tenpenny was in the Number Ten spot again, but he was still sitting there right alongside Neil Gaiman.

And I’m going to call that a win for the month! Maybe for the year.

As For Other Writing News…

I finished up another short story. I also tumbled into my next novel project.

There’s more about that in the video update above (you can skip to it using the time stamps listed on the YouTube post), but let’s just say there will be mystery, there will be humor, and there will be all manner of mythical fun.

Oh, and there’ll also be dragons : )

This project kind of struck me out of the blue and I couldn’t resist jumping right in to it. So much so that this is the first time I’m working on a novel without any sort of real outline.

I knew where I wanted to start the story, who the two main characters would be, how I want it to end, and I have some notion of an overarching plot for the series (yep, a series!), but each day I’ve jumped into writing mode, I’ve been completely winging it.

It’s a little scary, but so far, I have not hit a single wall and the words are just falling right out of my head. I’m sure I’ll type and talk more about this in June’s writing update. Or sooner, who knows.

Anyway, I started the book in the final week of May and have pretty much cobbled together the first act. Hopefully, I’ll be able to whiz through the rest of the first draft before June is over.

You know, as long as I don’t blink.

As Far as the Numbers Go…

Holy Twizzlers, Batman! This month saw my highest sales numbers ever!. Of course, I’m sure they’re still just a paltry amount compared to most authors, but it’s great to beat yourself.

Sorry, I should probably rephrase that before I get censored….

It’s better to see my sales constantly improving. Granted, I did have that string of promo days and a discount on my most popular book, which really ramped up the numbers.

In June, I don’t have any promos planned as I work on digging into the world of other types of advertising which I haven’t done for ages, so I expect the numbers will go down, but fingers crossed that they won’t completely tank (hint hint….get shopping, people!!)

As far as which retailers were tops and which were flops…for the first time this year Amazon finally took the lead in sales (again, because of those promos), but Kobo was a VERY close second.

Apple sales slipped a little bit (the numbers were about half of Kobo’s), but the fruity store was still pretty decent to me. Barnes & Noble was a “meh, that’s nice,” and as ever Google Play was a “why, why do I bother?”

So that’s May, everyone. Enjoy the video and be sure to tell me how May treated you!!

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Time to sprawl out in the sun (if it’s summer for you) or cozy up (if it’s winter) with a good book! 

If you need a little more magic of any kind in your life. Here’s some sci-fi & fantasy tomes to help your escape!