Tag Archives: publishing

Celebrations

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My son has just turned 21, which is always a big celebration, no matter where the in the world you live. But do we celebrate other things, like Book Birthdays?

I am probably one of the worst of celebrating. Christmas was never my thing, but I’ve always made a celebration of other people’s birthdays. I like to make people feel special. I’m up for celebrating anything, whether it is finally getting IT to finally do something we asked them to do 6 weeks ago at work, or a friend finally managing to get their wardrobe cleaned out.

But one thing I don’t do enough, is celebrate my own successes. I mean, I’m not raking in the money yet, which would be cause for a celebration, but I don’t really celebrate the release of a new book. By the time I’ve got a book released, I’ve read it over a hundred times and I’m ready to move onto the new and shiny project – which I think every writer can relate to. I’m excited that I’ve released a new book out into the world, but I struggle to really make the release something to celebrate.

And then book anniversary’s. I know what year a book was published, but until recently, didn’t keep track of the month it was published, so while Cursed Love was released eleven years ago, I can’t remember what month I released it. (And eleven years ago, my son was ten!)

When I finish a book, I don’t tend to celebrate, because I’m ready to move onto the next project and start the new shiny idea that is glowing (and growing) in my brain.

A friend of mine, who is a life coach, tells me that we need to celebrate those small achievements, the moments when we have done what we set out to do. We need to remind ourselves that celebration is normal in everyday life, and we should celebrate, and uplift and encourage others to celebrate too.

So I intend to start celebrating a bit more vocally about my books. I’ll tell people more about them, celebrate the topic I’ve chosen to write, I’ll spend time creating posts that celebrate what I’ve achieved, and help others celebrate their wins in life too. Because publishing a book is a win, in a world with AI bots churning out books by the day, any little writer knows that to write, edit, drip blood sweat and tears over a book, and then release it, is worth the celebration.

AI Strikes Again

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I received an email this week from a regular writing group I’m part of, (James Blatch Learn Self Publishing) and they mentioned Sindo Hane who had listed a series of 100 books written since April 2025.

According to them, it’s written by AI, because who can write and publish 100 books (that’s approximately 2 – 3 books a day) – in 50 days? And if you can, can you share your secret please?

And who is going to read those books? Someone is, which means that the market is going to be saturated with AI produced books when it’s already hard to be heard above the noise of other authors on the writing platforms such as Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Nook and Google Plus. All this while there are places on the website where you have to acknowledge that the books are produced by AI. People are also advertising on Facebook that you can produce books using AI, and Amazon will pay about thousands of dollars. How they get that when Jo Bloggs author is struggling to get traction on the platform is just beyond me. And they’re charging people to learn how to do this. (I recently reported one as misleading information.)

What does that mean for an author like me who is still trying to get a market share of the readers?

Well, it makes life harder, that’s for sure. Because it means I have to pay more for advertising for people to pay attention to my books. It means I have to be clear about my intention with my books as well, including my mission statement / vision statement, which are things that I have been working on.

I’ve been slowly learning about marketing, but it takes a while for someone like me who doesn’t have a selling bone in their body to try and sell my books. I can only hope that people will find me and read my books and work their way through my backlist.

Selling on my own website and then teaching people to buy direct from me is another option, but again, we need to get people to find me first.

I guess we just have to keep hoping that people will ignore AI produced books and continue to follow real people and real authors who are producing quality products out there.

Excitement is building

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After what seems like forever, I’m finally back writing. I think it was only two weeks, but when you’re a writer, two weeks can seem like two years. And because I write when I have a spare moment, and before I go to work, an hour a day feels like a lifetime ago. But I managed to get in three writing days, and a couple of days editing.

I have Finding Sam Healey up for pre-order, and I’m working out what my next projects will be. I have a little bit of writing to go on my last Racing Harts story, and then I think I will write my Cinderella retelling. Editing-wise, I’m working on Carol’s Christmas, and hope to have that out, maybe October or November. But it could be earlier than that. It’s still all up in the air.

What isn’t up in the air is wanting to sell my books myself. From my own website. With my ebooks, that means I’ll make 90% of the costs, rather than 70% (or as low as 60% with an aggregator). It means that I can also provide paperback copies to New Zealand readers at a more reasonable cost as well. I already sell my books for $15, but I’m looking at increasing the costs, mostly due to the fact that it is costing me more to getting them in, but it would still be reasonable. $25 plus $5 postage.

With selling on my own website, I can offer more merchandise as well, like bookmarks, and other publications that aren’t available through any other platform. It also means I can offer discounts on my eBooks, and currently I’m looking at selling them at US$2.99 through my website, while increasing the costs to $4.99 through the other book places (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, Smashwords and other online retailers.

I want to get serious about selling my books, and this is one way I can do it. I would love to sell more paperbacks, but I’m still working out the nuts and bolts of advertising.

So watch this space…something big is happening here soon…

2025 Goals, Dreams and Wishes

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Welcome to 2025! Did you set any resolutions? I didn’t. I don’t because I can’t keep them. But I do make small changes in my habits throughout the year, which culminates at the end of the year with a fitter, healthier, slimmer me. I’m pleased with the changes I made last year and hope to make more this year.

I do set goals for my writing, and I have purchased Joanna Penn’s Your Author Business Plan because this year, I am going to take my writing seriously.

I was out for a walk on Friday and decided that since I’m not working (at present, I have work for about 12 weeks over apple picking season), I will write until my fingers bleed (okay, maybe a little bit less dramatic than that), and work towards building up my writer business, platform and products. If I can build my writing business to make at $50,000 then I won’t need to look for full time work.

Of course, this is a big leap for me. I made my first $100 last year, from the previous 9 years of writing. So, I haven’t even reached my first goal from last year of making my first $1000. It’s a huge leap to expect me to earn $50k from my books this year, but if I don’t try, then I won’t know if I can do it or not.

I also want to write at least three books this year, again, and stretch for that fourth book. I did write three last year and published two books. This year I want to publish at least three (Finding Sam Healey, Carol’s Christmas and the first of the Racing Harts books).

But to start the year off, I am embarking on a little secret project. So, secret that I can’t tell you otherwise I’d have to kill you. But all will be revealed. I should know in the next couple of weeks if I can do it or not. But I know that I can write a book in 30 days, so I plan to give myself a little grace and work on 45 days. I should be able to write just over 8 books a year if I mathed right. But I don’t want to burn out, and I know that at least two weeks in between in a good break, because I’m normally busting to keep writing again after two weeks off.

My dream is to be writing “full time” within 5 years (4 if I count last year). Is this achievable? Maybe, I have a whole dream board with my five-year plan on it, including what cars I want and when, and then I had to calculate in my partner’s Monaro as well.

It’s going to be a big year for me. One I am ready to tackle head on, because I can do this, I just need to put the effort and work in.

What are your goals and dreams for your future?

Looking Back to Look Forward

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Last year I set some fairly high goals for myself. And now I’ll go over what they were and how I did.

  • Write Dragon Story – This I managed to do early on in the year. I plan on making this a series, however this was a neverending story, so I need to reassess this story and find a cut off point and decide what I want to keep and what can go into the next book.
  • Write Faith’s Story – This I achieved as well, in early October.
  • Write another story – in November I wrote and completed Hope’s story in the Racing Harts series, so really pleased with this.
  • Edit Second-Hand Daughter – not only did I edit this, but I published it as well in May 2024
  • Edit Compromising Positions – edits were completed and was published November 2024
  • First draft edit of Finding Sam Healey – These I started, but I haven’t completed them yet. I have a date with the editor for March 2025, so it will be published next year.
  • First draft edits of Carol’s Christmas – this hasn’t happened, but I’m not too upset about that.

    Overall, that isn’t a bad year considering I was working fulltime for most of it. The results are pretty epic. At this stage, I have yet to find another job, so I now have to have a real think about what I want to achieve heading forward. I would love to be able to quit work and write fulltime, however I have some limitations as far as that is concerned (will talk about in a future blog post), and to start making money from my writing, I might have to write to market, which isn’t where my heart is. I want to write what I want to write, and that means that I need to find readers who want to read my work, and that proved elusive this year. I guess I could focus on writing in the first quarter of next year and really push my publishing timetable, but I also don’t want to burn out.

    It’s a fine line between doing something you love for money and doing something you love for the enjoyment of writing. I guess it is something I really need to work out over the next couple of weeks as we start the full on countdown to Christmas.

    I’m Finished. Now What?

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    I finally finished Faith’s story this week. Oh, how that woman tested me. I certainly was losing Faith, but I knew how I wanted the story to end. And dammit, I ended it my way.

    So now that’ I’ve finished Faith’s story (one of three sisters who are into racing, hence Racing Harts being the series name), what do I do with the story.

    Well, I let it sit. For a while. Some authors jump straight into editing, but to be honest, I kind of like to let mine sit for a bit longer, normally about six months. Then I will pull it out, do a quick read through, making note on sticky notes (which I LOVE), and then I work through and start editing, changing bits here, things there, adding in a dash of spice, a touch of pepper, stir and mix. Then I send it to my critique partners. The read through it, laugh out loud then confirm that it’s a bunch of bullsh!t and I feel terribly bad. No, seriously, by the time I’ve edited it the first time, I think it’s crap. My critique partners come back with thoughts, any comments about plot holes – (what happened to this guy in your story?), and generally their opinion about the story. These are actually very helpful, and after drinking plenty of whisky, I actually allow myself to sit down and read what they’ve said.

    The final part of my editing process is going through the story AGAIN, and then listening to it being read on my computer. It really picks up lots of errors and missing words that others had missed, because we sometimes all know where the story is going.

    Once I’m happy with the story, I send it to my lovely editor who reads it through and then comes back to me with edits that may be required. Mostly they’re grammatical errors, because for some reason writers write, they don’t talk or do grammar. (Writers don’t math well either.)

    So, there you go, that it what happens to my story from start to finish, which generally takes a year from starting writing to publishing it.

    Now, I’m not doing much writing, because I am in the process of formatting Compromising Positions and getting it put up for pre-order.

    I hope you had a great week. Take care out there.

    Catherine