Slow but steady sales.

I had a minimum sales goal for Led to the Slaughter, which I immediately reached. (Very, very modest, but better than I'd proven I could do on my own.)

I had a secondary goal which I'm pretty sure I'll reach.   (Still very modest.)

I had a third goal which I probably won't reach, but which is at least in the realm of possibility.

The fourth goal was the hitting the sales lottery.  Which, you know, I knew wasn't going to happen.

What is somewhat encouraging is that the pace of sales, while by no means lighting the world on fire, has stayed somewhat consistent five months later.  Which means it is selling by itself.  Without any neighbors, family, or friends being the cause.

I notice that whenever my title is included in an Amazon email, there is a boost in sales for a couple of days.  (The emails are obviously tailored, so I'm seeing my book on top of the list which I doubt happens everywhere.)

Smashwords looked very encouraging at first.  I was high up on the bestseller lists for a few months -- but it turned out my publisher was right and sales were minimal.

I'm releasing Freedy Filkins with a new cover and title.  Cyber Flash is the new title.  If you remember, I took it down from Smashwords because I called it a "Hobbit" Cyberpunk in the description, which turned out to be a mistake because the Tolkien estate is very aggressive about these things.

I had a few loose references to the Hobbit, nothing direct.  Certainly the story, which has nothing but real people and technology, is something that most people would never guess was inspired by the Hobbit.

So I thought I'd just do a quick rewrite talking out the "loose references."  However, Amazon had no trouble with the book, and so I'm going to go with Amazon exclusively.  Fuck it.  The book is fine the way it is.

I've slowed down selling Led to the Slaughter at the store, mostly because I don't want to be that annoying guy who hits you with a sales pitch every time you walk in the door, for the umpteenth time.  Maybe I'll mention it to tourists, if it is convenient.

But if I don't push it, it will be like any other book.  Which means sales will slow down.

Finally, I won't know how the book is selling at Barnes and Noble, Apple, in foreign countries, etc. etc. for months and months.  They take forever to report, even longer to pay, which then is added to how long my publisher reports, so I'll be lucky, I think to hear anything by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, The Dead Spend No Gold, with it's similar cover, is almost ready to go.  I'll be interested to see if that helps any...

Think for yourself and deal with it.

I've been trying to figure out how come Pegasus Books has survived when so many have not.  Pretty much a 100% wipeout in downtown in the last 30 years.

I was wondering for awhile if ANYONE actually succeeds.  Other than the exceptions (Deschutes Brewery...)

Especially since I've had such an insecure, niche business.

So what I'm going to say here will sound self-congratulatory, but it isn't meant to be.  As you'll see from my answers, one of the reasons I'm still around is that...well...I had modest goals.

First of all, I just wanted to be my own boss.  I was willing to work extra hours and earn less money than probably most people would be.  So "survival" means that while the business is still here, it has never been particularly lucrative.  Hence the title of this blog.  I didn't feel I had other options so I hung in there when people who had a choice would have left.

Secondly, the very Niche-ness of the business has probably helped protect it.  There is little money in comics, frankly.  Big business has made forays, and then usually backs off when they can't make anything happen.  Instead of agonizing over why comics don't become bigger (look at the movies!) I'm now wondering if I wasn't fortunate that they never took off.  Each of my product lines alone (games, toys, cards, comics, books) aren't enough on their own to keep my store alive, but all of them combined are.

Third, and this is the self-congratulatory part, I have always Thought For Myself.  That is, I try to see the real truth of every situation and deal with that.

Not the common wisdom.  Not the group think.

So even though there are people who are better at running things, or know accounting or tech or systems, who are better at promoting, etc. etc. -- if they don't think for themselves, if they just follow industry trends without questioning them, then eventually they'll find themselves in trouble.

I can't tell you the number of times I've seen an entire industry do one thing, while my instincts were screaming to do another.  So guess what?  Doing what my instincts tell me to do has almost always been the better decision.

In fact, I'd have to say that when I've let the weight of opinion sway me is when I've gotten in trouble.

Just that.

Look at the situation honestly, and then deal with it.

Oldest living retail?

Is Pegasus Books the old living retail store in downtown Bend owned by the same owner in the same location?

If not, I'm one of the oldest.  34 years, 30 years owned by me.

Which is ironic because when we started I'm pretty sure all the established businesses thought I was a joke.  Heh.

I wasn't aware that Roberts Clothes for Men had sold 8 years ago.  I thought it was still in the family.

Conversation I had with them 15 years ago.

"I believe these street closures are bad for business..." I venture.

"They may be bad for business on the day, but they help overall."

"How do you know that?"

"Take care of your own business, bub."

So that makes 100% of the people who told me (back when I actually asked them) that street closures are "good" for business who have gone out of business.

And I'm still here.  How does that happen?

Recognizing reality? 

Street closures are a bureaucracy by now, self-perpetuating, enduring, impossible to get rid of, even though on most summer days we are near gridlock downtown.  We really don't have the problem of being "discovered" anymore...

Anyway, I couldn't let the entire summer go by without at least mentioning my dislike of street closures.

The Bite of Bend wasn't helpful.  An average Saturday, below average Sunday.

Robert's had 4500 sq. ft. of space, so it is really hard to imagine paying that kind of rent (or mortgage). 

It would be the perfect spot for a bookstore, though I would use only half that space.

But as I keep telling myself, after years of struggle and finally reaching some sort of self-sustaining equilibrium, that I'd better not mess with the formula. (Knock wood.)

Things are working.  Be proud.  Leave be.  Enjoy.

No fixing it later.

I reserve the right to make changes to the very end, but there comes a time when I have to stop thinking I can fix it later.  Each change I make has to be good enough before I move on to the next change.  It has to be able to pass what my publisher calls "the clean edit" test.

If this book was published, would I be proud of it?  Could I stand behind the writing?

The closer I am to a final copy with my first draft, the more likely that book is to be published.  So my Vampire Trilogy were published first because they were most-of-the-way-there from the start.  Led to the Slaughter required fleshing out, but I didn't really mess with the story that much.

It isn't that the unfinished books aren't as good, but it just makes more sense to finish what I can when I can.

Anyway, I will sometimes write scenes that I know will have to be fixed later.  But for the sake of momentum and continuity, and because, well, it's a rule of mine, I keep going until I finish the book.

Often, I'll forget a detail, a name or a location or a description, but rather than go back and look for it, I'll just keep going.

Fix it later.

I'm now at the point where there is no fixing it later.  Each change I make has to stand.  It has to be good enough for the final book.

No fixing it later.

A month is a long time.

A month is a long time, if I dedicate myself.  (It goes by quickly if I don't.)

It seems to me that writing has expanded time for me.  Given me a timeline for events in my life.  It has been less than two years since I went to the coast and wrote a major portion of The Reluctant Wizard, which kicked off this whole writing spree.

Only two years.

Hell, it seems like two years is nothing at this time in my life, but I've packed a whole lot of writing into it.

Anyway, I wrote three new scenes yesterday, for The Dead Spend No Gold, adding some new characters and scenarios.  If nothing else, this has clarified some of the characters and their motivations. 

It never hurts when you flesh out the characters and understand who they are and why they do things.

I'm not sure how easy these scenes will be to add to the book, or how much rewriting will be need to be done to accommodate them, but I think they make the book a little more complex and layered.

I also intend to go through and work on the romance storylines of the main two couples.  I need to make the girls resist a little more, have a little more tension between them, disagreements and so on.



Later:  managed to meld the three new scenes.  It's a little unwieldy, but they more or less fit.  I'll just have to trim the rough edges.  I may split one of the scenes and add it to a previous chapter, which will change the structure slightly, which is dangerous.

I can do some random rewriting for a few days, until I get Lara's editorial changes back.  Then it will take some time to consolidate the two manuscripts.  Then I want to add some historical detail and description.

THEN I can do the final rewrite, and hopefully have some time for Lara to give it one more editorial copy-editing passthru.

Shit, she's right.

Always a danger when you ask people to be honest about your writing.

Bren has pointed to some real improvements to The Dead Spend No Gold that I can't argue with.

It means rewriting entire chapters, and many scenes.

But I think she's right.  It needs to be done.  It will make it a better book.

I think it can be done without changing the structure of the book.  That's what I'm most leery of.  Once I start moving scenes and events around, the whole thing is in danger of falling apart.

But as it happens, these new scenes will mostly either replace or add to the existing structure, and that I can see doing.

Shit.

I wish it was ready.   But these changes will make it better.

As seems to be happening more and more, the rewriting is more intensive than the original drafts.

I'm going to try to immerse myself in the story, and improve it all along the way.

First thing I'm going to do is write the new material outside the story and then see if I can't add them or integrate them into the original story.  That may not work, but I'm going to give it a try.

I'll probably spend a week or more just integrating the two outsider editing jobs.  Then another week or more adding historical details.  So I may not get this done in the month I had earmarked.

But if I set myself the task of doing it, I can probably get it done.

I keep reminding myself that a month or two to improve a book is nothing, when that book will be out there forever.

It will take as long as it takes.

Focus on the books, nothing else.

I keep talking about my "miracle year" in writing because it was all about the writing, not the selling.  I wasn't putting any thought whatsoever into selling them.  The entire focus was in the books.

I've lost some of that over the last year.  By necessity, I suppose.  I mean, I had a lot of material at hand and it needed to be dealt with at some point.  I wanted to test the waters. 

But what I didn't see was that the moment I made that choice, the inward focus would shift outward. 

Then it shifted further with the need to rewrite some of the material I had already written.

Both things needed to be done.

I got my first report from my publisher last week.  It only includes 42 days, so it is obviously incomplete.  What I learned was that I sold more on Amazon than I expected, but sold very little on Smashwords.  In fact, Smashwords was alarmingly low considering that I was on "best-seller" lists for a good part of that period.  I had been harboring some illusions there.  Just as my publisher said, the action is on Amazon and Smashwords was inconsequential.

I sold a bunch of my books in my own store, but that is probably coming to an end.  I simply can't continue to be so aggressive because I'm getting to the point where I'm trying to sell the same books to the same people too often.  Yes, I can still mention it to tourists, but I'm finding that the initial excitement is fading and it was that excitement that sold the books.

What I'm trying to say here is -- it is time to shift the focus back to writing the books again.  It appears I can't really affect the broader sales of them by anything I say or do. 

So I'm going to focus on making The Dead Spend No Gold into a good book.  And making Faerylander a good book.

Nothing else.

Writers make time to write. 1,000,000 words.

Bren, who is helping edit The Dead Spend No Gold made the following comment to me:

"It's amazing what I can accomplish when the house is quiet..."

Well, that's it, of course.

I've set aside my time to write.  Dedicated time and lots of it.  Not just for the physical process of writing, but creating that time and space where I can just wallow in the creative juices.

I know I'm not the kind of disciplined writer who can set X amount of free time to write.  I have to have most or all the time to write.  I'm disciplined in using that time, in the sense that I feel like I can't waste it.  I have a minimum 2000 a day word pace when I'm writing a first draft.  (Not maximum, but preferred.  That is, I don't go over 2000 words unless the words are really flowing.)

But anyway, I think a writer has to be ruthless with his time management -- or be like me and pretty much not do anything else on the days dedicated to writing.

I've loosened up a little over the last year, and I can feel it.  It has been a detriment to my writing.  But that year I spent in my dark room and did nothing else -- I don't think that will probably ever happen again.

My estimate is that I wrote well over one million words in a year and a half.

Because that's all I did.

Final push.

Spent the entire day putting in the changes to The Dead Spend No Gold that the writer's group has suggested.

As always, I'm amazed by the tiny copy-editing changes that need to be made.  Simple little things that the brain just passes over.  I believe that I'm relatively careful.  I get the grammar right most of the time.  I don't misspell that many words.  And yet there they are -- saying "he" instead of "his", leaving out the "it", etc.  I think, probably, that you need not only a copy-editor, but a couple of other people reading a manuscript to catch most of them.

Meanwhile, I've gotten about half the book back from Bren, and I've entered those changes too.  (Coincidentally, the same 11 chapters is exactly how far I've gotten with writer's group.)

She's also putting me to task for relationship problems.  She thinks I've gotten the two couples together too fast, especially the sex.  I think she's probably right, and I'm going to try to adjust that.

Still lots of work to do on this book, but I'm hoping that if I keep on working on it intensively for the next month, I should be able to get it ready...

My main goal in the final draft is to get all those little unbelievables and inconsistencies ironed out.

And to add "Telling Details."  Those little details that make the scene seem real, with historical details or just descriptive details or character quirks.  Whatever works to make it seem like it is really happening.

You just keep tipping the book in the right direction, and if it works, then one day it all kind of comes together into a real thing.

The Burden of Proof is Mine.

Went by a local bookstore to see if any of my books that I'd left on consignment had sold.  They had placed the books in the farthest corner, in Siberia, about as far from a good selling spot as they could be.  I just took them back.

So, obviously, no respect there.

I have a theory.  When the average reader buys a published book, the presumption is that it will be good (if not good, then competent.)  So the book has to prove that it isn't.  If the book is any good, it will get the benefit of the doubt.

When a person picks up a book by someone they know, they are dubious, the presumption actually is that the book probably won't be any good (but hopefully competent.)  So the book has to prove that it is good.  Which is one hell of a higher burden of proof.

At least two degrees away from how the book would be treated if they bought it off the shelf without knowing anything about it.  So the irony is that the further away and the less the person knows you, the more likely it is that they'll give you the presumption of good.

It's just the way things are.  I try not to take offense.  I'm the same way.  It's just human nature.

Led to the Slaughter has done well enough with people I know and don't know that I feel like it has passed some kind of test.

But the burden of proof is still mine.

Oh, and if the book is "self-published" you can double the burden of proof.  Which is why I went with a publisher, even though it is the same book.

Minor travel Inconveniences.

So there's Olivia on my Facebook traipsing through the U.S. with nothing but a backpack, and I'm about to complain about a bunch of minor inconveniences.

Linda and I went to Crescent City for the weekend.  This is NOT a tourist trap.  In fact, it's a pretty poor town.  You walk into the grocery stores here and they are one half beer/wine/booze aisles and one half groceries.

But they have great beaches.  Really.  Some of the nicest beaches around.  And at least the weather was decent.  About 60 degrees, but low wind and that's about the best you can expect.  I realized suddenly that I know more about Crescent City than any other town beside Bend (which is why I set part of my Vampire Trilogy here.)

Anyway, the motel we have stayed in for about 15 years is really getting run down.  The refrigerator was stuck on high, the air conditioner makes weird noises, the doors don't close properly and squeak, and so on and so on.

Plus they're doing construction RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR ROOM with bulldozers actually shaking the entire building.  I mean, I guess they had no reason to warn us, but try writing with that going on.

So Linda and I went to the X-Men movie.  Actually, we went to the Dragon movie, but missed the beginning because the stupid theater has the ticket and commission line combined.  So even though there were only about 15 people ahead of us, it took us 15 minutes to get our tickets because every one of those people wanted popcorn.

So we walk into the Dragon movie and it's well underway.

Well, I get all wound up about these things, but usually manage not to say anything.  I excused myself to go the bathroom when we approached the tickets because I knew I'd say something rude.  But I always forget that I get Linda wound up too, and then she goes and says something...

So we exchange our tickets for the X-Men, which was fine because I really wanted to see that.

But then...they keep the lights on during the entire trailers sequence.  Bright lights.  The movie starts and the lights go down slightly.  The seats sag.  The screen is tiny.   I get up and kick the door closed and that helps.

It's just Linda and me in the theater so we talk all through the movie.  So rude of us.

As we're getting ready to leave, I realize the name of the theater owner is Catheaters. (California Theaters?)

"Yeah, because it's about as pleasant as a needle up your....."

A book came to me in my dreams.

I was perfectly happy with the idea of the third Virginia Reed novel being my next book.  But I wasn't excited the way I've been with just about every book I've done.

So I went to bed last night and an idea for a book came to me.

"Nobody Killed Me."

I really liked the premise I came up with, but it was a big one and I couldn't figure out how I could make it pay off.

Went to sleep and woke up with the answer.

So there it is.  My next book.  The one I'm excited about. 

I'm going to try to work through the plot before I start.  Try to assemble all the ingredients.  Try to discover what it is I'm wanting to say.  What characters, and what themes.

Then sit down and write it.

It's a bit of a departure from what I've done so far -- but that's good.  I can give it a try and if it doesn't work, I will still feel like I've done something new, that I've stretched myself.

Books of the Dead Press in stock at Pegasus Books.

I bought a full line of Books of the Dead Press books for Pegasus Books.   All very cool looking.

This is cutting edge stuff.  The guys who are leading the way into the future of Horror.  I'm proud to be among them.

Splintered attentions

I'm going to hold off writing the last chapter of Ghostlander.  I want to let it percolate in my subconscious for awhile.  I have a general idea. 

Meanwhile, Paul Carrington came by and said that he did like the latest version of Faerylander better.  The one problem was that he didn't quite buy the relationship between Parsons and Sandra.

Which coming after Dave Goodman's comments that he didn't quite buy the relationship between Cobb and Lillian, makes me worried about relationships.

Now that I have the actual structure of the book nailed down, maybe I can go in there and try to make those relationships stronger.  Maybe writing an earlier scene for both of them.

Paul said I'd lost some of the consequences of the battle by not developing some of the characters the way I had in earlier versions.  But the earlier versions were a problem in structure -- that is, the scenes where the characters who were later killed were introduced were scenes that didn't work for the overall book.

In other words, things are lost when they are cut.

I might be able to introduce a couple of characters that are later killed in the battles and not disrupt the structure of the book, so I'll give that a try.

And work really hard at making the relationships between Cobb and Lillian; and Parsons and Sandra more believable...

What's interesting to me is that the problems I had with the book was that it had too much, that it was slow and went sideways too much.   And now I'm told I cut too much.  Neither reader seemed to think the pace was too slow.  So I'm going to allow myself to insert a few more scenes that I cut, especially as they relate to "relationships."

Meanwhile, I want to go through Dave's critique of Faerylander and Bren's critique of The Dead Spend No Gold.

So I'm feeling somewhat splintered.  The best writing comes from being focused.  I probably should pick one of the books and finish it before I start work on the other book, but the logistics are such that it would add weeks if not months to the process.

Oh for the days when all I did was write!

Penultimate

Finished the second to last chapter.

It's not very good.  I can see that.  I suppose I'm hoping I can fix it.  Ugh...

One more chapter to write.  I've got all the pieces I need to write it.  My writing just seems really clunky right now.  But I'm going to go ahead and do it.

My attitude is "Anything Goes."  Just go for the big ending.

As long as the book is working, the story, the plot, the characters...then I have to assume that the writing can be improved.  But only if the story is finished first.

I sure hope the Ghosts of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine goes smoother than this!

Well, hell.

After spending an extra two weeks on it, I can't seem to finish Ghostlander.

The ending just doesn't do it for me.  So...I'm going to hold off on the last chapter and hope that something really strong comes to me.  If I were to actually write the ending, that would be it.  It's very hard to throw out a storyline once I've written it.  I can change it no end, but not completely throw it out.  Not because I'm not willing, but because in my subconscious that becomes the story.

So better not to put something lame down and regret it.

Makes me nervous to be so close to finishing and then not doing it.

I'm starting to get back some of the edited chapters of The Dead Spend No Gold from Bren, so I can work on those.  Plus I have Dave's critique of Faerylander.

So I'll work on those for the next few weeks.

I just need that one fabulous idea for an ending.

This has never happened before.  Usually, I have it all figured out by the time I get to this point.  I thought I did here, too, but once I got here...well, I just didn't feel like it was very strong.

It will happen, I'm sure.  I'll be walking along one day and boom, the idea will come.  So...I'm waiting.


POSTSCRIPT:

OK.  That's hilarious.  After weeks of struggling for an answer, not five minutes after I "give up" it comes to me.

The problem was that the Big Bad at the end, which must be vanquished, was just this amorphous ghostly realm.  There were individual hauntings that had individual bad guys, so those chapters worked, but the final resolution just didn't have any pizzaz.

So I figured out that I need a Big Bad guy; and personalization of the Evil, who can then be defeated.

I have the character in mind, but I have to go back to the very beginning and build him up and have him entered into scenes throughout the book, but I think that is the solution I've been needing.

Weird.  Thanks for nothing, subconscious. (Knock wood.  I don't mean it.  I love you subconscious.)

Dare to be silly.

I've just written a chapter that is so over the top sentimental and religious that it is totally out of character for me.

First of all, I'm not religious, so it was strange to write such a scene.  But the Character was a believer, a strong believer, and so I went into her head and wrote this outrageous scene that seems silly to me.

But it's what it is. I let myself write it.  I like it, but I don't know how it looks to others.

But does it matter how it looks to others, if this is what I think the book needs?  Been forcing myself to write the scenes.  They seem a little clunky to me, but move on.  Get it done.

Wrote 2600 words.  A couple of short chapters.

So I have two chapters left, which is only one less chapter than I started the week intending to write.  Like I said, I wrote a couple of extra small chapters, which were more or less about upping the danger stakes.

So now I feel like the final chapters can be written.

This next chapter is the emotional core of the book.  The final chapter is just like the final fireworks.
I have only a general idea of what I want to accomplish in both chapters.  Yesterday worked out OK, in that I forced myself to write the chapters despite not really knowing where I was going -- besides having a general idea.  Usually, I like to have the whole chapter in my head before I write it.  But I waited two weeks for the chapter to form and it never did, so I winged it.

Lots of rewriting ahead of me on Wolflander and Ghostlander -- going along with the huge rewrites of Faerylander I have to wonder what it is about these books that require so much rewriting.  I think maybe because so much of it is totally made up and imaginary.  My Faery is a completely new world, with its own rules, and it if very hard to make that work.

Maybe a lesson there.  Either think out all the rules in advance, or write material that doesn't require so many rules.  Writing my historical horror books, for instance, I'm constrained by historical reality.  Which somehow makes it easier.

Same thing with the Vampire Evolution books, which were constrained by the reality of the modern world.  Strange to say about books about werewolves and bigfoots and vampires, but they are meant to be set in the real world.

Whereas the Lander books have much more of a made-up quality to them. (Even though technically they are set in the real world they have always seemed more imaginary to me.)  

Next time I write a new book that isn't connected to any of the current series, I'm going to set myself the task of writing a straight-forward book, with no side trips, no flashbacks, something simple. 

That's hard to do.

Just finish the damn book.

Still struggling.

Wrote about 500 words yesterday, which for me is next to nothing.   Part of the problem is that 'religion' has entered the story.  Now when you write horror books, a little religion is probably hard avoid, but I try to keep it very vague, just a sort of good versus evil thing.

But this has gotten a little too specific, opening up very complicated philosophical and theological themes.  Which, if I knew more and was smarter might be a good thing.  But since I'm just trying to write an entertaining story, it is a little daunting.

Anyway, I'm going to force my way to the end.  I gave it a couple of weeks to come easy, but if it doesn't come easy then it has to come hard.

It will be at least 6 months, and more likely a year, before I really get a chance to rewrite the book, so I'm going to stake a lot on that -- that I'll be coming back to it fresh and hopefully can do something with it.

Otherwise, the limbo I've been in for the last couple of weeks will continue.

The other alternative is to just not write the ending.  Save it.  But that seems dangerous to me, especially since part of the problem I'm having is that I broke off in the middle.

This is just a reminder that once my head is fully in a book, it needs to stay there.

Mistaking popularity for profitability.

I should just make this a regular feature of this blog.

On Shelf Awareness they regularly announce openings and closings of bookstores.

The closings are especially interesting to me in what they say about why they close, and how it is pretty easy to read between the lines as to why the bookstore really failed in the way they try to explain why it failed.

So a quintessential one came up today.  But I have read similar articles dozens of times over the last few years, and in every case they seem to completely miss why they failed.

Over and over again, the store will say something like:  We did everything right.

They then give details of what they think is "right."

Signings and a comfortable place and serving food and drink and really nice features and blah, blah, blah.

"The store survived as long as it did thanks to the more than 100 events he hosted annually at the shop. The free get-togethers "solidified vague notions of community and neighborhood," he said, while driving a lot of the book-selling business."

"...as long as it did..."  Two years?

100 events?  In a year?

"...vague notions of community..."  Ha.  You can say that again...

They almost never mention books.

First off, the picture of the store is three quarters filled with tables and chairs.  With a couple of bookshelves to one side.

Secondly, the store is only two years old.

Third, they talk about how popular they are:

"A lot of people will be very sad if this store closes. I'd say we definitely gave it a go the best that anyone could.... The store is very popular. We have a lot of regular customers."

Well, no.  You obviously don't have "a lot" of regular customers.  You have a lot of people coming into your store for "free get-togethers."

It's amazing how often I run across this statement.  How often they think they did the right things and yet not mention books, as if books always were a secondary motivation.

It seems to me that every high profile failure is similar to this.  And no one seems to see the connection -- that it might not be that they failed "despite" doing all the "right" things -- but because they did do all the "right" things.

Only right wasn't right.  Promotion is not the same thing as sales.

The focus is all wrong.  The focus should be on selling books, not being popular.  Not having the nicest spot.  Not being someplace people can hang out at.  Not being an "event" center.  Not being a restaurant.

These people open bookstores not to sell books, but to be popular.  To be cool.  To be social.  They are always doing it for the "neighborhood."

Oh, and they sell books too, sometimes.  I think.  They don't really talk about that.

How about spending the thousands of hours hosting events in finding good books?  How about taking all that space with empty tables and chairs and filling them with bookshelves?

How about being a bookstore?

Oh, and right now there is someone out there planning to open a bookstore, and they are spending 10 hours on menu's and ads and decor etc. for every hour they are spending on buying books.  Or displaying books.  Or finding the most efficient space for bookshelves.  Or ... well, they've been told that they have to have that "third space" and so they've bought into it completely.

I believe there are places that do well with events and restaurants, etc.  But every time I've seen one (say like Politics and Prose on C-Span) they are PACKED with books.  Because they understand that books come first.  

Danger, danger!

Still struggling.

Have written only one chapter in the last four days.

I think one of the reasons that the end of Ghostlander wasn't coming was because it was just too tidy.

The characters weren't in enough danger.  Things weren't going to hell enough.

So, once I figured that out, the ending started coming to me.  Ramp up the danger level.  Make things in doubt (as much as any story can be in doubt).

Problem is, by ramping up the danger, I've also complicated things.  So I have to ask myself whether making it more complicated, probably with a couple of chapters I didn't expect, really improves the book or not.

I was going to have one of the characters literally dragged into "hell" and then have her fight her way out.  But I'll be damned if I know how I'm going to do that.

I have a feeling the right ending will come to me, if I give it a chance.  I'm just sort of hovering right now, waiting for my subconscious to work on it...