Found two lost chapters!

I've been saying I've had two careers as a writer, but I've always been a writer, I guess.

My first career was from the late 1970's to the early 1980's when I had three books published, and three other books finished.  I also started at least two other books and got a fair way in before I quit.

Then...I started writing again about 3 years ago.

But just before I got serious, I'd also gotten a good start on two books which I had rather liked, but abandoned.  One book had five chapters, the other seven chapters.  One was missing the first chapter, and the other was missing the second chapter, which is pretty disheartening. 

I'd given up on them.

After spending most of the morning trying to find a way to recover lost files, I gave up and dug into my closet.

Now as most of you know, I have been writing a blog every day for 8 years now.  But before that I had been keeping notebook journals for probably 15 years before that.  I actually wrote more in those journals than I do on my blog.

I also found a couple of drawers full of random writings.

Once I started looking through my 'business journals' I discovered that there was quite a bit of fiction in there.  Just random things.  Some bad poems, some beginnings of stories.

But lots of it.  Some went 5 to 10 pages.

Thing is, I have absolutely no memory of writing most of them.  Some of them are pretty damn good starts.  Intriguing.

I also found a notebook which contained by some miracle the two missing chapters in the books I'd gotten a good start on -- they are in rough, hand written form, but they exist!  My subconscious must have realized this, because I really don't know why I started leafing through all the notebooks.

I think I can safely say I never really did stop writing -- I just didn't try very hard to finish anything.

Which is why it is such a rule of mine now.

I think I'm going to see if I can't recover some of this lost material on the side.  At least the two abandoned novels.  Why not?

Writer's group is invaluable to me.

Read chapters 4 through 6 of Tuskers II to writer's group, and they seemed to like it.  I had a time problem that I need to fix, but other than that...they especially seemed to like the little surprise I spring at the end of 6.

The new member, who was horrified by my horror tinged first chapter, "Liked this one much better.  You didn't kill anyone."  Heh.

Interesting to see what she was confused about, and how much I need to inform the uninitiated reader into the second book if they haven't read the first book.  However, I don't want to warp the book trying to do that, because I really doubt very many people are going to read a book entitled: Tuskers II without reading Tuskers I first.

The "problems" with this book, which come from rewriting, come later in the book, so I'll be interested to see if those chapters work as well.

Writer's group is invaluable to me as feedback.  Even just reading something aloud makes the whole thing clearer to me.

Sometimes as I'm reading, like last night, I'm thinking "Oh, my god, this is slow....." and so I wait for them to tell me that, but usually I'm harder on myself than they are.

When they are hard on me, I know I have a problem.  I've had several stories that I loved that they pretty much tore apart (in a nice way) and I knew they were right.

Unfortunately, I usually only get the writer's group help on the first half of my books because I can only read three chapters every two weeks and I write faster than that.  But better the help I'm getting then not, and the first chapters are awfully important.

But it's always been nice to get feedback of any kind every couple weeks or so.  Writing can be pretty lonely otherwise.

Gimmicks are a bad sign.

A friend pointed me in the direction of a new book venture which sounds interesting.

Basically, each accepted author writes a book, and then squares off with another author, with the winner moving on to the next round.

I can see how that might generate sales.

But...well, it's a flat out gimmick, and my experience with gimmicks in my business is that they are sign of failure.

Any product that depends on gimmicks to succeed is in trouble.  Gimmicks might work at first, but they quickly loose effectiveness, and then the ante needs to be increased, and so on and so forth until no one responds anymore.

That is, if the base product won't sell without gimmicks, it is probably doomed.  In fact, the gimmicks, while appearing to revive the product at first, eventually cause its downfall even faster.

I wonder if the book industry is in a race to the bottom.  Following the example of the music industry.

The music industry continues to decline.  None of the things that was supposed to save them has apparently worked.

Don't give me the exceptions.  Exceptions don't prove the rule.  There are always exceptions.

A healthy industry doesn't work if only the exceptions work.  A healthy industry is one in which the mid-level works effectively, and where even the lower levels provides enough incentive to keep trying.

Our hyper capitalistic environment has given success only to size -- the mega corporations. Or the exceptional -- smaller entrepreneurs who work harder and are smarter than the average bear.

So we've set up another industry to follow that example.  Not that book publishing was ever easy, but there was a time when mid-list books were a viable alternative.

I have no solutions.  I'm wondering if there is one.  

Every book is an experiment.

I've stuck to my 2000 words a day goal as much as I can.

Nobody's Killing Me has been a strange experience.  It may be the most complicated plot I've ever attempted, but I've probably done the least planning.

I'm winging it, letting my subconscious create the solutions and hoping that I can consolidate all the changes later.

Much of the plot is being deliniated by dialogue, which is also very unusual for me.  I'm waiting for characters to say things, to tell me what they're doing and thinking.

I don't have a sense of depth to this story, which is disappointing, but I'm going to finish it anyway.  If I ever try to publish it, I'll need to go back and fill it out.  It needs description and development.  I've got the barebones plot down, like I said, mostly with dialogue.

But I'm going to spend the next 2 weeks finishing the book.

Because 1.) It is important I finish, and it may still surprise me.

and 2.) it's a worthy experiment.  Every writing experience seems to bring out something new, and this one is no exception.

I know it's a cliche, but every book writing experience really is different.  I'd love to bottle what I did with Tuskers, (it emerged quickly and completely) but it doesn't seem to work that way.

If my writing career was my store.

If my writing career was my store, what would I be doing?

1.) Building content.  Getting as much as I can get online, developing each product line as best I can, but getting it done.  Having so much choice that the customer can't help but find something they like. Making the content different and quirky and idiosyncratic.  Doing it the best I can, but making it my own.  People find that kind of authenticity attractive.

2.) Diversifying.  Doing as many different types and genres as I can do.  At the same time, doing the biggest genres with the understanding that others will get the lion's share.  Add up enough sales in each category, and I'll have a viable business.

3.) Being patient.  It takes a long time to develop a following.  It doesn't happen overnight.  I'll have to be consistent and never give up and always keep up the quality.  The customer can tell if I'm not interested in what I'm doing, so I need to be sure I'm doing interesting things.

4.) Writing what the other guys aren't.  So everyone is writing fantasy and romance, but maybe not as many are doing westerns or horror or ... well, anything else the big boys aren't doing.   There are undoubtedly sub-genres that aren't being exploited.  Historical Horror?  Whatever.

5.) Making it simple.  Not doing all the extraneous things that everyone else says I should and must do.  Promotion and advertising are probably a waste of time and effort. I need to create the content and wait for people to stumble across my offerings, and hope they'll come back.  HOWEVER: I do need to find a platform where they will find me.  And that won't be easy.


It took many years for Pegasus Books to become truly viable.  I had many setbacks.  There were times when I wondered if I should continue, but I kept on going, and eventually I was established enough to earn a living. 

Obviously, this is a completely different venture, but the parallels are also pretty obvious.

I haven't done anything so far that detracts from any of the above, except perhaps to try the promotional route.  But I did that at the store too, until I realized that none of it was working.

I will have to find a way to get onto main street -- which has been my biggest advantage at Pegasus Books.

I need to find a place where people can find me and my quirky offerings. 

I just have to keep my eyes open and find where that is.

Deflated balls.

I've been watching Korean movies on Netflix.  They are absurd and entertaining.  Absurdly entertaining.  Weird and different and fun.

*****

So we always talk about World War II as being the "good" war.  But saving South Korea is looking pretty worthy, too.  More so all the time.

*****

A guy who just quit 10 Barrel was in the store yesterday and said it had all gone to shit.  New owners are awful.

The former owners were in the Bulletin this morning, sounding smug as shit.

Take your money and go away, guys.

*****

Another local business was prominently profiled in the Bulletin awhile back.

The article talks about the problems the business was having, and four solutions to the problems.

None of the solutions addressed the problems, and from my outlook, being in a similar business, all four solutions were actually steps backward.

Like, no one thinks through these things.  It sounds good, so...

Sorry, can't be any more specific than that...

*****

Linda has been sick, so I've been expecting to get sick.  I may have escaped it, knock wood.  But I've been sleeping in the guest room and no matter how comfortable the new bed is, I still wasn't sleeping well.

Operating on a few hours of sleep, lately.

*****

Pegasus Books continues to do well, and I'm starting to think my absence is a plus not a minus.  (Yeah, yeah, you don't have to agree.)

*****

Wondering if I should keep my Downtown Comings and Goings list active.  I'm pretty sure I'm missing things, and if the list isn't accurate, it ain't worth much.

The Great Recession is over, so maybe I should let it go.

*****

Got in a stack of 30 used conservative books.

I challenge you to read those titles and tell me there isn't "hate" involved.  I mean, it's pretty nakedly awful.  Sorry, the liberal books just don't have the same bile.  (Mocking maybe...)

Scary.

*****

Taking a break from social media.

I don't think any of the promotional things I did for Tuskers worked.

Led to the Slaughter continues to sell just as well without any pushing by me.

What the hell.

*****

I dreamed three incredibly detailed 'reviews' of Tuskers last night.  Down to every word.  But they were describing a book I didn't write.  The book they were describing was in some ways better.

*****

American Sniper.  No way to have a nuanced discussion of it.  Better to stay away from it altogether.  The Third Rail of movies.

*****

Not much into football these days.  I hated the way the Seahawks were forced on me on TV when I was growing up.  (Oregon and Washington are the same, right?)

But I can't help but root for the 5' 10" quarterback.

*****

Man, I have a scattered brain.

"So you want it good...or fast?"

Awfully quiet out there.

Well, I did ask for quiet.

The store is humming along, thanks to Cameron and Matt.  Things have slowed down on the social front -- my social being a hermit to anyone else.  No promotions on the horizon, less activity on social media.

I can concentrate on writing and nothing but writing.

Told Linda I was going to be burying myself in stories for the next six months. 

I'm curious to see what I can accomplish, and if I can get back to the incredible productivity of a year ago.  Thing is, I want to be productive, but I also want it to be good.

"You want it to be good or fast?"

Both, man.  Both.

Writing 50 pages to learn the plot.

Nobody's Killing Me has the most complicated plot I've ever attempted.  Not only does it entail time and space travel, it has three separate plotlines.  Despite this, I've been winging it, doing it intuitively, and hoping I can correlate everything later.  Dangerous.

I really couldn't seem to get going on the book yesterday, but I dedicated the whole day to it, and kept trying, and finally, about an hour before it was time to quit, I sat down one last time.

I had two characters sitting in a bar, and I had no idea why.  Usually by 50 pages into a book I have a general idea of where the book is going, but I was still pretty foggy.

So I just had the two characters start to talk to each other -- and boom, the plot is suddenly clearer.  The conversation is a bit revealing, but then one thing I have a really hard time doing is holding back on plot developments.  I find I'm usually better off just going ahead and revealing them, with the assumption there are more mysteries ahead.

Anyway, I got that moment of excitement I was looking for.  Up until then, I'd been more intellectually curious than anything.  I was exploring an alien landscape, trying to adapt it to Iliad and Odyssey elements, and trying to keep the home world part of the book going.  I was interested, but this was the moment of frisson that I was looking for.  Maybe it's a little late.  50 pages in, but I can now take these ideas and apply them to the earlier parts. 

I had to write 50 pages to find my way, as usual.

This is sort of an experimental effort for me.  My "side" projects seem to be me trying to write outside my comfort zone.  Sometimes, as with Tuskers, it works out.  Other times, like Spell Realm, it's a bit of a mess.

My next side project will also be an experiment. A love story.  I've done a love story before, Sometimes A Dragon, but I messed it up.  It's still there, and I'm still hoping to tease out the original conception, but I'm moving forward for now.  Gargoyle Dreams will be a love story written by someone a little older, if not wiser.  But someone with more life experience.

The main thing yesterday did for me was confirm I'm back.  Hanging in there all day, and then finally having it produce something worthwhile, was incredibly validating.

Housing shortage?

A comment from a reader:

"Duncan, I used to enjoy your blog and the Bend Bubble Blogs a long time ago. Am from the Willamitte Valley, and enjoyed watching the real estate discussion from afar.  Now I just saw this article in the Bend Bulletin and wondered if it can possibly be true.  It makes it sound like it's 2006 around there again!  Curious to know what you think.  Jeff. R."

The article was about the housing/rental shortage.

Well, as most readers of this blog know, my focus over the last few years has been on my writing career -- which I understand isn't as interesting to many readers.  But that's what I'm doing, and that's what the blog reflects.

I've mentioned lately that my store has finally gotten back to the sales levels it was at in 2007.  So that was a 7 year swing, which is what I predicted back then based on what I'd read about other booms and busts.

So is it possible?

I'm skeptical of anything related to housing/rental.  I tend to believe that the information is manipulated to a large extent. 

But if the housing/rental people haven't built anything in the last 7 or 8 years, I suppose it's possible.  (And just shows yet another sign of their boom and bust incompetence.)

I haven't waited the last 7 years for the economy to come back at my store.  I kept reinvesting, trying new product lines, and building my store.  Now I'm situated to take advantage.  In other words, I'm not short of material.

I tend to believe, though, that the shortage of affordable housing is more a factor of landlord's charging what the market will bear...and then some.  That's been my experience with all landlords -- either commercial or not -- that they will constantly push the outer boundaries of what they can get.  So whether there is an actual shortage driving up prices or whether they think they can pretend there is a shortage and get the higher rents, I'll leave that up to you to decide. 

Story goes where a story goes.

Nobody's Killing Me is supposed to be an Odyssey story, where the main character travels through many different alternative worlds.  I figured he'd spend a chapter in each world and continue his journey.

Instead, the second world the hero lands on got interesting and started growing and growing, and I've now spent about 5 chapters there, and I can't be doing this.

But it be where the story wants to be... (the characters in this world insert "be" wherever they can.  It "be" amazing how often you can "be" doing that.)

So I'll just keep following the story to see where it (be) leading.  It's getting a little science-fictiony, which I really didn't want, because then I have to make the world-building viable.  I prefer to think of it as science-fantasy, where weird things happen but I don't necessarily explain them.

Also, the time/space travel element is confusing, and I'm not sure I understand it.  I'm following some sort of intuitive thing which seems to make sense, but I don't know how it will stand up the scrutiny.

Then again, the most important thing is -- I'm enjoying writing it, and I'm intrigued, and I'll just have to assume the reader will be equally intrigued.

I'm about 1/3rd the way through -- and have written a little each of the last 3 days, so if I can keep that momentum going...

I've dropped all the promotional things I was doing -- without any effect on the sales trajectory that I can see, either up or down.  As I said yesterday, my goal is to finish my stories.

As soon as I'm done with this book, my goal will be to finish Faerylander once and for all.  Then Tuskers II and then Tuskers III.

Then Wolflander, then Ghostlander.  

I'm hoping to publish my Lander series this year, by myself.  Without a publisher.  Kind of scary.

Get them done.

Simplifying my goal.

Finish the book.

Just that.

Don't worry about the length, don't even worry about the quality of the writing.

Just finish.

I was on such a roll for two years that it is a little disheartening to fall back to my more dysfunctional ways.  It's all because I emerged from my writing fog and interacted with the real world.  I know it couldn't be helped.  It was going to have to happen at some point.

But I yearn for the innocence of those two years when I could daydream about what would happen without having to find out what would really happen.  I have decided that most of the promotional distractions I've done have been fairly ineffective.  (And I've done none of the really distracting things like conventions or signings.)

So I want to just get back to the steady writing and the steady finishing of my stories.  I felt very empowered there for awhile.  I'd like to get that feeling back.

Forget about the rest.

Get it done, and then write another and get it done. 

Making the Strange, Real.

I do believe that Tuskers is probably my most entertaining book -- which by my definition, makes it my best book, because above all I think books need to be fun to read.

I actually think the second book in the Vampire Evolution Trilogy, Rule of Vampire, is probably my best crafted book.  Put together in all the right ways.  (By the way, it is currently free on Amazon.)

I think Led to the Slaughter has the most authenticity, and some genuine emotion.

It looks like Led to the Slaughter and The Dead Spend No Gold are my most steady books, sales wise.

Tuskers has gotten some good reactions, but I'm not sure the world was ready for a Wild Pig Apocalypse.  Probably too outlandish, even though when I write these books, I'm more or less trying to make them as real as possible.

I've had another idea for a book.  Just a frisson of excitement over the idea, which is usually a good sign.  Something in my subconscious really likes it.

It would be called, Gargoyle Dreams: A Love Gothic Story.  And it would be, yep, a love story with a gargoyle, kind of Hunchback of Notre Dame idea.  I don't know if I can write a "love" story, but I want to try.  Linda thinks I should try for Steampunk.

Meanwhile, I want to finish Nobody's Killing Me.  It is important I finish, though I've been stalled.  If it was the book that was stalling me, that would be one thing -- but it's me and the time decisions I'm making.

So I'm going to put my head down and try to finish this story so I can go to the next book.

I have at least 3 or 4 ideas for books, so I'm not worried about that anymore.

I don't know why my books all tend to the fantastical.  I pretty much find everything else boring, and there is absolutely no subject, theme, or idea that can't be done in the world of the fantastical -- in most ways, better than a straightahead drama or whatever.

I mean, the metaphorical possibilities, aligned with the entertainment, just make everything deeper in my opinion.

I don't know why people can't see that.

The automatic rejection of an idea on the face of it simply because it has an element of the fantastical is a failure of imagination.

"Do This and Don't Do This."

So I'm stumbling across an Internet landscape full of pitfalls and prizes.  Trying to figure out how to be a writer.  I manage to avoid most of the pitfalls, and occasionally, by accident almost, I will find one of the hidden prizes.

Not a very efficient way to to proceed, but better than not exploring at all. Thing is, I don't really know any professional authors personally.  I don't have anyone's brain I can pick.  Someone who can say, "Do this" and "Don't do this."

So I'm just bumbling along and someone asks, "Do you have a Street Team?"

"What's that?" I ask, innocently.

Or my publisher will ask, "Your ARC's are out."

"What's that?"

Back in my first career, I took writing classes from Dwight Newton, who wrote something like 60 westerns novels. He could at least steer me through the basics.  He could look over my manuscript, make suggestions on how it should look, how to mail it, how long I should expect to wait for an answer, what a contract looks like.  That kind of nuts and bolts stuff.

So while there is much more information out there, it is that much harder to figure out what's important and what isn't.  For instance, I finally signed up for Author's Central on Amazon, which is a handy little place where I can find the rankings of all my books on one page.

Up until now, I've had to go to each book and look, so this will save a huge amount of time and effort. I have no doubt there are dozens of such simple shortcuts that I'm unaware of. You'd think all I need to do is research it.  But so much of what people recommend is spam-oriented bullshit that it is hard to know what's important until you already know.

I know from my small business career that almost ALL of the advice I might find online would be bad, useless, or even harmful. I only found one book in all the time I was researching small business that was in the slightest bit useful.  (Growing a Business, Paul Hawken)

I only found one adviser that I thought was helpful, when I went up the Small Business Center up at COCC.  And I consider myself lucky to have found him.  (He told me I had a "primitive sophistication.") So I don't really try.  The useful stuff comes along if I keep poking enough, staying with the more productive channels of browsing.  Keeping up the primitive sophistication.

I keep adding to my repertoire through sheer incompetent persistence with whatever native canniness I possess. I don't have a lot of the personality characteristics that could make me successful as a selling author.  I do have a lot of the personality characteristics that can make me an author.

Unfortunately, being an author and being a selling author aren't the same thing.

But again, I have the experience of owning a small business, where I didn't have the characteristics of a profitable business owner, but I did have the characteristics of a someone who can create a nice store.

Again, not the same thing. But I just kept doing it, learning by trial and error, being persistent.  I eliminated the things that I couldn't make work (often through my own personality quirks) and reinforced the things that I could make work (again, through my own personality quirks.)

I learned to think for myself and have confidence in my judgement. So I'm just going to keep focusing on the content -- the actual writing -- and apply my native persistence and opportunism, and hope the best.

Learning when to "Do This and Don't Do This" on my own.

Back to writing -- for reals.

Took the first 3 chapters of Tuskers II to writer's group. They liked it.  Had a few more criticisms than normal, but overall a good reception.

I feel a little guilty about starting a new book with them, when I never finished reading Tuskers all the way through.  But there would be little point since the book is actually in print. 

That's how you know you're writing fast -- when your book is published before I you can finish reading it to your beta listeners.

I gave them a one sentence spoiler about the end of Tuskers to prepare them for the new story.  Not too much of a give-away.

As I said the other day, I'm ready to really get rolling on Nobody's Killing Me, now that both the holidays and the release of Tuskers is out of the way.

Andy Zeigert has been encouraging me to quit checking my rankings on Amazon so assiduously.  I agree, it's time to step away. 

But I do feel like I had a good reason to do it.   I could watch, on a real time basis, the effects of different promotional efforts, so that I would know what works and what doesn't.  Short answer -- not much works.

It goes back to what Roy at Books of the Dead told me at the beginning.  Getting good reviews is the most important thing I can do to help my books sell.  So I've done everything I can think to do to get that much accomplished, at least.

I do have the feeling that it is probably necessary to scrabble for every sale.  But how do you do that without stepping over the line?  It's a fine line.

Thing is, I get tired of doing that.

So back to writing.  This time for real.

Missed the Golden Age?

I'm starting to get the feeling that I missed the golden age of self-publishing.

I mean, I ended up going with a couple of publishers, but I was very close to doing it myself at one point, and figured that eventually I'd be putting out books by myself.

In my store, I've often been involved in trends that go through a sort of arc, the beginning of which I call the Golden Age.  This is when no one believes the trend will be successful, but if you've gotten in early you see a constant rise in demand.  You reap the benefits.

Then everyone jumps in, and the Golden Age is over.

But there is a lot of chatter by self-published authors who were doing well a couple of years ago that their sales have plummeted.

Looks to me like there is two reasons.

1.) A glut.  More and more books are coming out.  More and more of them have nice covers and are decently edited.  It is becoming harder and harder to stand out, to be discovered.

2.) Amazon is giving books away free.  Or rather, for a modest subscription service price.

Meanwhile, the big boys on both sides are still arguing.  On one hand, you have Jame Patterson and his ilk, who are defending the Big 5 publishers.  On the other hand, you have Hugh Howey and his ilk, who are proponents of self-publishing.

Thing is, both of these guys (and their ilk) are the extreme exceptions and in no way represent the average author in either camp.

I chose to go through smaller publishers, even though I could have grossed more income per book by myself, for several reasons.  They do all the work.  They have access to better covers, editing, and support services.  They do much of the promotion.  And the credibility of being paid in advance, which gave me the confidence to hawk my own books.

But I had always wondered if I'd made the right decision.

Now I'm pretty sure I did.  Not because I saw Amazon's subscription service coming or because I saw the glut (or rather, there was already a glut when I started, but self-publishing still seemed to be doing well) but because I'm still more a traditionalist.  I wanted to concentrate on writing.

As it turned out, I still am the one mostly responsible for whether I have reviews, or whether I have initial sales.

I'm am still glad I made the small publisher decision (not to mention, I glad they decided on me!) because it appears to me that they aren't included in the subscription service and because having a publisher gives me a slightly higher profile than if I was self-published.  A slightly higher profile in a glut is probably what I need.

The Golden Age was going to end sooner or later, so might as well adjust as best I can.

Time to get back to writing.

Well, that was fun.

The holidays, which are always a difficult time to write, coincided with the publication of Tuskers, so I've been pretty distracted for a couple of months.

But with Tuskers safely in the world now, it's time to get back to writing every day.

I'm waiting for the edit of Tuskers II from Lara before giving it another go around, so I have a couple of weeks to fill.

Until then, I'm going to keep working on Nobody is Killing Me! The Odyssey of Linger Longfellow. I've got about 13K words done, and still some juice.  It's an odd book, and I'm not sure how it will work, but I'm going to go ahead and finish it.

Then, hopefully, I can finish Tuskers III.

I want to write my Virginia Reed Adventure, The Dark You Fear: Ghosts of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine, after that, when the weather is clear enough for me to explore the terrain of eastern Oregon.

I'm leaving myself open to a brand new idea somewhere along the line.  The more differenter the better.

I'm embarking on yet another extensive rewrite of Faerylander with Bren.  While she has it, I'm going to rewrite Wolflander to fit the events in Ghostlander, the third book in the Lander Series.

I'm figuring 2016 will be the year for the Lander Series.

But none of this will happen until I get back to writing.

Back where I started.

Pegasus Books has finally gotten back to where we were in 2007.  We beat that year by a very small percentage.  Going into the downturn I predicted a 7 year turnaround, based on what I'd read, and sure enough, that is exactly how long it took to get back.

The holiday season beat last year, which I didn't think it would do.

Everything but game cards were up this year.  Game cards are a nice sideline, but I refuse to discount more than I already do (and even now, Magic is the only product I significantly discount at all.)  So there will be steady erosion there, and I don't much care.

Games had a good year again, and new books continue to increase.

Comics and graphic novels had a good year, and I attribute much of that to Cameron and Matt's efforts.

Even toys were up slightly.

The store seems steady and stable, if not spectacular, and in good hands and I feel like I can continue to write.

A watched pot never boils.

TUSKERS went live last night at 9:00 PT.  Yes, I was there watching.

http://www.amazon.com/Tuskers-Duncan-McGeary-ebook/dp/B00S4FGFK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1421039260&sr=1-1&keywords=Tuskers+duncan+mcgeary 

Since then, not much has happened.  Yes, it has only been 12 hours, but bear with me, that is sort of the point of this post.

In olden days, when STAR AXE was published, I wouldn't have had any idea how my books were selling for six months or a year or even then.  But for some reason that didn't bother me -- except, well, I wanted to get some royalties if possible, but I had done enough research to believe that my advance was likely to be all I would get.

Besides, back then, my real goal was to be published.  Just that.  First to finish a book, which was a major accomplishment all by itself, then to get it published, to hold a copy in my hands.  The book was out there in the bookstores and on the bookstands and that was good enough for me.

I didn't think beyond that for some reason.

Now I realize that's just the beginning.  After that there is the whole garnering attention thing -- hopefully getting some good reviews.

And then there are the sales.

But I can't really do much about the sales now.  It's possible no one will be interested in a Wild Pig Apocalypse.  Who knows?

So I just need to take a step back and let nature take its course.

It's a good book.  It's getting exposed to a more critical audience than my books have been so far, but I'm ready to take that step.  See what happens.

Not going to ask.

Not going to ask people to buy my book this time.

Nah, uh.  Nope.  

Going to announce TUSKERS publication, and that's that.

But I ain't going to ask.  No sir.

Not going to ask people to buy TUSKERS on Amazon in the first week, even though sales in that first week have a huge effect on the ongoing sales of the book.  Amazon is the big kahuna, the 500 pound canary in the mine, or whatever you want to call it.  If I can get up the rankings by having a good first week, it has a huge effect on the algorythms.

Not going to ask.

Nope, nada.  Not going to do it.

Not going to ask even though I think there is a really good chance the book could do well. Becoming a bestseller on Amazon really isn't as hard as you might think.  A bunch of sales consolidated in a concise timespan -- say the 12th of January thru the 19th of January -- sales my book may garner anyway over a longer period -- well, that can have an outsized effect on the rankings.

But I'm not going to ask.

Not going do it.

Not going to ask, even though I think this is a very fun book that most people would enjoy.  I've not felt this confident about a book ever.

But I ain't going to do it.

Please, people, don't throw me in that briar patch of having to ask.

TUSKERS, by Duncan McGeary.  Released on Amazon on January 12, 2015.

Seems about right.

The retail amount of sales of my own books I've made in my store would probably make most authors pretty happy.  In the end, I'm guessing I'll make much more money from that actual profit margin on a tradepaperback, than I will in any other format.

Only because I already own a business.  I'm making Keystone on every book.  I'm making five to six times what I will make on royalties and advances with each book I sell.  If I worked every day, it would be even more.  There are lots of tourists downtown, so lots of new people to show my books to.

But really, I'm not going to be looking at the numbers for another couple of years at least.  For one thing, it takes forever to get an accurate gauge of how things are doing.  For another, I feel like I'm in the start-up phase of a small business.

One thing that running a small business for 30 years taught me, is that you can't always monitor success or failure by the numbers.

You get a sense in your gut as to whether you are making progress, or falling behind.  Sometimes the numbers will lie.  Such as having increased sales, but knowing intuitively that the store is on shaky ground, and vice verse -- the store has falling sales, but you somehow know you are on the right path.

That's how I feel about writing right now.  I'm on the right path.

Not that I'm unhappy with the numbers I've seen -- actually, I haven't seen 2/3rds of the possible numbers, because of the delay in reporting -- but what I've seen seem all right to me.

I went into this with a realistic appraisal of the possibilities, I think. 

Another thing I learned by building a small business is how long it takes to get anything done, and how much upfront effort is required. 

So this writing thing doesn't surprise me much -- it seems about right.