Stephen Burckhardt's Blog: My Blog Ramblings, page 68

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity-Jig!

As the title suggests, I am home again. P.R. and I had an amazing two weeks traveling around Italy. The photo above is me and my better half, P.R., on the beach in Messina, Sicily, We started our trip off in Rome, then to Florence, and Venice. From there, we flew to Sicily and toured the entire island by rental car along coastal roads. It was the trip of a lifetime. Me being me, I, of course, hurt myself on this trip. No one who knows me is shocked by this. As I was walking down the steps from our B&B in Ragusa on our first full day in Sicily, I was memorised by the view of the landscape. I was looking off at the city center on the adjacent hilltop and was not watching where I was walking. I missed a step and started to fall. I grabbed for the railing but my ring finger went between the support bars instead. As I fell, my finger got trapped and took the weight of my fall. It did stall my collapse long enough that I was able to grab the rail with my other hand and right myself. I carefully pulled my hand out from between the bars. I'm not going to lie, I said a few colorful words as I did so. P.R. and our friends, the other couple we were traveling with, kept asking if I wanted to see a doctor. I did not see the point in that. Even if I broke my finger, I didn't feel like the doctors would do much of anything I couldn't do myself. So I just took some Ibuprofen and soldiered on. We had a lovely day sightseeing and I took a lot of photos. Some of which I will share on the Members Only page (it is free to join and you can quit at any time). By the time we walked into downtown Ragusa, I thought it might be a good idea to do something to brace my finger. We went to a pharmacy and got some medical tape but they didn't have a brace in stock at the moment. When we got back to the B&B, I improvised a brace by breaking off the handle of one of our plastic coffee spoons. It worked. A few days later, we were in Trapani and I stopped in another pharmacy and they had braces. I was able to upgrade. By this time the whole finger was black and I had to take my wedding ring of due to the swelling. Again, my better half and our companions tried to talk me into seeing a doctor. Again, I kindly refused. I had never been to Italy before and I was not about to miss out on seeing such incredible sights to sit in an ER. I have seen plenty of those. Besides, it's not like I was going to die from a broken finger, if it was broken.With the new brace, we were able to finish our vacation and return home. Once home, I finally gave in to P.R. and we went to the ER. After a few hours and four X-rays, the doctor didn't think it was broken but he wasn't positive. There is a line on the bone in the top view X-ray but he said he did't see the same line on the side X-ray. However, they upgraded my brace again and sent me home with stronger Ibuprofen. So here I am, two weeks later, typing with all the fingers on my right hand and two fingers on my left. My ring finger still hurts like crazy when I try to bend it. If it's not better by next week, I'm supposed to go back to the ER but I do not see the point. I have chapters to write and things to do; though I have a feeling I will be doing them all slower. My next order of business is getting the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted written and uploaded on the hidden page for those who read Into the West: Sharon Springs and want the end to the cliffhanger. Into the West: Most Wanted will most likely be the longest book yet. I have a lot I want to get in here to set up the last book tentatively titled, Into the West: Home Sweet Home. Keep watching for more updates to come.

Sneak Peek Didn't Happen

Hello Posse,I'm sure you all noticed that I did not get the sneak peek done. It has been crazy here trying to get ready for summer vacation. Our landlords, who have known for quite sometime that we will be away on vacation for a few weeks, because they watch Shaggy for us, decided to completely dismantle our balcony the weekend we are trying to get ready to leave. Needless to say this really threw us off while we are trying to get everything done. We'll see what I can get done before we leave but I'm not going to make any promises. Things have just been too hectic for that and there is still so much to do before we leave.I do hope to post a few instagram photos while we are out an about. I'm not going to tell you all where we are going. I want to see if you can figure it out from the photos. Take care and keep your eyes on the instagram. Stephen

Now Available in Paperback

Hello Posse!I'm sure you can guess by the title of this blog that Into the West: Sharon Springs is now live on Amazon to purchase in paperback. I'm so glad I was able to get this complete and online before we leave for summer vacation. I would have gone crazy thinking about it. I have a few more things I want to work on before vacation starts. I need to get some writing done tomorrow. I would like to leave you all with a Sneak Peek from the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted. Keep your fingers crossed.Take care and thanks for sticking with me!Stephen

A Quick Note

Hey Posse!I just wanted to let you know that the print version has been uploaded to Amazon and will be available as soon as they finish processing it. It can be anytime starting now up to 72 hours from now. So if you prefer print to the ebook formats, it should be live any day now!I'm still doing some research into the audiobooks. Due to certain requirements, I'm not going to be able to use the Amazon platform for audiobooks. I'm going to look into using Barnes & Noble Booksellers for audiobooks. If I have to, I will just find a way to sell them myself from my own website. One way or another, I want to offer this format if at all possible. I'll keep you updated on my progress.If you have already bought and downloaded a copy of Into the West: Sharon Springs, first of all, thank you! Second, I found a few things that got missed in previous edits while I was getting the print version ready. Just a few missing words; it needed a to or a the in some places. If you are interested, I uploaded a new copy tonight when I loaded the print copy. You should get a notice that an update is available as soon as it finishes processing. That is all for tonight posse. I have more things in the works and will try to keep you updated as things progress. I hope to have a sneak peek for you this Sunday if I can get a few things accomplished tomorrow morning. I am so not a morning person so this will be a challenge. Take care and thanks for coming with me on this journey. Stephen

There is Good News and Bad News

Hello Posse!There have been some good developments and some disappointing ones.First, the fourth book in the series from Scott Harris and 51 Friends, for which I was a contributing author, has been released. You can read about that There is still one more book by Scott Harris for which I wrote a short contribution. It is a book of advice for writers. I will let you know when that one has gone live online as well. Second, I have been hard at work trying to get things checked off of my to do list.The plan:Get the paperback book for Into the West: Sharon Springs up for sale. I heard back from the customer service for the formatting program I had bought for my books. They were able to explain to me how to turn off hyphenation. It was pretty rampant throughout the book. It was driving me nuts. But with their help, I was able to turn off hyphenation and will do one more quick read through of the book to make sure I didn't accidentally change anything while I was trying to fix the hyphenation. It should be ready to go Friday with no problems . . . knock on wood! Finish the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted and post it on the hidden page on the website for those who followed the clues in Into the West: Sharon Springs. I had started writing this but I have not gotten very far with it yet. It is in process though. I hope to work on it this weekend. If you have already found that page please go back after you receive this blog post. I am going to add a notification request to that page so people who have already found it can be emailed when I get the free chapter uploaded. This will save you from having to repeatedly check that page or possibly miss the post if you forget to check.Produce the first audiobook for Into the West: Orphan Train.Unfortunately I was on the audiobook site tonight that is affiliated with Amazon. It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to sell audiobooks through them. There are some requirements that I do not meet so that is not going to happen. However. I can create my audiobook and sell it directly from this website. It will be a bit more tricky for me to deal with since I will have to handle those transactions myself but seeing as how few I would most likely be selling, I think I can handle it. Finish writing Into the West: Most Wanted.This one will take the longest to complete and I might start on it while P.R. and I are on vacation this summer. We leave for two weeks next Wednesday. I am so looking forward to this. Two whole weeks with P.R. and I in the same place 24/7. That does not happen very often. Remember to be grateful and not get so discouraged.I work on this daily. Some days are easier than others. So that is the quick news about where we are right now. Things have been a bit crazy for me. But I'm soldiering through. Like Churchill said, "When you are going through hell, keep going." Thanks for following my career. I wouldn't have one at all without YOU!With gratitude,Stephen

Things are Getting Accomplished

Hello Posse,I hope you are all well and enjoying your weekend. If you read the last blog and slogged through all of my ramblings as I tried to figure out how to get things on a better track toward my goals, you know I set up a plan.The plan:1. Get the paperback book for Into the West: Sharon Springs up for sale. 2. Finish the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted and post it on the hidden page on the website for those who followed the clues in Into the West: Sharon Springs. 3. Produce the first audiobook for Into the West: Orphan Train.4. Finish writing Into the West: Most Wanted.5. Remember to be grateful and not get so discouraged.Tonight, I finished reviewing the edits for Into the West: Sharon Springs and loaded it up on Amazon. When I was reading through the ebook version I found one typo that had slipped through and a few placed that needed a to or the. I made the corrections and uploaded a new version to the ebook (you should get a notice about an update in the next few days) and formatted the copy for print. I think I might release the print version on Friday. This will give me a few days to advertise it so people will know it's there. Tomorrow, I'm planning to make a few test recordings for the audio book and see how things need to be set up for the new format for that. So, I am working the plan and focusing on number five. I have a few friends who are self-published authors who are doing very well for themselves after publishing more than 25 books. I only have three novellas under my own pen name and have already had one make it to number 41 on the free westerns best sellers list on Amazon. That is pretty good. I need to focus on the positives and find new ways to negate the negatives. P.R. and I will be leaving for our summer vacation on the 29th. Keep watching the blogs and my instagram account for photos! Take care, posse and enjoy your weekend!Stephen

Where Do I Go From Here . . .

As you know, if you read my blogs, I have been doing some soul searching about what to do about the direction my writing career is (or rather is not) going. Things have not progressed as I had hoped. I began this endeavor in 2015. I have three books published under my own pen name and four books in which I was a contributing author (for which I earn nothing, I did for exposure) for a western short story collection series. I did not expect to be making a living from my writing with just so few books in print but I did expect to have more of a following at this point. The people in my posse are amazing! I have gained a few great fans, mostly made up of close friends and family. These people go out of their way constantly to support me no matter what. I will never be able to repay them for their support. Unfortunately, I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to go beyond this inner circle. I naively thought they'd share a few posts and one or two of their friends would check out my books. Then those people would share about my books with their friends and one or two of their friends would check out my books and so on. I figured after four years of this I would at least have about a 1,000 people following my work. In fact, I have less than 100 on my mailing list and even some of those do not open my emails. I had been toying with the idea of leaving this serial and trying to write something in another genre (one that has a larger market) to try to boost awareness of my work. P.R. (for those who don't already know, I just use the initials when talking about my spouse.) and I have been discussing options for where I can go with my writing career. Today, we agreed on a course of action. I started out writing this western serial as a way to write a story I cared about and learn the business side of self-publishing in a genre with a smaller audience. If I completely crashed and burned out of the gate few people would be likely to be aware of it. I also chose to write a western because I had the story for the orphan train in my head for years, ever since a friend told me about their grandmother coming to Kansas that way. I also knew the western genre had a loyal, educated fan base who could give me solid, constructive criticism while I learn this craft. P.R. and I both agree that I still have a lot to learn. I haven't even begun to produce an audiobook yet. I had learned how to set up everything and had begun to produce the first book for the Createspace format but before I finished the sold out to Amazon and closed Createspace. I have been reviewing how to set things up in the new format Amazon has moved to but I have yet to make any test recordings. So basically I'm starting over at square one. I, obviously, have not learned how to build my following yet. One look at my mailing list proves that. I am still learning SEO, how to use my new graphics program, and more. Seeing as how my goal with this serial was to write it to learn how to be a successful, self-published author, I'm going to go on with this serial until the original planned ending with part five. I'm going to give it one more year from now, where I do not worry about whether or not there is a profit from these books. Which is good because currently I'm so far in the red I can't even see the black from here. But I knew it would be that way for a while. I'm going to go back to focusing on learning to be a better writer, learning best ways to promote my work, building my mailing list, learning SEO better, working on creating a more dynamic website, and more. So the plan for now is:1. Get the paperback book for Into the West: Sharon Springs up for sale. 2. Finish the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted and post it on the hidden page on the website for those who followed the clues in Into the West: Sharon Springs. 3. Produce the first audiobook for Into the West: Orphan Train.4. Finish writing Into the West: Most Wanted.5. Remember to be grateful and not get so discouraged.I do have so much for which I can be grateful. While my following may still be a small group, it is a wonderful, supportive clan. The few reviews I have received have been fantastic. I think it was good that I took a few weeks to step back and take a good look at what I need to do and where I need to go to keep moving toward my goals. Now, it's time to put my head down and charge full steam ahead. Thanks for all the support and encouragement I have been getting. You all are the reason I keep at this serial. I want to finish it for you, the best support group a person could ask for, my posse! With deepest gratitude,Stephen

Few and Far Between

Hello Posse,I'm sure you have noticed that my blog posts have been few and far between lately. In truth, I was very burnt out after getting the ebook of Into the West: Sharon Springs published. I had been staying up until about 4 or 5 am many days working on getting everything set and ready for publication. I was spending a good deal of money on advertising and promotions. I put the book up for pre-order to try to help create some anticipation and possibly gain some extra sales. It was a lot of work and I was excited to do it. However, since releasing the book for pre-release sales and including all sales up to today, I have made about $6. Needless to say, the excitement is gone. I am really at a loss. I had a great response when I gave the first book in the serial away for free. It made it to number 41 on the best sellers list for free westerns on Amazon. I had hoped that would bring more readers to the serial. Unfortunately, that has not happened. I have been spending a lot of time discussing my options with P.R. I really want to finish this serial because the story is important to me but I am spending a lot of time and money on something that isn't profitable. In fact, I'm losing a LOT of money daily on this endeavor. The options we have discussed are:1. Finish my Into the West Saga Serial (ITWSS) to the fifth novella as planned. Ignore the sales and just consider this serial as practice, which is basically why I started out with a novella serial in the first place, to learn to write well in small instalments in case I sucked at writing fiction. 2. Take a break from this serial and write something in another genre to possibly get some actual profits coming in so I can come back and finish the ITWSS later. 3. Produce the first audiobook for ITWSS and see if that brings in any new interest. This is where I'm at right now. No matter which one I end up choosing I will be writing the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted and posting it on the hidden page on my website for those who have read Into the West: Sharon Springs and found the clues to find the hidden page. I actually plan to start writing that either this weekend or Monday but beyond those plans, I don't know where I will be going from here. I do promise to let you know when the first chapter of Into the West: Most Wanted is up on the hidden page for those who have or will eventually find it. I also promise to let you know where I go from here as soon as I figure that out. If any of you have suggestions. I would love to hear from you.Until then, thanks for following my crazy attempts at building a writing career. My greatest hope is to make it so you can all one day tell your friends you followed me when I was just a struggling writer before I became NYT best selling author! If you are going to dream, dream big! Take care,Stephen

Decisions, Decisions . . .

Hello Posse,So . . . I wrote this post in April and forgot to post it. LOL Here is the original post with some added bits at the end.I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday, if you celebrate that holiday, of course. P.R. and I had a wonderful relaxing weekend and actually got to spend some much needed quality time together before P.R. had to go on another business trip. I had been staying up until 4 am working on Into the West: Sharon Springs and once it was done I needed a break. I had hoped that this book release would be better than the previous two as I have had people telling me they had enjoyed the other books and were looking forward to reading the new book, I did a lot more promotions for this release, and I did a pre-buy with advertising to build the hype but sadly the sales numbers are still not there.I have had to come to the realization that this serial just may not be a money maker at any point in time, which is okay. I was writing this as a way to learn the business and improve my skills. However, I can't continue to keep pouring my time and money into something that is not going to give me any returns. I spent at least $1,000 last year on computer programs, services, supplies, advertising, etc and I made $24 from sales. Probably mostly due to my mother's purchases. I think it is time to step away from this western serial for now and try writing something else. I plan to write the first chapter of the next book to give people the conclusion to the cliffhanger but then I will leave the story there for a while and see if I can't get some money coming in through another storyline. I hope to be able to get enough money coming in that I will be able to come back and finish this serial as I have it planned in my head. This story has been very personal and I want to bring it to it's conclusion eventually. Thank you all for following along and I hope you will come with me on the next part of this journey. Sincerely,Stephen

Reserve Your Copy TODAY!

Hello Posse,I hope you had a great week and your weekend is shaping up to be even better! It seems like it has taken me forever and a day to get part three of my Into the West Saga Serial ready to go. My first two novellas did not get a lot of attention as I was just starting out and was completely unknown outside of my own personal circle. I spent all of last year trying to correct that. I worked on several books with award-winning, best-selling, western author Scott Harris. I also began networking through social media to increase my online presence. Doing these things has increased my following and is continuing to broaden my reach for potential readers. While this has been helpful for my visibility, there are people who have been waiting extremely patiently (except for mom and thank you for that) for part three, Into the West: Sharon Springs, to come out. The good news is: THE WAIT IS OVER . . . almost. We still have a few edits to make and a few things to tweak but we do have the Amazon page ready to go so everyone can reserve their copy today while we finish up everything. Because of the set up I was using for the Amazon sale, I could not set the price at $0.99 like the other two books. this one will sell for $1.99 but this one is longer and it comes with a special promotion. Somewhere in the extra bits of the book (acknowledgements, copyright information, about the author, coming soon, etc.) I have hidden clues to find a hidden page on my website. If you find the link to the secret page, you will have to enter a password. There is a trivia question in the book and the answer to that question is the password to the secret page. What is your prize on the secret page?As soon as I have the first chapter of part four, Into the West: Most Wanted, written I will post it on the secret page for all of you who have solved the clues. Going forward I plan to hide several such pages on my website with clues hidden in my books to help you find them. Thank you for following my career and I hope you enjoy part three Into the West: Sharon Springs. Have a great weekend!StephenWarning: If part one or two made you cry, be sure to read part three with a box of tissues. I have been told it made people cry even more than the first two. I don't do that on purpose, honest!