Stephen Burckhardt's Blog: My Blog Ramblings, page 77

Technology is a Blessing and a Curse

[image error]Today has been very frustrating. My computer was acting up and I had to contact my tech support guys to get things working again. They did that in a few hours but it killed my writing momentum. When technology works, it can really make your life simpler. Sad thing is, it seems like it screws up more than it works some days. Then there is also the internet connection. We paid to have high speed internet put in the house and when it stays connected, the speed is great, the problem is it keeps losing the dang connection! It doesn't matter how high your high speed connection is if it can't keep connected! It's days like today I wish I could just go back to a typewriter! But if we were back in those days, I wouldn't have this website to connect to all of you or be able to self-publish my books. It is definitely a trade off. Occasional convenience traded for a slightly higher blood-pressure when it doesn't work.

The New Cover Art is LIVE!

I checked online a few hours ago and all the new cover art is finally live on all the sales pages. *sigh of relief*I had no idea it was going to take as long as it did for all the art work to show up in the websites after I clicked to have them published on the production pages. It was supposed to take from 24-72 hours but there was a notice that I needed to clarify something about my keywords (which I had not changed from the first printing) before they could process my cover change request.I missed this because I thought it had to be a mistake as I had not changed any of the keywords since the first publishing of any of the books. After I got that straightened out things were processed without a problem but it cause more of a delay that was anticipated. But none of that matters now as everything is live and the redesign is basically finished with just a few minor tweaks here and there to make sure I have everything updated across all of the social media platforms I have. But that is something for tomorrow. Now, I'm going to go play with my advertising app and make another short video to post online. The advertising is obviously working because I have had visitors from all over the world checking out my website. It's pretty cool when you see people from the other side of the planet checking out your work. Even if my sales don't go up right now I'm still getting attention. I'm pretty happy about that.

The New Cover Art is Slowly Showing Up

It looks like the new cover art is slowly starting to filter through the websites. All but one is showing up on my author page on Amazon and I'm still just waiting for the paperbacks to change on Barnes and Noble's website. The cover art for Into the West: Sharon Springs is almost finished, I'm learning more and more about using my video clip ad software, and I've got my weekend cleared for writing. Things are moving in the right direction . . . finally . . . again.I'm really liking this advertising app. It's Ripl. It is so easy to use and has so many options. You can even make several ads at one time and then schedule when you want them to be posted to your social media. I plan on making several different ads this weekend and set them up to post throughout the next week to try out the schedule function. So far its worked great. I hope to be able to give a few spoilers on Monday for those who are interested in such things. So keep watching the blogs.

Not all Self-Publishing Sites are the Same.

I had been toying idea of taking my books off of nook and just going with Amazon so I could enroll in their exclusive deal and earn a higher percentage rate when I sell a book. But after trying to change the cover art on the books, I realize the Barnes & Noble self publisher is so much easier to work with and I actually seem to earn more money on their site. Who knew?If they only had their own exclusive deal to earn a higher percentage rate on there, I'd consider dumping Amazon and just going with B&N. When I went to change all the cover art for the books that are currently on sale, it took me just a few minutes per book to change the covers on B&N's site. It was changed on their website a day later. When I went to Amazon and Create Space to change them, it took me several minutes to and an hour to get everything changed on those sites and the new images haven't shown up online at the time of this writing. Who knows how long it will take to for it to finally upload. At least going forward I know which site I will work with first. It actually does my heart good to have my books available with B&N. I worked for them for thirteen and a half years. I loved that job! I hope one day I get to walk into a brick and mortar store and find my books on their shelves. That will be the day I know I have really made my dream of being a writer come true.

Pretty Pleased with Myself Right Now

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty happy with all the changes we have been making with my website and the book covers. For a few years now, I knew in my head where I wanted to take this all but I wasn't quite sure how to get everything lined up the way I wanted it. Plus, life kept getting in my way. I feel like I'm getting on a roll now of where I want to be with my western serial. I'm excited to write again and can't wait to share with you all the rest of Elizabeth and Conner's story. There are some surprises yet to come for these two and I can't wait to share them with you. I have so many other character and story lines running in my head that I really need to get out. I hope you will all enjoy them as much as I enjoy coming up with them. It looks like it's going to take a few days for all the changes to show up across the different platforms I have been using for my books. While that is processing I'm going to start making some videos to advertise the serials and maybe even work up an ad or two to put out when book three is ready to go. Of course, if we do a live video sort of thing, it will be Dianne doing it. I have no interest in that sort of thing. I have never liked public speaking and never will. I will stick to writing and let Dianne to all the talking.So thanks for hanging in there with me, folks. With any luck things are going to start progressing quicker from now on. Time to enjoy the progress. Cheers!

New Designs are Here!

Dianne has been busy working on a complete redesign for me. We have a new look for the website and for all the books covers. Everything follows a similar color scheme and design. The book covers finally achieve the continuity we had been searching for so they all have an individual appeal that goes with the story but also has a similar basic design so you know they are all part of the same serial. So far she has all of the changes made on the website, Amazon, and Create Space but as it is 4 am where she is, she had to give up working for the night but will get the changes made on Barnes and Noble's sites tomorrow. We will also be looking at if it is financially better to take the books off of B&N.com and just go with the exclusive deal with Amazon. If we do that, I will make a higher percentage of profit off of each of my books sold but I have sold more books on B&N recently than on Amazon. I'm not sure it will really make much of a difference at this point. We are really only talking a difference of a few dollars but if I should start selling more copies, it could end up making a difference. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the new cover art and worry about the rest tomorrow. Check out the new website design and cover art and let us know what you think.

Getting My Head Back in the Game

So, if you actually regularly read my blogs (I hope there are at least a few of you out there) you know I've been out of sorts for, well, let's be honest, the last year. I missed my personal deadlines for when I wanted to publish books three and four in my serial. I have no excuse, except to say, life happens.But now I'm finding my way back to sane, or what qualifies as my sane at least. I am still dealing with a lot of stressful things: I have an appointment with a neurosurgeon in a few weeks to see if I need an in office adjustment or another brain surgery (you can guess which one I'm hoping for), we have an immigration appointment for P.R. in February (bureaucracy is so much fun), and Shaggy keeps finding new ways to be sick (this month it's intestinal worms). But I am determined to push through it all and write. The voices of my characters have started sounding off in my head again and they want to be heard. I think the one change that has really helped my determination is with P.R.'s job. P.R. had been flying out to different parts of the world for work. I spent most of October, November, and half of December home alone with Shaggy. It was almost like I was single again. I did not like it! But things have changed. P.R. is consulting for a new company now and their office happens to actually be in our town. Hallelujah!!!!This means P.R. gets to be home every night and go to the office every day like a normal person. It's going to be so weird! P.R. will still have to go on the occasional out of town trip to do work on site once in a while at different offices but most days P.R. will work in town.It's amazing how much this change has improved my mood. I have never thought of myself as a needy person, I have traveled the world alone and was single until I was 46-years-old. But it's as if I just don't function as well when P.R. is not here. I find myself just wanting to curl up with a blanket, a hot tea, and read or Netflix binge until P.R. comes home again. Now that P.R. has been home a few weeks in a row, I feel much more focused. Though I will admit my brain is not really helping matters much. I started having a few new symptoms in September (or you could say old symptoms because I had these same problems before my first brain surgery). I have been seeing my neurologist and it turns out the shunt in my head is pulling too much fluid from my brain and it's causing problems. One of the crazy symptoms is an odd balance problem. I can be walking along just fine and then I will slowly start falling over. I was walking home alone from the store the other night and almost fell over in front of an oncoming car. That was a tad unnerving. Other symptoms have started popping up again too. My vision has gotten worse and I'm losing words and names. To give you an example, I couldn't think of my dog's name the other day. I see him everyday. I say his name several times everyday and yet I still could not remember it when I was talking to P.R.. I was trying to tell P.R. that ___________ had done something cute. I kept looking at __________ trying to remember his name. I knew I knew _________'s name. But my brain just would not fill in that blank for me. I finally had to ask P.R. what _______'s name was. Shaggy!!!!It is incredibly frustrating when you know you know something but you just can't get your brain to cooperate. I find myself wanting to throw things but, of course, I don't. But you can imagine how something like this might be counterproductive to writing, seeing as how it's made up of words and all. I will persevere! I have been working on my website. I redesigned the opening page and finally got around to doing the SEO for my site. Tomorrow I'm doing the final work on the new cover art for the book series and posting the new cover art on everything. Monday I plan to reread books one and two and make sure I have all my continuity notes up to date. Then, next Friday (I teach English classes Tuesday through Thursday and don't always have extra time to write on those days, especially now that P.R. is home), I plan to sit down and start writing book three, again. I had begun writing book three but I think I want to change it a bit from where I had started to take it. I need to introduce some new character who will be important for books four and five. So there you have it. I'm still crazy but not as much as before. I'm still dealing with stressful distractions but determined to push past them to get back to work. So hang in there a bit longer if you wouldn't mind. I may be slow but I always get where I want to go and a good time is always had by all when I do! Oh, and Shaggy is feeling much better now too!

Treading Water

Hello everyone. I know I dropped out of communications for a few months without any warning or explanation. To be honest, I've been fighting some pretty heavy depression but I'm beginning to work my way back.This isn't the first time I've gone through this, and odds are it will not be my last, but I have gone through therapy for depression before and I have am familiar with the process for dealing with these emotions and I am working my process. This is actually why I dropped out of communications online, so I could focus on me for a while.It all started in September. I have a series of disappointments which were followed by some health concerns. I've been spending a lot of time with doctors and will be seeing a neurosurgeon in January to address a few issues that have presented recently. I do not believe it will be anything too daunting but it's extremely frustrating and time consuming. While I have been dealing with these things, P.R. has been in high demand at work and has been traveling a lot. P.R. was in,Japan for most of October, came home for a week, and then returned to Japan for the rest of November. After that, I thought we would get to spend some time together in December but something came up and P.R. had to leave the country again for another two weeks. With luck, P.R. will at the very least be able to stay in town for our fourth anniversary on the 22nd, Christmas, and New Years. With P.R. having to be gone so much I haven't been sharing everything with P.R. that is going on with me health-wise. there is nothing P.R. would be able to do to help me while out of the country and I do not want P.R. to worry and be distracted with my health issues while at work so I have just kept most of what is going on with me to myself. In fact, there is only one person I have shared everything with. Not being able to have support here with me really does add to the feelings of isolation I have been dealing with right now. While I've been going through all of this, the character voices that are usually constantly chattering in my head, have been silent. I miss the noise and the ideas constantly floating in the background of my own thoughts. This past week I have begun to hear whispers beginning again and ideas have started surfacing for book three and four, I still haven't had any revelations for book five but I think that will come as I work through the story. I have no idea how fast I will be able to work through this depression and get back into the swim of things but for right now I'm doing a good job of treading water and keeping my head up. That in itself is great accomplishment. I may not be able to completely shake this until I get to see the neurosurgeon and know exactly where I stand health-wise. Whether the news is good or bad, I think I'll be in a better place once I just have all the facts. It's the not knowing that is really weighing on me. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get in until the end of January so I still have quite a while to wait and the increasing symptoms are detracting from my process. For now, I would just like to thank you for your patience and understanding. I will do my best to keep you informed about future publications. I love writing these books and I hope you love reading them. Keep watching my blogs for more updates. Thank you!Stephen Burckhardt

Don't Quote Me On This

Because I would rather quote you!  I need a quote for the new cover art for Into the West: A New Home. If you have read this book, just write me a one line quote about it and send it to me at Stephen.Burckhardt@aol.com. I will pick the best quote for the cover. Disclaimer: by sending your quote to my email. You are gifting me full rights to use your name and quote on any promotional media, from book covers to websites and any other media I so choose, from this date forward without claim to any compensation, monetary or otherwise, other than my deepest gratitude.  Which will, by the way,  be deep and eternal! 

My Crazy Life

Things have been so insane lately around here. I've suddenly been getting a lot of students booking classes with me. Which is great, I need the money, but it also takes time away form my writing. I'm working hard to have set schedules so that each of these endeavors gets plenty of my time devoted to them without having to sacrifice too much time with P.R..I've been a bit disappointed lately. For months, I had been planning a trip for P.R. and for my 50th birthday, which is coming up here in a few weeks. It was going to be just a short trip about 5 hours from here to relax and go hot air ballooning on my birthday. P.R. had asked for this time off months ago. However, last week P.R.'s company decided while they would let P.R. not come into the office for work they decided to require P.R. to be on-call for that week. For P.R., being on-call means having to be where P.R. can be reached at any time and have access to a computer to do IT work if it should be necessary. It's rather hard to take a two hour hot air balloon ride if you have to be next to your computer and have reliable access to a high-speed WiFi connection. Needless to say, I'm not happy with P.R.'s company right now!If it was any other birthday I would not be upset but this is my 50th for crying out loud,  P.R. notified them months in advance, and it was all approved months ago! I'm trying very hard to not let this get to me but as someone with two serious health conditions that have tried to kill me more than once, I look forward to my birthdays, especial big milestones like 50 because I am damn lucky to still be here to see it.Ugh, such is life!On an up note, Dianne has finished the redesign for Into the west: The Orphan Train. Next will be Into the West: A New Home and then Into the West: Sharon Springs. We are going with a more generic cover in hopes to appeal to more readers. The stories are really character dramas that are set in the 1800s more than hardcore traditional westerns so we decided to try to appeal to a more general audience. I think she has hit on a good layout. Check it out for yourselves and let us know what you think.