Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 30

A Hectic Week

I got no writing done this past week. None. As most of you know, my husband broke and sprained his ankle 2 1/2 weeks ago. He’s now having some complications that caused us to take a trip to the doctor this morning (ours is open on Sundays). I’ve always known my husband does most of the housework. But now that I’m having to do it, I’m realizing just how much he’s doing. I’m having to do what he usually does, plus wait on him a little since the doctor told him to stay off the foot as much as possible. He was trying to walk on it too soon.

Anyway…I decided to concentrate on the house and on hubby last week. To me, that’s first priority. Between being so busy at work plus the extra work at home, it’s about all I can do. I’m not going to push myself or my writing will suffer. I’m going to try to write at least two or three days this week, but its not set in stone. Part of that will be determined by what hubby’s ultrasound shows tomorrow. We’re hoping it’s not a blood clot.

Fitness Friday-Not Much to Say

I don’t have a lot to say today. This is mostly due to having a huge workload (spring is our busy season), so my brain is kind of fried. I didn’t have the results I wanted this week, but it wasn’t too bad. A half pound gain can be anything, even a little bit of extra water weight. To be honest, I was afraid it would be more because I’ve been so busy, it’s been kind of hard to keep up with everything. And I haven’t been able to exercise at lunch because I’ve only taken about 20 minutes for lunch most days this week. One day I didn’t even go to lunch, just wolfed down something here at my desk. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The big orders are slowing down, so it’s mostly small internet orders I’ll be dealing with now. Whew. I’m SO tired.

Stats for this week:

Beginning weight: 193

Today’s weight: 175

This week’s gain: .5 lbs. (notice the decimal-half lb., not 5 lbs. hahahaha)

Total loss: 18 lbs.

No Dogs Allowed?

Dogs aren’t allowed on the couch at our house. Are they? Bwa ha ha.

Sunday Update 3/10/13

Some of you read my whiny post the other day. I was at the point of giving up because my book sales were so bad right now. My .99 sale in February didn’t do squat. I felt like I was wasting my time. But then, other authors, through my blog and private email, let me know that I was actually doing much better than they were. Which made me feel kind of like a jerk for complaining. It was my early success that made me get so discouraged later. I thought the momentum would keep up, and it didn’t. But I’ve decided to keep writing and see where it goes. $100 a month is still income, right? I just hope it doesn’t go below that. But if it does, I need to keep producing new books for people to buy. Anyway, because of the time of discouragement, I didn’t write all week. And then, Saturday, I buckled down and wrote 1268 words. Not too bad.

I participated in Read an Ebook Week last week on Smashwords. I put all my .99 books on sale as free and all my other books at half price. There was a coupon code on each book page. I had about 300 downloads of my free books. and I actually had three sales of the half-priced ones. I know three sales isn’t much, but I rarely sell books at Smashwords. My sales through Smashwords come from their retail partners, Apple, Sony, Kobo, etc., the most sales coming from Sony. So three sales directly through Smashwords is good. And maybe, just maybe, some of the people who downloaded free books will try a paid book later. Who knows? It certainly didn’t cost me a thing.

Join “A Heart More Focused” on Fridays!

Who wants to join Erika and the rest of us for #aHeartFitFriday? Here is Erika’s lastest Friday post: A Heart More Focused Every Friday, she posts about her goals and successes (as do I) and she has a linky where you can link your posts, too. Come on, guys, I know there are many of you who want and need to be more fit. A lot of you are writers, and sitting at a computer can be detrimental to fitness. Take the plunge. Post about your fitness goals and successes, then enter your link on Erika’s Friday posts. Let’s do it!

Fitness Friday-Am I Losing Too Fast?

I’ve been thinking about my weight loss lately and wondering if something is wrong with me. I don’t know why I can’t just be happy I’m losing weight. It just seems like I’m losing weight faster than I should be based on what I’m eating. I’m not counting calories anymore, just trying to eat less. When I first suspected I had diabetes, one of the symptoms was unexplained weight loss. And now I’m feeling like my weight loss is “unexplained” again.

But maybe I’m doing better than I thought. I started thinking about some of the changes I’ve made. A big one is breakfast. A friend of mine at work was bringing me a biscuit (sometimes with sausage, sometimes with egg & cheese) every weekday morning. Now I only allow him to do this on Fridays. So the other four days, I’m eating oatmeal or maybe a couple of slices of cheese. Those biscuits were about 570 calories. So, I’m cutting 2280 from four days of biscuits, and only adding back maybe 650 calories. So I’m saving over 1600 calories per week right there. Also, I’m not eating any snacks at night most of the time. I’m eating practically NO sweets, just a bite or two a week, maybe. So when I look at all that, I guess I’m cutting down more than I thought. See, I’ve talked myself out of worrying about losing too fast.

Stats for this week:

Beginning weight: 193

Today’s weight: 174.5

This week’s loss: 1.5 lbs.

Total loss: 18.5 lbs.

Is Writing What I Really Should Be Doing?

This is going to be a whining post, so if you’re not in the mood for that, just stop right here.

I hear writers say all the time, “It’s not about the money, it’s about doing what I love to do.” Really? I could make myself feel better by telling myself that if I’m not making any money. But it wouldn’t solve my problem, would it? Because, yeah, it IS about the money. I don’t mean that I don’t love writing. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have started it in the first place. But I want to do this for a LIVING. The cool thing about that is I could have the best of both worlds. Do what I love AND make money doing it. And I used to. I USED to make pretty decent money writing.

A couple of years ago, I was averaging FIVE times the income I’m making now, and that was back when I had fewer books out and they were all .99. (This isn’t counting the two months where I made a LOT of money. I left that out of the average.) Now I’m lucky in some months to make even $100. It fluctuates, but every month pretty much sucks now. Yesterday, I was looking at my book sales, and I only sold about five books. What??? That was REALLY bad. When ebooks and self-publishing were first getting started, it was so much easier to sell books. Now, readers have to slog through THOUSANDS of books to even find mine. In January of 2011, my novella, Guardian Vampire, got up to #134 in the Amazon store. That was pure euphoria. I’ve written several books since then that are so much better than GV, but they’ll never see that kind of success. There’s too much competition.

So how do you get people to find your books? I haven’t a clue. I took out an ad in IndTale magazine. I haven’t seen ANY results from that. I did a couple of other things, but they didn’t pan out either. And I can’t afford ads in more well-known venues. I’m terrible at self-promotion. With a full-time job, it’s hard to even have time for that.

This is the bottom line. Should I keep doing this? Will the writers who aren’t really serious about publishing, who are just dabbling, finally stop when they don’t make money, and trim down the competition? Everyone has a right to write and publish, so I’m not suggesting ANYONE stop publishing if that’s what they want to do. But I keep thinking some people will just get tired of it. I’m almost there myself. Not because I’m not serious about this, but because I AM serious about this…as a business. If I’m not making money writing, shouldn’t I pursue something else? “But, but, Lauralynn! You love writing! Keep doing it even if you’re not making money!” No. Because I NEED a business that makes money. And I can’t keep writing AND do something else AND do my full-time job. It’s a time thing. I need to spend my time in a productive manner. I don’t WANT to live paycheck to paycheck. I have $11 in my regular checking account (not my business one) and my mortgage was due on March 1. My husband will lose about 2 weeks pay because of his broken ankle. I need to be doing something in addition to my full time job so this kind of thing doesn’t happen.

Yes, I know I’ve probably shared more than I should have today. No one should have to hear about my financial woes. But this is MY blog. And I need to vent here.

End of rant.

Read an Ebook Week

Check out Read an Ebook Week over at Smashwords. I know I whined about my .99 experiment not working, but I do participate in Ebook Week. I had forgotten about it and only got the email from Smashwords on Sunday. All of my .99 books are free this week. My other books are half price. I’ve had quite a few downloads on the free ones already. Funny how no one has bought any of the half priced ones. LOL

Anyway, here is my Smashwords page in case anyone is interested in getting some free books this week.

Lauralynn Elliott

You can see the coupon code for each book in the upper right area of each book page. For the half-priced ones the code is REW50 and for the free ones it’s RW100.

Sunday Update 3/3/13

There’s not too much going on. I only wrote 2 days last week for total of 1745. That’s about half of what I would like to see on word count, but I’m still all about time instead of word count. So I was three days short of what I should have been writing. I’m still trying to get into the good habits again. I feel good about this week, though. I’m feeling more into to my WIP.

If you keep up with my blog, you know my husband cracked a bone in his ankle, so he’s on crutches. That’s caused me a little extra work, but I don’t mind at all. He’s always taking care of me.

I ordered the Flylady’s Office in a Bag with Control Journal. I’m trying to get my life under control. You know, the cleaning house part? Flylady is all about organization in all areas, but house cleaning is her main focus. We’ll see how that goes.

What’s up with ya’ll?

The .99 Experiment

For my three books that sell for $2.99, I did a Valentine’s sale that started February 14 and ran through the rest of the month. Those three books were available for .99. So, how did the sale work out for me? Let’s just say, I’ll probably never put my books on sale for .99 again (I have some that have always been .99). Let’s look at the numbers. I might have sold 4 or 5 more of the books that were on sale than I usually do. But it takes 6 books at .99 at a 35% royalty to equal what I would make on a $2.99 book at a 70% royalty. Do the math. I probably LOST money. Or at least didn’t make any more than I would have made. I thought the reason one of my older books (and a different older book in the UK) was still selling better than my newer ones was the price. Haunted Lake is still my best seller in the US on Amazon. Guardian Vampire is still my best seller in the UK. Since those are .99 books, I really did suspect it was the price. But I think I was wrong. There is SOMETHING about those two books that keeps them selling better than any of the others. Guardian Vampire is still in the lead on B & N. I JUST DON’T GET IT. Why do those two books still perform the best? Are they more searchable? Or maybe because they are older, there are more books out there where they are listed as “customers who bought this also bought…”. I will admit, I didn’t really publicize this sale as much as I should have. I was really busy here at work and was just trying to keep my head above water. Two or three of my friends mentioned it on Facebook and/or Twitter, so I really appreciate that. I really need a good marketing plan. I know people say “just write a good book”, but people have to FIND your book before you can sell it. I took out an ad in Indtale magazine this month. That’s a start. We’ll see if that helps.

Anyway, I think the experiment was a flop. I do plan on doing a free giveaway on one of my books soon, but that will be where readers get a free coupon code from Smashwords. And there will be an extra gift for the grand prize winner. When I do the free stuff, though, I do it mostly for fun, especially since I like to give gifts. I think the grand prize is pretty cool, and it’s something we actually sell here at my day job. I’ll probably do it mid-March because the prize is kind of an out-doorsy thing, and maybe it will be a little warmer then. Piqued your interest yet???