Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 71

Haunted Lake Available on Smashwords

My newest novel, Haunted Lake, is now available on Smashwords. It should be up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in a couple of days. :0)

ROW80 Check In – Jan. 5

I had two goals for ROW80. One of them was to get Haunted Lake edited. Well, I kind of cheated on that one because I had two whole days off from work, so I edited during that time, before ROW80. After finding a few typos, a couple of discrepancies, and one really obvious contradiction (my beta readers didn't even catch it, lol), I think I have it finished. I'm one of those writers that edits chapter by chapter as I write so that I don't have as much to edit later. So that goal is accomplished…even if I cheated by starting early. But I saw no reason to waste those two days. And, unlike NaNo, you don't get slapped on the hand for this.

Also, I'm ahead on word count by a little over 500. My goal was 500 words per day, and I wrote 991 the first day. On the second day, I struggled to get word count in (but I did it) because I'm not loving this story yet. But I felt the same way about Guardian Vampire and it ended up being the best thing I had written. So I'm not giving up on this baby.

Guardian Vampire Sales!

I usually don't post twice in one day but I just checked my ranking on Amazon for Guardian Vampire. It's #36 in Romance:Vampires and #40 in Kindle Ebooks:Romance:Romantic Suspense and #45 in Romance:Romantic Suspense. My sales suddenly jumped today. Wow! Overall, I'm at #1,864. That's not huge, but I'm not crying about it. :0)

I'm a little over 4200 in ranking at Barnes and Noble.

I was just so excited I wanted to tell someone. Those numbers may not be a big deal for some authors, but they are for me!

ROW80 and Book Sales

Today is the first day of ROW80 and I'm really excited. I'm happy to be participating and also happy to help by being a sponsor. I hope I can encourage authors along the way. I have a lot to do tonight, including getting back on the workout schedule (boy, will I be sore tomorrow), but I plan on writing at least my 500 words, and hopefully more.

I was amazed at how my Barnes & Noble sales of Guardian Vampire were so much better than Amazon. Well, now that's changed, and Amazon sales are better than B & N now. Amazon sales are definitely better for my other titles, but part of that is due to the fact that I can't get B & N to take down the Smashwords versions, and though I've opted out of B & N on Smashwords now, they haven't done anything about it either. Which divides my sales up on those titles depending on which one the customer happens to click on. And I don't know how many I've sold of the Smashwords version until B & N sends those reports. Grrrrr. The real time reporting was one of the reasons I chose to go with PubIt! instead of staying with Smashwords. Plus, the titles are much more searchable now. Of course AFTER I decided to make the change, THEN Smashwords announces that B & N is paying 60% on the titles through Smashwords. Grrrrr again.

I hope everyone had a Happy New Year!

Must Reads!

There are two novellas that I absolutely love. I just finished reading Eaters by Michelle DePaepe. If you like zombies at all, you'll like this one. It was just awesome. A little birdie told me there are two more novellas in the series.

Also, I'm about 1/3 through Devil's Eye by Kait Nolan. And I'm really loving it. It's such a treat to read two very different, but very good, stories in a row. You've got to check these two out!

Goals for ROW80

It's with excitement and anticipation that I await January 3, the beginning of ROW80. NaNoWriMo was such a drain on my time and energy that I vowed to never do it again. But ROW80 is much more reasonable for those of us who have a life that we can't take time off from. (I don't think my boss would approve.)

I have two goals for ROW80. The first goal is to write at least 500 words a day on a new novel. That would put me at 40,000 words at the end of ROW80. But I will probably write more. It's better to set a goal you know you can achieve and do better than to set a goal you're not sure about and fail. And if I miss a day, I can write 1,000 words the next day and catch up easily.

The second goal is to have the novel I've already written, Haunted Lake, edited and published at the mid point of ROW80, which would be 40 days. That's reasonable, I think.

I can't wait to see what everyone is is shooting for!

List of ROW80 Participants

After Christmas Book Sales

I've been very disappointed in my books sales on Amazon. I thought there would be a sudden rush of sales because of new Kindles. Sales are still trickling. Although, last year, when I first got my Kindle, I downloaded the Stephen King book I wanted and didn't download anything else until I was finished with it. So I'm still hoping the rush will come.

On the other hand, sales of my new book, Guardian Vampire, are doing well on Barnes and Noble. I'm selling about four times more of that particular book on B & N than on Amazon. And, so far, I'm still averaging a 5 star rating. Yay! I finally got into the 4 digit numbers there. I got into the three digits numbers with Club Blood last summer on Amazon, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed with Guardian Vampire…if not on Amazon, then on B & N. :0)

New Releases!

My two good friends, Jonathan Eli and Michelle DePaepe have brand new books out just in time for the Christmas rush.

Jonathan's novel, Memphis Connection, can be found on Amazon and Smashwords

Michelle's novella, Eaters, can be found on Amazon and will be uploaded to Smashwords and B & N soon.

I enjoyed Memphis Connection and can't wait to read Eaters. The cover of Eaters already gives me the shivers. :0)

And the winner is….

Jonathan Eli! Jonathan has won a free copy of The Gardener by Michelle DePaepe. He already has a copy of Guardian Vampire, so I guess I'll just have to figure out something else to give him. LOL

Jonathan, I'll give you the code for The Gardener on Smashwords.

Yesterday's Interview

I'm a little disappointed in the number of comments on yesterday's interview. I do know that many of the people who usually comment are extremely busy on their own projects right now, but come on…you can stop in and say hello. Especially for a chance to win a couple of eBooks. :0) Anyway, I'm going to leave the post open for comments through the weekend, so there's still a chance to win.