Stephanie Erickson's Blog, page 10

5,000 Sales!

Hi everyone!  Sorry for the radio silence lately!  It's been crazy!  But, The Blackout rolled over 5,000 sales last week, and I couldn't be more excited!  Additionally, on Friday I got a wonderful post on Facebook from a follower that read: 

Edo Camponeschi:
Hey Stephanie! I just started reading The Blackout and it's only fair to inform you that it is righteously freaking me out. I'm really enjoying it, and I can't wait to read Jimmy Jean too! Keep on writing! :)



This is the kind of stuff that makes those 1 star reviews more palatable!  


In other news, overall, my sales have been great, but are slumping.  Not sure if it's because it's February and sales are slow for everyone, or if it's because I've been so quiet on the social networks.  Trying to double down and do my part at least, so I can eliminate one variable.  With the baby so close to delivery it's hard, but I need to do what I can when I can!  :-)  

Jimmy Jean is Live!

Jimmy Jean went live a few days ago!  I haven't had enough time to devote to it since I published it, so it hasn't had many sales, but here I am now!  :-)  So go buy it people!  It's 99 cents, and is a short story about one of The Blackout's best loved, and most stubborn characters!  


In other news, I'm thinking I might want to rewrite the last chapter of The Cure I just wrote.  I'm not sure I like where the story went.  I'm thinking I could get a little deeper into the characters by taking it a different direction.  But, that means erasing like 2,500 words of work!  With 5 weeks left until my due date, erasing is not the direction I'm trying to go!  But, good writing is!  :-)


What I'm Reading:  I just finished Pure by Julianna Baggott.  I liked it!  It was so different and imaginative.  I didn't care for it being written in present tense, and in fact, there were a few tense shifts throughout the book that brought me out of the story a little.  I was also wondering who the narrator was during the whole story.  In the prologue, there's a first person narrator that we don't really see again.  What was Baggott's purpose for that?  Overall, I'd say 3.5 stars.  It was by far the most out of the box thing I've read in quite awhile.  But, I'm not sure if I liked it enough to read the others.  For now, I'm super excited about diving into Scarlet!!  


All for now.  Don't forget to buy Jimmy Jean!  And tell all your friends!  ;-) Buy Jimmy Jean

Jimmy Jean is ready for publication!

Wow!  This feels fast!  Particularly since I spent 3 years on The Blackout and 2 months on Jimmy Jean, but Jimmy Jean's very own short story is waiting for publication on Amazon!  It will available within the next 12 hours for 99 cents!  

I've been adopted!

I'm kindof excited!  It means several weeks of promos, interviews and more for me and my book!  I'm really hoping it'll help generate more interest in the contest I'm running!!  Looking forward to seeing how it goes!  

Didn't get any writing done today.  Wednesdays are just too busy with the writer's group and work.  Tomorrow's more of the same, but hopefully Friday will be a productive writing day!!  


Hope you all are having a great week!

Contest, Word Count and Sales

Alright, I give up on my word count for today.  I had such a great day yesterday!  Wrote 5,000 words!  I just can't concentrate today!  I keep getting interrupted by phone calls or emails, or work.  Hopefully I can still make my ultimate goal of finishing the first draft before Grace arrives!

Sales Update:  After the blow to the book over the weekend, my sales topped 4,000 yesterday!  I couldn't be more excited and relieved that people are still interested!
Contest:  Don't forget about the contest guys!  There's lots of time to ente

WIN A $25-$75 Amazon Giftcard!

WIN A $25-$75 AMAZON GIFTCARD

Enter The Blackout Review Drive! 
To enter, leave your review between 7 p.m. on 1/27/13 and 7 p.m. on 2/10/13. Then, message me on/post the link to your review below. 

Prize:
For the first 49 entries I receive, the prize will be a $25 Amazon gift card.
If I get 50-74 entries, the prize will go up to a $50 Amazon gift card.
If I get 75 or more entries, the prize will be a $75 Amazon gift card.

Want more chances to win?
Post your review on Goodreads, and send me the link along with your Amazon link for an extra entry!
Share the contest on Twitter or Facebook and get 1 more entry! Include links to your shares in your message to me. 

Winner will be selected using Random.org on Feb. 11. If you post your review but don't contact me, I don't have any way to notify you of your win. Please don't skip that step! You must post your review on Amazon during the contest period to enter and be eligible for additional entries.

BONUS!
The book is on sale this week for 99 cents! No excuses! Buy the book and post your reviews! Ready? GO! 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Blackout-ebook/dp/B00A6E23JG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Working on getting my motor running

Read a quote today, "If someone takes the wind out of your sails, get your motor running!"  So that's what I'm doing!  


After someone got a few friends together and marked all of my negative reviews as helpful and all of my positive reviews as not helpful - which in turn pushed all the negative reviews to my front page.  It tanked my sales, and my ranking.  


So, I'm working on a contest and a sale on the book to hopefully recover.  I will post details once everything is up and running!  Fingers crossed!  :-)

Trying to refocus!

Whew!  I thought things would calm down after the holidays and I could get back on track!  So far, that track has eluded me, haha!  But, I'm hoping now I can get back to The Cure.  Still no word on Jimmy Jean, but I'm hoping that's just because the editor is busy, not because she hated it, lol.  

So, I have considerably less time to finish The Cure now than I did when I started, so I'm trying to reassess my goals and determine if it's even realistic to have a first draft done before the baby is born and if so what my daily word count goal should be. I was thinking if I can get average 10,000 words per week on the book, I'll need 6.5 weeks to finish the first draft.  That's a stretch for me, but I need to buckle down if I want it done, and I do!  


So, anyway we'll see how it goes!  Wish me luck!  

Progress

After a day of pondering, I submitted two versions of JImmy Jean to the editor for review.  Hopefully she'll like the one I like, haha! The problem with it is making sure it still has it's own complete bell curve, but doesn't give to much of The Blackout away.  I think it'll still need some tweaking, but hopefully, I'm getting there.  It's taking too much of my time away from writing The Cure.  I'm so unbelievably behind with my word count on that one!  


AND!  One of my author contacts finished her first draft of her next book already!  She and I released our books the same day, and she already has another one nearly ready to go!  Watch for Shannon Meyer's "Immune" in March!!  


There's no way The Cure will be ready by then.  I must find a way to be more prolific I think.  1 novel every 3 years probably isn't gonna cut it.  And with the baby coming very soon, it'd be nice to have a plan in place!  Anyway, I'm rambling now, so I'll stop.  :-)  

I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!  

Stuck!

Crap!  In working on the Jimmy Jean story, I seem to have written myself into a place I didn't want to be.  I think it's a better story than the first draft, but it's morphed into a retelling of The Blackout, which I didn't want at all.  I wanted it to be new, and I absolutely didn't want to give anything away when it comes to what happens in The Blackout.  So, now I'm stuck.  I think I'll have to consider what to do with it for a few days, and where to take it.  I'd really like to skip over a few months, go right to Jimmy's final moments and end the story, but I can't really do that, lol.  Seems like it's all or nothing.  Any suggestions people?  

Oh!  Yesterday I rolled over 3,000 total sales!  Yay!  Thank you everyone!  And keep those positive and constructive reviews coming!  :-)  


Happy Sunday everyone!