S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 121

Sunday Update – January 3, 2016

My biggest hurdle for the next month will be remembering that it’s 2016, not 2015. Lol. I already put the wrong date on my first Instagram photo of 2016! Anyway, a new year and my home-vacation is almost over. I slept in extra late this morning (8:30am) because it’s up at 6:00 for the next five days! That and my youngest daughter has surgery tomorrow morning to get the rods out of her arm. I want tomorrow DONE WITH and moving on from there, back to school and back to life. Back to the gym (I can’t wait) and solid word counts every day. I’m looking forward to it.

Last night, I thought I would write but instead I sat down and plotted out the last five of six scenes of the book! I’m in the home stretch! I hope to be done by January 15. Let’s see if I make it. All in all, I’m really happy with the way this book is going. It’s got a good mystery and good character development. My mysteries are not life-altering nor mind-blowing, but they’re interesting and different. I was even able to ask my husband questions and his help got the mystery moving along. I hope readers enjoy them.

I can’t believe the week is over! It flew by. We did a lot. Had some play dates. Went out to dinner. Had family over. All in all, it was a good holiday vacation. Today, we take down the tree and get the house back to normal. Yay!

What else happened this week?

Had kids over on Tuesday and they played Wii, dress-up, and Beados. It was a great way to spend the day!

I enjoyed plenty of drinks this past week amongst all my usual work at home (cooking, cleaning, writing!)

We ate really well this week! Crab and lobster New Year’s Eve dinner…

New Year’s Day lunch. I really want to eat more Japanese this year…

And black-eyed pea stew for New Year’s Day dinner.

It was a good week at home. Lots of sleep. Lots of good food. Now we just need to get through tomorrow and we can tackle 2016 with gusto!

2016: The Year I Give No F*cks

Yep, I’m putting it right there in the title, though I censored it in case you are disturbed by such profanity (if so, brace yourself!) 2015 was the Year I Say No, and I did a very good job of that, to be sure. I plain ol’ said NO or FUCK THIS to many things this past year. But sometimes NO just wasn’t enough, and near the end of the year, I started to say FUCK THIS more instead. I threw up my hands and chose not to give a fuck.

There was this time this past year when everything came to a head for me. I was giving out good advice, someone got all up in my face about it, and I said FUCK THIS, deleted all my advice, put it in a bag, and took it home. NO ADVICE FOR YOU! I’m tired of the ungrateful behavior of so many people, so I closed up shop and moved on. You know what? That felt great. I don’t need to sit around and give fucks when people or the world don’t want them. I’ll save my fucks for the stuff that really matters: myself, my writing, my family, my friends.

Because there are only so many things I can control, and all the things I can’t control only deserve so much of my energy. I am learning what is deserving of energy and what is not, and I will make some mistakes this coming year, but overall, I’m going to come to terms with plenty of parts of my life, professional and personal. I turn 40 this year (FORTY, FOR-TY) and I am over a lot of stupid stuff. OVER IT. Wow, that’s freeing! I keep saying over and over in my brain, “I don’t give a fuck.” Yep. That feels pretty good.

Head Down, Keep Writing! Give no fucks about all the stuff I can’t control. Continue to say NO to the stuff that sucks away my positive energy. Yep, this is 2016 in a nutshell.

Now, here are my goals for the year…

Books And Writing

I have a very busy year planned out and I hope to meet all of these goals:

I plan to PUBLISH two cozy mysteries and WRITE a third.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH two more Kami No Sekai short stories and bundle them all.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH the first of a new scifi series.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH a scifi shared-world novella.

I plan to WRITE and PUBLISH one non-fiction book.

I plan to update the covers for FACE TIME and the whole Nogiku Series.

I plan to bundle the Nogiku Series.

I plan to give away books to my newsletter subscribers.

So far I’ve committed to the shared-world novella and the cozy mysteries. The other short stories and the new possible scifi series are optional but I’m feeling hopeful about them! I have half the non-fiction book already written!

I’m taking a very laid-back view of my writing this year. No stressing over deadlines, no fussing over tiny editing details, no fucks given if there are some typos (every book has them, and even if I hire five proofreaders, they’ll never all be caught), no stressing over book covers or layout. As I have learned, everything can be changed or updated later. No big deal.

I plan to be Amazon exclusive for 2016 unless something drastic changes. Something always does, so we’ll see!

Most of all, I plan to be flexible in the face of the ever-changing market. I will bend when the wind blows, cross the river when the water is low, and travel when the weather is good. I will hunker down and watch for signs of peace when a war is being waged around me. I will fight the good fight on the things that matter. I will surrender when there are no other options.

Marketing, Promotions, Advertising, and Social Media

I’m going to join Author Marketing Club and I’d really like to take Mark Dawson’s class this year too.

I plan to learn more about Scrivener with my online class and learn more about Excel as well.

I will pay for promotions when I have sales.

I have dropped Twitter participation. I don’t really like it there anymore.

Pinterest will continue to be mainly personal and inspirational for my books.

My Tumblr is alive and kicking.

I will post to Instagram every day like I did in 2015 and 2014.

Facebook is where I will concentrate all of my efforts outside of my mailing list.

I hope to grow my mailing list by 50% this year.

Personal Goals

I would like to continue my workouts and use my treadmill more. I’ve been doing a good job of this so let’s continue!

I will continue to be okay with my body and love it for what it is. This is important! It was good for my self-esteem this year to accept my shape and live with it. I need to push that even harder next year!

I’m going back to a goal from two years ago and concentrate on learning more Japanese. I found a website called Verbling which I hope to join and take lessons with an instructor via their version of Skype.

I’d like to knit more and read more. Listen to more audiobooks and try to enjoy some downtime.

Journal every day. I’ve never done this, but I have a journal now and I’d like to just write a few thoughts about the day, every day. Let’s see if I can keep it up.

I’d really like to cook more diverse things, try new recipes, and TRY to love cooking. Ugh. I hate it now. I need to change that!

And That’s It!

Let’s go in and kick 2016’s butt!

A Look Back at 2015

2015 was a year of ups and downs. When I started researching this post, I thought 2015 was mostly down, due to my professional/sales goals not being met, BUT it turns out the year overall was pretty great. This just reminds me that my author career is only one segment of my life, and many more things can contribute to a happy life! In fact, looking back at the entire year, this was a pretty fun year all around.

Let’s take a look.

I am Little Miss Fun!

2014 was the “Year of Change” for me, and I decided that 2015 was going to be the “Year I Say No.” Thankfully, I managed to keep my prediction. This was the year I said NO to a lot of things that sucked up my time. I didn’t get involved in too many group projects, I gave up promoting other people on my blog, and I stopped giving away free advice in about 90% of my groups. I also tried a bunch of new promotional ideas that I was able to drop when they didn’t work.

Sometimes, even when I see something failing, I hold onto it for a long time, hoping it will bear fruit. Usually this leads me to expend too much energy on something negative when I could be focusing on something positive instead. This year I was able to drop a few things that were sucking away all my energy and not giving anything back. Most notably, I pulled my books from all vendors and put them exclusively at Amazon, and I am now concentrating my energies there. I am also switching writing genres for a while. I was concentrating too hard on romance which was doing NOTHING for my career. We’ll see if this switch turns more positive for me.

Plus, I ended my series this year! I published the fourth book in the Nogiku Series, the one that wraps up Sanaa and Jiro’s story, and then I published a companion novel for it too. I feel good that I delivered on my promise with this series and concluded the story for everyone. They’re all now on Kindle Unlimited and seeing new readers there. Super proud of this accomplishment!!

Main Goals Accomplished?

I redesigned my website and I’m very happy with it! I don’t plan to make changes again until 2017.

I never got around to making audiobooks of my books. Maybe I’ll look into this next year?

And I hit all of my publishing goals! YAY!

Published my 7th novel this year!

Personal Goals Accomplished?

I want to make sure I’m going to the gym at least once per week until the summer time when I’d like to step it up to twice or thrice per week. Well, I wasn’t always able to go to the gym twice per week, but I almost always went once and I exercised at least 5 days per week. I also added in writing on the treadmill! So I feel that even though my body hasn’t changed its shape, I am getting plenty of exercise.

Cut back on sweets. Let’s all have a good laugh about this one. It’s never going to happen. I love sweets. I don’t want to give them up. I’ll just exercise more.

Cut back on caffeine. Nope. I drink tons of tea. It’s just the way things are.

Be a social media guru. This is complicated. I learned a lot about what to focus on in social media this past year. I dropped Twitter participation, kept posting photos every day to Instagram, and focused more on Facebook and Facebook ads. All of which I feel very happy about and will continue into the future. Pinterest still eludes me as a promotional platform and I barely use it, but this year, just when I thought it was dead, I revived my Tumblr and it’s awesome now. I have a huge queue I build up every week of Japan images and memes, my blog posts are there, and my Instagram photos are there. I’m really happy with it. I think it’s a good reflection of “ME” as a whole person, what I like, what I love, what I have passion for. Welcome back Tumblr!

Read more. I did much better on this this year, especially during the summer. I now have a Kindle Unlimited subscription and I hope to use that a lot too. Plus, AUDIOBOOKS! Omg, I love them. I’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks this year and I plan to listen to many more next year.

Attend more conferences this year. Nope. Just UtopYA and I plan to do Utopia next year as well, but that’s it. So far, conferences haven’t had enough ROI for me to continue doing them.

Knit more. This is a big NO. Sigh. I’m still working on the same project I was working on last year at this time! A WHOLE YEAR on one shawl. Bad. I didn’t even go to Rhinebeck this year because I couldn’t justify the expense for a hobby that I don’t even do anymore. Regardless, I want to keep knitting. So I just need to try harder.

Knitting! I should do more of that.

Writing Goals Accomplished?

All of my writing goals changed! Except writing short stories and publishing them (I did all three Kami No Sekai short stories this year!)

I was going to write the next Love in the Digital Age book. BUT INSTEAD, I dropped the Love in the Digital Age series name, published SUMMER HAIKUS, and made them both standalone. I then decided I didn’t want to write romance anymore and focused on cozy mysteries instead.

I was going to start a new Japan-inspired scifi series, but nope. Cozy mysteries!

But I have been plotting out books before and as I write them, hoping to lead to A LOT less revision time. We’ll see.

Finished writing my 8th full-length novel!

What else happened in 2015?

We went on vacation to Jamaica! That was so awesome. We left the country WITH THE KIDS and it wasn’t a disaster. I can’t wait to go on vacation next year!

We went to South Carolina for a whole week. I love vacation!

We went to Ocean City, Maryland again and had a blast.

We spent all summer at the pool. Ah, the pool. I wish I was at the pool right now.

My youngest started kindergarten and then broke her arm (She’ll start out the New Year getting surgery to have those rods taken out. Poor thing.)

We ended the year with some sickness but now everyone is back on the mend.

I also became obsessed with Jamberry wraps this year.

This is just a sample of all the ones I’ve tried!

My Favorite Blog Posts

And to finish up this look back, here are some of my favorite or most popular posts of the year…

I showed off my Scrivener Toolbar-

http://www.spajonas.com/2015/03/10/my-scrivener-toolbar/

I talked about who my audience was for REMOVED on Wattpad-

http://www.spajonas.com/2015/02/10/who-is-my-wattpad-audience/

I gave some advice about self-promotion-

http://www.spajonas.com/2015/04/14/self-promotion-stop-being-a-robot-start-being-you/

I gave the top five lessons learned in self-publishing-

http://www.spajonas.com/2015/02/24/top-5-lessons-learned-about-self-publishing/

And, my favorite, I gave the top eight Japanese Authors for Beginners-

http://www.spajonas.com/2015/01/20/8-japanese-authors-for-beginners/

And That’s It!

Come back on January 1st to hear about my goals and aspirations for 2016!

Sunday Update – December 27, 2015

It’s Sunday and I’m back! Finally, just this morning, my youngest child woke up without a fever. I’m hoping she stays fever free all day, and if so, it means we can go into the last week of 2015 without sickness holding us back. Yay! It’s about time. I have been dealing with sick people for the past two weeks and I’m done with that. DONE. I was never meant to be a nurse. I just don’t have it in me.

My oldest had her fever for an entire week and then the youngest woke up on Christmas Eve morning with it. Unfortunately, this meant that I spent Christmas Day at home with her while my husband took my oldest to visit his family. I missed all the food, fun, and conversation. I was pretty bummed on Christmas Day, but at least I spent the day relaxing.

I managed to do some writing and walking, but I miss the gym. I haven’t been in almost two weeks now. I’m hoping to go tomorrow, maybe, and then get to writing later in the day. I’m also taking the time to sit and relax, read a book, or catch up on some TV. These are things that help keep me balanced!

I’m thinking a lot about goals for 2016 and what I want to achieve next year, and I’m ready to look back at my 2015 goals and see how I did. I’ll do both of these on the blog this week! I’ll do a recap and then a look-ahead. I’m also taking REMOVED off permafree this week and moving it into Kindle Unlimited. I’m wondering if I’ll do Amazon-only for all of 2016. We shall see!

What did I get for Christmas? I got a lovely Kate Spade bag from my husband, lots of books, a keychain, and a few other small things from the kids. I also got a six-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited! Woo! I can’t wait to used that and read read read (and listen listen listen too since it does include some audiobooks!)

What else happened this week?

Some guy flying his drone in the park.

Tried a new Jamberry wrap, Tannenbaum. These were pretty but did not last long. They’re already off my nails.

We decorated cookies on Christmas Eve, as is the tradition around here. It was fun as always.

My walk around the park yesterday was great. I was so anxious to get out and do something, after being cooped up for days. Here you can see how I secure my headphones so they don’t move with every step of my walk. Binder clip!

Now my husband is out today golfing and then to his guitar lesson (lucky him) so it’s time for me to walk and get some dictation in! Be back later this week with my year-end wrap up and look-ahead to 2016!

Taking A Short Holiday And Sickness Break

There’s been a lot of fevers, coughing, and stuffy noses around the Pajonas household in the past week. Both kids have been sick, the older one is going on Day 5 of a persistent fever, and I can feel my sinuses are unhappy. I’m fighting everything with Lysol and diffused essential oils, so I’m hoping that we’re all well by Christmas. I’m not sure if that’s possible, but we’re trying.

In the meantime, I need to keep on writing and resting, and I’m going to channel all my energy into that for the next few days.

So I’m going to take the week off from the blog and I’ll be back on Sunday to let you know how our Christmas has been. Take care everyone! Have a happy holiday!

SUMMER HAIKUS Has A New Cover!

Hi everyone! Happy Monday! Or as happy as you can make it. I have two sick kids at home so we’re going to try and make the day as fun as possible in those circumstances. I’m starting out the fun by revealing the new cover for SUMMER HAIKUS! As much as I loved the old cover, I’m hoping the new one will appeal to a wider demographic and really let the book shine. I love this book. I loved writing it and living in this world while I did, yet it hasn’t gotten the readers it deserves yet. Hopefully this will give SUMMER HAIKUS a much needed boost.

“When it comes to fight or flight, I always choose to run like hell.”

Isa planned the perfect summer:

Tokyo and the Summer Olympics — check.

Helping her best friend prepare for the marathon — check.

Forgetting she’s in love with Masa — double check.

But when Isa’s mother is hospitalized, she has to abandon her summer plans to run the family’s Tokyo business. Masa’s offer to help makes it impossible for Isa to ignore him — and the firecracker kiss they shared half a world away. Everyone expects the world of her, but the pressure to please them all is as oppressive as the Tokyo summer heat. The simplest answer to all her problems? Run.

You can either buy SUMMER HAIKUS on Kindle or borrow it in the Kindle Unlimited program!

Sunday Update – December 20, 2015

We had a super busy week around here, and boy was I grateful to make it to the weekend, even if it meant that everyone here has been sick or is sick but me. I need a bubble to live in! Both kids are sick with something this weekend and we’re not doing much of anything. I’m pretty sure neither of them are going to school tomorrow either. Sigh.

My husband was home most of the week sick, and so I tried to get in work and errands whenever I could. Every day was filled with tasks and flew by. I took my car into the dealer to be fixed on Wednesday. Yes, this is the same car that was in the body shop for two weeks in November. We had the car back for a week when we went to Long Island to visit family. On the way home, via the Cross Bronx Expressway, we hit a pothole so hard it broke the car in many places. Ugh. I hate the state of our road in the US. They’re awful. So now I have a loaner from the dealer and am waiting for my car to be fixed. Again.

I worked on Book 2 of my cozy mystery series and was having a hard time with it. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it and was floundering. I met up with my friend, Amy, on Thursday and we were brainstorming on what I could do differently. I went to the bathroom and while I was in there, I thought I was missing a character. I came back to the table, told Amy, and we figured out my plot hole! So then I spent two days going through the book, adding in the missing character, and re-reading. I’m now ready today to revise my outline and start writing again. Phew! That was a tough one.

I also got the final new cover for SUMMER HAIKUS this morning and hired the same designer to redo FACE TIME‘s cover in February. I’m looking forward to using these new covers way into 2016!

What else happened this week?

We’ve been eating tons of clementines around here! They’re so sweet and tasty.

Our Christmas tree is up and decorated. I love seeing all of our ornaments every day (though I miss having a clutter-free space.)

And since everyone has been home, that’s meant that I need to get in exercise any way that I can. I spent an hour dictating and walking on the treadmill on Wednesday. That was nice.

Now I just need to get through the rest of this Sunday with all these sick people. I’m definitely going to make it outside for a walk later. Hoping the fresh air will keep me from getting sick!

Have a great week everyone!

Last Chance For REVEALED At B&N, iBooks, & Kobo!

This is your last chance to download REVEALED from Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo! I’m starting the take-down process at noon today. iBooks and Kobo will probably delist first, and Barnes & Noble, because they have monkeys doing everything on the backend, should be down by late tomorrow.

This is going to be my last hurrah on the other platforms for some time. Every day I see more and more authors complain about not being able to sell anywhere but Amazon, no matter what they do, and I am right there with them. I really wanted it to work. But case in point, I only sold 2 copies of REVEALED total from other vendors in the last month. Oh well. I tried. I really did.

Here’s the information to pick up REVEALED if you haven’t already. It’ll be in Kindle Unlimited over the weekend and I’ll update again when that happens.

Book Updates – REMOVED To Kindle Unlimited, A New Cover For SUMMER HAIKUS

As is usual with the end-of-the-year posts, I’m popping on the blog to update you on some decisions I’ve made about my books.

I’ve now had my books in Kindle Unlimited for over 90 days. I’ve had the chance to see their performance, and I’m quite pleased with the results so far. I won’t say that I’ve made a lot of money on Kindle Unlimited borrows, but I have made a significant amount more than I did selling through other vendors. Which is what I wanted to get from this switch. I’ve been watching my Pretty Links dashboard to see if people from other vendors have been reading my books and clicking on the links to get the next book in the series, and that just hasn’t happened. I figured that if people were downloading REMOVED from Apple, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, reading, and clicking on the links at the back of the book, I would know that my books were wanted on other platforms. This is obviously not a foolproof method because they could NOT click on the link and instead go straight to the store, but the link is right there and usually it’s the laziest way to buy the next book (and we all know how lazy we can be).

So after giving it more thought, and looking at my numbers for the year, I’ve decided to put REMOVED into Kindle Unlimited. This means it will no longer be free. It will also no longer be available from Apple, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo. I will also remove it from Wattpad, since Amazon demands exclusivity from its KU books. I will price REMOVED at $.99 for 2016, and I will occasionally make it free. I had approximately 8000 free downloads of REMOVED in 2015. In 2014, I gave away approximately 5000 free copies. It’s safe to say that, without a Bookbub, I am not going to reach a significantly new audience in 2016, so price pulsing the book to free every few months will have a greater impact than just leaving it free. Plus, those in Kindle Unlimited will be able to borrow the book, and I will get paid for those borrows. I feel confident that this is a good decision. So, if you want to get the book for free, do it before January 1.

I also plan to redesign the covers for the Nogiku Series to give them a more scifi/space feel in 2016! I’ll be sure to show them off here when that happens.

Old Cover!

In other news, SUMMER HAIKUS is getting a new cover! I know that this will come as a disappointment to some of you. Many friends, other authors, and book bloggers expressed their love of the original cover, and I was very happy with it. But the book is just not selling, and I suspect that the cover has something to do with that. It’s usually the first thing in an author will change if sales are low, so I wanted to give it a facelift before I put the book on sale. I’ve hired an amazing designer and she’s working on it as I type this! I’m sure you’ll love this one just as much. And yes, SUMMER HAIKUS will go on sale in January. I feel no regrets telling you this since I haven’t sold a copy of it in over two months. LOL. I suspect that I will also have FACE TIME’s cover redesigned in the spring, but for now the book is doing just fine on its own.

Writing continues on book 2 of my cozy mystery series! I faltered a little bit this past week, but I continue to write and be excited about my characters and their lives. Hopefully I will be done with book 2 by mid-January, and I will start on revisions to book 1 soon after that.

That’s all from me! Remember to get REMOVED for free before the end of the year, or you can wait for it to be in Kindle Unlimited and read the whole series for free with your subscription.

Sunday Update – December 13, 2015

I didn’t have a lot of energy this past week so blogging fell off (except for my random thoughts post) as I was harnessing everything I had to get in my 2000 words each day. It was a weird week because my kids had three half-days in a row, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and I had to bring my youngest back to the orthopedist for a check up on her arm. That made getting other things done difficult. But the weather around here has been so mild! I love it! Today it’s warm outside and I plan to go for another walk as soon as I get this blog post up. I love the fact that we haven’t had any snow yet. Snow is so inconvenient. I don’t care how “pretty” people think it is. It makes it hard to get around, schools close, and then people start to get sick. I hate it. So it’s been great that there’s been no snow yet!

I’m writing a steady 2000-3000 words per day on this project and the writing part is going really well. Yesterday, I had a moment of “OH GOD THIS SUCKS THE MYSTERY ISN’T MYSTERIOUS ENOUGH AND I THINK IT’S WRONG” but I realized this has a lot has to do with my pacing of writing, which is a lot slower than the pace a reader will read the book. I feel like it’s dragging, but going over my outline, I’m sure it’s not. This is usually a point in the process where I would stop writing and read everything I’ve written so far. Back when I used to pants a book. But this time I can just look over my outline and keep moving. I think it’s important that I keep moving and writing. When I go back to revise, I’ll re-read and make decisions then.

I also have plans going on behind the scenes for some of my other books, but I think I’ll write about those this coming week!

What else happened this week?

I got in writing while my kids were at a birthday party last Sunday.

And more writing while my husband was at his work’s holiday party.

I relaxed while watching Bob Ross, which is like meditation but better.

I started listening to season 2 of Serial! I’m very intrigued so far.

And we got our Christmas tree! The house smells really good now and I love seeing it all lit up at night.

I have another busy week coming up! And hopefully some of my energy will return and I can blog a little more. See you later!