Why retired feels good…

Coming back from Lucca, I'm engaged in something a li'l different from NaNoWriMo for November. Instead, I'm working on NoMoWriYo, and as you can see from the All Maid Up update, I was not entirely successful. I've also been writing bits of Sandy Morrison and the Pixie Prohibition, and I have a strong idea of how the last book goes for Peter, so I may be ready to tackle closing that series before the end of the year. I think it depends on how long it takes me to finish Sandy and Ginger's stories. In any case, as soon as I finish Peter's book, I'm doing another werewolf story, just to keep in a similar theme. They will be gay werewolves, but they won't sparkle. Probably.

My writing schedule is probably full until April or so, at which point, I may have to muse on my options. Obviously, everything is going slower now that I'm not writing all day like I used to. After writing for my designated three hours today, I decided to clean my desk. This led me to also clean and organize my bookshelf, and to make backup copies of all my recent work from the last few months. After this, I read more from my current stack of books from other people, played Mini Ninjas and beat the Earth boss, played Naruto: Rise of a Ninja and survived my first trio of matches, and watched one episode of DNA^2 and two of Lain. All in all, it's been a great day. Almost a perfect day. A perfect day would be if I had short person to share all this cool shit with. Hubby is old, and shiny gadgets don't excite him, despite him being an Apple guy.

But alas, no short people. I have to enjoy my shiny by myself. It's really not as much fun. Even just having my sister-in-law over to ooh and ah is a decent substitute, and she's older than me. She's still shorter, so it counts. But she's kinda busy working and all, and I'm not allowed to kidnap her for madcap misadventures.

Anywho, the thing is, all this shiny acquisition has been recent, and until this year, I couldn't have afforded much shiny stuff without lots of begging and pleading to hubby. (This is how I'm getting my smartphone… begging and pleading hubby.) But what happened to change things is, I stopped spending every dime I had on only one hobby. I didn't want to for a long time because I'd gotten into this mindset that maybe with just one more release and promotional push, I'd find a real market. I don't often add up all the costs, but the truth is, I've invested about 3,500 euros over the course of four years into paying editors, cover artists, and paying into various marketing services. Those services worked as advertised and brought traffic, almost all of it one-time visitors. This is not the fault of the services, nor do I think the visitor should have hung around more. It just didn't work out. So now, I have absolutely no hope of recovering the money I invested, and while I have lots of work in the queue, none of it inspires confidence for "going viral."

This year, I decided to let the investments go and just publish the work as cheaply as possible. Right away, I've suffered hits in lower visibility and lower sales. Which sucks, really. But paying for all those bells and whistles for the last few years meant that I didn't get to spend any of the incoming money that I got, either by way of a job, my monthly allowance (100 euros, usually), or just as birthday or holiday cash. It always went to my writing, like writing and promoting myself were my digital crack, and I just had to try one more fix to see if it would take. Only I'm done paying for new fixes because none of the old ones worked. No matter how much time or money I spent, no title did well. They reviewed well. But they sure didn't sell well. Oh well.

I know this probably comes across as bitterness. It was a sore spot for me, spending so much money all to have it come out to a daily "meh" on my results. But like I said, this is the year where I used my gift money in Spring to buy a guitar and amp. I used the money I got from a summer editing job to buy my TV and Xbox, and when I've been given my monthly allowance, it's gone to games and comics instead of editors and cover artists.

Which sucks because sales aren't as good without me investing in promotion. Sales aren't as good without me buying covers. But, when I have two complete flops out and know it opening day, I don't have to go to pieces on y'all. I don't even have to spend much effort asking you to buy the new books. I'm heading to the living room to indulge in my other hobbies, because clearly, nothing from this month is going to fly with y'all. And hey, your options were porn or rhyming smut, so I totally understand if you skip to next month's selection. And no, I still haven't decided what to release next.

What I'm getting at is, writing as a hobby became fun again because I stopped spending money on it. I'm not feeling like I'm losing money, and so if stuff doesn't sell, no big deal. I'm only out 9.95 if I sprung for an ISBN number, and I won't bother with that unless I have a cover. And I won't bother with a cover unless the sales on all my other titles nets enough funds to properly pay an artist. But I'm still not paying for those covers with my pocket money. I need that money for more games, books, and comics. It's…um, research material.

I know it sucks that I'm not putting as much effort into my art with pretty covers and pro edits. I'm sorry that I cannot afford to promote my work more effectively. And that's a genuine apology, not one followed by a "but…" I wish I had more funds to handle some marketing blitzkriegs, or that I could afford a publicist. I want to work with editors on every title. But even talking to indies, their very reasonable rates are out of my budget. The only way I could afford their rates is if I had a day job, and I have MS, so I have no day job. The closest I have to a day job is the occasional editing job. I get GREAT rates as an editor, (thank you to my generous employers!) but once taxes take a chunk and I give hubby half my check for bills, that doesn't leave much for me. And, did I mention I only work 1-2 times per year?

Now some of you have called me entitled for complaining about this, so I want you to please try to appreciate this from a different angle. For four years, I spent everything I had on waving my books around in front of you. I bought covers and paid editors, all for you, because you said, "I want these things, Zoe, or I'm not willing to buy your little self-published project." And I said, "Okay." Then months later, I was like, "Look, I did those things like you asked and the book is on sale…hello? Hello? D'oh, you're not going to buy it, are you?"

And you never called, and you never wrote…

Ahem. I have made huge strides in my writing quality since that first self-published book at Lulu, but none of my efforts in promoting books worked. The successes I had were for the books I wasn't promoting, which was like unintentional salt in the wound: "good job selling books! Pity you still suck as a marketer." But anywho, I sacrificed all my free cash into this effort of getting your attention for my stuff, and it didn't work.

So I said fuck it and I stopped spending money. And now I'm happy just writing for me. Which is good, cause without sending out review copies, ain't no way I'm getting any new reviews.

Some people say "Hey Zoe, you should just write for you and not worry about that stuff like sales numbers or reviews." Uh…okay, and I'm still writing for me. Yay! In fact, I'm doing a free series, AND I'm still continuing my plans to release one book a month for a whole year, whether they sell or not. I have plans to keep writing MORE clunkers too.

I've had…hold on, I need to use my fingers to count…5 failures out of 7 recent releases. (remember, twice recently I've posted two books in the same month.) With every failure, I've wailed my woes into my Xbox via LIPS or Limbo or Kinect Adventures. This is a damned fine consolation prize.

BUT, then we went to Lucca, where I had a chance to deeply fondle my nerd roots, and it really got me thinking about what I was gaining by giving up my promotional cash. I decided to buy Italian dubbed anime DVDs to help me finish my studies so I can speak this language. I understand so much more than I can speak, and this is very frustrating for me, to have people I've known for years and still can't speak to in their native tongue.

This is a roundabout way of saying I have all kinds of other distractions and hobbies now, and I have these because I cut off writing's access to my wallet. And, now that I have all these other hobbies, it's okay for writing to just be a hobby too. So, this month's releases aren't getting sales. I didn't invest anything in promotion, nor did I solicit any reviewers, so I'm not surprised by the lack of response. Better luck next month, and in the meantime there's always LIPS and Fruit Ninja to console my wounded ego. (Not saying my ego is wounded, or that you can't appreciate my genius…although I do have an extremely high IQ, and you really can't value that. No, you can't. No. I'm sorry.)

Which is not to say I wouldn't like to invest money in these projects and do more for y'all. But I've only got a little money that I earn one month out of 12. I have MS, and I'm stuck in the house most of the year, and my doctors predict I'll have a really short life span. So this little bit of cash that I earn has to go on something that will give me quality of life in my final years. Which is why I totally chose video games, comics, and anime over spending another year investing in waving my books around in front of you, just so you could say "meh" again. My arms are tired from waving, and I'd much rather spend my retirement goofing off.

Hey look, I'm down to my final point fast tonight. Some of you may read all of this and say, "But Zoe, it's greedy of you to invest in frivolous stuff like games and porn. You should still spend all your money courting me." And you're half right, anyway. It is totally frivolous of me to spend my money on shinies and doodads. But y'all folks didn't buy the spit and polished products when I spent everything I had on you, and that plan just made me bitter and resentful of the successes of others. Totally not how I want to be. So I went with a new plan, and now I'm reporting, it does seem to be helping a little bit, yes.

But, if I get out a title that does work for my limited pool of readers and leads to enough sales/reviews for a working budget, I'll keep investing money back into the title, and into others. Like the publishers do, I'll use the successes to fund my future flops. And if they're all future flops, eh, I'm not a good promoter. It is just a hobby, and my other hobbies need my attention more than I need to sulk over sucking.