Hello, Book Friends!

As we lean into the weekend (are we still marking weekends?) I’m celebrating an upswing in writing productivity! This week I managed to show up to my novel four out of five weekdays, and on those four days I got a respectable amount of writing done, including outlining the rest of the book and finishing a chapter I started weeks ago.

For those keeping track and keeping me accountable, that brings the total manuscript word count so far to 49,003. Now here’s hoping I can keep this new momentum going next week.

I hope you enjoy this week’s mini-cast. Here’s a quick peek at what’s covered:

• Hard is hard. If you’re struggling, don’t compare your hard to other people’s.

• A more detailed word count update

• I also redid my author website and revived my Facebook page

• Why it’s a terrible time to be a traditionally published author, but a good time to be indie

• My plan to dip my toe into paid advertising

• Book deals!

And here are links to the deals I mention in the podcast:

• Evolution is still 99 cents/pence on Amazon and Amazon UK, until Tuesday.

• The Brave New Worlds Sci-Fi and Fantasy Ebook Giveaway is running the entire month of May on MyBookCave! Choose from over 50 free speculative fiction, urban fantasy, fantasy and horror books, and while you’re there enter to win a $20 gift card to your favorite e-book retailer.

My novel-writing goal for next week is to just keep the momentum going. Not setting word count goals or quotas seems to be working for now to keep me showing up, so I’m going to keep running with that.

Do you have any plans to celebrate Cinco de Mayo this week? We usually mix a batch of margaritas, make a big plate of nachos and watch Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but we’ll be playing it by ear this week since it’s on a weeknight. But in case you want to celebrate at home, here’s our favorite margarita recipe:

1 half-pint of tequila

1 can of 7-up or Sprite

1 can or bottle of Mexican beer (i.e. Corona or Modelo)

1 can frozen lime juice or lime-aid

Pour everything into a large pitcher and stir. Salt is optional

If you mix up a batch and enjoy it, be sure to let me know!

Until next week,
Jean ♥

Weekend Distractions

This twitter thread about cat breeds is the truest thing ever (click through for the whole thread and responses. Warning: contains language that’s not safe for Jean’s mom). For the record, ours spent a week casing our house before flirting her way inside, and her breed is Sassy Back-talker.

Emily Chapman 🍠 @eachapm

I'm in a cat group on Facebook and people periodically ask about cats from breeders and like I genuinely cannot imagine. It's a cat. They show up in the garbage and then they live in your house.

April 23rd 2020

5,321 Retweets48,532 Likes

This Natalie Grant cover of Never Enough from Greatest Showman has revealed that I’m still nowhere near being tired of this song.

Hello, book friends!

This is how we’re all starting e-mails now, isn’t it? But seriously, I hope this issue finds you and your people in a good place.

I’m skipping the podcast this week because we’ve got a storm system moving through and I don’t want to keep my laptop plugged in for as long as it would take to record and edit an episode. But I have a few quick things I wanted to share with you this week.

Remember that I said last week my big writing goal for this week was just to practice showing up to my novel? I’m pleased to report that I managed to do that. Not every day, but still, it’s progress. I even wrote some, though I’m not tracking word counts right now since the goal was just to show up. But the ice is melting and I’m starting to gain some momentum once again.

And in case you missed yesterday’s announcement and cover reveal, I’ve set a launch date for Revolution (aka Dominion Book Three) for August 14th, which officially gives me a set deadline. And few things motivate me like a deadline. (By the way, it’s available for pre-order.)

I’m finally starting to get into some sort of work rhythm, but I’m also starting to really be okay with not having a consistent rhythm in place. Last week I talked about my shrinking capacity during this pandemic. I have good days, where I’m focused and energetic, and bad days, where I’m… not. I’m learning to seize the good days and knock a lot of things off my list, and to not beat myself up about the bad days but use them to recharge and do the things that fill me back up. Every day doesn’t have to be the same, or to achieve the same level of productivity. The important things are still getting done.

One good outcome of this whole mess is that it’s making me a lot better at prioritizing and discerning what’s actually important.

Finally, remember how last week I said I’d changed my mind about doing a free Amazon run of Dominion/Desolation? After announcing the week before that I was going to do one? Well, I’ve changed my mind again. Please bear with me, y’all. I’m just trying to figure out this whole being an indie author in 2020 thing, and this stuff’s not as easy as it was a decade ago when I started.

At any rate, the more I thought about it, the more pulling Desolation from KU and turning it into a free reader magnet for an entire month sounded like a terrible idea, so I’m scrapping that and going back to my original plan to do a free promo on Amazon. That will happen next week, after some changes I made to the other books in the series and their product pages all have time to update in the system. I’ll send out another e-mail to let y’all know when the promo goes live.

And that’s it for this week. All of my freelance work is done for the time being, so (unless more comes in) I’m free next week to focus on my novel. My goal is to just keep showing up and making progress. I’ll let you know next week how I did.

Wishing you health, safety, sanity and far less interesting times,

Jean ♥

Weekly Distractions

The Holcombs are still at it. I absolutely loved this cover of Home by the Magnetic Zeroes:

drewholcombmusic

“Home is wherever I’m with you…” which of course right now is just... Well the house. Love this song. Such a great ear worm and fun absurdist romantic verses. This was a fun one. Whistle along with us. @esmzeros @ellieholcomb ⠀
⁣————⠀
“Kitchen Covers, Volume 1” is coming soon on vinyl! Printed on gorgeous opaque green vinyl, as a limited edition release and one-time-only pressing. They will ONLY be available by pre-order. Pre-order is open NOW through MAY 1st, and that is the only way to get one of these. All orders will be Signed! More info at the link in my bio.

April 23, 2020

This is the most entertaining and enlightening thread about Triscuits you’ll ever see:

Sage Boggs @sageboggs

OK, buckle up. I wanna talk to you about Triscuit.

March 26th 2020

48,074 Retweets183,550 Likes

Happy weekend, book friends!

I hope it’s a happy one for you, at any rate. I know a lot of people out there aren’t really having a happy time of it right now.

Apologies for not showing up last week. It was my birthday week, things were slow, and I seized the opportunity to take the week off and give myself a real spring break.

This week was supposed to be back to business as usual, but of course it wasn’t because there simply is no such thing as business as usual in this present season we’re all in. I expand more on that in the podcast, in which I also talk about:

• Mindset in general, how it affects our productivity, and my mindset in particular

• Conspiracy theory rabbit holes, how it relates to my faith, and how it’s all inspiring my next planned series

• All the reasons why I HAVEN’T been writing my novel, and what I’m planning to do to get off the struggle bus and back into a daily writing habit

• How we’re doing generally, what we’ve been up to and how my paying work is going

I also mentioned my goals for next week, which are to show up to my novel for at least 15 minutes a day, and to get pre-orders set up for Dominion of the Damned Book Three: Revolution. Which, if all goes well, means you can watch for an announcement and cover reveal coming very soon.

One thing I failed to mention in the podcast is that I ended up not doing a free run on Desolation (formerly known as Dominion of the Damned) last week like I’d said I was planning to do, and I’m sorry to anyone who had their hopes up about that. I realized I only get one promo per quarter and I wanted to take more time to think about how I want to use it. I’m planning to start experimenting with paid ads soon and I need to come up with a strategy an be smart about coordinating everything. Of course, if you’re enrolled in Kindle Unlimited you can read the series as part of your subscription plan, and if you’re in Prime you can borrow both books via Prime Lending (you can also request them from your local library).

But you should know that I’m going to be temporarily pulling Desolation from KU around mid-May. This is because, for the month of June, I’m going to include it in a month-long free book giveaway that will be held at My Book Cave — so if you’ve got your heart (and book budget) set on getting to read it free, come June you’ll be able to grab it in the e-book format of your choosing. I’ll have more details as we get closer to the giveaway date.

Speaking of free (and cheap) books, the Smashwords Authors Give Back sale has been extended to the end of May, and I’m keeping all of my indie short stories and collections free for the duration of the sale.

That’s all for this week! Here’s hoping for a more productive week ahead for all of us.

Until next time,
Jean ♥

Weekly Distractions

• The other day I bought two jumbo skeins of this yarn with this poncho pattern in mind. Except now I’m not sure whether I’m in more of a mood to crochet or to knit, so I still haven’t settled on a pattern.

• Berkely Breathed’s been posting classic Bloom County strips from the very beginning, and I’ve been enjoying the ride on the nostalgia train. Here’s the very first ever appearance of Opus. My how he’s changed.
  

  berkeleybreathed

  

  June 26, 1981. As many of you have already read… I’m not sure where I got the idea to have a penguin wander into the joke, but it was not drugs. I didn’t even drink beer until my divorce 32 years later.

  April 16, 2020

• Covidclassics is four roommates who love art and are indefinitely quarantined. This is the most creative use of free time I’ve seen yet.
  

  covidclassics

  

  1) “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird”; 2) [Frida Kahlo]; 3) #behindthescenes @ransomcenter #covidclassics #arthistory #highbrow

  April 9, 2020

• We’ve been enjoying The Chosen series on Youtube. We’re watching the replays of the livestream, including all the interviews and extras, so it’s taking us a while to get through each episode. It’s definitely a fresh take on presenting the Gospels. If you can’t handle made-up backstories for each of the disciples, additional scenes being added, or anachronistic speech, then this series probably isn’t for you.

• Finally, speaking of conspiracy theories, I’ve downloaded a few eps of these podcasts to listen to over the weekend. Note that I have not listened to these podcasts yet so this is not an endorsement. But they look fun, if you’re into that sort of thing:

  Supernatural with Ashley Flowers (Episode: The Exorcism of Anna Ecklund)

  Conspiracy Theories (The episodes on Bohemian Grove and the Phantom Dark Age)

Hey gang!

Apologies for coming at you a day late. Thank the combo of rain and satellite internet.

So here I am, fresh off my announcement that my monthly letter, Echoes in the Dark, is cancelled, with a change in title for my weekly update.

I hope this isn’t too many changes coming at you all at once. I’m talking about the whys and wherefores of all these changes in this week’s mini-podcast.

For those who’d rather skip the audio, I actually worked on my novel this week! I managed close to 2,000 words over the course of two days. Which, after two solid weeks of not being able to get my head in the right space for this book, I consider a major victory.

The other thing that kept me busy this week (besides spring cleaning and yard work) is overhauling the Dominion series and rethinking everything I thought I knew about book marketing.

Your responses to my question this week about how you perceive this series were extremely enlightening and helpful. It turns out that what I have been marketing this whole time as a zombie apocalypse is in fact a vampire thriller. This is why feedback is so important— we authors are too close to our work to see it clearly for what it is.

So, back to the drawing board. The series is getting a total re-branding, with new covers, new titles, new blurbs, a new target audience — everything is changing except the books themselves. And here, for your eyes only, is the first look at the new covers with their new titles:

I’m holding onto Book Three to reveal when it’s ready for pre-order, which will be happening soon.

And yes, astute readers might have noticed that the working title for my current WIP is now serving as the actual title for Book One, and Dominion of the Damned is now the series title. Book Three’s new title is mentioned in the pocast. These new titles are a better fit for the story arc than what I had before.

I’ll be rolling out these changes on Amazon next week, and will be running a promotion on Book One to give it a visibility boost and establish it in its new categories. So if you’ve been holding out on reading that because zombies aren’t really your thing, next week’s a great time to give it a second look.

And I just realized that my birthday is Monday and I have a tradition of making a book free for my birthday, so that timing works out pretty great.

Until next week, I hope you stay healthy and safe and that you don’t have to celebrate your birthday in the midst of a weird pandemic.

xox,
Jean ♥

Friday Distractions

Drew and Ellie Holcombe have been doing nightly concerts in their kitchen, and this Johnny & June cover is the cutest thing they’ve ever done:

drewholcombmusic

Yes we have a large painting of @johnnycash and @junecartercash in our kitchen. Yes we love their music. Yes, a LOT of you have requested we do one of their songs. This is not the most famous, but it's my favorite. It is the two of them at their most playful and confident. We love singing this one, and I hope it brings a smile to your face. #kitchencovers

March 28, 2020

I haven’t yet watched this indie-produced miniseries dramatizing the ministry of Christ (I’ll probably binge it over the weekend), but if this trailer’s anything to go by, it looks really well done, and might be something you’d enjoy in the lead-up to Easter Sunday.