Sunshine, Spring, and Shorts

This weekend was pretty damn near perfect. In the low '80's, lots of sunshine, and the flowers blooming like crazy. I wore shorts while doing yardwork on Saturday, and I didn't mind so much taking allergy meds, decongestant, and eye drops.

Needless to say, my body said enough after the yardwork and cleaning the family room. (Centipedes coming out of hibernation and racing around the floor looking to hook up under my couch were the cause of the family room cleaning.) Sunday was spent writing and editing.

Yesterday, I hit the fake-out problem before the climax on A Measure of Knowledge. Still trying to decide which ending to use in that book. I'm not looking to piss off readers, but what I think is awesome might not translate. Just because Michael Moorcock did it doesn't mean I can pull it off.

It's not like me to second-guess myself. But I've also been digging deeper into my soul for the Anthea stories. I'm not oo sure what this all means at the moment. Today's rain isn't helping my moodiness one bit.

But I do know I need to finish and get cracking on all my other projects. As they say, no rest for the wicked.

More Drizzles, More Editing

Most of our spring flowers survived Monday's snow. The first bunch of daffodils to bloom were already on their way out. The heavy slush merely accelerated the process. And I found decongestant in stock at the grocery store this week!

*damn allergies*

It's feeling more like spring. Warm drizzlies were just starting as Bella and I stepped outside for her constitutional. However, she got her hair and nails done yesterday, so she had no desire to sniff around after her business was finished. She's a princess pup after all.

I'm trying to wrap up the last proofing of some things. Later tonight, I'll be loading the stretch rewards into BookFunnel to send to the backers. And then for the rest of the weekend, I settle into the last scenes of A Measure of Knowledge.

I've been debating on whether or not to end it on a cliff-hanger. I'll probably write both endings and have my alpha readers let me know which one they prefer.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Plague, War, Taxes, and Snow

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 769
Known COVID-19 cases in the U.S. - 80,612,681
Known COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. - 988,558

This will be my last COVID-19 numbers update. A large amount of local and state government health and welfare departments have stopped reporting. The official number above are no longer accurate. And all this is being dropped as Omicron-b is wending it's way through the nation. I need to ask my own general practitioner about another booster when I go in for my quarterly checkup in June.

In the meantime, the invasion of Ukraine continues. Atrocities rise, and President Zelensky pleads for help from an uncaring world.

Today is Tax Day in the U.S., but the government is being incredibly slow in processing returns, even if you got yours in early and are due a refund. I don't mind paying taxes because I like good roads and good schools, but no one in Washington can pull their heads out of their asses long enough to compromise a tiny bit in order to get things accomplished. *sigh*

And then, I woke up to the picture above. The early spring flowers bloomed like crazy last week. These two little daffodils had some protection from the eaves, but the rest are frozen and drooping on all sides of the house. It's supposed to be sunny and dry tomorrow and Wednesday, so I'll try to get the rest of the pruning and trimming done.

I don't know about the rest of you, but as much as I like sipping coffee while watching the snow fall, I'm ready for some shorts weather!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 356 - New Month, New Stories

The U.S. stands at 28,904,197 known COVID-19 cases and 519,014 known deaths from the disease. For all of our advanced medicine, we're approaching the same death toll as the Spanish Influenza outbreak a century ago.

However, the FDA approved the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over the weekend, which will help get more folks inoculated against this horrendous disease.

On the other hand, A Virtue of Child went live yesterday, and I'm working on two new short stories to fill out a new anthology Practical Witches. The volume also includes the two non-Justice stories that were published Sword and Sorceress, plus a story that was originally published on my website.

Most of the two feet of accumulated snow has melted over the last five days. Temps reached the sixties yesterday, but clouds are moving in, and the wind has picked up. March may not be coming in like a lion, but it's definitely coming in like a rambunctious pack of cubs.

It Does't Feel Like Spring

Happy Beltane!

I can't blame all of my feeling of being in solitary confinement on COVID-19. Our so-called spring has been so wet and the pollen so thick, it's uncomfortable as hell for me to step outside. And it's difficult to blow your nose with a damp tissue.

My sneezing also alarms the neighbors.

Yesterday, I was able to make an appointment to visit a gift shop. I'm terribly late sending a friend a birthday present. They were selling face masks made by a local craftswoman, and I bought one with ladybugs on it because I needed something summer-y to brighten my day.

Alas, that is my only excursion that was remotely fun I will have any time soon.

My medical appointments are starting up again as providers have figured out procedures to keep both patients and staff safe. I can't say I've missed being poked, prodded and stabbed over the last two months.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that reopening the nation doesn't result in a jump in COVID-19 infections, but I'm well aware that's highly wishful thinking on my part. But just as my oncologist will be continuing my appointments because he has to presume I still have cancer until proven otherwise, I will have to continue to quarantine.

It means a very long summer.

Lessons Learned: Return on Investment - Part I

In all the hubbaloo over The Passive Voice, Steven Zacharius of Kensington, Barry Eisler, Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group and the infamous Writers Digest poll, people are trying to frame the issue as traditional publishing versus indie publishing.

People are asking the wrong damn question. If you are writer who wants to be published, you should be asking, "What's the return on my investment?"

The return on an investment is when you divide the gain of the investment minus the cost of the investment by the cost of the investment. Or

ROI = (GOI - COI)/COI

I'm going to walk through two examples: one to show my ignorance as a indie publisher in the beginning and one to show how I did it right. I'm going to simplify a few numbers for math clarity.

Example 1
Seasons of Magick: Spring was the first book I put up as an indie author.

It's approximately 20K words. At the time, I wrote about 500 words per hour, so it took me 40 hours to write the story. Let's say I, the publisher, paid me, the writer, $10 an hour.

I paid a friend's teen daughter $25 to create a Photoshop file for my cover.

A friend and I edited each other's novellas over coffee, so throw in $10 for my Starbucks card.

I know just enough HTML to be dangerous so I formatted this myself using freeware.

My costs of investment? $400 + $25 + $10 + $0 = $435.

I priced the book at $0.99. 99 copies sold the first year it was on the market. Again, for simplicity's sake, let's say I made Amazon's rate of $0.35 for all the copies (which really isn't far from the truth). My gain on investment in Year 1? 99 X $0.35 = $34.65

Therefore, my ROI for this book is ($34.65 - $435)/$435 = - $0.92

Now the nice thing is this book will be available (hopefully) for the rest of my life plus seventy years. Odds are it will eventually earn a positive ROI.

Example 2
A year after I started indie publishing I wrote a BDSM erotic romance. Since I'm not ready to reveal Alter Ego, we'll call it Sluts in the City #1.

Again, this novella was 20K words so my costs as a writer remained the same. So did my editing costs.

By now, I'd learned my lesson about having a decent cover. I'd bought the picture to the left for $8 with the intention of using it for the cover until I saw how many covers, both indie and trad, used it. So I bought a different cover at Romance Novel Covers for $15.

I used freeware to tweak the picture and add the title and author's name by myself. (I had a lot of fun experimenting, too!) Again, I did my own formatting.

My costs of investment? $400 + $10 + $23 + $0 = $433

I priced the book at $2.99. My income per copy ranges from $1.05 to $2.68, so once again, let's use $2.00 for ease of math. The first year I sold 1,481 copies so my gain on investment was 1481 X $2.00 = $2962.00.

Therefore, my ROI for Sluts in the City #1 is ($2962 - $433)/$433 = $5.84

$5.84 versus -$0.92. See the difference?

Two erotica novellas. Same length. Same amount of time they were on sale. Little to no marketing.

The two big differences were the covers and the price. Both had a significant impact on my income.

On Monday, I'll talk about determining ROI for an indie published project, an assisted publishing project, and a trad published project.

On Wednesday, I'll talk about why using a picture like the Handcuffed Girl above will hurt more than help you thanks to the Kernel Pornocalypse.

Until then, stay toasty this weekend!