Friday, Sept 1, 2023

Cleaning and sales numbers.

Daily Diary, Day 1096:

This is the day I clean the upstairs, and I am always surprised at how dirty the duster gets (I don’t dust daily, just sweep and dry mop the floors), but of course this reinforces my commitment to doing the more thorough clean every week. This is also the day I wash the towels and bedding. I still have the bathrooms to clean and floor to mop, but I am taking a rest and starting on this post.

I won’t walk this morning, not just because the temperature is rising rapidly, but because I have already spent 90 minutes on my feet, and for the past week my right foot (which seems to be the one with the most arthritis) has been aching when I am up on it too long.) So, the plan is just do the afternoon walk when it has had all day to rest.

I do feel like such a complainer as I write this, but I am trying to be honest about what it takes at my age to maintain both body and home and still have the time and energy to write. Do feel free to complain to me in the comments about what you are doing at any age to keep body and soul going!

I'm back from completing the cleaning! Meanwhile, while I don’t have anything to report about making progress on the next novel, there is lovely news about Dandy and the Dognappers. In the first week, it has sold 660 copies, which, as I reported earlier, is at a faster clip than Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime sold when it first came out a year ago.

In addition, I can see that there has been spill over to sales of that novella. In July Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime sold 23 books, and in August it sold 61 copies-a big jump. The Stein novella is set only a few weeks before Dandy and the Dognappers, and I assume these recent sales are to people who wanted to read it before reading this newest one. Another piece of good news is that Dandy and the Dognappers now has a 4/6 stars average, with 31 ratings and some nice reviews. My thanks goes out to any of you who have contributed to those numbers.

And, I am happy to say that the 99 cent sale on Chirp of the audiobook edition of my first four short stories--Victorian San Francisco Stories: Vol 1-- is doing really well. The email went out around 1:30 this morning, and now, a little after 11, it has already sold 102 copies and another 75 of the first four novels in the series that are also discounted. So, as you might imagine I will be obsessively looking at that sales data all day today!

But, time to get to work on the other things on my todo list, so I will leave you with a shot of the sky last evening as I finished my walk (today it is nice and sunny, the prediction is that it is to get to 78 degrees, which it already is locally, so I suspect it might get higher.) Anyway, I also included a single bloom that stood out on the walk because it was such a vibrant yellow.

In case you aren’t sure how you got here, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. This is my newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. If you aren’t already subscribed but are interested in doing so, you can subscribe for free by clicking the little button below. If you enjoyed this post, please do click on the little heart and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments!