July 26, 2023

To write a new serialized story or not, that is the question!

Daily Diary, Day 1060:

Yesterday, it stayed cool until later in the afternoon because the morning fog bank kept hanging around, but then it retreated completely and the temperature steadily rose, so that in it was in the 80s by the time I took my last walk, and I was glad to turn the A/C on for about two hours until it cooled down enough outside for us to open everything back up.

Today when we got up it was clear, then in a half hour we could see fog roll in up the canyon, so we thought we would have another cool morning. But today it burned off quickly so even though I got out on my walk by 8:15, it was already quite hot, and we have closed up and turned the A/C on, because it is already low 80s outside.

Busy day today, a zoom meeting at 10:30, interrupted by someone to clean the windows-haven’t been washed inside or out since January! Really needs it outside because of the landscaping threw up lots of dirt and rock dust that settled everywhere. Then after lunch, a scheduled phone meeting.

This morning on my walk I started to think about whether or not I want to try to put up another story as I write book 5 of my Caelestis series book, the tentative title of this book is, Where the Glass Flowers Grow.

The fact that in the poll I did on substack, 71% of the 45 who answered said they read the rough draft of Dandy the Dognapper as it was put up, did suggest that at least there is a group of people who enjoyed this experiment. (If you want to find out where to pre-order, click HERE.

What I am struggling with, is balancing my own physical well-being, the joy I get from writing, and the demands of marketing (which needs to be done if I want to make money from my writing.) For example, my revenue this year looks to be half of what I made last year.

I know that one of the reasons for this is because I have been working on my science fiction stories, which don’t sell as well as the Victorian San Francisco fiction. This was my choice, because this was and is a story I wanted to write and complete. I also know it is because I don’t write super fast (and instead of a quick 4000 word story, which was the initial plan for Dandy and the Dognappers, I wrote a 26,000 word novella!) But again, this is because I have been working to have a life that is balanced between taking care of myself (and the house), maintaining my social connections (all those phone calls), and writing for joy, not for money.

Another reason for the lower revenue is also the disarray that the publishing industry, even for indie authors, because of changes that Amazon is making (like changes to its categories), the ups and downs of the economy, and changes being made on social media platforms like facebook that have an inpact on them as good places to market.

While the fact that I am in retirement and not dependent on my book revenue (except to help pay for things like maintaining the house and my next dream, updating my bathrooms so that they are better for aging in place), I don’t have to put marketing decisions first. But, the drop in revenue also means fewer people reading my stories, and knowing that people are reading what I write is an important motivator.

Which brings me to part of the reason I did the experiment of writing and putting up the Victorian San Francisco story up on substack, because it is substack where I am concentrating my marketing efforts these days.

Of course, I will be delighted if lots of people go out and buy the story I have written, and maybe be reminded that they haven’t read, say, the novella that comes right before the story, Mrs. Stein solves a Crime, and go out and buy that. But I also was happy writing the story, knowing that there were a number of people who enjoyed the process of reading it as I wrote it, for free.

In short, I am mulling over what I could write and post as I went along, along the lines of Dandy and the Dognappers, that I could actually juggle with working on Where the Glass Flowers Grow. I have two ideas that I am mulling over, and once I have decided if either of them would work, I will tell you more!

But now, I need to work on getting my monthly newsletter done, so it can go out tomorrow, and start on my post for tomorrow, which is going to be a recommendations post.

Here is a simply lovely, lone rose bloom for you today.