Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
Daily Diary, Day 1254:
As forecast, there were showers off and on yesterday, but with very little total precipitation. And as hoped, I did get my Pilates done, so over two hours of exercise, and I also got 1032 words written. So, all in all, yesterday was a good day.
Today, the showers were pretty steadily on and off this morning, so my husband got wet in the first short walk, and had to delay the second long walk about an hour, much to our dog’s impatience. I had yoga in the morning, but needed to delay cleaning until my husband went out for that second walk, so I’ve been actually making progress on writing, up to 620 words. And at this late time, I will probably skip the morning walk, since I will still have my Pilates before lunch. The rest of the day is supposed to be increasingly sunny, so I shouldn’t have trouble getting in a walk this afternoon before dinner (and hopefully get the 1000 goal, since I only have one scheduled phone call, right after lunch.)
In other cheerful news, Chirp sent out its email yesterday, telling subscribers about the deal on my boxed set of audiobooks. As a result, I sold 210 copies yesterday, making over $300 for the day. While Chirp takes a percentage of the sales, they don’t charge any upfront costs (unlike most promotional email sites) so all the revenue is profit. In addition, it bumps up sales on other audiobooks in the series (I sold an additional 65) that I also discounted and pushed the audiobook up in the historical mystery and cozy mystery listings on the Chirp site (ie improving the visibility of the books in this series. Perhaps even better, except for the less than five minutes it took to apply for the promotion, and updating my webpage and Facebook banners, I didn’t have to spend any time doing this marketing.
Since I didn’t walk yesterday evening or this morning, no new photographs, so here is one of my amaryllis which is just on the point of bursting out with new blossoms. Notice the blue sky and puffy clouds, while the second photo I just took out the front of the house, showing still lots of clouds to the north of us.
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The amaryllis is gorgeous!