Showing posts with label Under the Hill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Under the Hill. Show all posts

Refund Anxiety


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I've been at this Indie Publishing thing for a few months and I'm addicted to checking how many units I sell everyday. I recently published my sci-fi space opera Specter of War, which is currently moving slower than I'd like, and Under the Hill, which is a compulation of a couple of my columns, and of the two Under the Hill really has me nervous because it's a satire and not everybody will get the joke. In fact, I got a very scathing review that shocked me a bit because both Tethered and Under the Hill seem to be well received. But Under the Hill is an experiment and I was prepared for it not to be as well liked, though it is selling pretty well and I'd like another review to see if the first one is a fluke or what, but anyway I was prepared for people to hate it.

I say all this to say that I was not prepared to have my first unit on returned on Amazon and saw that it was for Tethered.

TETHERED???

It sent me into a panic: What happened? Did they hate the book? Was it not funny? Did they hate Maddie? Did the grammar monster strike again and send them fleeing? Maybe they bought it by mistake, huh? WHYYYYY?????

Since then, I've been living in fear of the returned unit. I am trapped in refund anxiety. I look at the refund section first dreading what I'll see. I know it's only one book returned in hundreds sold, but it played on my insecurity that maybe this book really isn't good... It's funny, I'm always telling people that as I writer I have a thick skin, but in actuality sometimes I can be as sensitive skinned as a new born baby.

I don't know what the cure for this is, but I guess I'll just truck on and try harder. After all, if they take the time to trash it and/or are so repealed that they had to return it, at least you made them feel something right?

Yeah, I know it still sucks! Lol and the writing continues...

The Great Trampoline Act


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It occurred to me that being an indie writer is a lot like jumping on a trampoline. The highs are amazingly, but the lows are really low. Last week I was #71 in Kindle's Blog Section. It was a very random honor. My heroine Maddie is a part-time blogger, but the book isn't about blogging, but it was an honor none the less.  I was on a high. I was going places. But as of today, Tethered  and my great space opera masterpiece, The Specter of War, have not sold one copy in one in five whole days and the depression has begun to set in. I think I fell prey to the idea that I didn't need to do any real marketing, that the books would sell themselves, that they were such great reads that word of mouth would carry it all the way to the #1 spot on Kindle's best seller's list.

I love to watch We's Cupcake Girls because its about two women building their brand and their business and I realize that I have been doing neither. Yesterday, the girls did a "soft sale" on their new mancakes, a bacon cupcake that sounded like heaven to me, but the customers and staff didn't agree. One of the Cupcake Girls thought the problem was the "soft sale", that you had to go big or go home. I laughed because I realized that I was doing a no sale. You have to market to get your book to sale, it's just that simple, but my problem is that marketing isn't my favorite thing to do. No matter, it's a necessary evil and I'm going to do it. So, I decided to start with social media. My goal is raise the amount of friends that I have on Facebook and Twitter and to grow my email mailing list to start a buzz about my work and I want to start with everybody who visits my blogs.  So, please....

Visit my Under the Hill Blog here
Join my Facebookpage here
Join Under the Hill's Facebook here
Join me on Twitter here
Join my mailing list





For Email Marketing you can trust
See you in cyberspace!


Yahoo!


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Petty Things was published on Yahoo! today. Check it out here.

Also, visit my Under the Hill Blog where you will find my monthly column.

Blogging While Under the Hill


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Image Source Page: http://www.arkhipoff.com/paint/hour_glass_for_eternity.htm
 Under the Hill has been chosen as Shades Magazine's "Blog of the Week" and I couldn't be happier. I started the blog because when I turned thirty I suddenly began to feel as if there was this invisible hour glass over my head and I was running out of time to get my life in order. Where was my husband? My Kids? My New York Times Bestseller?  I was getting OLD and what did I have to show for it? Of course, when I wasn't questioning my choices all my well meaning friends and family members were all to willing to remind me that my eggs were drying up, my competition in the husband pool was a good decade younger, and oh, that career you thought you were going to have? Sorry, but that might have passed you by. It was enough to make a woman lose her mind! But slowly, through talking to my friends, I began to understand that I wasn't in this place of uncertainty alone. I started to realize that every woman of  "a certain age" fears that their best years are behind them, so I started writing Under the Hill as a way to connect with other single thirty-somethings. After all we are not OVER the hill, but pushing under it, still striving to make our hopes and dreams a reality, no matter how much weight seems to be keeping us down at the time.

So, please visit Shades Magazine http://myshadesmagazine.net/. It's an amazing magazine and you are going to love reading through it as much as I always have.