Day: October 29, 2015

Breaking my one-day word count record—attempt #2

Lynn

I’m not even going to make excuses for why I’m starting my writing late today. I don’t have a schedule, so there’s no reason I have to start at a particular time, but I know I’m starting late because I intended to start earlier. I procrastinated. That’s really all there is to say.

Also, I’m waiting on a cup of coffee to finish brewing. Yes, regular coffee. I ground up almost 3 tablespoons of coffee beans for just under 9 ounces of water for my french press. I’ll be high as a kite here in about half an hour. I will likely regret it then, but right now all I can think about is how down I feel and how unwilling I am to miss writing again today because of that.

Yesterday was a good day, so I really don’t understand the abrupt mood swing. I’m taking measures to mitigate it, before it has time to set in and depress my spirits and keep me from following through on my plans. :)

Today is to be attempt #2 to break my one-day word count record of 5,208 words.

Time to get started.

3:02 pm update—

I have no idea what’s going on, but I haven’t been writing. Not fiction, that is. I think this is a good bit of evidence in favor of staying away from coffee. It’s not a cure for whatever ails me. I did vacuum my carpets and hardwood though. :o

Now, I’m going to start writing on my book, and although I don’t expect to have a lot success with the attempt to break my record, it’s not actually out of the realm of possibility yet, so I’m not writing it off as done. See you soon with an update! :)

9:07 pm update—

This is one of those are you kidding updates where I confess to having written only 128 words this evening.

Don’t ask why. I don’t even know.

And I feel lucky I got those.

I’ll have to try again tomorrow. For now? I’m shutting off my WIFI tonight and I won’t be turning it back on until after I’ve written my word count or it’s dinnertime. Whichever comes first. (I started to say lunch time, but let’s be real: if I turn WIFI back on during lunch, I’ll spend a bunch of time catching up my online reading and I’ll be lucky to get back to work afterwards at all. So, dinnertime it is.)

How I’m building my new pen name: Four months in

Lynn

You might want to read the first post about the pen name book before you read this one because I’m not going to rehash what I’ve already said, just talk about what’s happened since the two week mark.

I haven’t gotten the next book out yet. Fact is, if you read this blog you’ll already know my production is not where I want it. I’m hopeful I’ll get the next book out in December, but it means I need to be successful in getting my word count up!

If I don’t improve my speed to publication for this series, this experiment isn’t going to teach me anything I haven’t already learned from my main pen name books. That’s because I’ve ended up not experimenting with price like I had originally intended.

I did a Kindle Countdown deal with the pen name book in mid-September and that led to a few more sales, but at reduced prices. I had it priced $ .99 for one day only and set to go up in $1 increments until it was full price again.

I’ve had some additional sales at full price too (full price being $6.99). I was getting a few reads here and there but it had really tapered off, and then for some reason on the 15th of this month, the book started to get very regular reads.

What I’m hoping this means is that this series could do well if I got more books out. I don’t know though. My experience to date with my main pen name has been that if a book doesn’t sell well right off, it won’t take off just because I’m releasing more books. They sell more, don’t get me wrong, but none of the series that didn’t start off strong suddenly sell great just because I’ve published more books in those series.

I’d love to have this series with the new pen name behave differently. :D The other view is a bit disheartening when it comes to series I love but feel I shouldn’t spend much time on because it won’t pay off in the long run.

  US UK AU IN  
Earnings
2015 07 68.71 14.79 6.96
2015 08 30.50 3.28  277.61
2015 09 61.71 1.29
Total Earnings 160.92  19.37 6.96  277.61
Sales
2015 07 11 2 1 14
2015 08 1 1 2
2015 09 28 28
Total Sales 40 2 1 1 44
KENP Reads
2015 07 4,681 2,301 6,982
2015 08 4,988 984 5,972
2015 09 6,733 386 7,119
Total Reads 16,402 3,671     20,073

So far in October, I’ve had 2 full price sales and about 7,000 pages read. There’s been absolutely nothing except for that unadvertised Kindle Countdown deal to keep the momentum for this book going, so I guess I’ve been very lucky that it hasn’t dropped to 0 all around. :D

I’ll save the next update for after I get the second book in the series out. Currently the plan is still to go three books at least before I make any judgments about this series.