Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

I have improved my day to day constructiveness this weekend. At the cost of learning Scots. I’ll take it, for now.

In perusing the internet (never advisable) I have discovered I am the worst indie author ever (by elimination), because I first published 7 years ago and have done nothing to expand my brand/reach/audience since then. Everyone else on YT/IG/T-T is insanely successful.

What do you mean that isn’t reality?

Bright young(er) things who first published about the same time as me, who have written 3-7* times as many books in the interim, have shared their struggles. And some really excellent advice, that I am learning from. Don’t end a sentence in a preposition was one of them, but I’m a maverick. An unknown maverick, as it happens**.

My plan, laughable as it was, was to do nothing for the first three books. Both because I’m lazy, and because that was probably the advice back in 2017, and I haven’t stayed up to date. Because I’m lazy.

Lazy about the marketing and branding, I meant. I do the work with the writing. Which is why I take so effing long over my books.

But anyway, this has been a good streak of days, marked by me doing administrative stuff I hate, and learning about things I just don’t want to, but am now intrigued by, courtesy of my successful internet chums and pals.  Thanks guys. Seriously!

I always talk about experimenting with each new book, trying to do something new every time with my writing. I have reluctantly realized I have to adopt the same attitude when it comes to releasing and selling a new book.

I don’t like it, for the record.  

So, I might be trying odd things in the next few months. Nothing ventured and all that. Fantasy is about expanding horizons, exploring the new. Looking around the unrealized corner and finding magic. I’ve realized that I was doing the precise opposite in my book business life, narrowed my horizon to zero, (I’ll do it later is the classic example), and that was foolish.

I don’t want to be a book business person, but you have to give it a shot as an independent author, so I’m looking at this less as a business activity, and more as an exploration of new apps. If I end up as a better book business person as a result of looking at a few apps, and trying one or two – well, how about that?

So, my friends, this week’s lesson, if there is one, is this: if you hate the business side of writing, make it a game. Find the best writing career related apps to work with that you can enjoy and afford. In a game you can and will do a ton of research on how to defeat a boss monster: do the same on which app can advance your career. Verify, then trust. I’m not advising anything: I’m in the middle of making a new series of mistakes I will later share with you.

This week’s blog is brought to you by Christopher Morley (a forgotten giant of letters) and the words otiose, and capharnaum.

Also: I spent a long time making cabbage rolls this week. (Two days.) If you make a tomato sauce, leave it over night. It tastes twice as good the next day.

Asterisk 1: sometimes more. I wrote two (three but not yet published) in that time, so my multiplier isn’t big, but still, that level of output is crazy. To me.

Asterisk 2: and happy to be. I want to make good work. The rest doesn’t matter. Yes, I’m going to have a go at playing the game, but I’m not invested in winning. I’ll spin the wheel with chips on the table because it’s better than having a stack of chips on the sideline that you never commit to anything.

Oh yeah – red cabbage leaves look like frilled face huggers. That white spine fading to purple and blue, with veins everywhere. Creepy. I ate a bunch earlier and felt sweet victory in every bite! I feel a horror story coming on.

OH! The Thief and The Demon is on sale this week! Buy and read because The Killer and The Dead is on sale next week as a grimdark Hallowe’en special.

See how crap I am as an author businessman? That crap. Don’t care. Next year I’ll do better. Ciao.