Monday Miscellany: Sales Question and Plans for Writing and Blogging

Every few days, I get a surge in sales. This happened when Cowboy was first starting to take off and it slowed during the holiday season, but I've noticed that since the first of the year, sales will be steady for a few days and then I'll see a daily surge of roughly an extra 30% or so. Does anyone else see this? My assumption, based on the time that passes and the original numbers as I watched them, is that readers are telling their friends. I don't know. I don't dwell because thinking too much about it would make me crazy (for example, if I think about how much I want to know why readers return books, I start feeling like I'm going to die of curiosity), but it does make me curious.

This week, I plan (read: desperately hope) to finish One Good Cowboy. I have a couple of blog posts on editing and one on writing like a reader waiting in draft mode.

A. M. Belrose, the lovely author of Witch in Wolf's Clothing, has graciously agreed to an author interview, so I need to work up questions for her and send them off. Expect to see an interview and a book review sometime in the next few weeks. (But by all means, go buy her book if you're interested, it's worth it.) I have another guest post lined up for the coming weeks, another one by graphic designer and artist Kelsey McCarthy. She's going to help me with a week all about book covers and design.

Basically what I'm saying is that though this week looks kind of bleak, the month of January as a whole is pretty exciting.

SitRep Saturday: The Cowboy Next Door, Interviews, and Other Projects

I am here to admit, sheepishly, that I have only edited the first two chapters and the first page of the third chapter of Cowboy. I hit kind of a slump this week. I did, however, start work on the "bonus" chapter. It's not part of the story, but I thought the characters deserved some fun.

Greta van der Rol has agreed to be interviewed for From the Writer's Desk very soon. I am very, very excited about this. I've had The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy on my to-read list for several weeks. I just started it last night and I am not disappointed. I love science fiction.

A friend of mine who is part of Marginalia Studios has also agreed to be interviewed. I'm stoked about this, too, because I've been wanting to feature her since the blog was new. She's a fantastic artist.

Yesterday's post on why self-publishing isn't career suicide got me thinking about the guide to self-publishing I've been wanting to work on. September may be the month for that.