4 books in November (One from Ashira Datya, One from NK Xero that I am still waiting on the cover and Manuscript for, One of Mine, and One of Serena’s that the link is coming soon for)
Then our Kids week has currently 3 books tentatively planned. One by me, one by Raz T. Slasher, and a third by CM Snow.
And Next year’s schedule is already filling up. January has 2. March already has one. And May has one. There are vague others that have placeholders but no defined date yet. I try to limit my calendar to four per month because sometimes even that is more than I can do.
I feel like I want to do more than I am capable of.
And I still have to squeeze my own writing and life in on the schedule too.
This year has been busier than I am used to. It wears on a person.
Serena’s story was accepted a bit ago in an anthology by Circle City Publishing. We just got the link today. It looks like a great read. Get yours here.
Perhaps it is time to step back and look at things from a different point of view.
Boyfriend sneered that he was the only one to do anything productive today.
From his point of view I am sure that is true. After all…He does not read. Everything I did today was to further the amount of books in the world. Either that or scheduling the week here on my blog.
Neither thing is exactly physical for him.
Publishing does not make me a huge paycheck.
What it does do is make me feel better about the world.
The world without books is a very dark place. So many wonderful books end up not getting a chance because the author does not know how to be heard. I am trying to help those authors.
However I suppose if you do not like books then it looks like I am locking myself in my room every Sunday. I am being antisocial and just playing on my computer.
Doing stuff that he does not understand and is not a part of.
While he made up homemade chicken nuggets. (He really is a wonderful cook.)
Usually I at least keep him company while he cooks. Still, He does know that Sunday is my day that I have set aside to do blog, and book stuff. I fight to keep it that way. If I don’t then I would never have anytime allowed. He would expect me to be available all the time. Which is not fair. To me, or to what I want to get done.
So I am mad. I am frustrated. And I feel like I should do more work because I am mad. (I was supposed to join the family game when I got my work done. But now I don’t think it is such a good idea.) However if I do too much at once I court burn out. And I risk mistakes because I am working mad.
So I am sitting here bored. Because spite is a thing too. I did more work than I had slated for today. My arm hurts. I am exhausted. And I just wish I had a way to explain to him that my work is productive too.
If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know I love doing cover art.
Canva is a tool. Not my only tool. But one that I use often.
I usually don’t use the template option. I feel like I’m more creative and can come up with something else.
That being said… the above cover was only slightly modified from the template option.
That template inspired me.
Then I wrote the volume, published it, and found out that the image has inspired many people. It has been used for several books.
Sigh.
So I revamped the cover. I gave it my own flair. And I feel like it fits better. I have already updated most of the ebook locations. And I will be doing the same thing for the print and remaining ebook sellers later today. It should have been more like this to start with.
I have really no excuses. Inspiration does not always equate to me thinking things through.
Okay I finished the update on Through the Sunshine. The paperback link is right on Amazon… Barnes and Nobles however I am not sure of. It should be right but the price is listed wrong, and it just doesn’t look right to me. So it might be still from the wrong place. If you order it there you are at this point taking a mild chance of getting a bad copy. I will post another time when I am positive it is right on Barnes and Nobles as well.
Again the b2r link is here. The only change is the paperbacks as d2d is not a good place for print.
I have noticed that the last few weeks weeks I have been doing a lot of talking about writing on my Wednesday posts.
I considered changing the post to Write Wednesday. Then I realized it is one of my favorite hyperfixations.
For the unaware – hyperfixations is a neurodivergent thing. It is a term for an interest that takes all of your attention. This can be a food, a song, an activity…etc. If you are not careful it can be a bad thing.
Imagine craving a sandwich and fixating on the idea. You find that nothing else has any flavor for you. You suddenly have no interest in eating anything else.
If you are lucky you can get the current hyperfixation and work with your brain and the quirks of the neurodivergency that is your particular flavor.
I have been doing the publishing stuff since 2010. For my own personal stuff, then I started with Fae Corps in 2019.
I struggle with depression, PTSD, Migraines, and a whole bunch of other health issues. Which is why I don’t do more than I do. Fae Corps does limited books because I don’t have the ability to do anything more.
I use several platforms to publish the books, with a few routines to make the work easier for me to accomplish. And I always leave plenty of time on the deadline so I don’t ever get pressured for time. Hence why we are starting to take the children’s book submissions for the kids week books now.
One of the places that I have used for publishing is draft2digital.com and I will continue to for the ebooks. Their print option however is awful. I stopped using them when we were getting reports of the cover for the books being delivered cockeyed.
Now I do the same place as they did separately. Better quality. The trick for their ebook set up is to prevent them from messing with the layout. So the only way to do that is to provide an epub file… which means I have learned how to make that.
That was in 2020 that I stopped using them for print. I really don’t know what I have been thinking. Someone pointed out that the print was wrong for Through the Sunshine… so I checked. I care about the quality of our books. So I will always check. Yes it is something that I can fix. Something that I should have already done.
Now, I am asking myself. Is the 17 books that I still have to port over a sign of laziness? Or that I have been doing too much? And should I even get upset with myself over the whole thing?
Honestly I think that I am just going to get it done and write it off as a learning experience. If I beat myself up over it, well it will just be longer for me to get it done.
The 17 books are a mix of the early Anthologies for Fae Corps Publishing and some of my poetry volumes. In order to get it fixed I will have to take it off sale on the one place and put it back up on the other two. So I am going to be doing this one book at a time. It should only have each book down for around a week in print only.
I will get each of them updated on their books2read.com links. I plan on posting on fae corps publishing as I have each book updated. This is a ridiculous amount of work and I am probably still going to be dealing with this well into the next year.
Pattimouse 