Another successful promotion

I've been trying out a few of Kobo's in-house promotions over the past few months.  I prefer the ones that are done by discount code, because that means I don't have to worry about Amazon price-matching.  Makes it easier for me, and I'm all about paths of least resistance.  ;)

Each time I've done one of these Kobo promotions, I've made sales.  Not one of them has been a bust.  And they cost a cut of the sales price, so I don't pay anything up front.  That's the best kind of promotion, because I hate paying in advance for results that may or may not happen.  I'll pay for promotions, but only reluctantly.  I have to watch my expenses.

Anyway, I moved several copies of Hostile Planet as part of Kobo's VIP 30%-off thing.  And I continue to get daily downloads of Clouds of Venus.  I still don't have any real traction on Kobo yet, but it feels like that might happen soon.

So, thanks, Kobo.  Y'all are awesome, and I'm looking forward to getting my first royalty deposit from you.  :D

On this Memorial Day

We remember the fallen.

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Alberto is here

I noticed something unusual today.  The clouds were moving in the wrong direction.

Prevailing winds are west-to-east, so the clouds generally move from west to east along with the wind.  On rare occasions, though, they reverse directions.  Like today: the clouds were moving in from the southeast.  This is a signal that something is brewing to the south.  Another signal is the quick periods of intermittent sun and rain, as if thin bands of clouds--such as the spiral arms of a tropical disturbance--are passing through.  Together, they mean a tropical storm is in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean.  For Georgia, that means lots of rain over the next few days.

This isn't the first storm named Alberto to come ashore.  In 1994, another Alberto parked itself over Georgia and Alabama and dumped an insane amount of rain.  The result was the widespread flooding of the Flint River valley, including most of the southwestern Georgia town of Albany.  I'd never seen flooding like that in Georgia before, and I've never seen it since.

Like most tropical storms and hurricanes that pass over Georgia, I don't expect this current one to do much damage here in the northern part of the state.  These things are usually pretty weakened by the time they make it up here.  They have to cross hundreds of miles of dry land, after all, so they're cut off from their warm-water power source, and they have to climb about a thousand feet uphill, and that saps the storm's strength considerably.

So I'm not worried or anything, and y'all shouldn't be worried for me, either.  Storms like this are good reminders, though, of the sheer power of nature, and reminders like that are a healthy thing.  They help us keep things in perspective.  They remind us that there are some things about this planet that we haven't yet subdued and which might not be possible to subdue.  They also remind us of the importance of preparations and of not ignoring signs of incoming danger... like clouds coming in from the southeast.

Another flawless order

Received my Amazon order a couple of days ago.  Everything was as I wanted.  I've never had to return anything to Amazon.  I've been satisfied every single time.  Of course, I'm also a careful shopper, so I probably avoid a lot of the careless mistakes other people make that results in them being dissatisfied with their purchases.  Whatever the reason, though, I've got no complaints.  Amazon serves me well.

Out of curiosity, and on a somewhat related note, I visited Walmart's web site and did a little browsing.  Their book product pages are starting to resemble Amazon's in some ways.  Of particular importance, in my opinion, is the presence of also-boughts.  Walmart is playing catch-up to Amazon in the cyber-store realm, and they've still got a ways to go, but they seem to be making real strides.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  And if they start putting self-published Kobo books on their virtual shelves, then it's "game on."  Exciting times.

Wrote a privacy policy

See previous post.  Also, see the sidebar under "My Profile."

Privacy Policy

When you sign up for my newsletter:

I can see your email address when I log in to TinyLetter.  As far as personal info goes, that's it.  I can't see your name, country of origin, or anything of the kind.  I can see a few statistics relating to how many times you've opened my newsletter, but there's not anything more specific than that in those numbers.  The only personal stuff is your email address.  This is what your "profile" looks like on my TinyLetter dashboard:

(That's the profile for my own email address, by the way, the one you see on my blog's sidebar.  I scrubbed it out because I don't want some bot scraping it off the internet.)

And that's it.  Nothing in that image is a clickable link.  What you see is all there is.

Note: It's possible that TinyLetter has some data about you that it doesn't share with me, such as your IP address and country of origin.  I can't speak to that one way or another.  I can only speak for myself, and I don't have that info.

I won't sell your email address to anyone, or give it away, or anything like that.  I'll only use it for the intended purpose: to send you my newsletter.  If that changes, then I'll tell you in advance and give you the opportunity to opt out.  I doubt it'll change, though, because I really don't want to mess with this sort of stuff.  I just want to write books, sell those books, and market those books.  I hate spam, and I hate spammers, and I have no intention of becoming a spammer.

What I WILL do is send you the occasional email.  The rate has been once a month recently, but I make no promises with regards to frequency.  It's sort of on an "as I feel it's needed" basis.  I'll try to send them often enough so you don't forget about me, but not so often that you get sick of me.

On tracking cookies: I don't think my blog has any.  I certainly haven't installed any, nor do I plan to.  If anything on my blog is tracking you, then it was put there by Blogger, not me.  If cookies concern you, then I'd encourage you to set your browser to delete them when you close the browser.  That's what I do with Firefox, and it works well enough for me.  I don't even think about cookies anymore because I know Firefox will nuke them as soon as I click the X in the top right corner.

5/25/2018 UPDATE:  I got the following notice from Blogger:

European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used and data collected on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies, and other data collected by Google.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. If you include functionality from other providers there may be extra information collected from your users. 

So there you go.  Proceed accordingly.

Any time you want to unsubscribe, just click the "unsubscribe" link in the newsletter.  You'll find it at the very bottom.  I may start adding it to the top, too, just as a redundancy.

I am NOT enrolled in the Amazon Affiliates program or any other such program that pays me for purchases made via links I provide on my blog.  (Or however that works; not sure.)  A link I post might be an affiliate link, but it belongs to someone else, not me.  If this changes, then I'll explicitly say so in the promotion.

If you have any questions about any of this stuff, please don't hesitate to send me an email.  I'm happy to clarify things when possible.

That's all for now.  I reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason.

Progress report

I've started the second draft of book 3.  I'm working my way through my notes right now, and then once that's done, I'll cut scenes if necessary and move stuff around.  Then I'll basically re-write the whole thing at the paragraph and sentence level (leaving the broader structure unchanged).  No promises regarding a release date.  Life has a way of upsetting my plans, and I know better than to try to make predictions.

I'm working on a new cover for Mr. Wilson, and I think I'm getting close.  This cover design stuff isn't easy, and it takes me a few iterations just to get something that doesn't suck.

I intend to come up with a Privacy Policy soon.  This is due to the GDPR thing that the EU is doing.  I'm basically going to see what other authors have and copy their policies.  Other than that, I don't plan on doing anything regarding the EU's latest regulatory experiment.  Not at this time, anyway.  I reserve the right to do whatever I deem necessary to stay out of trouble.

I logged into Bookbub the other day--something I mostly only do once a month when applying for a deal--and saw I had some notifications.  I clicked on them and discovered I have some Bookbub followers.  Pretty cool, huh?  I guess that means they get emails from Bookbub when I release something new.  Anyway, if any of my Bookbub followers are reading this, welcome to the blog, and feel free to introduce yourself in the comments if you're so inclined.

Just as I feared, the weather here transitioned from late winter to early summer with almost zero spring in between.  Highs last week were in the upper 80s.  This week has been rainy, so the temps have been lower, but I also saw the first mosquito of the year today--and got my first bite--so it's now officially mosquito season.

That's all for now.  Back to the grind...

First draft is done!

The first draft of Book 3 of the Wheel of Fire series is done.  It clocks in at 95,000 words and change.  I usually add material during revision, so I expect the final product to be somewhere between 90,000 and 130,000 words.  That's just an estimate, though.  No promises.

It took me about three months, and I'm frankly kind of embarrassed about that.  I should have finished this thing up faster.  But the past is the past, and all I can do is try to do better next time.

My order of business now is as follows: write the second draft, make a revised outline for book 4, work on the outlines for the rest of the series, do a little cover work, and then start the Kindle edit for book 3.

I also intend to run an ad or two for Clouds of Venus.  I'm trying to decide whether to do that before or after Memorial Day weekend.  I think I might wait until after.

But for now, a milestone is accomplished, so I'm going to take a day to wallow in some good feels.  I may even watch a movie or do something equally extravagant.  :D

Thanks, readers!

Patty Jansen's latest promotion has ended.  I made several sales of Mind Games.  I hope y'all who purchased it enjoy the book.  I hope you've already read Hostile Planet, too, otherwise you might get confused.

Thanks again.  :)

A little more love from Apple

Something is afoot at Apple.  Not sure what it is... but I like it.

Here's a chart of free downloads of Clouds of Venus at Apple.  It spans March 1 to the present.

The daily downloads have increased lately, as one can plainly see.  A spike that lasts a few days can easily be dismissed as an anomaly.  But this spike has lasted for a couple of weeks now, which suggests it's a change in trend, not just signal noise.

Perhaps it's Apple's algorithm promoting me a little more.  Or maybe some book blogger left a positive review somewhere.  Lots of possibilities.  Who knows...

Whatever the reason, it's cool to see.  And if any new-to-my-work readers are reading this, I hope you enjoy the book.  :)

Patty Jansen's May Promotion: all books 99 cents

Time for another book sale.  :D  Patty Jansen is running a promotion this weekend, and my own Mind Games is a part of it.  All books are 99 cents.

Direct link:

http://pattyjansen.com/promo/5-6-may-2018-99c-promo/

So check it out.  It's a great way to sample other authors' works on the cheap.  You might just find your new favorite series.

In the meantime, thanks for supporting me and all the other independent authors.  :)