Price is fixed

The price for Cities of Mars is now correct on the Amazon product page.  It took a little more than two days for the publishing update to go through, but it finally did.  So all's well that ends well.

I was going to alter the back matter in the Free Space books, but now I'm going to wait a little while.  I've got a promotion coming up, and I don't want to make any changes that might screw things up.  I'll change the back matter at a later date.

In other news, I found a plot hole in my current work, so I've got some alterations to make.  I don't think it'll be that big of a deal, though.  No major surgery required; just a bandage here or there.

Glitches at Amazon

Amazon is experiencing some glitches.  The product page for Cities of Mars, last I checked, advertises the book for $0.99.  This is incorrect.  The price I set for it is $2.99.  For some reason, the real price isn't being displayed on the product page.

Other authors have reported their product pages disappearing altogether.

I have no idea what's going on, but hopefully Amazon will get it all sorted out very soon.

Kobo requires captcha now

I really don't like the captcha thing.  The pictures are grainy, and it's often too hard to make out the details well enough to tell if the object I'm supposed to find is there or not.  Maybe it really does help prevent bots from logging in.  I don't know.  All I know is that it's an annoyance.

In other news, Draft2Digital has announced a new partnership with Baker & Taylor, a library system in the same vein as Bibliotheca.  I've added my books to both library systems.  We'll see if anything comes of it.

I'm going to change up my back matter a little and see if I can improve my sell-through rate.  My current rate isn't bad, but I think I can do better.

I've got some other things in the works, but no details for now.  ;)

I've removed/deactivated/whatever the copy of Mr. Wilson I was using as a magnet at My Book Cave.  It was an interesting experiment, but not one I think I'll repeat any time soon.  Not in the same way, at least.  I need to come up with an actual strategy first.

Still line-editing the work-in-progress.  Stay tuned.

Fixed a goof

Not a plot hole per se.  Just an inconsistency, and a minor one at that.  But this is why we do multiple passes over our work, right?

Manuscript currently stands at about 121k words, 42 chapters, and an epilogue.

A little Halloween music

Let's get in the mood, shall we?

To all you kids out there, this video was absolutely revolutionary when it came out.  Music videos prior to Thriller were basically just videos of the band playing the song.  Michael Jackson turned the music video into an art form all its own, and the rest was history.

Migraine blues and other stuff

Had another migraine last night.  Instead of getting anything useful done, I spent the night lying down, sitting on the toilet, and throwing up.  Par for the course.

No headache today--well, a little lingering bit, but practically none--but I've been kind of weak and tired.  That's also par for the course.

The air has gotten cooler.  Highs have been in the upper 60s the past few days.  Summer's officially over, I guess.  Today was breezy with overcast skies.  There was an enormous flock of blackbirds, too, making an awful racket.  It was like a scene from a Hitchcock movie.  Appropriate, I suppose, with Halloween approaching.

Until recently, every promotion I'd done on Kobo resulted in at least one sale.  The past couple of them, though, came up empty.  I have no idea how to get any momentum going there.  :(

Once I get the current work-in-progress published, I'll probably set up a Streetlib account.  I've basically decided to get on Google Play via Streetlib.

My magnet promotion thing netted 112 downloads during the promotional period.  However, I never took the story off "magnet" status, so it's accumulated a few more downloads since then.  I have no idea how people are finding it.  Maybe some folks liked it enough to tell their friends on Facebook or something.  *shrug*

Bookbub raised their prices.  A permafree SF book is no over $500 to promote.  It doesn't matter so long as I can't get a deal, but still...  :(

That's all for now.  Take care, y'all.

Wikipedia dreams

I've always been intellectually curious.  That can sometimes be a peril, particularly when I'm browsing Wikipedia.  Sometimes I'll start on one page, but then I'll get sucked into the various links, and before you know it, I've got a dozen Wikipedia pages open in various tabs and I'm reading about something I never intended to read about just a few minutes ago.

My conscious mind loves new information.  Like I said, I'm intellectually curious.  My subconscious mind, though, my id, doesn't like having so much new stimuli stored in my head.  And my id gets its revenge when I slip into sleep.  That's when all the stuff I was just reading about gets mashed up into a horror show.  Yes, my id gives me Wikipedia-inspired nightmares out of spite.  Bad id!  Bad!

If I could remember all my nightmares, I'd have enough story material for the rest of my life.  And it would be the craziest, awesomest stuff, too.  But I rarely remember.

Second draft is done

I've finally finished the second draft of book 3 of Wheel of Fire.  It's 120k words and change.  I ended up re-writing the ending a couple of times because something wasn't working, and I can't move forward until I figure out what it is and fix it.  But I think I've got it now.

Next step is the mobi edit.  This is basically just line editing, so it should move along at a steady clip.  That's my hope, anyway.

Onward and upward.  For Homestead!  :D

Updated sidebar

All my books are now available at Walmart.  I've added the links to the sidebar.

It looks like Walmart isn't going to allow free ebooks.  I hope that changes.  For now, though, it means Clouds of Venus will remain a non-free book at Kobo and Walmart.

No problems here

Hurricane Michael blew through quickly and relatively harmlessly.  All is well.

My heart goes out to the families of those who died, though.  Last I heard, there was one fatality in Florida and one on Georgia.  The latter was a little girl who was killed when a tree fell on her home.  Man, I hate that.  Condolences to those folks.

The rain has begun

I guess I won't see the sun again for at least a day, maybe two.

No strong winds yet.

Anyway, I'm still around, hurricane or no hurricane.

Thanks, readers!

Thanks to everyone who purchased my books during the latest promotion.  I hope y'all enjoy them.

Patty Jansen's 99-cent book sale

All books are 99 cents.  My own Cities of Mars is one of the featured titles.  Check it out:

Direct link:  https://pattyjansen.com/promo/7-8-october-2018-99c-promo/

These promotions are a great way to try out new (to you) indie authors.  Please take a moment to browse the selection.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent authors.

It's not the instrument

In high school band, students who have difficulty with some note or fingering often complain about their instruments not working properly.  Band directors like to then joke, "Oh, sure.  Blame the instrument."  The presumption being, of course, that there was nothing wrong with the instrument.  The problem was with the operator.

The directors were usually right.

I think this lesson applies to a lot of things other than music.  We humans tend to make rationalizations for our own shortcomings.  We're always looking to blame anyone but ourselves.  It's only human nature, of course, and it's not going to change.  But I think it's something we should be aware of in a "self-aware" sort of way.  It's something we should try to avoid.  Because you can't solve a problem until you've accurately identified the cause of the problem.

Most of the time, it's not the instrument.  It's the player doing something wrong.

A delicate procedure

I don't like changing prices on Amazon.  The problem lies in the backspace key.  I have to use it in order to change the numbers, but sometimes the cursor disappears from the field right before I hit the key.  When that happens, the browser sends me back to the previous page, and I have to start all over.  When you're changing each territory's price manually, it can be a pain to have to start over.

So one must be very careful.  I had to restart this price change twice, but I got it done.

Endothermic reactor

That's what we need to terraform Venus.  Something that transforms the atmosphere and absorbs a lot of heat in the process.  We do that, and we can eventually make the surface livable.  Theoretically.

I have no plans to write another Venus story, by the way.  Just musing.