WHAT I’VE LEARNED OVER FOUR YEARS OF INDIE PUBLISHING:  

A Boo Done It Mystery

SALES AREN’T STEADY. A terrific six months can be followed by six months of few to no sales. You don’t necessarily get any sales at Christmas time. And a book that started off slow and then got a lot of sales, and then sold very slowly? That book still sells four years later. But not a lot. I don’t think you can look at your figures and plan your upcoming income from indie published books. ADVICE: When you do make a lot of money out of your books, save the majority of it against the year you don’t do so well.

YOU (AND THE PROFESSIONAL COVER ARTIST YOU HIRE) CAN CREATE BEAUTIFUL AND KICK-ASS BOOK COVERS. I think the operative word in the above sentence is professional. A professional cover artist with experience knows what they are doing. You can still have a lot of input in the creation of your cover, but let the professionals handle it.

SALES TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY REALLY DON’T HELP. So don’t ask them to buy your books. Don’t expect them to buy your books. What you need is strangers buying your books. Work on that. How? Targeted e-book email blasts like BookBub and ebook soda.

WRITE MORE GOOD BOOKS. The more good books you have in your stable, the more sales you will make. It won’t be equal, either. One or two of your books might make up most of your profit, with the others getting few to no sales at all. But the more you have, the more visible you are.

KEEP PRICES REASONABLE (OR LOW). Even I don’t like paying $12.99 for Stephen King books on Kindle, although he is one of only a few authors I will accept that from. Book prices run the gamut from free to ninety-nine cents to $2.99 and up past $9.99. Best advice is to look at your own book buying habits. How much are you willing to pay for a book from an author you’ve never hear of? How much are you willing to pay for a book that’s part of a series? If you take a free book and enjoy it, are you now willing to pay for other of the author’s books?

CONSTANTLY CHECKING TO SEE HOW MANY BOOKS YOU SOLD IS FUN!  It’s also a big waste of your time. And in more than four years of publishing, I still can’t break the habit. Like I said, it’s fun. ADVICE: Don’t let yourself get depressed over the days (or months) of no sales or over-elated over the sales you do get.

I LOVE INDIE PUBLISHING! This is the most important of the many things I’ve learned so far.

DISCLAIMER: These have been my experiences and might not apply to you.

I’ve got a new book coming out in a week. BABY SINGS THE BOOS. It’s six short stories combining the main characters from THE COWBOY’S BABY and TALKING TO THE DEAD GUYS. They get into all sorts of Texas-based mischief. It was damned fun to write. Should be fun to read. Look for it on Kindle, Nook, and at Smashwords.

Darwin says you’ll like my new short story collection. She’s in one of the stories!

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson.  Hot In December by Joe R. Lansdale.

You can find my books here http://amazon.com/author/gretchenrix and here http://barnesandnoble.com/c/gretchen-rix and here http://smashwords.com/books/view/105559 and if  you’re ever in Lockhart, Texas, check out LOGOS and the LOCKHART SHOPPES ON MAINE and BUFFALO CLOVER.

Prize toys from the game alley of the State Fair of Texas

Texas longhorn from the Lockhart/Luling corridor

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  Unwritten  by Charles Martin.

My cover artist is Streetlight Graphics. They’ve done all my covers for about four years now. I couldn’t be more proud of them. And it’s an interesting process. Between me and my sister we decide what we want, we tell them what we want, and then we get back a cover that’s exactly what we ordered, but it looks nothing like we’d imagined. We’ve got another new one coming up in a couple of weeks: BABY SINGS THE BOOS, a collection of six short stories combining the characters from The Cowboy’s Baby and The Cowboy’s Baby Goes To Heaven with the characters from Talking To The Dead Guys and Tea With A Dead Gal. Lots of fun to write. Hopefully lots of fun to read.

http://streetlightgraphics.com

And here’s where you’ll find the Kindle versions of the below three novels.

http://amazon.com/author/gretchenrix

Photos by Roxanne Rix.

A Boo Done It Mystery

A Boo Done It Mystery

Adventure and Romance in one

 TANGLED HONOR by Philip McBride, a book review.

There are more than enough accurately depicted battle scenes in TANGLED HONOR to satisfy the Civil War buff, but it’s also a compelling family story.

While Captain John McBee ably commandeers his men through bloody horrors, he also fights against his attraction to a beautiful woman he accepts shelter from one frightful night. Add to that his growing respect for his slave Levi, who has become indispensable to him as his aide, and is most likely his son.

TANGLED HONOR starts with a riveting bit of back-story from after the Texas Revolution when Comanche tribes were a major foe: The Battle of Plum Creek. Then the action jumps forward to Texas’ involvement in the Civil War where main character Captain John McBee fights for what seems at the time to be the upcoming victory of the South over the North.

No reader who enjoys realistic battle scenes will be disappointed in this historical novel. No reader who enjoys historical fiction from the Civil War era will be able to put this book down.

DISCLAIMER: I am part of the same critique group as Philip McBride, the author, and saw many chapters of this book as it was being written. Follow his blog at  

http://mcbridenovels.blogspot.com

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  Revival by Stephen King.

Photos by Roxanne Rix

You can find my books at

http://amazon.com/author/gretchenrix and http://barnesandnoble.com/c/gretchen-rix

THE TEN BOOKS I ENJOYED BEST IN 2014

I got this idea from Julia Tomiak’s Favorite books of 2014 nblo.gs/12dc9t blog. I’m going to share with you the 10 books I read in 2014 that I most enjoyed.

Here’s Darwin telling me to put my book down and pay attention to her

THE SEVENTH MAN by Max Brand. It’s a western like no other, where the bad guys are the viewpoint characters. It will take your breath away.  

THE WALK by Lee Goldberg. Wildly entertaining catastrophe novel that should be a movie. I’ll re-read this book forever.

DEAD MONEY by Dean Wesley Smith. A thriller set in the world of gambling and high politics. I bet you can’t put it down once you start reading it.

GRAVE INDULGENCE by William Doonan. Loved it, loved it, loved it. An octogenarian private detective solving murder mysteries on cruise ships. I wish I’d written it.

MEDITERRANEAN GRAVE by William Doonan. Another splendid and rip-roaring cruise adventure that will have you falling out of your chair.

QUICKSILVER by Toni Dwiggins, one of her Forensic Geology thrillers. It’s absolutely riveting.

COCKTAIL HOUR UNDER THE TREE OF FORGIVENESS by Alexandra Fuller. The memoirs of a girl growing up in post colonial Africa. What a life!

REPUBLIC by Lindsay Buroker. The latest in the adventures of The Emperor’s Edge gang of Amaranthe, Maldynado, and everyone’s favorite conflicted assassin Sicarius. Fantasy/science fiction steampunk.

STREET JUSTICE by Kris Nelscott. Hard-boiled mystery from the steamy side of the street.

BROOD OF BONES by A.E. Marling. You’ve never read a fantasy like this one.

Someday I hope to see one of my  books on a list like this. The books above are what I strive to achieve with my own.

PHOTOS by Roxanne Rix

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  The Before by Emily McKay.  Tangled Honor by Philip McBride.

My newest book Tea With A Dead Gal.  

A Boo Done It Mystery

LIFE WITHOUT POETRY

LIVE FROM LA PRYOR: The poetry of Juan Manuel Perez, a Zavala County native son, volume I

Big Disclaimer. I don’t read poetry, nor do I often enjoy it. I’ve got a book of the complete Lord Byron poems (never opened), ditto Shelley, and I’ve got the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe as well, and at best I read a couple of poems for Halloween before I give up.

But I read LIVE FROM LA PRYOR, The Poetry of Juan Manuel Perez, cover to cover.

It helps that the poetry is short. It really helps that the poetry’s really short. He uses small words, he writes about everyday experiences (and not in a flowery way). This is almost a book of poems for people who don’t like poetry.

Don’t mistake me, though. Some of his writing is quite angry. Combative. A lot of it is funny. It’s all offbeat. I can see what we used to call beatniks reading Juan Perez poems out loud at nightclubs. With music. But in this case it’d be mariachi music. Much of what he writes about comes from his experiences as a Mexican-American facing various sorts of barriers.

But then there’s that poem about lovely food, and then about comic books. He mentions Taco Bell in here somewhere, too.

This is volume I. I’m wondering if any of his Hooter’s poetry is in volume II. 

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  Live From La Pryor: The Poetry of Juan Manuel Perez, A Zavala County Native Son, Volume I edited by Dr. Malia A. Perez.  Want It Bad by Melinda DuChamp.

Find my books at

http://amazon.com/author/gretchenrix and http://barnesandnoble.com/c/gretchen-rix and at Smashwords.

Photos by Roxanne Rix

Ghostoria, Vintage Romantic Tales of Fright, is my friend Tam Francis’s first published short story collection, and I had a hand in it. (Aside: Though primarily a ghost story collection, it also contains horror stories. My hand is not literally in any of the stories, I promise you.)

Tam wasn’t anyone I knew when she started writing these stories. She submitted to the Scare The Dickens Out of Us ghost story contest my sister and I started and were preliminary judges for in 2010, then 2011, and then in 2012 when I thought she might actually win the thing. That story, Mrs. Franklin’s Night Out, is in this book.

We met finally through the Gaslight Baker Theatre where she’s an actress, and then when I joined her writer’s critique groups more than a year ago we became friends. I made editing suggestions to almost all the stories in this book (some of which I see that she ignored).

Enough of my disclaimer.

About three or four of the twelve stories in this volume are stunning ghost stories that I hope make it to a wider audience. I am so extremely proud of Tam Francis for these, and the rest of her tales are entertaining. (I’m proud of her for those, too). Many are stories of a more polite and refined era she’s calling vintage, and most of them have women protagonists.

They’ll send chills down your spine, or make you cry. They’ll while away the hours and take your mind off the nightly news. And to pay tribute to the United Kingdom’s Christmas ghost story tradition, I’ll remind everyone that Ghostoria would make a great Christmas present for someone.

WHERE TO BUY

Kindle           Paperback          Nook

You can find my books at

http://amazon.com/author/gretchenrix

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  Ghostoria by Tam Francis.

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK: Smith’s Monthly # 6 (includes the novel Kill Game) by Dean Wesley Smith.

http://amazon.com/author/gretchenrix

Following in the steps of The Passive Guy, I occasionally actually read my Spam. Here are a few of the charmers that caught my attention.

the shoe by itself is assemble it stand up to the shock of routinely hitting the floor which implies fewer harm to your feet and decrease legs.

 (I’d like to see those decreased legs. Sounds dangerous to me.)

I personalized manboobs my own self. 

(I thought manboobs were things men didn’t want!)

I have certainly picked up anything new from proper here.

(Wonder what I wrote that brought on that comment?)

The Cowboy’s Baby 

The Cowboy’s Baby Goes To Heaven 

Talking To The Dead Guys 

Arroyo  

The Safari Bride

Available for Kindle, Nook, and just about everything else

Twisted Rixter

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

MY NEWEST–THE SAFARI BRIDE

Available for Kindle, Nook, and just about everything else

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:  Judgement by Lee Goldberg.  Sea of Gold by by Nick Elliott.

Get it at Amazon.com

http://amzn.com/B00PUVCBGK

Get it for the Nook

http://barnesandnoble.com/c/gretchen-rix

Amtrak’s got a grant program for writers.

Yes, I’m a writer.

Didn’t expect that, did you? They pay the way of a writer to ride the rails, with several stipulations: They have to write while on the train. Not sleep, not watch the scenery, not play cards, but write. And they have to Tweet about the experience or put it on Facebook or otherwise publicize it.

Well, I’m never going to win that grant. And for the most part, my fellow Romance Writers of America friends aren’t going to, either. But the idea enchanted us.

So we did it ourselves. This past Saturday and Sunday. It was a blast! Nineteen of us made the round-trip from Austin to Dallas, staying at the Hyatt Saturday night. Our goal was to write going up there, to write coming back home, and to write at the hotel that night. I did  all that, and more.

I started my second short romance novel THE CIMARRON BRIDE. I made great progress. I’d decided to go low tech (as in pen and paper) because I wasn’t sure how to handle my heavy laptop on the train. Turned out it was the right decision, even though I now have to type my novel into a file. The train ride was not smooth like a car ride, but more like a carnival ride (not all the time, but enough). Many of the writers moved from the traditional train seats to the observation car where there were tables.

Warning. The toilets are smaller than on airliners. The stairs leading up from the lower to the upper levels of the train are claustrophobic.You have to pay close attention there, and as you’re walking down the aisle, and especially if you go from one car to the next.

Would I do it again? You bet! It’s a hell of a lot safer than driving. And a lot more fun. Maybe even cheaper.

Plus I wrote the beginning of my novel that way.

And I didn’t even mention what it’s like to have another train pass about two inches from your window, going the other way, and all you see of it is a shape rushing by. Or the tunnel of trees the train glides through out there in the farm and ranch lands. Or what it’s like passing through people’s backyards, and mainly through the poorer sections of big cities. Or that our train ran its horn most of the trip, and sometimes people waved at us. Or that the passengers often lurched down the aisle as if they were drunk and holding onto the seats to remain upright.

To my utter surprise, I loved it. The train ride worked really well to concentrate my attention on the book.

You see the most amazing things sometimes.

WHAT I’VE READ THIS WEEK:  NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.

Check out my mystery novel TALKING TO THE DEAD GUYS  http://amzn.com/B0094FBA8S.