The Giant Sequoias are growing…and I’m writing again

It has been a hard couple years for professional and family health reasons, though I’m not going to detail it all here. The good news is that (knock on wood) things may be settling down a bit. 

I’ve started writing again. That is the good news. The bad news is that with 7 different novels in flight I’m all over the place…working on one for one week, and then jumping to another for a week then off to the third and fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh all in random order and for random durations. 

One of my major failings of late is not being able to focus. Needless to say I’ve not been able to stay focused for the last several years for more than a week or two at a time on any one writing project.

As an aside, my first novel — Youth in Asia — continues to sell surprisingly well given that it has been four and a half years since I published it. The novel has sold about 4,200 copies, and I’ve donated well over $2,000 from sales. Frankly, it is embarrassing to admit how long ago I published it. 

On a completely unrelated topic, my attempt at growing Giant Sequoias continues…

The Giant Sequoias

Preparing to transplant Giant Sequoias

Of the thirteen seeds that came in the little kit I bought on Amazon for $7, we have three sprouts. I’m not sure if any more have started but are not yet visible, so I will prep six pots. In addition to what you see above, I added a healthy helping of sand.

As you can see in the photo below, the small tube in front of my computer is where the seeds started. I laid out a sheet of aluminum foil to empty the contents of the tube into so I don’t make a mess or lose any of the seeds.

Where I normally sit to do my editing, I’ve set up a small station to do the transplanting.

We only found three seeds that had germinated, but we did find the other 10 seeds. As you can see below, the sprouts are small and very fragile. We are trying to keep as much of the original dirt around their root as we can.

Giant Sequoias starting small…in a tube I divided into quarters
Tiny Sequoia
Exif_JPEG_420

We got the three sprouts into the pots. The other ten seeds we put on the top of the fourth pot and sprinkled the dirt that they came with over them. I marked each seed with a small white rock. Odds are low that any will grow at this point, but thought we’d give them one more shot.

I started this project on a lark, but now that they are growing I’ve been giving more thought to where to plant them on our property when the time comes. Though they reportedly can grow in central Texas, when full grown (long after I’m dead and gone), they can consume more than 500 gallons of water per day. Though we have a ‘wet weather’ creek behind our home, and I’m assuming the water table is not too far below it, and though I can plant at least one in reach of where our sprinkler covers, I can’t imagine pumping 500 gallons of water at it a day. I’ll let my descendants figure that out if it lasts that long…

IfalGiant Sequoias on the window sill

 

If all goes well, I figure I’ll put them in big pots next summer, probably of the 5-gallon variety. I’ll put those on the deck. Then after the trees are at least six feet tall, move them to the yard.  

Now that is done…on to Thanksgiving and more writing and editing. Hopefully I can focus on one thing at a time. 

Showing versus Telling…and Characterization and Training our Readers

The never ending “show vs tell” debate came up again in one of my writing workshops. I’ve written about it before (in fact, it is still one of my most popular blogs). To keep the story short, it occurred to me that when to show vs. tell, or perhaps when to show AND tell is also partly a function of timing and characterization. This is because we have to train the reader and make sure general perceptions about what body language shows are precise for our specific and distinct characters.

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IrSaa’s Prelude

IrSaa spends much of her early life on a massive space station, the Westport Torus.

To condense the story some of you know, I joined the online writing community www.CritiqueCircle.com site about 4.5 years ago (seems like a long time!) after I started writing again. In three months in late 2013 and early 2014, I cranked out a sci-fi novel, which my wife and kids liked, so I wrote a sequel in the next three months, which my wife and kids also liked. Both novels needed fresh and critical eyes, though.

I then found CC and submitted the first novel (Lonely Hunter), which gave me a ton of constructive feedback. I was delighted that some aspects were well recieved. But it was clear I had a lot of work to do.

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Do Self Published Authors Suck?

 

Yet again, I was party to a discussion about traditional publishing fiction vs. self-publishing fiction. The question was if self-published authors are any good? And yet again, the discussion had several flawed assumptions:

– If you are traditionally published you write well. If you write well you will be traditionally published.

– If you self-publish, you can’t write and you did a poor job of preparing your manuscript. People who self-publish do so because they are not good enough to traditionally publish.

As in most such discussions, there is some truth to all assumptions, but when the generalizations become gospel thoughtful discussion ends. So what is the truth of the matter?

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100 Goodreads Reviews

Numbers

This morning, after rolling out of bed on this 4th of July, I saw that my first novel had gotten its 100th review on Goodreads and its 66th review on Amazon. From the same person, and only 4 stars, nonetheless it was exciting to hit 100 on Goodreads. That is just one of many metrics that can describe my book’s success in the market.

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Indie Publishing and Traditional Publishing

Joanna Penn indie publishing traditional publishing

Joanna Penn, an accomplished writer and blogger about writing and publishing has penned (pun intended 😉 ) a nice article about the pros and cons of indie publishing and traditional publishing.

Note that it is not indie versus traditional publishing. It is indie and traditional publishing. Neither is perfect, both have many challenges, and some writers might pick one over the other for one book, and the other for a subsequent book.

If you are trying to make up your mind about which way to go, take a look.  It’s a good article. Check it out. 

Three things to do to ramp your Book Sales


Amazon Bestseller
Two and a half years after I published my novel, it is still selling several copies a day.

Earlier today it had a sales rank of 50K (see the above screenshot). Sales have certainly declined from where they peaked about nine months after I published, but sales continue at a steady pace. And my novel is in a pretty small niche, so book sales have only so much upside in this niche.

My book is priced at $1.49, and it has been at that price for almost the entire time it has been for sale on Amazon, so I’m not wracking up sales by selling it at $.99.

Below you can see my Author Rank as tracked by Amazon. Even two and a half years after I launched my book it is still doing better than it did the month after I launched it. Again — see my blog on keywords. That dip the month after I published my book was because I did not know what I was doing (like most indies) with keywords. After that, I got my keywords figured out and my sales did much better.

Amazon Author Central

I’m going to cut to the chase on why it continues to sell so well. There are three primary reasons, three things that anyone can do ramp their book sales and keep them up. Continue reading “Three things to do to ramp your Book Sales”

What is the Value in Giving Away Free Kindle ebooks?

 

#1 and #2 Amazon ebook downloads

I’ve not changed the price of my first book on Amazon in a year and a half. My guess is that frequent price change or even free days will not do much for your sales and won’t result in many new reviews. Nonetheless, I thought I’d make my book free for a day and see what happens.

The day is about half over, and per the KDP report Amazon offers, I’ve had about 70 downloads. Given that I barely advertised it — a few tweets only — that is not too surprising. But there are a few surprising things.

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Why the Population Bomb bombed

Population Bomb, The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich

This book came up in a discussion I was having earlier today. Published in 1968, and an eventual bestseller, The Population Bomb asserted that within 10 – 20 years the world would be wracked by starvation and wars for food.

In my early teens in the ’70s I lived in a small town in western Kansas surrounded by literally an ocean of wheat that farmers were going broke producing because the world had too damn much of it. So I could not reconcile the dire warnings of “The Population Bomb” and the reality around me.

At least until the famous “bet”.
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