2020: I thought
last year's post below was pretty comprehensive. Sadly, running—and weight loss—didn't pan out as I'd hoped. Back in November I injured my knees by forgetting everything I knew about
chi running and attempting to "boost" my locomotion with extra force. And I'd been doing so well. In October I ran 48 miles for the month—the most since February—including 5 and 6 mile days. I had recovered from my spring Chinese Covid slump enough to enter a
Virtual Challenge and was crushing it. Plus my wife and I were signed up for a 10k in Mesa, Arizona slated for February 2021. (We're going to Mesa anyway, just not to run.)
Self-inflicted running injuries are the absolute worst. No one to blame but yourself and I HATE blaming myself.
As for writing, it blossomed as in former days. I finished several short stories, including a whopping 12k word job. Sending them out wasn't resulting in sales, though the rejections were generally polite. So I assembled this year's crop along with stories dating back to 2009 and published the lot—all nine—in ebook form.
Death Honk is out now on
Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and more. The paperbacks will arrive in January. This is the first fiction book I've published since 2016. I bask in such warm accomplishments.
But writing is only a fraction of the battle for the indie author.
Unlike previous book launches, I obtained a few reviews in advance. Also, unlike previous launches, I bit off a good chunk more than I could chew. By attempting ebook and softcover launches on Amazon and Draft2Digital, I found each platform operates with different rules. So four sets of formatting required attention, eating up time with an appetite most voracious. Because my wife and her vast publishing experience were unavailable—I never interrupt her paying work—I was forced to hunt in the freelance veldt. The woman who proof read
Death Honk was outstanding. The man who formatted the print version less so. As
mentioned elsewhere, the cover designer rocked.
No audio version for
prostate, but I think that line has been jumped by
Death Honk. We shall see how 2021 shapes up. I'd like publish a second edition of
Hallow Mass with a new cover, add it to
Draft2Digital, then write the second volume. Plan meet life. And for the second time in a paragraph I'll say: we shall see.
This November marked fifteen years of blogging. Over 2k posts with entries topping 100 for the first time since 2012. Not that my traffic is that hot. But inconsistency carries a cost. I've really come to loath social media. (Do watch
The Social Dilemma.) But I should examine which platform provides the most pop sales-wise for an author's effort.
Canva proved a useful took in developing my own promotional materials. Even a digital butter fingers such as myself was able to figure it out. I highly recommend the website.
I end 2020 in reasonably good health, awash in efforts to publish two separate paperback versions of my anthology and eager to see what the future holds.
And a Happy New Year to you!
