I’ll be 40, which I read somewhere is the official age one becomes a cougar at.

Being an alien, I didn’t think it would happen to me, but the more thought put into it and considering my *cough* hybrid status, turning into a big reddish gold, umber and white kitty, then stalking and pouncing on unsuspecting younger men?

It could totally happen, y’all. Seriously.

And it’s definitely a noteworthy event in one’s life. You don’t get to turn into an animal every day!

Anyhoo, it seemed that something special was needed in order to commemorate this approaching, and huge, life change, so I thought of Russell Michael.

No, not because he’s a sexy younger man.

Okay, maybe a little. Ahem.

Mostly because he’s an uber-talented musician and I was positive he could create an Official Cougar Theme Song.

And he did.

And here it is:

Now my four sites are linked and resemble each other, mainly due to the fact that I used the same awesome theme ( Lunatic Fringe ) with almost the same customizations made to each. Those sites are my blog here, Feral Intensity; ShadowConnor.com, LogansAngel.com and the newcomers, MidnightIntentions.com and RuineSilver.com.

Midnight Intentions is where my web fics are being moved to, and they’ll continue being free reads. But if you’d like the ability to comment, or want to enter the Reading Room to see what characters are currently holding sway and relating their stories, it requires subscribing for a mere 99 cents a month. The bonus? All current subscribers receive a free ebook in the future of each completed title – in their choice of DRM free formats.

Less that $12 a year! It’s like a book club, kind of! Yay!

I’ll be working on it this week, scheduling posts and all that. The current Reading Room feature title is the second Moon Children tale, Dark Dawn. Werewolves. Alaska. Love. Lust. Violence. 

Haven’t read the first one yet? It’s Dark Craving, available at Smashwords, Amazon, AmazonUK, KoboBooks, Barnes & Noble, GoodReads and from me via Payloadz. Oh, and from Scribd!

Must. Sell. Faster and more!

Deadlands Hunt is now available at Amazon, AmazonUK, Smashwords and GoodReads. It’ll be available at Scribd today.

But there’s the only one place you can buy it for 40% off its cover price of $5.25.

Forty percent off $5.25 = just $3.15. That’s pretty darn good for a 45k word count novella, y’all!

It has been reviewed by a purchaser too, so check that out.

Use code ‘RN84U ‘ to get 40% off and go here to buy it: http://ow.ly/2orpy

PERK!

If 20 copies total sell today, I’ll finish Not to Their Lycan, my Twitter Tale, tonight on Twitter! So far, it’s 1/20 for the day.

I’ve never sold 500 copies of any of my ebooks, much less during their first week out of the gate. So, it would beyond awesome if my new release, Deadlands Hunt, managed to sell that many copies by Saturday the 14th – especially with school about to start and my giants needing school supplies, etc.

In fact, I would love so much to reach that goal that I’m willing to discount Deadlands Hunt by 40% to do so.

So if you’d like to help little ol’ indie me reach this lofty goal of mine, use the coupon code of ‘RN84U’ when purchasing Deadlands Hunt, and get 40% off of its cover price of $5.25!

Thanks a bunch, and feel free to share that coupon code around to friends! You can check in at the bottom of any page to see how the Deadlands 500 is going!

Zipped. DRM Free PDF formats:

After the Fall series: Tria’s Tale, A Little Nip, By Chance, Playing for Keeps, A Quiet Day, Good Intentions, Solo Mission, The Silent One, The Katarr

The bundle is 25% off regular cover prices for the titles available for purchase ($12.71 instead of $16.95!). 

Purchase yours today, and support an indie author’s first novel length release!

 (Delivery will be made via email, to the email address payment is made from.)

Or, pop over to the fund raising page to see what other options there are!

I think it stopped amusing him around my 20th sale, but oh well.

Amazon no longer allows us to share any information from our DTP admin areas, so I can’t break down sales as I have in the past. But, I’ve released two new novelettes in the past week, and so the sales numbers I mention are the totals from both Amazon and Smashwords.

The Contract Bride was released June 8th, and to my shock, actually sold three copies the same day. It’s sold 7 total in the six days since, plus received two 4 star reviews at Smashwords. This is awesome, y’all!

Why is it awesome? I’ve never had a new release achieve a first sale so quickly. It’s usually 1-2 weeks before that first copy sells.

Rift was released two days ago, on June 12th. It’s sold 2 copies so far. And these releases seem to have generated some interest in my other titles, so that for the past week, there’s been a total of twenty sales and Moon Children: Dark Cravings was also reviewed.

Pitiful as that may seem to some, 20 sales and three reviews in a week’s time is a super awesome rise for me.

So thank you very much for purchasing my ebooks and also for the reviews. I sincerely appreciate those, and all the exercise I’ve gotten from ‘Had a Sale!’ and ‘Got a Review!’ Happy Dancing.

My butt thanks you too.

*

Hunter’s Edge (After the Fall series)

It’s completed, and undergone it’s first beta read revision, thanks to Tonya. Dhympna is also beta reading it, so there will be another round of revisions before sending it to my Story Tamer for final edits. I’ll work on the cover in the meantime. After final edits are approved, it should be just formatting and release.

Current word count: 72, 361, which means it’s a novel (yay! my first completed one!) and puts it in the $6.95 price bracket.

*

The Code Walker

Current word count is 15, 186. I think another 4-5 chapters will finish this story off, so final word count is likely to be around 20k. Editing, cover design and formatting to follow, before release.

*

Darklands Hunt

My winning 2008 NaNoWriMo novel. Current word count is 46, 742 after some revisions/self-editing. There’s a full chapter needing to be written, plus two others requiring wrapping up. Final word count is likely to be over 50k, so yay! Another novel length title looming near completion!

*

Dark Dawn (Moon Children)

Completed, but I’ll be damned if I can find the file. No true clue what the current word count is, but around 20k feels right in the old brain pan. Will need editing, a cover and formatting – if I ever find the file!

*

Arcane Solutions (Discord Jones PI)

My 2009 NaNoWriMo winner. Current word count after some major slicing and dicing: 46, 396. There are several scenes written and needing to be typed up, and others yet to be written. It’s going to be completed with over a 50k word count, but I have no clue how much over. Then will come editing, cover and formatting, with a third novel length title released. Yay!

*

Hunter’s Blood (Shadow Connor series #1)

Current word count is around 15-16k. I set a goal of 50k, while hoping it might near 70k by completion. To be honest, if novella length is what results, I’m good with that. We’ll just have to see how it pans out. The cover is done.

*

I pretty much screwed off the first half of the year, experimenting with ways to draw in more readers and make more sales. Little of it worked, so completing the above mentioned titles is taking over. The first four are quite likely to be released before the end of the year.

Arcane Solutions might still be in editing, while I’m good with at least having the first draft of Hunter’s Blood finished.

For NaNoWriMo this year, I might be working on Mating Dance, Shadow Connor #2.

Even completing those won’t come close to clearing out my back log of WIPs, but it’s a good start and I’m enjoying the feeling of successfully completing one so far!

I don’t expect I’ll know much more about how it all works by then than I currently do, because it’s a puzzling business.

Starting out with original fiction back in June 2007 (okay, there were a few instances prior to that, but that’s when I became serious about it), I posted my work for free on RedBubble. That resulted in interest and encouragement.

Feral Intensity was my first self-published title in Nov 2007; a 10k short story about a female shape shifter, Shadow Connor.  Two friends purchased copies directly from me, but it was January 2008 before the first sold to a stranger on Amazon.

I freaked the hell out. Someone had paid money for something I’d written, and I didn’t know them. It was awesome!

Between that first non-friend sale and December 2009, I’ve released more titles, improved my writing skills, gotten an editor, worked on developing my ‘platform’ and tried several things to build a readership and sell more ebooks.

Both of which were successful – to a minor degree.

I do have more readers now, and my sales for 2009 were a  400% increase over those of 2008.

Then came 2010, which I apparently decided to start off by making several horrible decisions.

1)      I began writing some free to read web fiction stories, with the usual donate button in hopes of earning a bit from the effort.

2)      Retired my three best sellers, the original Shadow Connor titles, because the world the series is set in had developed way beyond what those titles were.

3)      Changed my cover pricing schedule.

4)      Deleted several ‘social’ accounts that I either wasn’t using at all, or was in a very haphazard manner, to focus on those bringing in results.

5)      Began offering discount coupons, even up to 100% off, in hopes of getting some reviews.

6)      Tried sponsorship of a few stories, in order to earn a fair wage and release them as CC licensed titles anyone would be free to share.

7)      Grew depressed over my sales tanking, the lack of feedback via comments, ratings and/or reviews, and failed to finish any titles or release anything new.

Some things I’ve learned:

A) Writing for free does bring in readers, but not many readers who will buy ebooks or tip. Either because they can’t afford to, or don’t see any reason to because hey, you posted it for free reading.

Result? I will no longer write for free. Providing free entertainment is cool and all, but I’m writing to earn money, which has always been my goal.

B) More readers hasn’t translated into more sales.

See above; I’ve gained new readers, yet have earned less this year via tips and sales than in 2009, and not much over what I earned in sales my first year as an indie author.

C) Cutting back on ‘social’ networks didn’t hurt or help my sales.

I wasn’t using them all, so cutting away dead weight was a no-brainer. However, the ones I’ve kept and focus on aren’t resulting in new sales.

D) Changing my price structure was a horrible idea.

Roughly 15% of my overall sales on distribution sites has come from titles priced under $3.25. The other 85% are from my titles priced $3.25, $4.75 and $5.25. None of those are novel length titles. They’re all novelettes or novellas. Lowering prices almost completely killed my sales.

E) Not regularly releasing new titles harmed my sales.

Totally my fault here, and it was somewhat unavoidable. It’s hard to be psyched to write new stories when people aren’t buying what you already have available. Or are reading what you’re regularly posting, yet seldom commenting, dropping a tip or going on to buy your ebooks.

F) Very little of what I experimented with resulted in an increase of sales or a more ‘vocal’ readership.

Authors are entertainers. Without audience feedback, I have no idea what my readers like or dislike, and thus no way to improve in the areas I may be weak in.

Note: I’m not discounting those who have done reviews! Much appreciation for those!

What was working for me prior to this:

Having a few freebies for download, posting the occasional excerpt, writing like a mad woman and releasing new titles on a somewhat regular basis and not shortchanging my chosen pricing structure.

Well, that was working in regards to the financial aspect, if not the ‘vocal readers’ area.

My intentions henceforth:

I will continue with the Shadow Connor series as it is now: You can read the original three, retired titles for free online. You have to register for free to read the works in progress (there’s other benefits too), and I’ll continue posting the first draft of each new title onsite there.

My web fiction section is now an experiment in crowd funding. If you read the 80 or so parts of the six stories available and tip those you like, I’ll post a new part each time the tip level of whichever story hits $5. That experiment will continue until the end of the year. If tips/posting haven’t become something steady by then, the web fiction section is coming down and I might finish those stories to release as ebooks in the future.

My ebook prices have gone back up. Most still don’t cost more than a special order Starbucks drink. In fact, after checking out what they charge for ‘extras’, if you like really going all out when in Starbucks, then none of my titles currently cost more than a single drink there.

I may remove all my ebooks priced lower than $3.25, and concentrate only on writing novelettes, novellas and novels from here on out. Short stories may end up in being ebooked as collections, to put them in the proper word count range for pricing as one of those lengths mentioned above.

Last, I’m considering switching to a pen name. My real name doesn’t seem to be cool enough, LOL. In fact, I do have two pen names I write under, one known to a small extent (Victoria Collins, also not cool enough to sell ebooks apparently) and one not so known that I’ve written a bit of erotica under.

But it’s definitely cooler than the other two, because the two titles available under it have been downloaded 858 times in just three months, which based on my experience thus far, is rather amazing for my titles.

Then again, no one’s rated or reviewed them, though 8 people have added them to their Smashwords libraries. Both are kind of uh, quirky, I guess. (If you’re interested in them, hit me up via the contact page and I’ll send you the links. I don’t want my kiddos tripping over them and freaking out, so I don’t mention that pen name on my blog, etc.)

I guess you could say I’ve decided to consolidate and return to what was giving me results before I decided to experiment to increase readers and sales.

Hopefully, I haven’t screwed up so badly that proves a lost cause.

First glance, this was my opinion:

While a new partnership is great news, has anyone actually checked out the ‘What’s Hot’ section on there?

Seems to be mostly teenagers, which I guess is the right audience for YA authors.

I’ve yet to find any constructive criticism or other than ‘I love your story!’ comments while browsing around, so not sure how useful of a tool Wattpad would be for more ‘serious’ writers.

Still, after a bit of thought, I decided to give Wattpad a chance. I am trying to build a readership, after all!

I signed up, and had barely gotten my profile filled out when the ‘message board’ section of it showed two greetings to Wattpad, each complete with a request to come read their stories. In two days’ time, I received 8-10 such greeting/requests.

Just for the record, I did play the game, and go read those works as requested, plus commented. I am a player! Hah.

In roughly 48 hours, I didn’t find a single writer onsite that was over the age of 19. The average age range appeared to be 13 – 17. Great for a YA author trying to build an audience – maybe.

Uploaded five examples: The first parts of Feral Intensity, Rising Moon, Lasting Echoes (retired titles), Hunter’s Edge (in beta reading) and the prologue for Hunter’s Blood, the new first Shadow Connor series title (rough draft).

The results were over 100 reads total on all five; one comment and one fan.

The fan made the comment and was one of about four teen writers I read that showed real potential. She also responded to my comment on her work, thanking me for giving her constructive criticism. Sweet and talented girl.

No, I didn’t play the game that far, leaving ‘OMG, I LOVE THIS, PLEASE COME READ MY STORY!’ comments. I left constructive criticism: “Good start here. I liked ______________. You might consider doing ______________.”

Yeah, I suck at the sucking up/back scratching thing. Sorry ‘bout that.

There were a several stories written in LOLzspeak, y’all. Titles were stuff like: ‘I’m a girl in love with the hot boy next door who happens to be a werewolf!’ (I didn’t actually see that title, but some came awfully close to it).

To be honest, I’d never heard of Wattpad before. Ever. Never saw it in a search result nor heard another author mention the site. So I’m not quite certain how it can be “the world’s most popular ebook community”.

In fact, the only person I saw mention ebooks was myself.

Short summation:

Wattpad isn’t really a site for authors who are striving to be professional.

It is a site for beginners to gain confidence, and maybe if they’re lucky, to learn to handle constructive criticism gracefully – if they ever receive any from other members.

I wasn’t finished reading! What the hell?

I back clicked, read another paragraph, and again came a refresh and send to the front page entries.

Guess what? I closed the browser. I was done. I won’t be returning to that author’s site, I won’t be purchasing any of her books, all because I couldn’t be left alone long enough to read what I went there to read.

Trying to force your visitors to view content they may not wish to isn’t a good thing, people. Don’t do it.

Ads are another annoyance of mine. I know ad revenue is important to many people, but when ads pop up or slide over to cover the content I’m attempting to read, it ticks me off. I’ll leave such sites, regardless of how interesting the information might be, because my reading is interrupted and I don’t like being forced to view ads.

In my opinion, ads should be around the main point of interest, and the main point of interest should be your blog posts. That’s why I come to your site/blog: to read what you have to say. Not to view ads.

That’s not to say I won’t click on ads if I find they’re on something I’m interested in. But I won’t click on those that disrupt what I came to your site to do: read. I especially dislike the linked text ads, where a window pops up if you drag your cursor over a word in the post. Those aggravate the piss out of me!

Put them in the sidebar or at the bottom of your post, somewhere viewable but out of the way that doesn’t disrupt the reading. I’ll look at them before I leave. I may even leave via one of them, depositing a few cents into your ad revenue account.

But if they shove themselves into my face, I’ll just leave your site and not return.