Category Archives: The Never Prayer

My Sales Numbers

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I found something more cutting and disheartening than getting rejection from literary agents. My book sales numbers. I just got my Q2 numbers back and yeah, um, not the fly-off-the-shelf numbers I would have liked to see. At first, I was laid low. But then, I got some perspective. Very few authors are ever going to get the Harry-Potter-Twilight experience. Very few even get the midlist, big-publishing house experience. Most writers write a book, several hundred people read it, and ten minutes later it’s at the Goodwill for 10 cents.

However, instead of getting a dozen donuts and watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I went mountain biking. And I haven’t mountain biked in months. So there I was, huffing and sweating and puffing and cursing the mile I rode up the mountain, climbing, climbing, climbing, when a walker came by and I stopped, er collapsed, to let him walk by. And we had a typical exchange.

Walker: Hard work, huh?
Me: Yeah. Brutal, but fun.
Walker: Good for you though.

He went on by, I clipped into my pedals and continued the climb and it struck me; the writing game is good for me. All life is a struggle. That’s one of the themes in my novel, The Never Prayer. Maybe you are one of the lucky hundred to have read it.

All life is struggle, and me struggling in the writing game is valuable to me, to those around me, to other writers. It’s brutal fun. And it’s good for me.

The story doesn’t end there. So I’ve been watching a lot of House M.D. I’m struggling through season 8 to get to the finale and God only knows why they didn’t keep House in prison for half the season. House in prison was delicious.

So while I’m biking, I’m conceding that the writing game is good for my psyche, however painful and however much of a struggle it is, and I think about House M.D. and happiness. House believes that only people who lie to themselves can be happy. That life is inherently too difficult to be enjoyed.

That may or may not be the case. However, having a dream, having a goal, believing the lie that maybe, maybe I’ll be one of the lucky writers to break through and make it, well, it keeps me going. It doesn’t keep me happy, but in the better moments, it keeps me satisfied.

And maybe satisfaction is enough no matter what my numbers are.

Heavenly Fridays: Angels Are Selling My Book, Part II

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I have a day job. I take pictures of that masked vigilante Spiderman, and sell them to a big newspaper operated by a blow-hard with three names that all begin with the letter “j.” No wait, let’s back up. Or go forward.

I have a day job. This job involves software and supporting that software. I can’t say much else because my headquarters in Raccoon City is very tight on security and I could get into trouble. Not that our software will cause the zombie apocalypse, no, it’s not like that. Wait! Did I go forwards or backwards in this paragraph? Kinda’ hard to tell.

I’ll keep on going. At my day job, working on self-aware software that we are calling Skynet, well, sometimes things can get a little hairy. A little chaotic. A little difficult. Nuclear war, Armageddon It, that kind of thing. When the manure hits the blast fan, that’s when friends are made and our true natures are revealed. That’s when you can make war buddies.
I have a war buddy from a particularly hard software explosion and her name is Lori Daniels. “L” to the “D.” And she bought my book, and I love what she wrote, “I’m reading it slow because I don’t want it to end.” Now, that is high praise.

She asked me for a signed copy and she was all set to write me a check. I feel bad about selling my books to friends, I really do, and I feel especially bad when they are my old war buddies. So I said, “Lori, I’ll send you a free copy if you can get five of your friends to buy the ebook on kindle, nook, kobo, whatever e-platform you can hit with a credit card.”

She agreed. She got the book. I got some eprint sales.

Now, knowing Lori, she took five of her friends out, got them liquored up, and then grabbed them and threatened them with bodily harm if they didn’t do exactly as she said. That LD, she has a way about her. She talks. People listen. She’s as tough as nails. I won’t change the cliché because the cliché is dead on.

So this post is to thank Lori Daniels, another warrior, another angel, out there selling my book. Again, the only way I am ever going to have a career writing is if people help me get my name out there. Alone, I can do nothing. With help, great things can happen. Monumental things.

And if you can get five friends to buy the ebook, you’ll get your own signed copy and a pint of my blood. Okay, not a pint, but I’ll send you my blood if you want. As long as you aren’t an evil sorcerer. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Thanks, Lori!