The weather was ugly the last two days, with occasional rain and a lot of wind. I’ve had a couple of veiled threats from folks who blame me for bringing it with me, but I swear, I thought I left that black cloud somewhere behind me, way back in Indiana or Ohio.
We took advantage of the weather to stay home and get a lot of things accomplished. I spent most of the weekend working on the sequel to my Big Lake mystery, and made a lot of headway. I had knocked out almost 4,000 words by the time I pushed the keyboard away last night. I got muddled down and didn’t make much progress on the book in the last month or two, but things are back on track now, and moving right along. I’m not making any promises, but I would really like to have it out by Christmas, if I can.
If you will indulge me for a moment, I have to brag a bit here, and tell you that as of last night, Big Lake was ranked number 1,464 of all paid e-books in Amazon’s Kindle Store. I’m kind of proud of that. Last month, I sold 545 copies of the mystery on Amazon, which was up from 247 the month before. And as of midnight last night, I had 242 sales in six days this month. I appreciate everybody who has bought the book, left reviews on Amazon, and told their friends about it.
Miss Terry accomplished a lot over the weekend too, making a huge dent in her paperwork, logging in a bunch of new orders that came in, and getting them ready to mail out today. She did that in between doing laundry, making two fabulous dinners, and baking a couple of loaves of delicious bread. And picking up after me, keeping our home and business running on track, and everything else she does that leaves me free to do my thing. We make a pretty good team.
I am becoming painfully aware that eventually the arthritis in my hands and fingers may impact my ability to write. After two days of steady typing, my fingers are swollen and stiff, and don’t want to cooperate. That’s why I have been looking into speech to text software, such as Dragon. I’m not sure if it is the solution to my problem, if it gets to that point, but I always try to look ahead and be prepared. I guess I learned something in Boy Scouts besides how to make a square knot after all. 🙂
The weather is supposed to be much better today, and we are going to drive down to Rockledge to visit our friend Ann Moran. Ann’s husband,Tim, was one of my best friends, and we lost him in March. We couldn’t make it back for his memorial service, and we’re looking forward to spending some time with Ann while we’re in the area.
I’m not the only one who has been putting in time at the keyboard this weekend. Bad Nick had a blog yesterday, and he’s back again today with another post titled They Lied, We Are Not Equal. Check it out and leave a comment.
Thought For The Day – Those who can’t laugh at themselves leave the job to others.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, that’s amazing when you consider the fact that Amazon boasts over a million books available on Kindle! You should be very proud. Can’t wait to read the Big Lake sequel. I love that imaginary little mountain town you created and all of the characters I met there.
Me too, I am really looking forward to reading your next book. My husband got me a Kindle for my birthday in June and it was the first book I downloaded. I couldn’t put it down.
I have Dragon Speaks and use it for my blog. It works great, and gets “smarter” as usage increases. One still has to make some edits, but it greatly reduces the typing. Hope this helps.
By the way, I enjoy your blog and read it daily.
I’m proud to know the author and hope your hands cooperate to allow you keep writing.
I had a version of the Dragon software back in 2005, was going to use it to transcribe from cassette tape to PC when I toured the country. I’m sure it has improved with the current technology available but back then it was a laborious process to train it to ‘your’ voice. Since we can now send commands to our phones and have it work quite well most of the time, I have to believe Dragon has improved as well.
As for the hands, pick up this: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000KBNPQ0/iridemyown-20 Amazing relief from arthritis pain. We now have three since Stu uses them for his knees (even with Celebrex). I’ve had one for over ten years…never travel without it.
Great job on the book sales! Will there be book signings at the rally in Yuma? I hope so.
I’m jealous. I had two novels on Amazon Kindle for over a year and sold a grand total of 31 books. I finally pulled them because it was a waste of time. I read yours and don’t think it’s any better or worse than mine. So what am I doing wrong or you doing right?
Dave B – I’m not sure how to sign an e-book. But if your bring your Kindle along, I guess I can sign it 🙂
Carl – Who knows why readers buy one book and not another? Here is a link to a post from my self-publishing blog titled How I Sell E-books that may give you some ideas. Good luck with your publishing efforts.
http://publishing4profit.com/blog/2011/08/04/how-i-sell-e-books-q-a/
I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking myself. This reply has been dictated with Dragon. The biggest problem I find is the use of contractions like don’t do that, but then this time it worked or in a series of numbers like an IP address 192.168… Four, well you can see there’s a problem. One possible use for this that you may not have thought of is that you can define words that are used often special spelling like iDirect which I have in the directory spelled with a J instead of in “I” to get the unique capitalization that this company uses. Another use is for long passwords. I have defined several special words that produce long passwords that I have trouble typing.
John
Folks should quit blaming you for the rain, we have followed the reports and that darn state had receive plenty of rain before you got there. We are finally getting some much needed rain here, just a bit here and there but we will take it. The down side is when it is not raining the humidity is 100% and miserable. Congratulations on the success of your book, you know how much both of us liked it, waiting anxiously for #2. Hugs to both.
I downloaded and read Big Lake. Great book Nick. Can’t wait for the next one!
Glad you liked it Spencer.