Making a list…and checking it twice.

I don’t know about you, but this has been a busy month for me and that’s on top of all the holiday prep, shopping and events we always deal with this time of year.  And we’re only half way through the month!

The third book in my series, Ties That Bind, is now out.  Of course, that’s not news to you if you follow this blog or my Facebook page.  It’s always an exciting time when another new book is released and then…I finally get my head out of the fog so that I can focus on the list of to-do’s I need to complete once the book is finally out.

What kind of list?  Here’s just a sample of some of the tasks I needed to complete:

The book event was tricky.  It’s a terrible time of year to try to schedule book signings because of how busy our schedule is between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  I really didn’t expect to be able to squeeze any events in this month and had planned on focusing on scheduling a book signing sometime after January.  However, I had already signed up for a craft fair taking place the first week in December so I was able to use that event to promote my books.  Even though I didn’t have any copies of the third book available at the time, it turned out to be a lot of fun and I was pleased with how well the event went with regard to sales of my prior books and with how I was able to market my new book. 

I try to research my name and my books on line every few months throughout the year, and especially after a new book is released.  I do this to see how quickly someone can find me, either by looking for my name or the titles or series name of my books.  When I ran a search for my name and my books just after Ties That Bindwas released, I was upset to discover that the newest book in the series had already been pirated.  The digital format was being offered for free by a company actually located in my home state and which is subject to US copyright laws.  I immediately sent the company an e-mail regarding the copyright infringement, to which they replied:  “Thanks for your report!  Links was removed.  Kindly yours.”  That’s it, bad grammar and all, but I checked the site and found the book was no longer available.  The problem here is that dealing with companies who pirate books is like playing whack-a-mole.  You can hit one over the head and make it disappear, only to have another one pop up in a different spot.  Some authors view it as free advertising, while others go the length of hiring attorneys to deal with the issue.  I’m just dealing with it as it comes up but I don’t want to let the issue completely consume me.

Checking my author ranking is something I used to do all the time when I first released No Mother of Mine – I spent too much time watching the numbers go up and then go down, all the while trying to figure out exactly what made them go up and down.  It can give you a headache.  And it’s really not a good way to spend your time as a writer.  However, I now look at my author ranking about once every quarter, just to see when the ranking dips and when it spikes, whether it’s after a new release, after a book event, a holiday, cyber Monday…you name it.  

Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason but either way, it can be a good tool to use, as long as you don’t let it completely control how you view your worth as an author.  I checked my ranking for the first time today after months of not taking a peek and it was great to see that a spike did occur right after Ties That Bind had been released.

Overall, I’ve tackled my to-do list pretty well.  Based on the list above, I’ve covered them all except for one, which is to add the book to Barnes & Noble’s website (and I apologize to anyone out there who uses a Nook).  There are more tasks I can add to the list, as always, but I feel good about where I am with my to-do list at this point. 

So, for the rest of December, I think I can now focus more on my writing and also spend some time checking over my “other” list…my Christmas shopping list.  We’re at 11 days and counting – the holiday will be here soon! 

Good luck if you also have your own holiday list to check off and have a great week!