#ROW80 Cinco de Fun

Careful, it's school supply season out there..... :)
I have a new system for sanity: three simple composition books. I've had a binder with plastic sheet protectors and loose-leaf paper, but my 2-year-old thinks it's fascinating to take the paper out of the plastic and crumple it. Composition books she opens, but the threading keeps the paper pretty safe. I'm not surprised, remember in elementary school trying to rip a piece of paper out of one of these scarce school supplies? It was the grade school equivalent of ripping a phone book in half!


Book 1: WRITING JOURNAL :  This was recommended on Twitter, but it's mostly a log of things I did on a certain day (when I started, what I accomplished, and a short list of what I want to get done). I cross off items I get done, leave the ones I haven't so they can carry over. 


Book 2: MARKETING : I have been doing a little research into marketing, solidifying my marketing plan. One post that really helped this was a discussion on The Passive Voice Guy's blog about where do readers find books to read? The answers were very surprising, and I made sure to write down all of the blogs and sites listed that suited my genre. The conversation continued here, as well. I LOVE the design and functionality of The Pauper's Book Club, and the creator Damon Courtney is very open to suggestions from other readers and writers about how to improve. He is also looking for ideas on curating the shelves. 


I also researched into advertising on Mommy blogs/family savings blogs. Federated Media (go to marketers) looks very promising as they are professional bloggers with validated traffic and some sites are very affordable. For example, there is a site I'm interested in advertising on that is women's health, beauty, technology, and geek culture. THAT is one slice of my audience (I have robots in my book :) ). They get 170,000 page views per month, and a leaderboard 728x90 for 10,000 impressions (or views by a reader) will give me a 26% voice (meaning my ad would be every fourth one, very good), and I could run it from Oct. 1-13 for only $42.50. I would need 22 sales from the 10,000 people who see the ad to break even. 


So this is what my marketing book is for, I can't act on all of this right this second, but I am looking at various channels and planning the most effective way to use them.


Book 3 : EDITING: Right now I am working on my editing checklists, and I haven't used this book yet. I can't edit CANCELLED for another week, but I already have ideas swirling in my head about places where I know my manuscript is weak. I am going to have to really work on characterization, for example. I know my storyline is strong, and that's a good backbone to have. However, crying my eyes out last night at the last Harry Potter movie (not because the movie was goo, I thought it awful) I was crying for Snape the character in the books, not Alan Rickman's portrayal. In fact, if I hadn't read the books, I would have thought "What the hell is going on?" 


I have a strong place in my book where I cried as I wrote it. Buckets. But that's because I KNOW these people I'm writing about. I need to make sure I can make my reader feel sympathetic, too.


Oh, I also forgot to mention, book 2 officially has Chapter 1 finished. It will probably get cut/be an extra scene. All in all I feel VERY successful this week, and I'm looking forward to this last week of break from CANCELLED before rolling up my sleeves and taking no prisoners!

"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.


OTHER AWESOME A ROUND OF WORDS IN 80 DAYS WRITERS...CHECK OUT THEIR BLOGS!!