Promo Satisfaction aka Go Away Mick

I have come to believe that tap dancing in many places does help sales. I do some promo, I see an upward spike. When I promote my book with Silver Publishing, I see the spike in my Dreamspinner books. Golly gee wilkers, do I have fans? Boy Howdy! Guide me to the fainting couch.

Guess it's time to teach myself to slam-bam dance like the cast of Riverdance. Case in point: poor ignored To Save a Shining Soul rose from 400,000 to 45,000 in the Amazon ranks. Yeah, that might be one or two sales, but I believe miracles can happen.

Like I say, world domination by 2020. It's good to have goals. *winks*

The Laughing S.A.

December Garden Blooms

The gardener in me needs to share these little late blooming beauties. Just when I think they are finished, my green friends surprise me.

Promo Redux

Let me clarify. It's not that I don't like promo. It's more that I type like a backwards gerbil, which makes promo all the more painful.

I am one of the world's worst typists. On a good day every sixth word looks like mangled Greek. On a bad day it's every third word. The fingers refuse to keep up with the mind. 

Imagine how frustrating that is as a writer. As much as I try to correct as I plow along, my first drafts always look like a verbal battlefield. They look like something directed by a rabid raccoon on a magic mushroom bender.

I have tried the Dragon speaking software but I don't talk out my books. Although I should try that for this sort of thing. Then I'd only need to edit out the cursing.

Don't get me wrong, I want to perform promo for my books because I love my books. I want my books to succeed, not drop like Jimmy Hoffa into the river's black depths. I just wish there was an easier way.

Yep, I need to explore the speaking thing again. *scampers off to investigate software*

....Hello? Amando here. You need to love me. Really....

Promo Until You Bleed

I hate promotional work. Hate it. But when one is an indie ebook author you need to toot that horn on an almost daily basis. Like here. Do I blog every day? No. Should I? Yes.

I do promise that soon my characters will conduct interviews with each other.  They are gearing up for the challenge.


Of course Amando thinks he will triumph over all.


We'll see.

Sweet November Lilacs

My header sounds like a purple prose romance book title. I like it.

No lie, my lilac decided to bloom today. How lovely. Those fragrant flowers, three marigolds and three nasturtiums made me extremely happy. The garden is fading fast but my troopers keep on blooming despite the dreary weather.

Yeah, I do take my gardening way too seriously. We all need those little obsessions.

No Heroes Here

Oh dear. What have I done in my fantasy worlds? 

I realize I'm not creating heroes. I'm not crafting characters that are good or bad. I'm not writing about alpha males. 

I can't. If I did, I'd write lies because my characters don't speak to me in black and white. They use a pallet shaded across the gray zone, well, tinted with plenty of purple, but never cut and dried or good and evil. My first novella Canes and Scales swerved the closest to the "good and evil" story and, really, closest to having an alpha male in Prince Linden.

My one hero kills in order to exist. Another slides to the dark side in order to exist. He's fucking unhappy about his place in the world but he endures. Another is a demon in Hell.

Yeah, hmm, I do need to write a contemporary tale where the whole "good and evil" notion fades away.  Pffffth, I bet I'll twist something the wrong way.

 So it goes.

When Your Lead Character Starts Out as a Douche

Any sane writer appreciates five star reviews. An extremely welcome arrived in Goodreads, only the reviewer called the main character a "douche."

Deja Dei said:

I love the narrator's attitude! If you're tired of m/m books that are all very similar to each other and want something really different, read this. The narrator might seem like a douche at first, but he really is awesome if you stick with him. Best of all, he's unique, which sold me right away.

It's a lovely review. I do admit when I saw my character regarded as a douche, I stepped back and mutttered, "whoa there."

Is Amando a douche? Let's see, he's not a feminine product, in fact, he never goes near females. If Amando was a douche he'd run screaming for the horizon.

Yeah, come on, I know the slang isn't literal. I think of  douche as a, well, hold on, time to consult the Urban Dictionary:

a word to describe an individual who has shown themself to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing them to the cleansing product for vaginas.  Well there you go, I always regarded a douche as an opinionated ass, like the critters I encountered in corporate America. Brainless, eh? My mental jury is still out on if Amando deserves to be called a douche. An egotistical flake, absolutely.   Hey, at least Amando redeemed himself from absolute douchedom and that soars above all else.