Writing Post-it notes

1) I have not done any active marketing of my books for a number of years. People find them online or they don't. A few may pick one up in a bookstore, but very few indeed. I imagine some visitors to the blog are kind enough to search them out. Sales trickle along month by month, never putting me at risk of moving into a higher tax bracket. The royalties fall into the category that Tom calls "found money."

2) When the Carmelite books were published -- The Dark Night Murders, Elijah and the Ravens of Carith and Jerome Gratian: Treatise on Melancholy -- I did market those to people I thought would be interested. Sales were respectable, though not remarkable. Since then, the books continue to sell, upticking from time to time for reasons that remain a mystery. As I have mentioned before, Elijah is the best-selling title, and it is the one that bookstores seem to buy in multiple lots.

3) Other than mentioning them on the blog and listing them in the sidebar, I have done nothing to market the WhoVille books. I like them myself. They are quite different from the Carmelite titles, and I hope to publish the third in the series this year. I see that someone purchased a digital copy of Wicca in WhoVille yesterday. I wonder how they found it?

4) I continue to make progress with the proofing/revising/editing of Except for His Wings. If I get frozen in or snowed in a few more times this month and next, it will appear in the spring. Even if the weather is nice, it should appear then. I have an idea for the cover -- not all that original -- and should probably get Tom started on designing it. He did all the covers except for the John of the Cross mystery. 

5) Many years ago I read Kathryn Lindskoog's Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write. There are times when I think "can't not write" applies to my attitude toward this blog. Periodically I take a short break from it, and periodically I think the time has come to say goodbye. (Don't worry, Dr. Spo, I will say goodbye if and when.) But so far I have not been able to let it go. (Not an intentional reference to the song from Frozen, although the weather might make that appropriate.) Writing a book, even a short one, takes time and re-working and all that stuff. It satisfies part of me that finds it  wonderful to hold in my hands a physical book that I wrote. The blog requires less effort and does not have the same physicality. I can't line it up on the bookshelf in the living room with the others. But the payoff is almost immediate, especially when a reader takes the time to comment. So I guess I'll keep showing up for a while longer.