Insecure Writer’s Support Group: Writer Highs and Writer Lows

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. For today's post, I have my answer to the optional question of the month and a few announcements concerning the blog. But first the monthly question which is: It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times)? And what are your writer lows (the crappy times)? 

I've definitely had both highs and lows in my writing career. One of writer highs actually occurred back in March when I sold my books at my author's table at Sacramento Comic Con in Sacramento, CA.  I could almost swear I wasn't going to sell anything because it was the first time that the convention occurred since the pandemic began. However, I made 11 sales! But it wasn't simply the sales that were a high. Much of the high came when people, both buyers and browsers, praised my books’ covers and blurbs. Some even said they liked the actual concepts of some of the stories that were summarized on back covers. Then some of them got to talking with me about not only my work but about science fiction and fantasy in general. The showed a lot of interest in my work as a writer and what I had on display and it was a real pleasure to see that. 

Now whether the ones who bought my books actually enjoyed reading them is a different story. I hope they enjoyed them not just for my sake but for theirs. After all they paid they're money for them and I don't like disappointing people who pay money for copies of my work. 

My writer lows? There’ve been a lot of them but the ones that come most to mind are my books on Smashwords. Please bare in mind, I am not pointing the finger at anyone, it may be nobody's fault but mine (e.g. poor publicity on my part), The sales of my books at Smashwords have been very low, as in there haven’t been any. My work has been up on the platform for almost two years and after all the promotions on my blog, social media and Smashwords sales/discount events, I have not sold any of my books there for a penny. 

The closest I’ve come to making sales at Smashwords have been purchases of free books that I've offered but those aren't sales because I didn't make anything off of them. I mean we all want free don't we? So, as far as Smashwords goes, I can't really tell if my work is really reaching someone's interest if they aren't paying money for them.  But then again, I don’t work with Smashwords all the time so I may just have to schedule a day or two each month where I give my attention to just Smashwords.

Announcements

The newsletter for April is out. I got it out only yesterday and we’re already into May, so I was late with it. However, I'm still considering it an April issue because most of the events that I talk about in it occurred in April. So if you haven't subscribed to it you can do so here. It's free! 

I'm looking for guest bloggers so if you like science fiction, fantasy and/or horror and would like to guest blog at my site then please let me know. I like introducing new voices! 

So,what are your writer highs and/or lows? Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .