An update

Of the thoroughly unexpected variety.

When we last spoke, I was heading for the retina specialist on Friday morning. 

By Friday afternoon, I was in the local hospital, waiting for him to scrub up and fix my eye.

By Friday evening, I was wolfing cold pizza in the car on the way home, becaues I hadn't eaten since 7 a.m. and I was just a tiny bit FERAL from the day that I'd had.

All that said and done, my eye is fixed now, I'm on a crap ton of eyedrops, steroids, an ointment, and a schedule for all of the above that means my phone goes off every few hours, just when I've forgotten it's coming.

But I'm better. And we're going on vacation soon and I won't have to worry about any bodily misbehavior on the flight or when I'm away from home.

More soon.

The Eyes Have It

It's always my damn eyes.

I had an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday. Just my standard every-four-month visit (because I have glaucoma and he likes to check my pressure often enough to annoy the crap out of me) and the doctor was leaning over me, looking in my eye, and he said, "What the hell is that?"

Which is nothing you EVER want to hear your doctor say.

So Wednesday, when I usually post this, I was still cranky and wondering what was going on. 

Today I'm still cranky, but we have some idea - and it could be way worse - and tomorrow morning I have an early appointment with a retina specialist to see what's what in there.

WIll report back next week. 
 

Let it NOT snow

New snow

Seriously, Mother Nature. Enough already.

We had snow almost a month ago, and the temperatures stayed in single digits for so long thtatt the snow didn't melt; it just turned into perma-snow, ice floes at every intersection that had to be clambered over and chipped at with shovels.

Finally, it started to dissipate. 

And then, on Sunday afternoon, it started snowing again. The forecast was all over the place - basically anything from 2" to 20". I'm glad tht it settled at about 10", and also that hte forecast for this coming weekend is sunny and 50 degrees.

Old snow

It can't last.

We're tired.

I might not be ready for spring - I still haven't tidied the garden from last fall - but I'm definitely ready to be done with this.

Reviews are in

Forgive me for blowing my own horn a bit. There's nothing else going on - it's still cold, the snow hasn't melted, I'm climbing the walls - so this is what I've got for you this week 

Shifting Stages has been out since January 31. Somehow, it already has 46 ratings. Most of those are ratings, not reviews, because most people just hit the star rating when they finish the book, but I'm at a 4.7 average, so I'm not complaining. 

On the other hand, four people did leave written reviews, and I appreciate every one of them.

I'll share those today and try harder next week. How is it in your neck of the woods? Are you still in hibernation mode? 

And when you read a book, do you drop a review or a star rating? Before I published, I was hit or miss, but I'm much better about it now that I know how important it is.

Hibernation

Or, what I wish I could be doing from now until the end of March. (Maybe you noticed that I wasn't here last week?

It snowed. It froze. It snowed again, and froze harder. Last week there were two days when it was above zero. Other than that it's been low teens and below (a lot below) for weeks. 

Winter came to visit and put in a change of address.

I've been going into work, except for the day that we closed, only because I have kind coworkers who don't want me to ice skate the mile between my house and the office. 

It's when I get home that's the problem. I warm up; I get cozy; I get sleepy. There have been some epic naps, but not as much writing, sewing, or house work as expected, or as planned  (My lists are many, and uncrossed).

I need to get off what my mom would call my widening duff, but it's hard when I feel like a bear who's made the perfect winter bed and doesn't want to leave it.

Lifting the Rock on Self-Publishing

I know I talked about this last week, but I wanted to share some of the unsexy - and shocking - numbers behind publishing large print editions of my first series.

Large print books are special animals. They have 16 pt text, smaller margins, no fancy bits like chapter headers, etc. It's all about the words. Which should be a good thing.

And it is. But all those words, typeset at 5 pt larger than usual, take way more pages. And paper is expensive. And printers charge indie authors more than they charge traditional publishers, because we don't order in bulk. Even our bulk isn't bulky enough. 

I've priced my large print paperbacks at $25.99. That seems high, but (a) most sales will be to libraries, and (b) if I charged less, I'd end up literally paying people to buy the books. 

$25.99 is the retail price. The print cost is anywhere from $12.50 to $13.50. Then the printer (not Amazon/KDP because they have a shorter cutoff for page count) makes us set a wholesale price, which is the only way books can be purchased by bookstores. The "suggested" wholesale is 55% - after print costs. You can reduce that down to 40% (or 35% outside the US), but that also reduces the likelihood of the book being ordered.

But since most bookstore purchases are going to be because someone deliberately orders a book, I'm willing to risk it. With a discount of 40%, after print costs, distribution feels, etc., the royalty remaining is $1.76.

Which is less than I make on a regular paperback.

It's not the size of the royalty - I'm okay with a slow and steady build - but that the actual creator of a piece of work gets the smallest cut of money paid for the work.

That "New Year" Smell

Here we are again. Another new year.

I know, we're a few weeks in already, but I had to give it time to settle in. Plus we've been cold and snowy and I haven't been the most motivated person ever.

Even though I'm not a fan of resolutions, per se, January is exciting in the way that a new school year was always exciting (except now that I'm grown I can buy new school supplies whenever I please).

New beginnings. New plans. All that.

Main plans this year are for the business, of course. (The other kind fluctuate and, since they generally involve other people, I don't share as much of them here). 

2025 was a landmark year, though. For the first time, I matched my old law firm salary with book sales. That total doesn't count what went back out in expenses: ads, conferences, apps, supplies, etc., but even so, my long-range goal when I started self-publishing was to make as much money from the squirrelly contents of my brain as I did when sitting and mindlessly typing for lawyers. And I did it.

Next year (this year) will be expanding the empire. I've acquired an agent to help me with foreign rights / translations, because I don't have the bandwidth to deal with that and if she can sell them, she's welcome to her 15%. It's money from something I've already created.

I'm also trying to sell audio rights to the Tudor books. I sold audio rights to Tantor Audio for the first Ava & Claire trilogy and they're coming out December-February. I'd love to get proper British accents for the Tudor books - and to not be personally involved in the editing and mastering process. Doing the Christmas novella as an audio reminded me just how much I don't love that process.

One of my goals for this year is to get my books into more libraries. Amazon KDP has now permitted authors with ebooks in Kindle Unlimited to also offer their ebooks to libraries, and I've always had my print books (paperbacks) available for order. Now I'll be able to offer audio, as well, and the very next project up is to start rendering the Tudor books into large print. Libraries love large print, and as a person with Very Bad Vision myself, if I can't have it in digital format, I'd love a large print.

I haven't made a financial goal for this year. This year it's really about expanding what I already have into new and different places, and growth takes time and doesn't always bring in results right away. But  like the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next-best time is today. I'm using the same theory with my business.

What about you? Are you a library person? What are your feelings about audiobooks and large print? Worthwhile? Would you ask your library to order them?