Happy Tuesday! It’s been a busy week. My books are in the Jekyll Arts Association’s Goodyear Cottage shop now – so that’s one more place you can get them! It’s very exciting to be a member of that esteemed group now – so many incredible artists have work on display there.
I have a book signing tonight at Golden Isles Olive Oil on St. Simons and another on this Saturday in the gift shop at the historic Jekyll Island Club Hotel from 11-4 pm. Come see me and get your copies signed! It’s so much fun to meet my readers.
So, I’m going into my cone of silence tomorrow and Thursday in an effort to finish the final editing on Gem of the Golden Isles Book Three – “Treasure on Jekyll.” I promised readers that it would be available before the end of May and I’m endeavoring to keep my word. That said, I think the paperbacks will be a few days later because I have to approve the proofs from the printer before I release them for sale. Everything got turned upside down a bit because I have to have shoulder surgery. I’m going to try to blog after the first week, but I’m on seriously restricted movement for a while and I seem to talk too damned fast for most of that software.
I cannot even tell you how excited I got today in the doctor’s office when one of the nurses told me she’d finished the first book and couldn’t wait to read the second. As a big reader myself, I know how important it is for me to crank out the third and fourth books to keep people interested – Book Four is in progress already but I had to pause the writing to clean up “Treasure on Jekyll” first. I’m planning to have books 4 and 5 finished before the end of summer, but I think some of that will depend on the cooperation of my rotator cuff.
With that said, I’m going to need ARC readers for Book 3 very soon – so if you’re interested, please sign up for my newsletter and send me an email at sandy@sandymalone.com telling me that you’ve already read the first two and want to be an advance reader for three. I’ll be sending out a lot of free eBooks to folks who want to read it earlier and promise to review it. Unless, of course, you hate it and forget to review it. That’s okay too.
This whole advance reader thing is another new one for me, but I’ve learned the hard way that you need to have readers start reviewing your book practically before it publishes or Amazon won’t tell anybody about it when it comes out. Also, even though your books are on Ingram Sparks (aka bookshop.org where all the bookstores and libraries buy them), you have to upload them to Amazon’s KDP publisher too or you aren’t considered for their promotions. This is all the stuff a traditional publisher takes care of for you. Which is cool. But although I haven’t run my actual numbers yet, I’m pretty sure I’m already making more money with self-publishing than I did when I trusted a traditional publisher to handle everything. We shall see. If you see my new books coming out under something other than Beach House Publishing, you’ll know how it turned out.
This isn’t exactly how I thought it would work when I decided to write fiction full time. I had visions of me sitting on our patio sipping coffee and clicking away on my laptop every morning and then doing fun stuff in the afternoons. Ha! Bet me. Oh, I will figure out a way to make that schedule work for part of the time this summer, but it’s not a realistic long-term schedule for any author. Between dealing with printers, talking to bookstores, taking books to nearby stores that actually want them, dealing with my website, figuring out new social media I’ve never dealt with before, and trying to understand Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon ads… I’m spending less time writing than ever before.
Obviously, that has to change. And I’m working on it. But for today, I’m going to have to be satisfied by just finishing a blog. Because now I’m off to get ready for the book signing at Olive Oil.
Don’t forget to let me know if you want to be an ARC reader – directions are in my blog above!
Until next time, happy reading!
Sandy