Trying to sell books can be a soul-sucking endeavor (free post)
50 percent off paid subscriptions this summer
Let us get right into the title of this post.
The full title is really “Trying to sell books and balance a social media presence is a soul-sucking endeavor” but that would have been a very long title to put in there!
Writing and selling books is actually fun. That’s what I want to say first.
Creating social media posts can also be fun.
I want to add that.
But, there are times that when I go on social media, I feel like I am losing a little bit of myself. Or, if not actually losing part of myself, in the danger of doing so. I have to remind myself constantly who I am and that I don’t need to be like everyone else.
It is so mentally and emotionally exhausting to try to use social media to sell my books so often I don’t try to sell.
I post memes and videos and funny little posts about writing or reading instead. I often post “stupid” stuff because it is fun and less pressure. Plus, I like connecting with other readers and writers more than I like selling.
I just can’t bring myself to always market and when I do market, I don’t always get a ton of response – partially because Meta likes to squash anyone who is marketing unless we pay Meta.
Some days my inability to reach people depresses me and some days I’m just like, “eh, whatever. I appreciate the readers I have and I have fun writing so ...”
I absolutely love when people read my books, whether I make money from the reads or not. The little bit of money I do earn from my books helps my family so when I am not making money of them, I feel anxious.
Maybe, though, God wants to show he can help my family in other ways and so I am doing my best to wait on him while also moving forward with the writing he gave me the desire to do.
This summer I took my books off Kindle Unlimited. That, so far, has dropped interest in them down and I won’t be bringing in money for page reads. I don’t like that Amazon decides what constitutes an actual page and then only paying me for what they decide an actual page is.
I also don’t like that when I place my books in Kindle Unlimited, I can’t sell them in ebook form anywhere else but if an author who publishes with a traditional, large publishing house places their books in Kindle Unlimited, they can still sell them in ebook form wherever they like.
At the same time, I also like readers being able to “try out” my books before buying them by reading them on Kindle Unlimited at no extra charge. I like being able to read books by authors I don’t know on Kindle Unlimited myself.
That made it hard for me to decide whether to keep my books in Kindle Unlimited.
Right now, though, I am moving toward putting all my books back in KU by next week. My Spencer Valley Chronicles books are already back in there. You can find the series here:
50 Percent Off Paid Subscriptions
As disenchanted as I am with social media and marketing and Kindle Unlimited, I am also disenchanted, or hesitant at least, about the idea of offering paid subscriptions to this blog.
Everyone is offering paid subscription options and it can get overwhelming. That’s why I am offering 50 percent off all paid subscriptions purchased this summer (that’s $15 annually). You can use that coupon here:
https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=3809a83
I wanted to take a moment to list what you will receive with a paid subscription:
Sneak peeks to all upcoming novels (free first chapters, etc.)
Book recommendations from me and others
Author interviews
Free digital downloads
Membership to the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Discord Book Club (where we will discuss various books and eventually do some joint reads together).
Access to all archived content
If any of this interests you, my annual subscriptions are currently $15 and will remain that way throughout the summer.
What’s been occurring
It was blazing hot all last week where we live. I’m sure it was for many of you as well. We were able to cool off some in our daughter’s Slip N’ Slide and my Dad’s pool.
When the temps dropped on Monday, I was so happy I actually did a bit of a dance in my house. It is almost sweater weather, which is the weather where I can snuggle up with a cup of tea, a blanket, and a book and not feel guilty because it is too chilly out to do anything else.
We finished our homeschool year at the beginning of the month and then ended it officially by meeting with our homeschool evaluator. Now that evaluations are complete, I will send the reports she wrote to our local school district, along with paperwork to sign my children up for homeschooling for next year.
My son will be a senior next year (pray for me and him!) and my daughter will be in fourth grade.
Writing update:
I am working on Gladwynn Grant Shakes The Family Tree, the third book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, and I’ll have a sneak peek to it very soon, probably by August for all paid subscribers.
I’ll have a full description of it for you soon but right now I’m just hammering out the details of the book and its plot.
I’m also finishing up edits and corrections to Cassie, the eighth book in the Apron String Book Series. It releases on August 15.
Each of the books in the series can be read by themselves. They don’t have to be read in order because the only connection to each book is a cookbook which each main character reads or uses.
To learn more about the series or find the books which have already released, click here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM3YLF8P?binding=kindle_edition&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin
What I’m Recommending...Books and Shows
This month I thought I’d recommend a couple of books and a couple of shows.
For books:
The Divine Proverb of Streusel by Sara Brunsvold
DESCRIPTION:
Shaken by her parents' divorce and discouraged by the growing chasm between herself and her serious boyfriend, Nikki Werner seeks solace at her uncle's farm in a small Missouri hamlet. She'll spend the summer there, picking up the pieces of her shattered present so she can plan a better future. But what awaits her at the ancestral farm is a past she barely knows.
MY THOUGHTS: This is a book I would not hesitate to recommend to others. It has an uplifting message, is void of swearing, sex, or violence, and weaves together the stories of characters who were so well developed it felt as if I knew them. It wasn’t until I had almost finished this review and was talking to my husband about a family situation that it hit me how much of an impression this book had made on me. It had been a couple of days since I had read it and yet it still had me thinking about how we forgive those who have hurt us when the person never offers an apology or even believes they did nothing wrong. Or maybe they do offer an apology but it is not in their words but in actions that we don’t feel are enough for us.
We can choose to hold on to bitterness or let it go and give it to God. This book is a reminder that even if the other person doesn’t meet us where we need them to, God always will.
You can find out where to purchase it through Sara’s website: https://sarabrunsvold.com/
A Troubling Case of Murder on the Menu (A Emily Cherry Mystery) by Donna Doyle
MY THOUGHTS: This was a very cute, very light mystery. Only about 100 pages it wasn’t hard-hitting, there wasn’t much plot and there also wasn’t very much sleuthing but it was still a cute little book and it is the first in a 10 book series.
I loved the main character Emily Cherry and her cat Rosemary. I would love to see the characters and plots of the books expanded a bit into full-length novels but these are a nice little distraction from life if your mystery expectations are lowered and your expectations of loveable characters are raised.
In this first book, Emily is adjusting to life after retirement. Now living alone after becoming a sudden widow (I don’t remember if the book says for how long she’s been a widow) she decides she wants to try her hand at something new – blogging. Her well-meaning, yet sometimes overprotective family, offers her all kinds of advice about what she should and shouldn’t do when she blogs. She takes some of the advice and discards the rest and decides to become a food blogger.
Things go awry, though, when a suspicious death occurs at her first restaurant visit. She suddenly finds herself thinking more about the death and less about her blog.
I will be reading more in this series, especially when I need a light escape into a world of cute characters, caring family members, and a snuggly and curious cat.
This book is listed under religious fiction but there was nothing really religious about it at all. It was just a simple, clean read with no deep message and I think that’s what we all need at times.
You can find this series on Kindle Unlimited.
For shows I recently finished the fourth season of the latest version of All Creatures Great and Small. This is a show based on the books by James Herriot, a veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales of England.
The show is so sweet and touching and a bit stressful now that they are moving into World War II. It is based on the books, but of course, some things, and characters, are different from the books.
I’ve also been watching the fourth season of The Chosen. It is getting real this season. If you don’t know what this show is, it is a television drama based on the life of Christ. It a fictional portrayal in some ways, while also keeping close to the Bible. It is NOT a replacement for the Bible, something that the director of the show, Dallas Jenkins, repeatedly reminds people.
So far, I have cried and laughed, but mainly cried, through many of the episodes I have seen. Life is not easy, but Jesus walks with us through those moments. That is the main message I am receiving from this season of the show.
What I shared on my other/main blog recently:
Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books for the Second Half of 2024
Sunday Bookends: Trying to beat the heat, reading a mix of genres, and old mystery shows
A verse for June:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. Isaiah 40:28
This is the end of my update for June (I just made it under the wire!) but I would love to hear how you have been doing. Please leave a comment or reply to this email and let me know.
Some platforms (Smashwords being one, I think) let users download a sample of about 40%. I don't know a whole lot about these things, but I think Etsy and even Stripe let you sell digital downloads of epubs. Are you creating your own ebook files, or do you send a word or pdf for Amazon to create the book file? (I'm learning how to create epub files from scratch, but atm I'm in the middle of a bit house project.)