Update: I'm mostly on schedule for my October 14th planned release of MKIAZ. A little late with the ebook because the proof process has gone a little slower than I thought. And life has intervened. You know how that goes. I *think* the last batch of proofs ordered from Createspace (third set) will be the last. Then the ebook will be created from that final version.
***Rant alert*** (Rant Note: This rant may not make as much sense to anyone who's not on Facebook.)
Since this is my diary, I do have a bit of a rant that is totally unrelated to my self-publishing journey but more about being an indie author surrounded by other indie authors trying to get noticed. An author friend of mine (we share the same e-publisher) is driving me crazy on Facebook with her incessant promotion. For the past couple of months, she's gone into overdrive and has sent out event invitations at the rate of one new event per week. She is like a promotion machine--I don't know how she has time to write anymore. She's been setting up different appearances at bookstores and cons, and each time she has a new appearance, she creates an event. Then I get the invitation. I've accepted several of them to be nice, but then when I do that, I get endless notifications of things I don't care about.
I turned off her regular day-to-day notifications a long time ago so I don't have to hear about every little thing. She requests shares for every promo post and, basically, wants everyone to help her all of the time. She does reciprocate, but ninety-nine percent of the time, it's all about her.
I don't want to defriend her because I don't want to be a mean person. But she is driving me crazy.
On the flip side, in her case, after completely plugging away on promoting the first book of her three-book series for a couple of years, she finally did gain some traction and the first two books of her series are selling well--a few thousand, at least. I have also seen another author--who is not my friend but has been talked about here on this board for behaving badly--constantly promote his book, and it's done well as far as sales go (not so much reviews). So I guess it is possible to bludgeon people over the head enough times, and they will buy your book? Ugh.
I guess I just don't want to be them. I don't want to wear people down so that they buy my books because they want to shut me up.
Don't be them.
Rant over.
Smiley face.