Time for a Change

My table at Time Eddy 3

A while back I mentioned that I'd taken down the "Events" page here at my blog because I wasn't doing many in-person events this year. The only one that I planned to have a table at was Time Eddy 3, the local Doctor Who con.

With TE3 now past, I've decided that so are my days selling my books at conventions. There are a couple reasons why I've come to this decision.

First is related to my minimalism. You need to have lots of "stuff" to vend books. There are the print books themselves, along with a display rack, handouts, boxes or bags to carry the books in, and something to move all that stuff around. That means having space to store all of that stuff. One day I'll be moving to a smaller space. Where would all this stuff go? By deciding to stop now, before I move, I won't have to worry about where it goes or trying to make it fit.

There's also the financial cost. Books have to be ordered. Handouts either have to be ordered, or they have to be printed out, and that takes up ink cartridges and paper. Table space has to be paid for. I need to buy food that I can carry with me, or buy food at the venue. If I have to spend money to promote my books, I'd rather spend it reaching as many readers as possible, rather than just who shows up at a particular event at a specific place and time.

For now, I'm looking at other opportunities to get the word out about my books, such as online ads. I'll try to keep you posted about what I do and how it works.

Writing Stats for October 2017

Here is the latest post on how much I've been writing.

I knew October wasn't going to be as good a month for my writing as had been the previous months. I went to Time Eddy 3 in the middle of the month and sold books there. That took out two days of writing sessions, plus the day after. Before TE3 my sinuses acted up, so I lost a few more days.

That said, I finished the one piece I was working on. It ended up being 54,000 words, a short novel. It feels short, so I plan to look at it again later and find out if I can expand it. I then started on the work I'd paused earlier. The words are now flowing on that project.

All this means I wrote 142 pages in October. That's 50 pages off what I would have written had I met my daily goals. Not only is that a decent number, but I noticed that I had a 13-page and a 14-page day in October!

I'm hoping November will be a good month. There's nothing on my calendar to get in my way. As long as I don't catch anything, or get blocked, I should have a productive month. I also have some ideas on what to work on once the current project is completed. Here's hoping for more words and pages written!