Michelle Miles: Hello, 2019!

Another year has closed and the start of a new one is officially off the ground.

I, for one, am glad to see the old year go. The last six months were rife with breaking things--cars, oven, house heater, windshields. And also new things--fix cars and heater, new windshields, oven, new cookware. I treated myself on Cyber Monday with a set of Calphalon cookware and I can honestly say it's the best cookware I've ever had.

Aside from all that, the last year was a hard one for me, creatively. I let all the awful things happening in the industry stifle my writing (Cocky Gate, book stuffing). I think I just got caught up in the drama, which is something I try never to do but I had a hard time looking away from that Cocky Gate thing. I stopped writing for a good six months when I got depressed over sales and everything happening in the industry and had a very "why bother?" attitude.

Towards the end of the summer, though, I got off Twitter and started thinking, seriously, about my future writing.

For 2019, I’ve decided I want to focus on the writing and publishing my backlist as well as some new material. After 60+ rejections, it makes you re-evaluate your writing life and make decisions about the career. Even though I have a day job, I do consider this a second career, so it was time to move forward instead of standing still. I’m throwing myself into indie publishing and looking forward to getting those stories told and in the hands of readers. My focus is all on the writing and the books and not so much on the marketing, though I do understand that plays a role as well.

I don’t want to get hung up on the money aspect of it like I have in the past. It’s a soul-crushing feeling sometimes to look at sales and see nothing for weeks or sometimes months. And I know that’s mostly my fault. I haven’t been producing like I should or want to. I haven’t been talking to my 3000+ newsletter subscribers. I hope to change that for 2019.

I haven’t given up on the dream that someday my books will be on the bookshelves or they’ll be turned into movies. I have very specific ideas about who should play my lead characters. Heck, I’d even settle for an HBO series. *grin*

There are other non-writing things I want to accomplish, too. Declutting is always high on my list. Getting the kid graduated and into college is another. Overall, though, I’m proclaiming 2019 Year of the Books.

How about you? What are you plans for the new year?

The Ever Changing Indie World

Welcome back to Indie Talk!

The indie world is in a constant state of flux. Rules and programs at Amazon and Barnes and Noble seem to change with the wind. Should you or should you not jump onto the KDP Select bandwagon? What about Nook First? Should you take out an ad on the Kindle Boards in hopes of your book rocking to the tops of the charts or do a blog tour instead? Or both? Which promo is the best promo? Which ereader is best, the Kindle or Nook? Is Amazon the good guy or the bad guy? Will Barnes and Noble survive or follow Borders to book store heaven?

These are the questions indie writers ask on a daily basis. The best advice I can give you is to do a lot of research before making any big decisions. Read up on and study all the programs and advertising offered at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Join indie writer groups where indies talk shop.

Indie Talk: A Writer's Dream ~ Creative Freedom Galore

This is Week 2 of Indie Talk and I'm thrilled to be here! Today we're going to talk about living the dream! What is the dream, you ask? Admit it, writers are different. We are all on our own path and many of us have second jobs or have had other jobs in the past. Jobs we hate. Some of you have jobs you love but let's be honest here, you're among friends, how much do we REALLY love our jobs, you know, the jobs where you have to be at work at 8 am on the dot, wear business clothes with pantyhose, heels, make-up and curl your hair? Some of us still make the office coffee every morning or did in the past. I know I did. Some of us had to fetch the boss his or her lunch. Grrr. Some of us had only 30 mins. for lunch or we worked through lunch so we could take our kid to the dentist. You see where I'm going with this..the slave driver type of job many women are forced into after occupying a job for a while, she starts doing all kinds of domestic duties even for her boss, dealing with office politics, going to boring board meetings, being a "team member". **Hold on...I almost choked on my morning coffee.** Okay (cough, cough)..I'm back. I just brought back some crappy memories of jobs I've held in the past. This might not be a crappy memory to all of you out there but if you like squeezing into pantyhose, keeping an expensive professional wardrobe, working on a time clock and dealing with nutty office politics, good luck with your career!

Debunking the Myths of Indie Publishing

First off, I want to give a big fat virtual hug to all my Plotting Princess sisters! This is the best writing group this side of the Red River..and maybe the whole dang U.S., not to mention the world...the Milky Way...you get my drift...I could go on and on!!! If you're an aspiring writer or even a published author, I recommend you join some type of writing group. The support is invaluable and besides, your significant other will never understand all your writing needs like your writer friends will! You need to have those writer friends to go to when you run into a wall while writing a book, to bounce ideas off of, to talk industry news, share marketing secrets with, when your characters won't shut up, etc.

Today is a special day here at the PP! We're debunking myths within the indie world. In other words, we've heard some crazy rumors flying around some writing blogs and I want to get the truth out for a couple of reasons. 1) I hate how negative rumors can ruin a very good thing. 2) If I were a new writer considering indie publishing my book, I know for a fact that if I read some of the false blogs about inflated costs, I'd probably never take the risk to indie pub my books and that makes me sad. :(