After that, I critiqued two chapters for Nan and a synopsis for Sandy. Guess I've done everything I can to avoid judging those contest entries. Must bite the bullet and start on them. Soon. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised, but most of the time, I'm not. The trouble with contest entries is that you don't get to choose what you read. I found that out when I had to read a stack of books for RWA's Rita awards this year. When you get a book to judge that isn't the sort of book you normally read or enjoy, it's tough to be impartial--or even read it through to the end. I had to make myself sit down and read them.
Next weekend, I'll be attending the IRWA meeting and will get my goody bag back from our wonderful chaptermate who drove to the conference and offered to take stuff back home for those of us who flew. I'll be doing a giveaway (maybe two) in the weeks to come, but I want to make sure I have everything before I run a contest. By that time, Unrivaled will probably be available for sale, and I'll do some giveaways of that too. Just wish I had some good pics for you to caption. Not sure how I'm gonna do it. Those Rafflecopter things confuse the hell out of me.
Speaking of things that confuse me, here are some statistics that I find very interesting. Book sales seem to drop off at the end of the month, then pick up again on the first--even if the first is in the middle of the week. I was shooting for 100 net sales of Undeniable on Amazon for July. I sold 105, but had seven returns, which left me with 98. I tweeted and posted links on Facebook for a couple of days, but no dice. Then yesterday, August 1st, I sold two copies. I hadn't sold anything on Nook for three days, then on the first of the month, I sold four. I'm guessing it has to do with the way people are paid or budget their money, or the fact that most new books are released early in the month, so that's when people go book shopping. I've also noticed that I sell the most books late at night on weekends.
Nothing too surprising about that, now, is there?
That just goes to show, you're really human after all. We have things we like and things we don't. And I've decided that I hate Hospital Gowns.
ReplyDeletei went in for my Stress tests at the hospital. The gowns were huge, I needed to tie knots in them, so they didn't drag on the floor. Nothing sexy about them. I was wishing I had your new sexy new book Unrivaled already. It would have made those 4 hours fly by. It might have raised my heart rate without stepping on that dreaded treadmill. But I rocked the Treadmill anyhow. don't worry about those sales numbers too much. You Rock.
I have your goodie bag! Kathy brought it over when she brought my box of books. :) I'll bring it next Saturday.
ReplyDeleteUnrivaled was a great book! I know your fans will love it!!
Cheryl, I almost forgot about my dream, that you were a nurse in the hospital where I had that stress test yesterday. I was complaining to you about the guy who looked liked Sean Connery exposing himself in the waiting area. You laughed at me, and high fived another nurse who looked like Terry Spear. So I actually hid in the bathroom. I should have just sat, and enjoyed the show.
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the hospital gown thing, Donna. But a Sean Connery look-alike? In real life, you wouldn't have been complaining!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sandy! See you next Saturday!
Thanks for the update on Unrivaled. I can't wait...And I thank you for catching the little things. They just bug me when I'm reading a book and I'm good at catching them, lol. Anymore because I read Nook/epub I figure most of the little things (like page numbering) are because of formatting problems between the different formats.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the first of the month thing about sales. People tend to get paid on the 1st and 15th of the month and purchase when they have the money. Then again it seems romance has been releasing on the first and last Tuesdays of the month this year so that's when people will be shopping for new releases and other books.
Part of the problems with Nook are that they changed their formatting not long ago. Now they want section breaks between chapters instead of page breaks. Then you have to go back and retitle each chapter in the table of contents. Took me a while to figure out how to do that. ;)
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