It should be legal to kill people who forge your debit cards

Yup, got hit today, lost $1000. Hopefully the bank will return it to me, as it was fraud (they didn't even steal my card, they made a duplicate. See how well those chips work?) Of course now I have to hope that I get enough money back so that the bills I paid on Friday don't bounce.

Also, I hope I get the money back in time to be able to commission a cover by my artist, who is money up front. I was going to do that tonight or tomorrow, but not enough money in the bank anymore. As my bank doesn't open until Monday, I can't get a new card, or access my money at all. Good thing I keep some cash around the house or I'd be totally tapped out.

This is the second time in 30 days I've been ripped off. Last time was a credit card. Now I'm starting to wonder if I'm just unlucky, or if someone has decided to pick on me. All in all, it really sucks.

POI BK 7 nearing completion

Well, except for one 'act' or scene (and it's a major one) the first draft is complete. Right now it's a bit over 72K words, tomorrow I'll tackle that one last part, and see where it stands. There will be a lot going on in that remaining part so it could possibly be close to 5 K words.

Once that's done I'll probably leave it alone for a day or two, and then start on the first rewrite. That will probably take until Monday or Tuesday. Possibly a bit longer. Then I'll leave it alone for another few days before the second rewrite, then it will be off to the editor. So not exactly sure of the date it will be ready, but I think it is safe to say it will be ready prior to the 15th of next month.

POI Book 7, still untitled

As usual, still don't have a title, honestly this is the first time I've even thought of a title for the book.
It's almost to 65000 words, I'll probably pass that tomorrow. Not quite sure how big it is going to be, I suspect somewhere north of 80K. Right now I'm hoping to be done by Wednesday, part of that depends on if I can get to 70K by tomorrow night. If it ends up running longer word wise, then it will take a few more days of writing. Working on one last plot point, a minor one. All the rest is pretty much ironed out.

So, Depending on turn arounds for my editing the drafts, my editor editing the final copy, it may by out by the 14th.

I think I will be at BLFC in Reno

So, BLFC is in Reno in 3 weeks. I volunteered to do a panel on self publishing, because I have a presentation that I've done before and I really should start trying to get out to conventions. I actually like BLFC and have been there a couple of times before, I go to Reno semi-regularly, because it's close, and because the air races take place there and I go to them.

The reason why I'm not exactly positive about what's going on yet, is because the con isn't positive about what's going on yet. With only three weeks to go, they still haven't told me if I'm doing that panel or not. They still haven't put up a panel schedule. So I don't know if they haven't made any decisions yet, or if they have made decisions and just not informed me of the fact.

There will come a point where if they tell me I'm doing one, and it's too close to the date, I'll have to tell them I won't be able too. Because I do need to do some work to get the presentation in shape, but I'm not going to waste time on that, if I don't think I'm going to be doing the presentation. Because I'm about six days from finishing the first draft on the current manuscript, and I need to keep cranking on it, if I want to get it done and published soon.

So, not sure what's going on. I think I'll be there Saturday, regardless of what happens, but as for other days, well Friday still looks like it will be out, and Sunday does look possible.

Oh, What the Experts Say....

Lately I've been hearing a lot of stuff out of 'experts'. Now some of this is my fault, as I have been soliciting advice in a few places, but the sad thing is that so many of these experts are really only an expert in one place:

Their own mind.

There are others who do offer helpful information at times, but when they start trying to tell me something that my own experience flatly denies, well, I have to wonder if they're looking at the same thing I'm looking at. Because I know what they're saying just won't work.

I also am a little worried when people point me to 'experts' who haven't had the same level of success I've had. In that they'd had a lot less, and not more.

All in all, it's been pretty frustrating, and in the world of indy writing there is ALWAYS another shyster coming along with their 'give me X dollars and take my course and I will tell YOU the secrets of success!'. Yes, some of the people selling courses do seem to know what they're talking about, especially in their genre of writing. But all things are not equal, and I'm not forking out $500+ for a course from somebody who writes detective thrillers for a primarily female demographic, when I don't write for those people.

Somewhere out there, there is a better way for me to get in touch with my audience.
I just wish I knew what it was. It definitely isn't facebook.

Interesting, the Hammer Commission is selling well again.

The Hammer Commission was written back in 2013. It's the first story I wrote in which Rafael, from 'The King of Las Vegas' appeared. Well, it's now in the top 100 in one of its categories, something it hasn't been for some time now. Apparently a lot of KOLV readers are buying it now.
Kind of nice.

More Sex? & Does Sex Sell

Sometimes I think I should have put more sex in the Portals of Infinity series, as in explicit sex scenes. Because I wonder if I would have sold even more stories and gotten more of a following.

I wonder this for two reasons, the first being that I look at a few of my contemporaries who went that route and they have better sales numbers than me (about 20 percent to 30 percent better), the second being that I still get treated by the haters as if I actually HAD put explicit sex scenes in the books.

I think that's why I put more explicit sex scenes in 'The King of Las Vegas', after all, if you're going to be accused of it anyway, why not? And even those scenes have been dialed back from their original level, because I felt I went a little overboard in the first draft :-P

Just one of those things you wonder about sometimes.

(And no, I'm not going to change it, too late for that, the die is cast. Just wondering is all).

How things are going on the Writing Front

Just an update.

'The King of Las Vegas' is continuing to plug along slowly, not as well as I think it would have if the event of the other week hadn't taken place (because it would have gotten that sweet Amazon free advertising), but it really is refusing to die. It's selling at least ten copies a day (plus at least twenty via KU) and has moved back into the top 100 in at least one of its three categories after falling out several times.

I think I should try another advertising / promotion round on it, to see if I can give it a leg up again. If the people who liked it enough to give it a thumbs up on the pirate site were to write a nice review on Amazon, it would definitely help. And hey, if you liked a book that you stole enough to tell other people its good, you could at least do the author a solid and try to keep him writing, right?

Book Seven of the POI series (which as usual is still unnamed) is past the 1/5 mark. I may have some interviews lined up for next week (waiting to hear back from a few companies), so I'm going to try and knuckle down and get more work done over the weekend. My original goal was to try and publish book seven on or around May 1st. I'd like to try and see if I can pull it in from there, as if I do start a new job before the end of the month, I'll be too busy to write for several weeks, if not longer.

The plot for book seven is already complete, sub-plots are being fleshed out, and some side-plots are being looked at. I have  target for how long I want this one to run, size wise. It will interesting to see if my guess as to how long it will take to tell the story is correct or not.

For those of you who have been reading me and buying my stuff, I want to thank you for your patronage and your kind words. What happened last month was rough, especially as it came on the one year anniversary of my father's passing unexpectedly. So I apologize if I sounded a little rough. Book seven will be published. And probably even a book eight (though I can't give a timeline on that at this time).

Again, thanks for everything.
-John