Last Friday I spent several hours planning out my week. I was very proud of myself and what I accomplished because for the first time in a long time I was very organized. I took all the tasks I needed from writing daily, to book promotion, client work, and personal to do’s.

Monday I hit the ground running and was immediately hit with an unexpected not on my list. However, because of my list I was able to easily deal with this issue and get back on track. had I not had my list I would have been so flustered I would have probably wasted the day. As it was I got most of it done, same with Tuesday, and so on. However, I am having a hard time now focusing to write. In the past I would write first and not worry about all the lists of things I also had to complete each day. But now that I know this list is going to be staring me in the face I have a hard time not thinking about it in order to write. Now I am behind about 6000 words to my weekly writing goal and as the source of my income that is stressing me out.

How can I balance all of this and not go crazy. It hasn’t helped that I pulled my children out of before/after school care for the month of December so my “work days’ are much shorter even though I am saving a lot of money which is a relief.

Any ideas?

Laina

So as you may know (or not) I write the Presley Thurman romance/mystery series. I currently have three full length novels out and one holiday short story. They are each priced at .99 cents although I am trying to get the holiday short to be free it just isn’t an option on Amazon/B & N unless there is a lower price match, which there is on Smashwords since it’s already free there but I can’t force it. The big guys pretty much do what they want. Anyways for ease of holiday gifting I decide to bundle them up into a boxed set. I thought that way for a still low price of 2.99 I could get all my books out there in a easy way and hopefully get people so excited about my books they would be be anxiously waiting for the next installment of the series in 2012. Well I am thrilled to announce that it has taken off quite nicely and after almost a full week on sale I consider it a success. Just goes to show that there are many ways to package and promote the same things as different things appeal to different people.

Happy Holidays!!

Bestselling, mystery with a little romance (nothing too steamy her mom might read this), author Laina Turner has just released a Boxed Set, featuring her first three full length Presley Thurman Mysteries plus a holiday short story. What a great way to experience all that fashionista-dectective Presley Thurman has to offer in one easy download.

This four-book set includes…

Stilettos & Scoundrels

Presley tells her boss what he can do with her job in HR and embarks on a new career as a freelance journalist. What seems like a simple interview with a Senator turns to murder when the day after her interview the Senator turns up dead. Does the fact that Presley was one of the last people to see him alive make her a suspect? Her ex-boyfriend Cooper, who was in charge of the Senators security, might think so. Presley is determined to clear her name but can she do it and resist Cooper’s charms?

Necklaces & Nooses

When Presley’s boss is found hanging she thinks its suicide until the police discover its homicide. Who would want to kill a boutique owner? Presley’s not sure but she’s determined to find out. The cute detective assigned to the case makes it all the more exciting.

Handbags & Hooligans

Presley went to Vegas to watch her friend Anna get married and the event turned into solving the mystery of her brothers girlfriend disappearance. But Ashley wasn’t exactly the schoolteacher she appeared to be. Who was she and was she kidnapped?

And the holiday short…Mistletoe & Murder

In this holiday short story, Presley goes home for Christmas expecting it to be a relaxing holiday until her old boyfriend, Brian, asks for her help finding out who has been stealing from him and it turns from theft to murder. Why would anyone want to kill Tommy and what was he hiding?

Purchase for Kindle, Nook, and available on Smashwords

I came across this fabulous post by D.D Scott, an author I admire, who posts frequently about her journey in the indie epublishing world. It’s about her pricing strategy and to many of us authors pricing is such a crap shoot. But before we can worry much about price we need to worry about exposure. Our book can be the best price out there but if no one knows it’s for sale it won’t do us much good. D.D. celebrated one of her milestones by pricing her first book in the Bootscootin’ series as free and watched her sales SOAR!!!!!

Read the full article about how she achieved her success here.

Yesterday I sold the following of my Presley Thurman mystery series:

Stilettos & Scoundrels

Kindle 7

Nook 0

Necklaces & Nooses

Kindle 1 YEAH!!!!! Finally

Nook 0

I was happy to still sell 7 books without the Kindle Nation Daily promotion going on and absolutely thrilled I finally sold a Kindle copy of my new book Necklaces & Nooses. Each book I sell is exciting for me.

Today for my marketing activity I am going to interact on my different Facebook groups for authors I belong to. Wish me luck?

What habit are you trying to create?

Laina

As I have moved more and more in to the realm of ebooks I of course talk about ebooks a lot and come across many people who don’t have an eReader. Well guess what I don’t either. I have the Kindle and the Nook app for my Mac. By the way these links will take you to the page where you can download the app for any device so see you don’t need an eReader. Not that they aren’t cool, I definitely want one, but sometimes due to budget constraints I can’t have everything I want.

How do you read your ebooks?
Laina

As we know there are many different types of writing from different genres, lengths, fiction and non-fiction and their many subclasses. Today I want to look at novels and novellas. For sake of clarity this is what I am defining as the average length of novels and novellas.

Novella

~ 20,000 – 50,000 words

Novel

~ 50,000 -110,000 words

I have been doing some research and there seems to be a lot of commentary that the 40,000 – 50,000 word range for ebooks is more user friendly while in print it’s better to have 70,000 – 90,000 words because who wants to pay $14.95 for a book that doesn’t have a lot of pages? This leads me to my question is the value perception of a 40,000 word ebook let’s say for $2.99 or less the same as a paperback of 80,000 words for $14.95?

When I was trying to go the traditional route my fiction works were 90,000 to 100,000 words and while none of my readers have told me my books are too long I have noticed many other amazing ebook authors that consistently publish in that 40,000 to 50,000 range. Personally, I find great value in their novels so do I just need to change my mindset that my books don’t have to be traditional novel length as long as the story is evolved? But then what if I want to do both ebook and print?

I sometimes think I am my own worst enemy:)

It is half way through the day on Monday and I would like to be able to rewind my day and start from the beginning. Not to have an do-overs but rather to have more time. I was so proud of myself Sunday I took the time and put together my to do list and made sure is was properly prioritized and felt good. I admit it was rather large and I did think for a few minutes that maybe it was a little more than what could realistically be accomplished but I was determined to start this week off right. Now I realize that I was way to optimistic. Or maybe I should have skipped my morning workout and just worked instead.

I don’t know. It always seems as if I have more list than time. Am I slow or do I have too much to do? Am I procrastinating more than I would like to think I am or wasting too much time on facebook and twitter under the guise of marketing and networking?

Laina

Ladies admit it. We are all fabulous. But like most things in life being fabulous does require work. If you want to really rock the fabulousness. This thought started when my daughter asked me what I had wanted to be when I grew up back when I was her age (little did she know I’m still not even close to grown up). There were many things I had dreams of being at her age but now when I think of the answer to that question my response it, “the best version of myself.” A while back when I realized that is truly what I wanted to be, “when I grew up” I felt that fabulous was a perfect term to put to that quest. But I want to clarify that I believe we all start out fabulous and just need to continually work on it in order to be the most fabulous I can be. Because while we do all start out with fabulousness it is definitely a skill to increase that level especially in the face of the difficulties life can bring.

Every day I ask myself what I can do today that will make me a better person. It might be something small like have more patience with my children or say no to those McDonalds fries because they won’t help me in my quest to stay healthy. It helps me when I know I am doing something for myself that it going to make me proud of who I am.

Be fabulous with me!
Laina

Mentally I feel in my twenty’s with much more wisdom than I had back then. How would you answer this?
Laina

So I admit I do like to eavesdrop on strangers. Especially in an airport. It’s entertaining to try and figure out their “story” or to make assumptions. As a writer I get some of my best material from taking little nuggets I hear and making them into dialogue for one of my characters.

Recently at lunch I overheard the following. I would love to hear from you what you think they were talking about. Doesn’t have to be even close to reality. Let’s have some fun!!!

Conversation between two guys….

my concern is what we do going forward

it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality

those skillets aren’t really available

i need a signed copy saying you and i talked about that

that will be effective july 1

that’s a non-issue in my mind

do you have any issues/concerns with this?

between you, me and the wall…

subpar performance at the stores

jim and brett want to drive the train

so looking forward…

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