ROW80: Ridin' the Storm Out

The Storm has officially arrived. High School Football season is here in all its two-practice-a-day glory.  For the team I volunteer with, this means practice from 4-9pm (with dinner and a break in between practices).  Thus, I do the day job from 8-4 and then the football job from 4-9.  13 hour days are hell on the writing schedule.  Still, I'm being stubborn about my goals.  I think, with dedication, that I can still hit them.  I'll probably be erring on the short side for the next two weeks though until we get out of two-a-days.

Here's a quick look at the goals:

• Publishing Lesson Learned - People are going to request signed copies.  I suppose I didn't expect it.  After all, I'm pretty much a nobody right now.  We've developed out policy on how to handle this after looking at what a few other authors do.  More on this in a bit. 
• WIP Pages: 5 - Considering we traveled this weekend and The Storm hit, I'm okay with this number.  The word count was also closer to my six page average, which indicates some more prose-heavy sections that tend to take longer.
• Blogging - This makes only 2 out of 3 for this site, though I went 3/3 on the other site (just barely).  I did get one fiction post on each site, so that's good.  Posting in general suffered due to travel.  I tend to post during breaks at work, and I had to take Friday and Monday off for other commitments.  Thus, my normal posting window shrank.  I knocked my monthly personal post out before The Storm hit, so not too bad here either.

Again, this represents a full week for me.  I have weekly goals, so I've been focused on checking in weekly.  The Sunday check in generally gets skipped by me because weekends are usually too busy.  Still, it is important to make sure to hit at least one per week for accountability, even if I'm busy.  Wednesdays have just been the better fit.

I'm only the tiniest hair short on my goals this week.  A lot can be attributed to the reunion we attended this weekend.  It was a two day thing, effectively sucking up all the time for those days with activities.  I did manage to write a little in the car, which is always fun.  More importantly, we capitalized on the yearly meeting to share the word about my book.  Thus, while the writing goals may have been missed, we sold several books this weekend to interested and enthusiastic family members.  The fun thing about this was that it wasn't like I had to really self-promote... family is generally interested in what you're doing anyway.  It pays to have a big, loud family sometimes.  Literally.  (Thank you to all of you that supported me!)

Which brings us back to the issue of signed copies and lessons learned.  Like I mentioned, I've been surprised by the enthusiasm for my work.  I haven't talked up my writing a whole lot with family.  I love answering questions, but I don't want to force a sales pitch on anyone.  Many of them were hugely supportive, and had experienced some of my writing before, whether it be through my personal blog or other avenues.  They see the sky in my future (here's hoping they're right), and want signed copies.  Awesome... but how?

We use a POD and they (CreateSpace) ship right to the customer.  Theoretically, we can "gift" people the book, should one of our less-electronically-inclined relatives desire a print copy.  We're still investigating that.  They give us the cash, then we'll likely just place the order and fill in the shipping info accordingly.  Easy peasy. 

The issue occurs when they want them signed.  You see, even if we're placing the order, the book never actually comes through us.  It is shipped direct.  There is nowhere in the process where I can sign it.  What we can do is have it shipped to us, and then re-ship it to the end customer.  Problem is, the best rate we can find to do this on our own works out to $10 a book with the USPS.  That's a hefty charge to shoulder.

For now, the solution is that we have to pass that cost along to our customer.  You want a signed copy?  Wonderful, it's just going to cost you $10 extra.  We're not making any sort of profit on it, and I'm fine with that.  Heck, I don't even like telling people it's $10 extra even when I can justify it.  I'm just grateful to have them buy a book in the first place.  I guess I feel like my signature should be free, especially to family and friends.  Still, business is business, and they understand this.  I've not had anyone balk at the cost yet. 

We still don't really have a solution for the folks that buy the e-book.  Can't really sign that.  If you want me to sharpie up your Nook/Kindle, I suppose I could accommodate.  For that, though, you're likely going to have to stop by.  I'm imagining some day having one of those huge crayon-like magic pens that you use at Target to sign the credit card screen.  Someone needs to make one that is cheap for authors and can interface with an ebook.  Gold mine, right there.  Someone board that. 

At least we've got a process figured out, though.  Until we discover a better way, that's what we'll be doing.  To finish, here's a look at the word counts:

• Since last check-in: 5046
• Fiction: 1917
• 38% New Fiction
• Grand Total for the challenge: 26,119

Keep ROW'in!