I’m working on a translation at this time, the first I’m doing on somebody else’s work. At the same time I’m typing some old stories in Italian that are still written on an electric typewriter (remember those?) – which is good, because after writing in English for the past 4 years, I’ve forgotten how to format dialogs in Italian, LOL! So, no new words this week, but still writing.

If, by the end of the week, I can’t think of a beginning for the body switch, I’ll postpone it to later in the year – I obviously need more time to muse about the characters and how things are going to happen and possibly switch back. So I’ll write the Passion Stories mentioned in Six Months instead. One is already out, Obsession, but I’ll have more short stories ready by the end of the month – which is just perfect for my offline writers group, they can comment on a complete short story instead of the beginning of a longer work! 😉

So it’s the other two pseudonyms that will issue something this month – although I’ll be doing a final pass on The Death of Queen Amazonia  as soon as I hear from new beta and editor, so I can publish it at the beginning of March. By the way, reading the post, I already saw two typos, I better go and correct the manuscript before I forget – just in case they escape the eagle eye of the two aforementioned people! 😉

I’ve also sent Star Minds 3 to betas, so that’s all set too – the main pseudonym is not sleeping, don’t worry! 😉 She has 200Facebook likes, so she’s got to feed them – although I doubt any of those 200 people ever bought one of my books except a couple (and I know who you are, so no need to comment, LOL!)… I’d like to hear from other authors if they ever sold anything through Facebook likes! 😉

A few links again – Kris Rusch on editors for self-published authors. Which includes me. Mine are mostly copy editors, as the line edits are more the beta-readers’ domain. I mean, from a beta-reader I want to know if the story flows, if there are plot holes, if I was too fast or too slow, that kind of stuff, while the editor takes care of the grammar and typos and all that nitty-gritty. Although Mighty Katy is also very good at pointing plot holes or other inconsistencies, so I really recommend her! 🙂

But then, I’m hardly a beginner. Even if it’s unpublished, I still have a huge backlist. Even if half of it is unpublishable, it did teach me how to write a story. And as I can’t help you with motivation, because I’m way too deep into habit already, I’ll point you to David Farland’s post on motivation vs habit. Hope my friend who asked me to do a post on it catches up with his e-mail and reads it, LOL! He’s just back from Angoulème – the French BD major comicon – so I’m guessing it will take him a few days to go through his backlog.

Colleen Doran for aspiring artists, but it works for aspiring writers as well, so go check her post. If you want to be a professional, learn to act as a professional. Work is good, Spam is not – and I think indie writers who keep giving away their work for free should read this as well.  And check the financial reality of a genre novelist while they’re at it – including the comments.

As for my own sales numbers, I got one sale on Kobo (the second since I went direct) and one on Smashwords in February, while Amazon (who won hands on in January) is still at 0. It’s a slow slow rise… but I’m not giving up! 🙂 As for Kobo, it seems to be strong in Switzerland, as both sales were there – the first an Italian title, the second English, so I’m guessing it’s not the same person (unless he/she is trilingual like me)! 😉

Yeah, I know, I won’t get rich with Kobo yet, and they won’t pay me until I get that 100$ minimum, but I might have reached that with Amazon in 1 year and a half… so maybe in 3 months I’ll have that Amazon check (2 months to get paid and 1 to get the actual check, in case you’re wondering – third world country for snail mail, sigh)…

Now back to translating and typing… have a wonderful week! 🙂