Things need to fall into place this year without nonsense.
1. [Indigo Romeo Lima] is underway.
2. The launch plan for [Foxtrot Mike Lima] is looking good. I’ve got the merch already so yay! Thank you 2023 me for getting your shit together. This year is a bit trickier than last so I have to be prepared well ahead of time.
3. I have a schedule set for bringing stock (books) in for the launch.
4. Amazon now lets authors buy their paperbacks BEFORE the release day. Finally! Hooray!
5. This year I will not be giving away paperbacks or ebooks. I will probably still have wee competitions and send off pens and other merch within NZ.
I know, I’ve always been a generous author in that regard, but I can’t afford to give my work away. We need to live. Doris is not magically recovered from ME/CFS just because she turned 18. She is still very much dependent on me so there you go.
That was quite apparent yesterday when we walked to the postoffice and she was not at all well by the time we got home. (It’s not a long walk.)
6. January is galloping along and that’s scary!
7. My wrist is not magically better and that’s quite a learning curve. It’s been particularly bad over the last month so that’s fun, NOT. It’s quite a struggle to not snap at the girls. Sometimes I completely fail.
8. Sucks to be human.
9. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing with AI – and that is hilarious a lot of the time. Some images are pretty good though but it’s not going to be replacing people anytime soon, not unless everyone likes weird hands and legs that all over the show. 🙂 The point of me playing with AI, is to get some images that I can use in a book trailer or multiple trailers.
10. That’s it for now. I’ve got a tonne of stuff to do.
Go buy a book. 🙂
Cat Connor 
Really wise of you to get as much planned as you can. I hope your launch really goes well, and your planning is certainly going to help, especially considering all of the ‘real life’ things going on with you.
You make an interesting point about giveaways and merch. I’m not in a position to have scads and scads of pens, bookmarks, free copies, and so on to give away. I’d like to be more generous, but I just can’t. People don’t always know that authors are, in general, not rich. Anyway, I think it’s great that you’re doing anything in terms of freebies and competitions.
Can’t wait to read [India Romeo Lima] when it’s ready!
It comes down to people not understanding how much work goes into a novel that they expect us to give our work away. When we do, they love us. When we say ‘hey this is costing us too much’ they vanish because they don’t grasp how much work and time and everything goes into a novel that we create and sell (far too cheaply for the amount of work). It’s a strange concept. No one expects other professions to give away their knowledge and work – but artists of all types are expected to work for “exposure opportunities” or regularly give their work away and to NEVER complain about piracy.
It’s not right. It’s not fair. And the world is slow to realise how unfair it all is – probably because we’re generous. Writers in general are generous because we want our work to be read and so the cycle continues.
I’m lucky that I have pens and bookmarks and soap – it’s not easy to acquire the nice things that readers (and we) enjoy … and there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate that either.
Now for some more tiramisu! xx