You're either shrinking or expanding, so they say.
I was watching a video interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Governator was talking about his workout routine. Interestingly, it made me think of my WRITING ROUTINE.
What's the typical workout routine? Leg day, arms day, cardio day, rest.
What if your writing routine was “writing day,” “self-improvement day,” rinse and repeat?
I've been doing that the past few days. On the days where I'm writing, I focus on being creative. On the self-improvement days, I focus on learning new things.
When I'm writing, I'm shrinking. I'm pouring what I know onto the page, and my brain is smaller afterward.
When I'm learning, I'm expanding.
Just a fun thought. Passing it along in case folks are interested.
PROGRESS TODAY
Wrote about 1000 words today. I fell away from inbox zero so got my emails down to around 15 today. Should be able to hit zero again tomorrow or Wednesday.
I also reviewed my final end of the month ad numbers. I'm happy where I ended but have a lot of work today.
LESSON LEARNED
My goal now is to improve my conversion rate for my lowest performing series. Yesterday I updated the subtitle of two of my novels to make the genre clear:
Dream Born (A Dream Mage Urban Fantasy)
Android Paradox (A Futuristic Android Technothriller)
My Android X series picked up more clicks immediately. No sales yet, but remember that I haven't done anything with the sales page yet. Android X has a slow burn for clicks, so I'll give it a few days and a few dozen clicks before I make additional changes.
LESSON EXECUTED
With my poetry collections, I got to work in updating the sales pages. I re-did the book descriptions to more closely match bestselling poetry collections right now. I'll wait for 100 more clicks to determine how the change worked.
Here is one of them.
BEFORE
In the 24th century, androids are everywhere—even in verse.
In this new poetry collection by Elliott Parker, race relations are tense between humans and androids. A singularity is on the horizon and no one’s ready for it.
The characters in Parker’s poems explore love, nano enhancements, and lost opportunities in a future that is constantly changing. They explore what it means to be human—and android.
What kind of future do you want to live in?
AFTER
“Everyone’s trying to outsmart the androids these days. I saw on the news that some kid discovered how to unlock another one percent of the brain. Now he claims to understand the secrets of the universe, and he’s got the equations to prove it.”
Android Poems is a deliciously kinetic poetry collection that imagines a futuristic world inhabited by humans and androids in the year 2300. With equal parts light and darkness, these thought-provoking poems will re-engineer everything you thought about being human.
*
The bestselling poetry collections right now include a sample line or poem in the description (which, by the way, was exactly what I recommended people do in my very forward-thinking book Indie Poet Rock Star five years ago—I didn’t follow my own advice…). The actual copy is extremely sparse and almost says nothing at all. I figured it would be a good idea to match that while demonstrating the entertainment value.
Will it work? Heck if I know. But if it doesn’t, I’ll go back to the drawing board and try again. I only have to wait for 100 clicks, which will put me around the 15th as this collection picks up clicks quickly.
It’s amazing how many poetry collections are KILLING IT right now. Again, something I predicted five years ago in my book Indie Poet Rock Star and people thought I was silly. People on the traditional side probably thought I had three heads; people on the indie side said “who cares.”
Let me tell you who cares: there are TRADITIONAL PUBLISHERS mimicking low-fi, badly produced book covers circa 2010. They’re trying to emulate the “indie feel” due to the success of a few early Indies in the genre. Not even kidding. Look up the bestsellers in the poetry genre and see what I’m talking about. Again, all stuff I predicted. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the folks at the publishing houses read my book because they’re doing exactly what I recommended, almost word for word. But who knows—I’m just being vain tonight. 🙂
In fact, the time is right to even write another poetry collection if I wanted to. It could probably do pretty well given my advertising adventures so far, especially if I went into KU for the first few months. Also helps that I have two titles on the market already.
Anyhoo, I’ve got some YouTube videos to shoot. I’m doing a late-night recording session tonight.
Have a good night everyone.
