Talking to Crickets with M.Pax, a One Word Interview with Tyrean Martinson, and Friday Celebrations

M. Pax is here today as part of her blog tour to promote Beyond The Edge, the latest installment of her spectacular series The Backworlds. I'm excited to welcome Mary as she is a friend as well as a terrific writer and a fellow member of Untethered Realms. Thanks for being here, Mary!

I'm also excited to be on Tyrean Martinson's site as part of her One Word Interview series. Thanks for having me, Tyrean! You can find my interview here.

But now back to The Backworlds and M. Pax. 

Talking to Crickets

If you’re out there publishing, you probably get what I mean by crickets. We scream, we shout, we stand on our heads with flags on our butts [OK, maybe not that], trying to be heard, trying to be seen and noticed.

It’s not easy. Is it? No.

I’ve spent month after month talking to an empty room, so it seemed. Fortunately, I’m extremely stubborn. So I never gave up.

Don’t you give up. It has nothing to do with talent. There’s a heck of a lot of noise out there. You never know when someone might hear you, though. That’s why you can’t quit. Not ever.

I lucked out with Bookbub noticing me in June. They gave me a free ad. That sure was fun. Loved the sales that resulted from that. Thank you Bookbub!

A month later, an editor contacted me and asked me to consider putting Semper Audacia in their anthology, Space Jockey. After some negotiation, I agreed. They paid me. It came out recently and is better than I expected. It gains me exposure.

I published Semper Audacia exactly two years ago. It sells 10+ a month on average. Yeah, so a lot of crickets until something happened.

I hope I’m paying attention to myself here, because I released The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear a year ago. The crickets for that one are deafening. It’s a different audience than my space opera. Obviously, I’m still struggling with how to connect with that audience.

The Backworlds connects, and when I compare what I did for it versus what I did for Hetty, I can see what worked. I offered Backworlds #1 as a perma free and released the second in the series shortly after — a recipe I will repeat for any new series.

However, it seems what works and what doesn’t differs from author to author and from book to book. This formula may not work for my next. That’s what makes this game baffling.

I likened book marketing to pushing a boulder up a hill. My friend, Vella Munn, likens it to pushing water up a hill. Yup, she’s more right than I am, and she’s written a heckuva lot more books than I have.

Don’t be discouraged! Stay out there! Keep yapping! Someone will eventually hear you and things will start to happen. You won’t know when and you won’t know when. Which is why you shouldn’t stop.

Luck is what happens after a lot of work, a lot of work that on first glance seems to be getting you nowhere. 

About Beyond The Edge

Some truths are better left unfound.

 

For two years Craze’s dear friend, Lepsi, has been missing. The murmurings of a haunted spaceship might be a message and may mean his old pal isn’t dead. The possibility spurs Craze and Captain Talos to travel to uncharted worlds, searching. Out there, in an unfamiliar region of the galaxy beyond the Backworlds, they stumble upon a terrible truth.

 

Meanwhile, Rainly remains on Pardeep Station as acting planetlord, dealing with the discovery of her lover’s dark and brutal past. Alone and questioning her judgment, her introspection unlocks more than heartache. Latent protocols in her cybernetics activate, forcing her to face a sinister secret of her own.

 

In the far future, humanity settles the stars, bioengineering its descendents to survive in a harsh universe. This is the fourth book in the science fiction series, The Backworlds. A space opera adventure.

Amazon / AmazonUK / Nook / Smashwords / Kobo / Other Outlets

M. Pax-- Inspiring the words she writes, she spends her summers as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory in stunning Central Oregon where she lives with the Husband Unit and two demanding cats. She writes science fiction and fantasy mostly. You can find out more by visiting her at:

Website / FB / Twitter / Goodreads / Pinterest / Wattpad

 

Thanks again to Mary for being here!

Today is also the day for Vikki's Celebrate the Small Things hop. I am celebrating that I am finished with jury duty! I actually got dismissed a few days early and it's been great to be able to get back to a normal routine.

I didn't have a bad experience but I'm still glad to have that behind me. I didn't end up on a case but did get as far as the jury box before the prosecutor decided to dismiss me. I have no clue why he did but I didn't complain!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! :)