Available beginning today. It may later be available at other outlets.
Today is publication day! Volume 2 of my Bible study series, A Walk Through Holy Week. Titled Temple Teaching, it is available in both e-book and paperback on Amazon at the following link:
This is Volume 2 of the eight volume Bible Study series taking a detailed look at the gospel accounts of Holy Week.
In this book, Jesus continues his teaching in the temple that was covered in Volume 1. He confronts the Sadducees, Herodians, Pharisees, and teachers of the law. We have much to learn from these interactions. Even though these are familiar scriptures, taking a deep look at them can be newly illuminating. The book uses the scripture from the author’s harmony of the four gospels.
The book contains eight chapters, making it suitable as an 8-week small group study covering the Lenten season and a little more. Or use it as a personal Bible study at any time. Each chapter has seven sections that can be used as daily devotional readings.
As I write this on Wednesday, March 5 evening, a feeling of normalcy has descended on the Todd household. Not completely, for we still have health issues we’re dealing with. Lynda has headaches almost daily; our son is, tonight, dealing with a possible break-through seizure; and I’m getting ready to start physical therapy for my right knee. But yesterday I saw my hematologist. My iron deficiency is corrected, and I don’t have to go back to him unless my regular blood work shows my iron dropping. And my cardio rehab will end next week. That is going well, and I’ve increased my workload most days as I’ve been through it. My weight is either steady or inching downward, and my blood sugars are mostly within goal.
But normalcy is close. Saturday, I returned to writing. As of today, I’ve written on four days, with the ideas and words coming easily. I have only three days of writing left on this volume—well, four including the introduction. Then, of course, the editing starts. Meanwhile, I continue to edit Volume 2 of the series. I should finish that on Friday, the day this post goes live. Typing will take less than a day, then publication tasks start.
I’m finding time to do some typing of things that go into my journal—loose papers that will later be discarded. Meanwhile the storeroom is better arranged so that I know where things are and will be able to find them again for decumulation consideration. My work table is marginally cleaner after I went through a desk-top box of hanging files and got rid of a bunch. Some were left for scanning or transcribing, work that is in progress. And speaking of decumulation, every couple of days something sells based on Facebook Marketplace ads.
But the thing that makes me feel most normal is beginning the process of closing out finances for 2024 and beginning to track them for 2025. Today, Wednesday, I did this for book sales, which is a business for me. I was up-to-date with my sales and finances spreadsheet when I had my seizure on Dec 22, so I didn’t lack much to catch up. I finally did that today, reconciled everything, created the new spreadsheet for 2025, and recorded my sales to date. I’m running a little ahead of 2024, which was a record year for me. On Thursday I plan to do this for our stock trading business, allowing me to start on our partnership taxes, which are due to be filed by March 15.
This all feels good, working on familiar things and seeing things getting done. I’m not ready to resume regular yardwork, but will slip some in once in a while. Going up and downstairs to The Dungeon is still painful, but I am able to do it several time a day.
Oh, and Tuesday I took down the string of Christmas card we received this year. A little late, but another part of the house is back to normal.
Three borrows in two months: it’s nice to have new readers for this oldie.
When I first started self-publishing, back in 2011, two organizations competed for authors: Amazon, which distributed e-books and print books to its own store; and Smashwords, which distributed e-books to a lot of retailers. I began by uploading my books to Amazon, but before many months passed I also uploaded to Smashwords.
Over the years, other services popped up. Barnes & Noble made it possible to uploads your books directly to them, bypassing the middle men. Another service distributing to retailers was Draft 2 Digital. I made the decision that it was hard enough keeping up with Amazon and Smashwords that I wouldn’t mess with D2D too.
In fact, I had very few sales through Smashwords, and didn’t bother to upload most of my latest books.
Then, a year or two ago, D2D bought out Smashwords. I waited a long time to transfer my books, but finally did early this year. I spent almost no time learning the D2D system. I had too much on my plate, between writing and household and health, to read up on how D2D did things.
In September, I received an e-mail from D2D saying my August sales report was available. That surprised me. I opened the report and found I found I’d sold 1 copy of Dr. Luke’s Assistant and one of my short story “Charlie Delta Delta”. The royalty for each was 32¢! That couldn’t be. I contacted D2D and learned that Hoopla was a different type of retailer. It’s more of a library service, and a “sale” is really a borrow.
Then, Wednesday I received an email from D2D saying my September sales report was available. I downloaded it, and learned I had five sales, all through Hoopla (so really five borrows. One of Documenting America Vol 1, two of Documenting America Home School edition, and two more of Doctor Luke’s Assistant. The problem is: how do I account for these borrows in terms or recording sales. Is a borrow a sale? or something less than a sale?
A borrow means a reader. A sale means a reader—or so you hope. So in terms of readership, a borrow is the same as a sale, maybe even more likely to result in a reader. So, at least for now, I’m counting each borrow as a sale. If that skews my sales number, I may have to rethink that.
Of course, with the delay in D2D reporting, I won’t know each month’s sales until almost a month after the last day of the month. But that’s okay. I’m glad for the additional readers.
Vol. 2 may be published this month—if I can make my goal.
Well, August was another strange month, as I continued to recover from the two freak household accidents I had in July. While my output was certainly affected, I wasn’t shut down from some progress. Here’s how I did relative to my goals.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this. I had lots to write about.
I’m not making a goal of attending any writers meetings, partly from not knowing how my surgery and illnesses will lay me up, and partly because one meeting may be cancelled due to lack of a venue. I went to one meeting.
Complete two editorial passes through A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol 2. I managed to do this. Actually, I made three editorial passes through and have declared it “Done”. Publishing tasks to follow.
Figure out any final changes to the latest Danny Tompkins story, then finish and publish it. Did this, and published the short story on Aug 5. Made changes to it over the next few days.
Complete the commentary between letters. If I can get that done, begin selection of photos and insert them in the book. Did this. Completed commentary, Introduction, proofreading the letters and commentary, and started selecting photos.
And, one more for good measure: Make a start at outlining Vol 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week.Nope, did not work on this at all.
Hopefully, I’ll come very close to finishing my next book of expatriate year letters this month.
September will be an odd month. My heart surgery will be on Sept 30, and I have lots of pre-op stuff before that. So I don’t plan on any writing this month. Publishing tasks will take precedence.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
Attend three writing group meetings. I present at the one on Sept 10.
Complete publishing tasks for A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 2 and publish it to Amazon. I may have to do so with a temporary cover.
Complete adding photos to the Saudi years letters book. A really stretching-it goal would be to do enough formatting to order a review copy.
Spend at least a little time organizing Vol. 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week.
That’s it, and it may be more than I can accomplish. But it’s better to have a goal that requires you to work hard and efficiently.
While I’m laid up with accidents, I’m doing my best to get some writing work done. But when I say, “laid up,” I don’t mean lying flat on a bed doing nothing. I’m able to get around with a walker, to drive, attend church, pick up meds at the pharmacy. A couple of weeks ago I did a little yard work, and learned I wasn’t really ready for that. It probably set back my healing for a week.
But there are two things I enjoy doing that are easily done without putting weight on my feet: reading and writing.
I’ve done a fair amount of reading. For my morning devotional time, I read two prayers in Prayer That Avail Much. I’m a third of the way through this book, and mostly enjoying it. For enjoyment, I’m reading two books that are writing related. One is The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the famous British poet. I’m not sure I’m really enjoying this one. I’ll write more about this in a future book review. The third book I’m reading is Vol. 3 of The Letters of Virginia Woolf. I’m enjoying this one a little more, and will surely write a review of it.
As to writing, I’m working on two projects. One is A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 2. I finished this one about two weeks ago. I let it sit a while, then came back and did one editorial review of it. My plans are to let it sit for a week, then do one more editorial pass. I’m hoping at that time to call it “Done” and start publishing tasks. However, it’s possible I’ll still have areas in the book that will need more attention.
The other writing project is the book of letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. This book consists of handwritten letters transcribed into print. To those I added an Introduction and a little commentary along the way. That makes the words part of the book done and ready for proofreading. On Saturday and Sunday just passed, I proofread 57 of the book’s 186 pages. I’ll finish it this week. Then I have to find photos to illustrate it. After that will come publishing tasks and having a few copies made for family members. I hope to have that done when the family gathers for Thanksgiving.
So this is keeping me busy. I have other books lined up when these are done. And I have other writing projects waiting when these two are finished.
I might learn to like this life as a semi-invalid.
I believe most people think authors make a lot of money. Alas, it’s exactly the opposite. Conventional wisdom within the author community is a self-published writer is above average if they sell 50 copies of a book.
When you get to my position, with over 40 items for sale (novels, non-fiction, short stories, essays), you hope the sales start to add up. But again alas, that hasn’t happened so far.
The last in this series if doing OK in sales—better, actually, than the others did in this stage of their publishing life.
Amazon is an enigma. Several times in my 13 years of bookselling on their platform, I’ve seen sales start to increase. I get to the point where I think I may see a breakthrough, only to see them plummet after a few months of increasing sales. That’s happened three of four times over the years.
Now, I don’t want you to think that the ramping up period meant huge sales for a few months. I might have had sales go from 5 to 10 or even 15 per month, but then suddenly it dropped back to under 5. It’s frustrating. Since I started running ads on Amazon I’ve seen some increase, but not great.
The pattern seemed to repeat in 2023. After some decent sales—well, decent for me—the bottom dropped out in September and stayed down the next few months. Last December saw a slight uptick and I was hopeful, while at the same time waiting for Amazon to change their algorithms again, Let me give you sales per month for the last year.
Or, to see it another way, here’s a graph of my lifetime book sales. The current month, May 2024, is obviously not complete yet, but is off to a good start.
Lifetime book sales. The blue line, which I keep forgetting to label, is sales per title, now at a whopping 37.3 sales per item.
So it’s not a lot of sales, but the number is growing. The recent trend upward is encouraging. And unexplained. Did Amazon change their algorithm in a way that’s favorable to me? Did they suddenly start showing my ads to people more likely to buy? Or have I reached some point of combination of past sales, ranking, and total items for sale that sales have become self-sustaining? I wish I knew.
My Documenting America series continues to sell best. It makes me anxious to get on to the next one. But I think I’ll stay with the schedule I’ve made: finish the Bible study series, write the next The Forest Throne book, then see what’s next.
Book 4 in the “Documenting America series—or Book 5 if you include the homeschool edition of the first one.
Saturday morning I awoke around 3:45 a.m. with a need which, unfortunately, happens about every night. When I went back to bed, I could not fall asleep. I laid there until about 4:30 a.m., then decided to just get up and start my day. I went down to The Dungeon to work on the computer.
I decided the best thing to do was the publishing tasks of Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. The e-book I had published March 1st, but there are more steps to the print book than the e-book, so I didn’t jump right into print book tasks.
But a very quiet Saturday morning, long before daylight, seemed a good time to concentrate on that. I first took 20 minutes or so to wrap up my stock trading accounting for the week, then plunged into my Word print book file. It all went pretty easy. It helped that I had just done this for another book and thus it was fresh on my mind. I made one or two minor errors in entering headers but they were easily fixed. By 8:45 I had the book interior finished.
After breakfast, I went back to tackle the cover. Any regular reader of this blog knows I had making covers, though I haven’t posted about that for a while. This cover was easy, however. Calculate the book size based on the number of pages. Upload the e-book cover, resize it to the print book size. Add a text box to the back cover with the already-written text. Add a text box for the spine, rotate it 90°, center it two ways on the background. Export as a PDF file. Upload to Amazon.
It really as that simple. I had a little trouble aligning layers relative to the background, and accidentally moved the background a little. I thought no big deal. I clicked “publish” on the print book, and went on to another task, writing a letter to my granddaughter. Amazon needs a little time to review the files before they are published.
Yesterday, during Sunday school, an e-mail from Amazon came in. The book was not acceptable. The only problem was with the cover, something about the back of the book not being acceptable. I knew right what is was: that accidentally moved background. In the afternoon, after a good Sunday school class, worship service, Subway lunch, and pleasurable reading time in the sunroom, I went back to The Dungeon to make adjustments.
Except I found the adjustments too difficult and decided to start over. It was much easier the second time. All layers were properly created again and aligned. It took less than 30 minutes to create, check, export the PDF, and upload to Amazon.
Using the online book viewer, I checked the cover. Something appeared that I hadn’t noticed. Some of the back cover text overlapped onto the spine. That took two minutes to fix, and soon I had to book re-uploaded. This time all items on the cover were in the right place and within the guidelines. I clicked “approve” then “publish”. And now I wait.
Here’s the link. Hopefully both the print book and e-book will be available by the time you read this. Hopefully too, this is something some of you will want to read.
Here’s what I track on my spreadsheet. Click to enlarge it if you’re interested.
Blog day tomorrow, and here I am on Sunday afternoon without anything planned. I did a thoughts-along-the-way post for last Friday. This coming Friday will be end-of-month progress and goals for next month. But what about today?
Something I haven’t spoken of recently is book sales. That might be a good topic. I think many people believe authors have lots of book sales. Not true. Or at least not true for most self-published authors.
Most of my sales come from Amazon. Fortunately, Amazon has a good book sales tracking system. Alas, that means it’s easy to see just how many sales I don’t have. I transfer those sales to a spreadsheet, along with any sales from Smashwords (now merged with Draft2Digital), Barnes & Noble, or others. I just did a check of those sales last year and added them to the spreadsheet.
So, what are my sales. Here they are. Promise not to laugh.
2023 – 151
2024 – 23 through Feb 25
Lifetime – 1483
Several times over the years I saw sales ramped up, only to crash after a few months. It seems that Amazon constantly changing their algorithms. Sales start to increase a little each month, then they go down to fairly low. They were growing last summer, then plummeted to single digits in each of Sept, Oct, Nov.
Since last December, they’ve been in double digits, with February being best of those a few days before the end of the month.
I suppose I should take the advice of other writers and just ignore sales, but I’m a stat man. I have to keep on top of sales. It may be an obsession, justifying counselling.
My highest selling series is, by far, my Documenting America books. This keeps me working on them. Hopefully I’m just a couple of weeks away from having the next one finished. I should be rushing it, I guess. I’ve been running ads on Amazon, and am staying ahead on royalties vs. ad cost. Possibly I should be running a few more.
In February I’ve sold 12 books: 8 e-books, 3 paperbacks, and 1 Kindle Unlimited borrow. They are six separate titles. That’s out of 41 published titles. I know, kind of pathetic.
So there you have it. Not a great report, but better than nothing.
It may not be selling, but at least my grandkids are reading it and seem to like it.
2023 was a strange year for writing. In some ways my output doesn’t seem very significant. But, then, the year brought many other things that pried me away from writing. We made six trips for family matters, Lynda had her heart irregularities leading to a pacemaker implant, home improvements led to the discovery of water damage that is taking much time to arrange for contractors to begin repairs.
Yet, I think I made some progress. Let’s see how it stacks up against the goals I published on January 6, 2023.
Edit and publish The Key To Time Travel. Yes, I got this done. Publication was in June.
Determine the structure of the overall A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series, and whether it will be six parts or seven. It’s being taught in six parts over six Lent/Easter seasons, but I’m thinking it’s better as seven parts in books. I completed this, sometime in late spring. I settled on eight volumes rather than six or seven. All volumes are planned out and all chapters named.
Finish/edit Part 4 (what may become Part 5) of AWTHW.Finished this, and it’s now on hold, waiting for earlier volumes to be finished and published.
Finish/edit Part 3 (what may become Part 4) of AWTHW. Finished this (didn’t actually have much left to do on it), and it’s now on hold, waiting for earlier volumes to be finished and published.
Write Part 5 (what may become Part 6) of AWTHW, simultaneously with teaching it. I’m pleased to say I finished this. It actually became Part 7 in the restructured series. It was done a couple of weeks before the last class.
Start Part 1 of AWTHW, after determining the overall structure, of course. Not only did I start it, but I finished it and made one editing pass through it. Two more passes and it will be ready to publish.
Depending on how work on this goes, publish some or all of the completed parts of the study. I decided to hold off publishing volumes out of sequence, so all the complete volumes are waiting for Volumes 1, 2, and 3 to be published.
So far this has not found an audience on Kindle Vella. All 32 episodes have been published.
Start writing the next book in the Documenting America series. It will cover the years 1761 to 1775 and is tentatively titled Run-up To Revolution. Yes, I finished this. I decided to publish it to Kindle Vella, chapter by chapter. In hindsight that was not a good decision, as it has not attracted a readership.
One other item, which is non-commercial but which will be a book, is to start transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia (1981-1983). I don’t think this is something that I can finish in one year, given that it will be fill-in work when I have nothing else to do, but I’d like to at least start it. I’ll wait to start it, however, until I get a few more disaccumulation items done. No, I didn’t do this. The work of disaccumulation proved to be more time-consuming than expected. I made major progress on it, but I’m still a long way from done.
So all in all, I published only two items: one book, one book in serial format. Given the distractions, maybe that’s not too bad. And I did get a lot of writing done, even though it’s not yet published.
Time now to set some goals for 2024. That will be in my next post.
Time to post about my progress in December and set some goals for January. I know, I know, December isn’t over yet. Maybe I should wait until January 1st to post this. But I’m doing it now, and will either edit it or provide updates in a comment.
Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. I did this, though at least once I was a day late, and another time I didn’t write it until late in the day.
Attend three writers meetings. I’m not sure the third one will be held, as it will be getting close to Christmas. We cancelled the third one, a combination of sickness, travel, and Christmas. I attended the other two.
Finish the first draft and much of the editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. …If I can maintain my writing schedule, I should finish the writing by December 10. That gives me two weeks to edit, enough time to go through the whole thing once. I finished the writing Dec 13 and the edits to the Introduction on Dec 14. Editing commenced Dec 15 and…I completed it around Dec 21.
Type up some of the ideas for book 3 in The Forest Throne series. I don’t intend to begin actually writing this for perhaps a year, but I want to lock in the ideas generated so far. I did this, after having contacted my granddaughter for some clarifications of ideas we considered during Thanksgiving week.
Work some on Nature: The Artwork of God. This may be the next book I write (still trying to decide), so I need to expand the notes I’ve already taken. As of today, I did nothing on this in December.
Finish the new Danny Tompkins short story and decide what to do with it. I finished it and sent it to two beta readers. Still waiting to hear back from them.
Read for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Actually, until I do my research, I don’t know what the next one will be. I did a little reading on this beginning Dec 26. I’m not very far along, however.
Oh, one more: Finish and submit my article on a genealogical brick wall to the NWA Genealogical Society. The contest deadline is Dec 31. The article has been done for almost two months. Time to dust it off and do a final edit. I did this and submitted it on Dec 8, though I had to submit an extra couple of reference documents later. Now, I wait.
What about goals for January? I’m going to hold off on them until I post goals for the year 2024, which I’ll do on January 1. I’ll probably post specific goals for January on January 5.
