Eighth Month Updates and Trying Not to Cry

Rather than putting hours of work into my newsletter and having it only be seen by a handful of people and not archieved anywhere, I’m going to start posting most of it here. But to get the super cute animal photos or occassional discount codes and excerpts, you’re going to have to sign up for the full version of Ethernotes. (Just click the envelope!)

Dear Etherfriends,

Seventh Month dragged painfully along for me, but we are finally entering Eighth Month! As we do so, The Harmony of Falling Snow has been available in digital form for two months and in print for one.

I’m stuggling to get reviews though. And it’s hard to sell books without reviews, both because store algorythms bury unreviewed books and because potential readers like to see what other people thought before making purchase decicions. So if you’ve read the book, I’d really appreciate it if you wrote a few sentences about it anywhere you’re willing to do so.

Publishing Notes

1. The Harmony of Falling Snow is available in both print and digital forms from a variety of retailers.
   1. Get $2 off epubs at Ko-fi or Itch.io, and $2 off print copies at Ingram-Spark
      1. The discounts reflect the percentage of sales the vendors share with me. I actually still make more per sale at those three places than anywhere else.
      2. If you’re curious, Amazon makes me the least amount of money.
      3. Yes, I have considered selling directly. But that involves a higher monthly cost than would be worth it for my current level of sales.
   2. Or buy it from a variety of other retailers, including Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, and Smashwords.
      
2. There’s a lot of disruption and discontent surrounding Itch.io involving overreach from credit card handlers in response to a campaign from a hate group in Australia.
   1. It’s complicated.
   2. I’m still on there for now, but that might change.
3. I realized two nights ago that Harmony’s metadata didn’t include important categories it should have been listed under, such as Romance > Polyamorous. I’m hoping that having fixed that will increase visibility some.

Life Notes

1. My summer depression is still getting worse.
   1. So this is going to be a short newsletter.
   2. But it’s important to note I’ve so far avoided suicidal ideations and have a support network should that change.

Progress Notes

Image by Kate Allan
(Check her out if you’re unfamiliar with her. Her art is 100% love.)

1. I failed every goal I set for myself this month.
   1. And it’s hard to focus on what I DID accomplish. Because depression…
      
2. I actually came remarkably close on some of the goals.
   1. 54,751 words written in The Melody of Shining Stars was under the 60k I was aiming at, but would have ‘won’ NaNo WriMo in the day.
      1. I’m more upset that I didn’t finish the draft.
      2. And even more frustrated I don’t have a clear outline for the rest, which makes it really hard to fight the negative voices telling me to just give up writing anything ever again because clearly I’m trash at this and no one cares anyway.
   2. It’s harder to justify being 7 hours under my 100 hr work goal since I’d already lowered that from 120 in light of having house guests.
      1. Although one or two fewer bad days would have made up the extra, so isn’t really all that awful.
         
3. My only excuse for not updating the blog more that is overcoming the “What’s the point?” sensation is just too much for when I’m already struggling.
   1. I did write reviews for a cute polyamorous manga and a book about polyamorous fantasty-world seafarers though. They’re here.
      
4. And the list didn’t take into account the perfectly predictably burst of depression, so was pretty dang ableist really.

Planning Notes

Goals for The Harmony of Falling Snow

1. Do more promotion?
2. Figure out how to get reviews.
3. Don’t fall into a well of dispair over sales or lack thereof.

Goals for A Melody of Shining Stars

1. Finish v2.
2. Start revising.
   1. The draft is at 145k and at LEAST 20k shy of The End. It’s going to need serious cuts.
   2. I actually think I know where a lot of them will be already. So that’s good.

Goals for the blog

1. Post at least twice, not including the Highlights from Ethernotes post.
   1. About ANYTHING.
   2. Just POST.

Goals for Life

1. Try to keep the depression in check.
2. Be kind to myself.
3. Ask for help when I need it.

In Closing

I apologize for this month’s letter being more of a downer than usual. I’m trying to keep myself from falling deeper into the pit of depression trying to drown me and hope to be more cheerful next month.

I love you all and am unspeakably touched by every single person who reads my words.