Humanity and Indie Publishing

I couldn't think of a better title for this post which is really a potpourri of this week's events in Writing for My Life.

1) Sales in August fell off a cliff. The benefit of falling off the sales cliff was that it was going to happen sooner or later, right? I was cured of watching the graph thingy at KDP because it was too depressing.

2) Plagiarism seems to be a hot topic among indie authors these days. Plagiarism (for those too busy plagiarizing to use a dictionary) means "to steal ideas or passages from another's work and present them as one's own." - Collins English Dictionary. In the exchanges I'm reading online, the offenders argue that because they made changes to the original work it's all copasetic. Dear Plagiarizer: It is not. Write your own stuff. (and look up copasetic) I have more thoughts on this subject but it's been a busy week so onward!

3) Lots of traffic from Turkey this week so a big shout out to all my visitors. I wrote a thesis paper on Turkey when I was in high school so I feel like we're old friends. Nice to shake virtual hands! Think of my sales cliff! Buy a book!

4) Piracy. I found a pirated copy of Iced Under on an ebook site, heavens knows where or how or why, but there it was buried in pages and pages of mysteries. When I made it available for free, I assume it got passed around as books do. So until I am as popular as Grisham, no more free ebooks. At least one person out of 7 billion will have to buy the book first before passing it on. The humanity!

5) Diet. I'm on one again. Must lose weight for daughter's wedding to get into Mother of the Bride outfit. So what I want to know is how am I supposed to write if I can't eat Skittles?

6) Spent the day correcting minor errors in Wanton because that was soooo much easier than writing a new scene in Wastrel. (Confused about plagiarism? If you find writing a book is easy-peasy you're probably stealing it.)

7) I have a book event on Saturday! Authors' Day at the Wakefield Market in beautiful downtown Wakefield, Quebec. From 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. I will be selling print copies of Iced Under, The Grey Lady and The River Bride in a 3-Book Gift Pack for Christmas at a shockingly low price. So get over here!

8) The winners of the Goodreads Giveaway were Cassandra Edwards, Sausan Sumar and Dorothy Huckaby. Signed copies of The Grey Lady were popped in the mail on Tuesday so it is anybody's guess when your books will arrive, ladies. I love Canada Post but ... well. You know.

That's me for another week. Be nice to each other.