Things are not going well on The Darkened Path series. Thus far there have been literally no sales, a lot of free sample downloads, and what seems to be a lot of constructive critical advice from various sources I have asked for feedback. It is meant to enlighten me about how many atrocious grammatical and editorial errors I have made. 2 out of 4 people are telling me just how bad I have screwed up and that I need to just pull down the entire project and scrap it or else do a complete overhaul and republish. Else I damage my writing reputation even worse? Um, I was not aware I have joined some kind of secret publishing mafia where the slightest grammatical error will get me killed on the spot? Even so much as a typographical slip up will land me in author's purgatory for the rest of my life. Oh the shame and horror!!
No, my readers, I am not in the best mood.. it's probably best described as darkly humorous and slightly depressed. I am famous for at least having a sense of dry and dark humor when I am in a bad mood. Sometimes my attempts at being humorous is not considered funny and I can be rather crude about it at times, depending the situation and the actual mood I am in. I look at life in ways that most would not ever consider "normal" so meh.. Oh, and let me not forget to mention that I apparently need help on my blog posts and how well I set it up and lay it out and what have you.. Despite that, I seem to see a decent amount of views on here and the other 3 Blogger pages regardless of my occasional butchering the English Language. I suppose I cannot be pleasing everyone and there will always be at least one person that has some exceptionally high standard of excellence, that is not satisfied or happy with anything less than stellar performance.
Some reviewers and communities have given positive feedback and encouragement, which I much appreciate and give many thanks for. I wrote this entire first book, on a Microsoft Office 2010 program, with absolutely NO help from anyone. I do not have the financial resources to actually take up a project with a editor or anyone that can seriously help me properly execute my writing strategy and make it all look and sound absolutely perfect so that I can get it sold. It took me a mind numbing 2 weeks to write 3/4 of the 242 pages. Perhaps I will be considered as over glorifying myself here..but that book is my entire 30 years of my life, every dark and horrid secret I have kept to myself for years, is written out in graphic and gritty details that most people would probably cringe at even thinking about, let alone actually enduring on a first person basis. Perhaps they need to just read the words on the pages and not be looking at every itty bitty flaw and pay actual attention to the story, and take the time to just maybe find out that it could be worth the few dollars they spent to download or purchase. If not there is such a thing as a return.
Another idea that has been pointed out to me several times, is the price of my work. I suppose $6.99 is perhaps a bit much to ask, maybe I did not want to publish my work for nothing gained, or for free or that I wanted just to be seen and heard? I'll change the price one more time..maybe to 4.99 but that is the absolute lowest I am going to go, I don't believe in "Free" anything and hard work is supposed to pay. I am not a elephant that works for peanuts and praise, and that is insulting the elephant. I really do not see that the current price of my work is so much to be asking. It's a very small $0.34 a page. if I am not mistaken, buying a small package of blank copy paper costs about that much if not more? I am going to stop with the emotional seething for now.. I run the risk of damaging my independent author's poor soul so much that my reputation will be damned for eternity.
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