Pushing Away November Blues by Making Warm Things

Hello, all my pretties. In case you were so doused in the abnormal winter chill in your area, you didn't know that we, in the north part of Illinois had winter early, well, I'm here to tell you, we did. Oh, the snow wasn't a factor. But being 20 or so degrees COLDER than you should be in November, and having to run every dang heater you own, just to stay warm--that's what we did for those 10-12 days. Today, we've got rain and temps are in 40's. It's going to turn around and snow tomorrow, but for now, I don't mind the rain.

So, since my office was not winter prepared, I couldn't get in here to do anything. Not even check my emails, and I'm still working on getting caught up.

Meanwhile I've been crocheting (since I don't have a laptop). I've been making things non-stop. Here are a few of the types of things I've been working on.

I made this headband in one afternoon. But they didn't have the "flower" in the pattern, which was a dang shame, but I've found one, and will add it to this. And I need to buy a large button for it, as it buttons underneath. I made it in medium blue, but turquoise might work too.




I've also been making "boot cuffs", and I like these pretty well.





but I also want to make leg warmers. Like these...

Remember these? I haven't seen any in the stores, but I haven't gone shopping in a while.

I need "skinny pants", in order to wear such things. Since dropping 25 pounds, I need to buy some new clothes!

I've also made a few "fingerless gloves", like these...

And my larger project is this autumn afghan/throw

This looked simple, until I got into it. Thankfully, I'm not a beginner, and I work on this one later in the afternoon. I'm using a darker olive green, burgundy and terra cotta for centers, a gold for the second row, and for the browns I'm using coffee, cafe, and warm brown.

I've been experimenting on "finger knitting" and "finger crocheting". But it wears out the fingers too much. I prefer working with a hook. I might invest in a very large hook for something more dramatic.

I am slowly doing work on my writing. I've lost interest, basically in trying to make a sale. Not making money at the the writing doesn't bolster my need to get something done. So, it's sort of a "whenever" attitude if I do publish another book, or not. I'm going to look into selling my crocheted, and craft things. That's the thing about art. You can see a painting, or, a craft item, or something like the above in a craft store or show, and decide right away you want it. With a book, a sale is tough to get because it's a commitment to something you can only go by the reviews (if you believe them), and the description. And I've found that selling to other writers is not where the fan base is. You are competing against these other authors. I've had only minor success (sales) placing my books into the facebook groups where you basically are selling to other authors. It's really a waste of my time with a slow modem. I can't compete with people who have aps and can plunk their books down all day long, shoving yours down in the page, so no one ever sees it. What's the point?

The blog, too, doesn't work. Non-writers won't come to look at your blog. Not that I've noticed, anyway. So, I'm falling back on doing the blogging as well.

But, I'm just going to work on my two loves (writing and crocheting), and see what happens, where it gets me, and not stress about it. I get a sale here and there, make only $100 a year with the ebooks, fine. I want to try and sell my art. I can sell things like the above for $10-$100, depending upon what it is.

Years ago, I made the mistake of going too diverse when I was making/selling crafts 15-16 years ago. I was only making enough to go buy more supplies (paint, brushes and wood is really expensive). I also didn't like that I had to change my stuff from one holiday to the other. The small stuff sold really well, but again, I didn't make any profit. This time, I'm going to go about this differently. But, until I find a shop that will take my things, that's just a pipe dream. There aren't as many shops like that around any more. But the craft shows are more abundant.

Next week we have six days off, so I'm going to be happy about that, as long as I can work on something. Depending upon the weather, I may have to move my computer into dinning room again!

Well, until I blog again, have a good Thanksgiving!

*Sigh* Fed up with Facebook Groups

I belong to (have been added to, I should say), a number of facebook groups. (I have since quit 2, because it was more than I could handle.) I like finding out about other writers, their books and so forth, but really, I don't buy anything on-line, and if I buy a book it's going to be something with actual pages and so on.

Yes, I've tried to read books on my computer. I hate it. When I read I want to sit in a comfortable chair with an open book in my lap. If I'm at work, or somewhere I need to have distraction like at the dentist office, I can easily put a paperback book into my purse.

But the one thing I've noticed about these writer's groups on f.b. is you get a lot of people posting about their books, and the deals (some of them are just giving away copies)--which is fine, because it is their group, after all. If you post anything at all, it gets washed down the page by several other people putting up news about some of their stuff. I don't post that much in them. Once in a while I grab someones attention about a blog post. Unless I have some sort of news about my book (a sale, for instance), I've quit posting about my books in these facebook groups. It's useless.

Why? Because if I get any attention right now, it might be from another author, and I do enjoy finding new people to interact with on here, but realistically, I might have one sale per month from doing this. It peeters out after a while and everyone has checked into your book and have bought it, and if they did--that's the end of the run.

I think what I'm saying is this--if you join several of these facebook sites and think you'll grab a lot of readers, maybe you'll gain a few, but that's about it. If you are lucky to get someone who wants you to be a guest at their blog, that's great. I've gotten a number of people out there who have offered me a spot on their blogs (I didn't even have to ask). This is much more worth the bother of getting on these places than trying to "sell" anyone your book. You can make friends there, and some will help you promote your book, but if you think that this is the way to sell lots of books, think again. It isn't really going to help you sell many.

Also, the time in which it takes (for me at least), to "share" something on one or several of these places, it comes out to me having spent maybe 15-30 min. wasting my time. Some people who have created these facebook groups and have invited me (you) to them post hourly. And it becomes somewhat of a competition between your stuff and their stuff. I find it worthless for me to even bother some days and ignore the posts. Usually it is only about a sale on their books. Rarely is it something that is interesting to me, as a writer.

I've created my own groups, but other than my own fan page, I'm not trying to hard-sell you anything. And my fan page is stuff about my blog, or my books. I'm not going to hard-sell it to you. I think someone continuously doing this is like holding a megaphone to your ear. "Alright already! Yes, yes, your book is award-winning. I get it already!" *crossing eyes*

I'm going to investigate getting some real ads out in real newspapers (yes, there are still some out there in a localized area), and reach some REAL readers--not writers. If you want to have sales, you need to reach people who read books as their passion, and in your genre. If you continuously post in groups or even on your own blog, eventually you run out of people who have yet to read your books.

Don't get me wrong. The social media is good for what it does for us, but what I've found is that people who don't blog don't know about you/your books. They might go on-line to Amazon, but they may never know about your books unless you do it the old-fashioned way and advertise. 

I've quit two groups, and am thinking of quitting one more, because the competition is really against me getting noticed. So... I think I'll go and do that now.

Have a good Sunday, everyone!