Back in 2023, in an attempt to prime the pump, so to speak, I invested some money in advertising. You have to spend money to make money, the experts say.

There's a British term for what the experts say: bollocks.

Okay, maybe not fair. In 2022, including the anthologies I have short stories in, we sold 539 copies. This is give or take: Sales numbers are guarded by the publishing industry the way I guard my hoard of chocolate.

In 2023, the year of the great advertising experiment, we racked up 624 sales, again including the anthologies. Great, right? Except I also racked up great expenditures, which Emily would have stopped if I hadn't been so obsessed with the numbers that I didn't think to talk it over with her. (She found out. Boy, did she find out, and by the way our couch is very comfortable.)

The chair's nice, too.

Ahem. Long story short, I spent $11 for every dollar the book sales earned.

This is not a sustainable business model, except in Washington, D.C., and they have 341 million investors.

 So in 2024 I worked on reducing our advertising costs, while not reducing book sales. This didn't work. According to my calculations, I did indeed manage to reduce advertising costs by 2,180 percent, but ....

Wait a minute. That can't be right. Let me hit the calculator again.

Okay, for every five dollars I spent in 2023, I spent 3 dollars in 2024. I really need to apologize to my math teacher for telling him I'd never use this stuff. Once, around 1990, I even needed algebra. Of course, I'd forgotten it.

 On the one hand, total sales from last year were 492, down from 539 copies in 2023. On the other hand, I no long have access to sales numbers for the two anthologies. (Long story.) If the same number of those were sold in both years, our total numbers for 2024 would be 651, a slight increase. Yay?

Except I still spent more than we took in last year.

Business takes a lot of the fun out of writing.

Our biggest seller for 2024 was Coming Attractions, including one copy that went to Australia, and one to the UK. This is partially due to a really weird spike in sales through Amazon, which reported it was from searches using the keyword "ebooks". That makes as much sense as my math skills.

The second biggest seller was Hoosier Hysterical, including one copy that went to Germany, followed by Storm Chaser and The No-Campfire Girls. That pretty much matches the year before.

Still following the numbers? Me, neither. Here's the upshot: For every book sold, I still spent four and a half dollars. That doesn't include internet costs, or the fact that we had to buy a new laptop.

But now I've cut way down on my advertising, which so far this year led to a corresponding decrease in sales. We'll see if the release of The Notorious Ian Grant makes a difference, since we didn't put out any new product in 2024 or, as I like to call it, Year 4: Decade Of Hell.

My original plan for 2025 was to sell at least 1,000 copies. I've changed that: now the plan is to make more money then I spend. Otherwise, I might as well just be a Congressman.

You can help pad my numbers by buying our books here:

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

·        Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

·        Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

·        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

·        Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

·        Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

·        Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

·        Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

·        Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

·        Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

·        Audible:  https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Sometimes the term “starving artist” is a little too close to literal.

You can read a slightly different version of this blog on the newsletter:

https://mailchi.mp/0baf142adc82/our-new-book-is-out?e=2b1e842057

 Or, you may gotten the newsletter three days ago, in which case ... never mind. But don't forget our author appearance this coming Saturday at the Art and Author Fair, which you can read all about here:

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2022/04/were-coming-to-kendallvilles-art-and.html 

And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog. 

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Okay, this might get complicated.

As all fourteen of my regular readers know, my first published novel was Storm Chaser. When my publisher, Whiskey Creek Press, heard I was writing some short stories to promote the book, they offered to print them as a separate collection. That was the unfortunately titled Storm Chaser Shorts. I'm explaining that because chances are you haven't read it.

Storm Chaser sold so well Whiskey Creek Press published a sequel, The Notorious Ian Grant, which I personally think is even better. Later we self published The No-Campground Girls, which is set in the same universe and includes some of the same characters.

Then Whiskey Creek Press was bought out by a larger publisher. They continued to offer the books for sale, but otherwise forgot them and never reduced the prices even years later--prices I thought were too high for an unknown author to begin with.

In addition, Storm Chaser Shorts suffered from being too short for my publisher to do a print version, and many of my readers prefer print. Sales were poor, like me.

Eventually I got the rights back for all three works, which is why you can no longer find the e-book versions for sale. The new publisher still offers the print versions, despite the signed paperwork reverting the rights to me.

I told you it was complicated.

Our plan: to reissue all three books independently, with new covers and a lower price. We got delayed by COVID and other issues, but ....

Wait for it ....

This is also going to take some explaining.

The original title for the short story collection was no good, and I now refer to it as "The short story collection title that must not be named". I can see some browsing customer now:

"Wait ... Storm Chaser Shorts? Is that, like, padded underwear for storm chasers? Is it for protection, or scared bladders? Do they make them in boxers?"

So for our reissue we changed the name, and Emily designed a new cover, but wait--there's more!

We wanted a print version, and, if the original was too short for that ... let's make it longer! So we did. And now you can order either the print or electronic versions on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YGJ1XR6

In fact, the new version, Storm Squalls, is almost twice as long as the Shorts. Of the sixteen stories, six are original to this new edition (they tend to run longer than the originals, too).  Seven of the stories take place before the events of the original Storm Chaser, while three aren't set in the timeline, so if you haven't read any of the Storm Chaser books you can still check those out. Sadly, it looks like we won't have the books available in time for the April 30 author appearance, but we'll have a pre-order sheet for anyone who stops by.

This is getting lengthy, so I'll talk more about it in a later blog. But just so you know, later this year we'll reissue Storm Chaser and The Notorious Ian Grant, also at a lower price. Hope you'll check them out!

 Ordinarily, rather than posting the details from my newsletter here, I post a link to the newsletter and beg you to subscribe. But this is the announcement of our newest project, so I figured I'd give everyone a heads up.  Just the same, subscribe to the newsletter! The link is here:

Our new project goes back to the Storm Chaser universe! Well, kind of new. Back in 2011 my first published book, Storm Chaser, wasn't out yet when I mentioned to my editor that I was writing related short stories, which I planned to post to generate interest in the book. Much to my surprise, my publisher offered to put them together into a collection, which became my second published book: Storm Chaser Shorts. The title is my fault. It was a working title and I never really liked it, but I couldn't come up with anything better. The collection of stories came out exactly one year after Storm Chaser, on June 1, 2012. A lot of people don't know that. A whole lot of people. The problem is, I'd generated local and regional interest in Storm Chaser, and as a result I made a lot of direct paperback sales myself. I couldn't do that with Storm Chaser Shorts, which was so short my publisher felt they couldn't justify a print version. So it was e-book only, and I had trouble generating sales among print book lovers. "So ... what happened next? Don't leave us in suspense!" Fast forward several years. Sales for my first three books lessened, and although they'd been out for awhile my publisher had them at the same price--which in my opinion was too high, especially for Storm Chaser Shorts, which was, after all ... short. I decided to get the rights for all three back, so I could publish my own editions of them. And by "I" I mean my wife, who has the talent to actually do that kind of stuff. It was a huge struggle to make contact with anyone at my publishing house, which by then had been taken over by a larger publisher that put the e-book versions on the Simon and Schuster webpage. There they were generally forgotten. It took a couple of years, but now they're mine again (although for some reason they're still up on the S&S website). We'd meant to publish new versions in their original order, but the story collection seemed so neglected we decided to go there first. The stories mostly took place before or just after the original Storm Chaser, so to a certain extent it's a prequel, anyway. Not for long, though, because the new printing will include several related stories I wrote and posted for the fans over the years. In addition--and here's the big news: Storm Squalls--formerly Storm Chaser Shorts, which always made me think of someone wearing swim trunks--will include a brand new, never before seen 6,000 word short story! And a price drop! (Well, for the e-book version. You can't reduce what never had a price to begin with.)

And a new cover because, well, the cover art doesn't belong to me. I don't know what the new art will look like, but Emily will as soon as she's created it. So let's review: As soon as Emily has recovered from her knee surgery enough to concentrate on it, we'll be putting together a short story collection with a reduced price, new cover, more material, and a brand new short story. It will be renamed Storm Squalls ... or Storm Showers ... I can't remember what we decided on at the moment, and Emily's asleep. But stand by! We'll be announcing more as the release date gets closer. And happy autumn! Okay, I may hate fall ... but maybe some of you don't. http://markrhunter.com/ https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Here's the cover of our newest book!

And you can order the Kindle version as of today:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082SLML4T

We're working on the print version. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Doesn't that look similar to one of your older books?" Well, yeah, it's a sequel. So, in honor of the second Slightly Off the Mark book, we lowered the e-book price of the original to just 99 cents. Happy Christmas shopping!

Speaking of humor, we've lowered the e-book price of the photo-filled Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All from $3.99 to $2.99, in addition to dropping Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights to $1.99. They're all here:

https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO

Or here (Except for the newest, but it'll come soon):

http://markrhunter.com/

Remember, whenever a humor book doesn't sell, Mark Twain rolls over in his grave ... which might explain all those recent small earthquakes in Missouri.

I’m the Tuesday special! Well … yesterday I was the Tuesday special.

http://thewritewaycafe.blogspot.com/2017/03/tuesday-special-with-mark-r-hunter.html

The e-book version of my new novel, Radio Red, is now up and available for pre-order! I know, I was surprised too: Nobody told me it was happening, I just stumbled across it. I thought pre-order was what the big-time authors did. (The actual release date is March 7.)

I was also surprised to find my name listed as R. Mark Hunter. That's now been corrected, and we're up and running in such places as:

          http://www.simonandschuster.com/search/books/_/N-/Ntt-Mark+R+Hunter

(That's Simon and Schuster, one of the big name publishers, listing four of my titles!)

https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Red-R-Mark-Hunter-ebook/dp/B01MRZ52DM
(You've heard of Amazon? Probably.)

           https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/radio-red
(Kobo. You know, Kobo.)

           https://play.google.com/store/books/details/R_Mark_Hunter_Radio_Red?id=ObK_DQAAQBAJ
(Google Play. Yeah, you've heard of Google.)

           http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/radio-red-r-mark-hunter/1125362462?ean=9781682992234
(Barnes and Noble. It's nice to see my books up there, even if they can't be found (yet) in their brick and mortar stores.)

Those are the places I'm aware of so far. It's being priced at $3.99, which is pretty good for a full-length novel. Getting enough pre-orders might result in a bit more promotion, and those things tend to feed on themselves; so please consider checking it out! Also, look for the print version coming soon.

It didn’t work out, thanks partially to the chiropractor … but wasn’t it a great idea?

It’s a big day today, a day worthy of celebration. I decided that on this particular Monday, I’ll do whatever the heck I want.

I want sleep.

This says less about me than about the fact that I worked overtime this weekend, and events left me with about half my normal snooze time. I wish I could say I was one of those people who could go on for days without sleep. In truth, I’m jealous of those people—I could sure get a lot more done, getting by on three hours a night. But I can barely go hours without sleep.

Today (early Monday, as I write this) is book launch day. It’s my seventh book, or ninth if you count the anthologies I’ve been in, but it’s as exciting as the first one. Maybe more: This is the first time I’ve had a solid, definite book release date. Whiskey Creek Press only gave me an approximate date for my three works with them, and in those cases the books went up for sale before I expected them to. With our self-published works I could just announce the launch whenever the order was ready, which cut down on the anticipation. Just the same,  having a new book come out never gets old.

You know what gets old? Sleep apnea. Insomnia. Twelve hour shifts.

(Not insomnia during twelve hour shifts, mind you.)

Anyway, Arcadia gave me a concrete launch date: It says in my contract that any book in a customer’s hands before then will spontaneously combust. Customers hate that.

But thanks to preorders, early Monday Amazon rankings had me at #215 in state and local history books, which is really good, right? Right? So I think I deserve a solid nine hour sleep, followed by maybe a five hour nap.

What?

Let’s face it, I was never a party animal. The music that gets my heart beating was composed by John Williams. My best-ever all-nighter was when I read Arthur C. Clark’s Rendezvous with Rama in one sitting. I get a hangover after drinking cough syrup.

I normally send out a press announcement ahead of each book release. This one might not show up in newspapers, because Arcadia Publishing has a publicist, and I haven’t heard back yet on whether it fits with what they’re doing.

I’ve been away from the computer lately, for vacationy stuff. It was refreshing and usually fun, and we even managed to get out of the area for a week—not exactly a relaxing kind of a trip, as I’ll detail later.

Sometimes fun is sitting on a beach with a good book; sometimes fun is clamboring into caves and hiking to waterfalls while researching a good book. Don’t worry, there’ll be photos.

I’ve been neglecting my blog terribly, which isn’t a good thing for a working writer. Recently I read writers should put a “selling” post on their blog and social media only once every six posts or so. That makes sense: Why read someone when all they ever talk about is how often you should read them? By the way, you should read me often.

Sometimes it’s hard to control that: Such as earlier this month, when I had a book signing, and later next month, when I have a new book release as well as some appearances. But ordinarily I think it’s a good idea, if you want people to think your writing is entertaining, to write entertaining stuff.

I’d look just like Captain Obvious if I was just a bit slimmer.

Some blogging experts (can you get a degree in that?) believe your blog should be narrowly focused. If you’re a tree frog expert and keep your posts all about tree frogs, you’ll soon be followed by hundreds, if not thousands, of tree-frog entheusiasts, right? And whether you submit your book about tree frogs to a publisher or go independent, having a following of tree-frog lovers ready to buy your book is a huge advantage.

Makes sense.

But I’m a person of eclectic, if low-brow, tastes. I don’t have one obsession alone unless it’s writing, and if I write only about writing doesn’t that bring me back to the original problem? The only thing my interests really have in common is humor, and sometimes not that.

So here’s an idea: rotating through various subjects, in addition to talking about the writer’s life. Not necessarily on a specific day, but mixing it up so there’s something for everyone, and when appropriate loading some humor into it. Some possible topics include entertainment (Hey, I still watch some TV) and the possibly related book/movie reviews; emergency services (‘cause I’ve got that firefighter/911 dispatcher thing going on); photography (pictures make everything better); history (we’re releasing a humorous history book next year, which will make my third history related project); local/Indiana stuff; politics (if I can stomach it); and … I don’t know. What else?

So what do you think? As always I have to think about what will sell the most books, but above all I have to be funny, or entertaining … or maybe the word is interesting. It turns out a proper blog is a lot of work.