Hello? Anyone there?

I have finally reestablished myself as the busy person in the saying "if you need something done, ask a busy person to do it." Wow, currently I am enrolled in several online courses, working a full-time job, writing a book, and working on presentations for Social Media Management. Next week, the company I work for is holding a three day conference, which I am excited about, but which means a much busier week than normal.

For my day job, I have been studying what social media outlets we need to be focused on for our specific type of business. While there are go-to social media networks that everyone assumes they should be using, they might be putting forth a lot of effort while not actually reaching their target audience.

Content is good, but conversation leading to sales is better. I scrolled through my Twitter feed today looking for someone who had actually posted something that 1) was not promotion and 2) I was able to respond to personally. It took a while and several visits before a post popped up. That is sad.

If I were looking for books to read, I would be in luck. If I were looking for advice about the writing process, and needed it right away, I might not be so fortunate. Granted, I follow a lot of self-published authors, but they seem to be so wrapped up in promotion that I have a hard time seeing who they really are.

So my questions for the evening are these:
1) As business owners (yes, I consider self-published authors to be business owners), do you know who your target audience is?

2) Are you able to "speak" with them via your social media posts, or are you just pushing content to an empty room?

3) In which social media markets are you particularly successful?

Please feel free to answer in the comment section, so I know I'm not talking to an empty room. :)

Whew! I'm back!

Wow, I can't believe I haven't had time to post since September! It has been a whirlwind 6 months, but I am happy to report that I have finally settled into my new life as wife and stepmom with a 2+hour commute three days a week. Surprisingly, this has given me MORE time to "write" - or dictate - since I really can't type and drive. I've been working on the Feistres story during the commute, and the time just flies, even if I am a bit hoarse from all of the talking. Getting my first royalty check from Amazon for my short story was a nice boost too.

So here's the plan. I am available to start editing again. I am also writing, and have a few shorter stories aside from the Feistres story line that I will be working on. Also, The Fear Below, my short story that is published on Amazon will be available for free tomorrow and Tuesday, March 4th and 5th. Here's the link to The Fear Below. 

**Correction: the short story will be free on Tuesday, March 5th and Wednesday, March 6th.**

Feistres Crew Cabins

I read a great blog post today about how drawing maps of your fictional land can help develop story lines. I found this out when I was writing the opening scene of Chapter 1 of the first book (yes, I have gotten that far). I needed to know where everyone's cabins were, so I mapped it out. Since I removed some characters from my story, I have more room to add them later as cameo guests if I choose to use them. Anyway, I thought you would like to see what I have so far. It is a bit square for a ship of any kind, but it is a work in progress. Every time I try to see the outside of the ship in my head, all I can picture is a giant metallic chicken-shaped monstrosity. Stop laughing. I am serious, although I really wish I was not. Since that is definitely not an ideal spaceship shape, I'll wait until I can see it more clearly. If it were going to be a silly sci-fi book like "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a chicken-shaped spaceship would be perfect. That's not really the vision I have for Feistres. Until I determine the final hull shape, I'll work with a square. Here is my first attempt at the cabins.

As you can see, it needed some work. I changed things around until they were more accommodating, but it was still not complete and was jumbled. Below is the cleaned-up version.

Here's the "final" with all names (except for Captain Lafayette Rhys), and everyone assigned a room. This is final only in that it gives me something to work with and is not on the drawing paper I got for the purpose of mapping everything out. The small squares are the shared bathrooms. Everyone shares except the Captain and the married couple. The cabins are pretty spacious without the need for the ship to be chicken-shaped. :)