Meredith Mansfield, Author

I won’t say I’ve been slacking off, because I’ve certainly been keeping busy. But I have sort of dropped the ball on promoting FIRE AND EARTH

and planning the launch of BLOOD IS THICKER.

I recently read a post by a traditionally published author about the critical launch period. It’s helped clarify things for me. I think I have a better idea of what I need to do when, now.

Since I really need to start at least three months ahead, so I’m pushing my launch date out to November 18. However, in order to line up book reviewers, I’m actually going to have to make it widely available well before that. We’ll just pretend the launch is in November–and you’ll know that it’s really out there before anyone else. Well, except me, of course.

So, what I have to do first is get the various versions out. The catch in that is that I haven’t been completely happy with the formatting of BLOOD IS THICKER. It’s something small. Just a couple of chapter headings that are different than all the others. But it’s not right  and it’s been bugging me. I haven’t succeeded in fixing it, so I’m going to have to go back and just redo the Smashwords formatting. Then I can go ahead and do the Amazon and CreateSpace formats.

I need those to be able to get books to reviewers and start planning some giveaways.

I need to start devoting a specified amount of time every week to these things, even when I’d rather be writing.

Meanwhile, I’m about to wrap things up with THE BARD’S GIFT. In another week or two, I’ll be pulling it back. Then I’ll have to decide what I’m going to do with it–major revision or go indie. I’m getting ready to start querying MAGE STORM. Fingers crossed for WriteOnCon in a little over a week. And I’m still working on the rewrite of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. So, yeah, keeping busy.

The first six chapters of BLOOD IS THICKER are now available free on wattpad.