So, I do have some traffic analytic software (the cheap, free versions of shareware stuff), and I realize that I’m not, actually, shouting into the void. Instead, I’m speaking to a very small audience. Which is awesome, really! It’s much easier to do than speaking to a large audience. So I figured I’d give the handful of folks who are visiting my blog a head’s up, especially since it’s been 2 months since my last post. Sorry about that.
The sub where I’m writing the latest entry in the Diviniverse series, Jerry and the Tradecraft got a big uptick in membership recently. A TikTok channel found the original r/WritingPrompts thread where I conceived of the story and used a text-to-speech program to narrate it over some random mobile video game footage. It got quite a bit of interest, because apparently channels that run Reddit posts through text-to-speech are quite popular. We ended up gaining about 120 new members over the next 48 hours, and more have been trickling in ever since, at a higher rate. Upvotes on the story parts have climbed, too.
It’s pretty good, all in all. I’m a little upset that somebody would just gank my story like that to rack up some views, and a little upset that, despite the boost in readers it gave me, I’m still going to have to file a DMCA, because that’s my story and I can’t let people do whatever they like with it if I expect to maintain ownership of it. I really like the publicity, but I’ve lost money on something else I made due to my refusal to enforce my copyright, once already. I won’t go through that again, because knowing I was absolutely in the right, and yet losing anyways is incredibly disheartening. Honestly, I don’t really care whether the DMCA filing works, or if it gets rejected. I just need that proof that I took steps to enforce my copyright.
And for future reference, if anyone wants to narrate my stories on TikTok or YouTube or Spotify or whatever, the only thing I need from you is for you to ask permission first, and give me credit for it. Seriously, an email to me first, a link to my sub, over at r/JerryandtheGoddesses and adding “…by Matthew Aadland” after saying the name of the work is all it takes. I’m not a zealous defender of what’s mine. I’m just a dude trying not to get screwed. I’m happy to work with other creators.
So that’s good and bad news, but overall, I think the balance is towards the good news.
In other good news, Operational Realities won an award! It’s a rather small award, hosted by a fellow indie writer, J. F Lawrence. You can see the announcement here. So now I can refer to myself as an ‘award winning author’! I mean, I’m not actually planning on doing that. But I could.
And make no mistake, I’m not trying to cast shade on Mr. Lawrence, or imply that the award he organized was in any way ‘not good enough’. I’m thrilled to have won, as thrilled as I would be to win any award. It’s just that when I see ‘award winning author,’ I always imagine someone with a long list of award wins to their name. I’ll reconsider calling myself that when I’ve won 5 awards.
Interestingly (and also awesomely!), October has so far been the busiest month ever for sales of my books. I’ve sold a whopping five copies in eleven days, plus about 5 books worth have been read on Kindle Unlimited. I don’t expect that rate to keep up, but if it did, then October alone would pay back every single dime I’ve spent on advertising and on covers.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on. Maybe this is the natural result of me putting myself out there on Twitter (and if you’re reading this and you’re on Twitter too, I’d love it if you gave me a follow), and slowly building an audience. I mean, it’s not like I’m cracking any bestseller lists. Or maybe it’s just a fluke. Time will tell, I suppose.
I really hope it’s the former. Because I’m very much not good at marketing myself, and if it’s that, then at least I know I’m not screwing things up too badly.
In other news, I’m approaching the end of my deep editing pass of Jerry and the Goddesses. I put a deposit down on a cover, but the artist hit a rough patch, and has apparently ghosted me. Last I heard, I was supposed to see something over the weekend of the 17th-18th of last month. And the last thing I heard before that was just an update on how the artist is doing following their bad luck, in mid-August.
I know how that is. I’ve ghosted a few people wrt commissions in the past myself (though I’ve never taken a deposit first). Life gets in the way sometimes, so I’m not going to get too worked up about it. I’ve been exploring more options, in the meantime, including doing it myself. I’ve always been better at fantasy-style artwork than sci-fi stuff, so maybe I can pull it off, the way I did with Buffer Overflow.
And that’s about it. Kids are doing well in school, the dog is as cute as ever, my wife is doing fine. Nothing else to report. So I’ll bid you adieu, friends. Until next time.
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