Farm Life Continues - as Does My Next Book
Last calf has arrived! So now we can enjoy the fall with 100% healthy calves. Waiting for our land title to process (at lawyer). Finishing up the WriterpreneurOS book - coming out with Workbook.
Hi,
Glad to have you open this once again (or even for a first time). Yes, life (and writing) goes along on this farm with trials, tribulations, joys, and marvels. And my daily/weekly writing continues as well. Glad to share this all with you .
Farming News - Just have to keep checking that last cow - no new news. Our cow patient is getting better, and a vet visit is in the works.
Writing News - Started getting this book ready for publishing. And wrote another section this morning that was missing. Workbook started…
Fiction News - New book in fiction series started. This new series was developed out of two short standalones.
Expectancy Tips - There’s a relation to the land and Nature that needs to be brought up and aligned..
Farming News
BREAKING: just found our last calf was born!
A bull calf. very much like the other black-white faced calves this year. Four white socks, white tipped tail. None of his momma’s white stripe.
This is Panda-O’s. Picture from last night. I went out to find him this morning and his momma had him hidden somewhere. So no tag yet. Should be “9” when I do find him.
The old cow and her calf up at the barn are still doing better. Her swollen ankle is much better, It looks to be that one of her “toe nails” is malformed and might need to be trimmed. She also had some grass between those nails in the other foot, so I’ll get them looked at as well. Needs a vet visit. This week it should be cool enough for that.
These days have been too hot to move cows, so I’m putting off her vet appointment until next week.
And it looks like Randy (our second bull) will go to a new home this upcoming week. Because we don’t need two bulls fighting with each other over just a few cows. It means I have to get some good photo’s of him. He was being a pest yesterday morning, using his nose in checking out the hay and corn I was bringing for my sick cow above, so I know he’s gentle. Quite a catch for someone - and the cool weather slated for this coming week should bring more buyers out.
Tiny Home News
Another three bottles of green beans canned this week.
Our garden has been neglected with all this hot weather, so some of our plants have moved into the iffy column. And my own priority has been cows, and then recovering from being out in this heat.
The Amish okra turned out really well in the air-fryer (a Ninja version).
The land deed should be with the lawyer now. And our “guy” came out to give us estimates on the work we need, plus gave me some tips on how to get the best location for the power line installation (ie. not hanging right over the entrance side to the property.
Hummingbirds have been around our deck flowers this week. Pretty on two counts.
Writing News
Finished the line-edit on my Writerpreneur book and started writing the sales blurb. I got to the end of the book and realized that I needed a reader-magnet in the back of it. This will be a workbook. That same one you’ll get when signing up for a dollar support on the Kickstarter (when I get back to firing that up…)
It was good to be away from this book for so long. New eyes to see needed improvements and such.
One interesting point came up: content marketing is still marketing. The difference was pointed out to me this last week, that writers would never refer to their carefully-crafted output as “content”. That does give us a view about how marketers think about books. So I’ve had a mindset shift. And while marketers know how to market a book, it’s rare that they would write more than a handful in as many years. Writers have the other problem of learning how to market their continuing book production. And that is what this series is for - to provide training on three needful areas: how to form up and run a business, how to copywrite, and the story craft of writing perennial-selling books. (I shorthand book marketing by simply referring to Tim Grahl’s books.) Most of the WriterpreneurOS book is just about setting up a self-publishing business and rudimentary artisanal marketing
(Oh, writers probably refer to their produced work as “writing” or “story” or “backlist”.)
The simple point to success as a writer is to know (observe, test, refine) and the crafts of three areas: writing, marketing, and entrepreneuring. They each have their own joys and journeys. Together they make the balance we are looking for.
Balance is the key. It’s natural to all things, but particularly to this idea of having three crafts to master.
In writing, there is a natural and wired-in pattern we all have. I’ve seen this in so many writer’s descriptions of what worked for their writing. And then, of course, there’s Joseph Campbell’s monomyth - which is essentially boiling down the commonalities of history’s legends and their verbal tradition forbears. In W. S. Campbell’s book, this is the one way to write successful books - revamp or rehash other’s successful books. They already proved the pattern - much as “Max Brand” rewrote Ivanhoe into westerns - and they still sell today.
Modernly, we have commonly decided that we need to “market” our books. And that requires we become an entrepreneur, so that our business basics are part of our regular process as writers. At least these two are also just as creative fields and crafts as writing… So its possible to get the joy of accomplishment from them just as it’s available to writers.
Oh, I did find an explanation of why some writers hate writing. From a podcast where two book marketers were comparing notes. It’s built in all these drafts and revisions that drive them nuts. Sure, Dorothea Brande covered this a century ago. Don’t write while your editing and don’t edit while you are writing. And if you’re out-sourcing your editing, be prepared to squeeze your writing into someone else’s mold. Hopefully, they have a proved track record for editing books into commercial success.
But the third rail that no one will touch (at least until recently) is where the writer and audience talk to each other. And the writer is artisanal. The audience is thrilled to get hardback, exclusive versions of that writer’s book. And might even have their name inside the front cover as part of the community that helped support his writing.
That is completely different from the Amazon ebook model, where both audience and writer are easily-replaced commodities. Whale readers set low prices and fast production of mediocre (even boilerplate) books. [BTW - all AI-written books are boilerplate by definition, even if human-editied. Just think it through.]
Writers get their fuel from observing their environment intently - and then taking what is interesting to them, imbue it with their own emotional response, while carefully leaving out the dull parts. Then they have an actual hit that is remarkable and so literally sells itself by word of mouth.
It takes writers who find balance in their living efforts and are hard-wired to tell people the Stories that they find in their very active and fascinating lives. The people who buy their books want something more than the mundane and commonplace. They are surrounded by this. They want to have their own feelings energized and triggered. They want to learn by the examples of even imaginary characters - so they can find out how to handle living itself.
This has been the job of storytellers through the ages. And the printing press only enabled writers to become more well known.
My upcoming job is to tear down what I thought I knew about writing and bring back into the world a craft style for making perennial-selling classics. Marketers do this by selling 10,000 copies of their book. (Pressfield and Coyne posited this, and Grahl confirmed it.) Professional Writers do this by dissecting the proved perennial-selling books and making modern versions of them. That last is done by using a modern vocabulary style and perhaps settings - all against the backdrop of wringing all the emotional interaction possible out of those stories, again from their own viewpoint.
Successful authors are balanced in their lives. Most have another source of income. And while my upcoming book is about creating a livable income from writing alone - it actually says that you’re going to be marketing and running a business to keep your sanity meanwhile. All this book really says is that there are easier ways to take control over your own book sales - by setting yourself up on platforms (like Kickstarter, Substack, and Gumroad) where you’re given your audience’s email directly. Full stop. That’s a livable lifestyle, one under your own control. One where you can take daily walks in nature and keep any of various hobbies on the side. Where you can afford to keep up a garden and raise livestock if you want. Or learn to fly airplanes. Or quilt. Or rebuild classic muscle cars. Or maybe, just babysit your great-grandkids once or twice a week.
Life stuff.
All with book sales to afford it, and also give you background or inspiration for yet another book that will sell from here on out.
WriterpreneurOS Posts
Last Cashflow chapter posted this week. In that, you see the core system for the Writerpreneur OS, as assembled in both the elements and a working sequence. At some point soon, I’ll publish this as it’s own book and course. For now, this last post has all the links to the entire series.
Fiction Posts
First book in the “Death by Advertising” Anthology posted this week.
ICYMI: Here’s the full list of stories we’ll be re-telling. Probably end of October when they are all done - that third one is a longish novella, so I may have to split it up.
Death by Advertising
The Caretaker (by C. C. Brower)
Triangle - A Memoir
Last Chance
Death by Sales Pitch
Death by Marketing
The Chrysalis Cure
Expectancy Tips
As hinted in the Writing section, there is a natural and balanced Way of Things. The books I mention under my Expectancy Factor heading almost all deal with this. Einstein concluded that the universe was intelligently constructed, ran on laws - and his job was to discover these laws. Which originally was the reason for science - to explain the miracles around us. Miracles being defined as things we don’t currently understand.
All I really know, to be sure, is that the universe runs all the time. And does it pretty well, if you simply let it go ahead and run things. It has its own harmony. When you seek that harmony in your own life, you find more of it. To the degree you observe, test, and re-implement what works, you then can find a great deal of personal success. And peace. Because you act in harmony with that balance.
If you didn’t know, the last book Napoleon Hill published during his life is “Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind.” For a rich life should not give you more angst over money - because those riches are just one type. In his original masterpiece, the unnamed publisher put it this way,
“Riches cannot always be measured in money!
“Money and material things are essential for freedom of body and mind, but there are some who will feel that the greatest of all riches can be evaluated only in terms of lasting friendships, harmonious family relationships, sympathy and understanding between business associates, and introspective harmony which brings one peace of mind measurable only in spiritual values!”
As you’ve been following my snippets on this subject for some time, you’ve found I deeply believe in envisioning what you want most, and then releasing it to manifest as it will. The more you get the details exactly the way you want it, the more it will show up that way. Earl Nightingale quoted the Beatitudes in his Strangest Secret,
“"Ask, and it shall be given you.
“Seek, and ye shall find.
“Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
“For every one that asketh, recieveth.
“And he that seeketh, findeth.
“And to him that knocketh, it shall be opened."
That Secret was, “We Become What We Think About.” (His transcript from his Gold Recording is very applicable to our current lives and drive for success. If you don’t have a copy, get your own copy here.)
Life is a balance between the natural laws around us and the expectancies we create for how we think they work, what they can give us, and what we need to do to recieve.
Yes, I have a massive project ahead, which will become a library to offer on Kickstarter that has all these Expectancy Factor books and enables people to learn them. (Of course, they are available in various formats on my site if you can’t wait until I can get around to them.)
Anyway, I just thought to give you a short heads up as it all came to me this morning again - from wrestling through the complexities of writing late last night. Everything is simpler than we first perceive it. Find the evergreen laws that always work, then come back to what you set as your goal - and a path to achievement shows up. That path is your journey.
Good luck to all of us on our own.
Still working on my bonuses in the paid subscription area. You can visit https://store.livingsensical.com for my numerous discount-priced collections of books, courses, materials. As usual.
Kickstarter Previews
Still need your feedback on the Kickstarter preview.
Please visit the preview and use their comment area to tell me what needs to improve - or just give me (needed) attaboys.
Kickstarter display page here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1481356435/1548894263?ref=a5wy7u&token=315549e4 (Feel free to share that preview…)
Sign up to be notified when it goes live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robertworstell/writerpreneur-cracking-the-cashflow-code-non-fiction-book (Sign up now. Share that link with anyone you know who it could help.
PS. I discovered late pledges have been implemented by Kickstarter - so mine will have these for all who missed the initial roll-out. Lots of great stuff. When we get back to it.
A Special Offer Returns
Continuing along - the beta-readers version of Cracking the Cashflow Code is now available. It will be available at this link until I start the Kickstarter release, you can download the new and improved edition (especially if you already have it from earlier.)
That link is also Pay What You Want - a nice way to donate.
Here’s the link: https://livingsensical.gumroad.com/l/CashflowCode
AN ASK: if you’ve downloaded it, please give some feedback. Leave it in the comments, send me an email. Something, anything. Like it, could be better.
NOTE: This will be a bonus for the Kickstarter. Publishing decisions will be in the next few weeks.
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I hope your life is not too interesting to be overwhelming, but sufficiently engaging to keep you amused. (Like some of us here...)
Robert
PS. Again, you can always email me about anything.
PPS. Again, do upgrade to the paid newsletter version. That helps me keep the lights on - so I can keep all this coming to you. As much or little as you want…
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Here’s that new beta-reader advanced copy - still available: