Kickstarter Ending, Winter Beginning
I've been writing daily, and keeping track of my first ever Kickstarter - plus tending my cow herd in between. Life lessons continue to show up...
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Thanks again for being here and opening this. For being part of this community.
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Farming News - Getting cows (and chickens) ready for winter.
Writing News - 2 days to go on the Kickstarter. My spare time is spent in revising/rewriting a course for the book series.
Fiction News - The Hooman Saga continues its serial.
Expectancy Factor - Living with the dull parts left out is tricky.
Farming News
Love walking out and catching the sunsets at just the right time. One of the benefits of checking cows daily.
Taking my not-so gimping cow (mostly mended) to the vet tomorrow. She’s getting around much better now. The vet said she’d have to come back for another hoof trim about now, so that’s the plan. The orphan bull calf has calmed down quite well. Looks like we’ll be keeping him for use next year (they start being ready to start servicing heifers at about a year old, or just before.) He’ll be our first-year stud, if my planning works out. (Man plans while God laughs.)
Today, I’ve already taken 18 chickens to the auction to find them better homes. Of those, we were getting about four eggs per day. So we don’t need to feed them over winter if they are getting old enough to quit laying. Our younger chickens (which are too old to be referred to as “pullets” any more) are giving us about a dozen eggs every day on average out of 14 chickens.
Next spring, we’ll get some more pullets and and restock that other chicken house (takes about 6 months for them to grow big enough to start laying). They last about three years, so you can see the leap-frogging we do.
The roofer recommended we put in a claim to our insurance for hail damage. Because we had some, but a claim would cover most of the cost of replacing everything. And the claim adjuster was able to come out the next day. Both had advice on how to deal with the other, in general.
We got the estimate, and a check. The roofer is coming to pick up the estimate and then work out how he can do the workover we need. If the estimator was off, he’ll let us know. It’s a pleasure dealing with local people - because we probably know some relative of there’s, and in small communities, their business depends on their reputation for quality work.
Tiny Home News
My wife got some time to go through all that storage. She’s got the pictures out so that they stay in a climate-controlled space (her grand-daughter’s refinished basement).
Otherwise, she’s finding all sorts of memories in there - which is the point of storage.
We got our last estimate back, and so now we need to work out our finances for real. I saw the other day that I probably need to tap into my personal credit line at the credit union to get things started. Most of the finance people say to mortgage everything, then pay it back. I think not. The economy should start looking up, but we still aren’t out of the woods. And I don’t want to have to give up our few acres that we worked so hard to get.
Writing News
The Kickstarter ends tomorrow - well, the clock now is at 64 42 hours to go as it counts down.
There, I said it.
And we’re still a bit short of making it happen.
No, the world won’t end if we don’t make it.
The bigger point is that I’ve been building a mini-course for this three-book series - and it’s made me learn some things. Like the best part of cooking is not in the recipe, it’s not in the recipe - it’s in two parts: the cooking itself and then sharing the dish with family your cooking for.
Writers can and do get all involved in how to write the best they can, to get that art inside them out to the world. Getting people to become your True Fans and patrons is the biggest hitch.
I think the problem here is that there are no entrepreneur schools. Not that people don’t want this knowledge. I was listening to a marketing coach the other day, and he revealed that he usually only works with business writers, since business books are the only type that regularly get the big advances and the ROI to pay for a coach.
But this course and first book started out by boiling down everything I found as evergreen principles from some 22 books on self-publishing. Of course, below that was to find obvious holes and then answer them with more research.
It’s always: can I boil the whole thing down to one elevator speech - preferably a single sentence.
That sentence starts out: “Successful authors do these few things…”
And right now, that’s “…writing, marketing, entrepreneuring.”
But what does that mean? Really?
Since I’m down to the end of this course, I can answer most of these.
Writers offer a solved problem. Marketers help find solutions relentlessly. Entrepreneurs build a community of True Fans to back a cause.
And this course takes you through that process - learning how to write, market, and entrepreneur. To successfully writerpreneur.
In short: 1) Have a clear offer. 2) Consistently engage with your kind of readers. 3) Build a community of True Fans.
That last part was understated from the course - building a community around your books and writings. And now I’m revisiting “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer. Asking builds a fanbase of Kelly’s True Fans. Those are your patrons of the arts you’ve attracted.
So that’s what got me up and at them this morning. And instead of writing, I started reading Palmer’s book again - this time to boil down her model into it’s nuts and bolts.
Stay tuned…
A word for our patrons:
Most of you have been opening my emails every week for years, some just started opening my three-a-week emails as well. Regardless, if you consider this material valuable, I’d appreciate your checking out our campaign and backing it - at any level.
WriterpreneurOS Posts
An Earl Nightingale essay this week - what an Entrepreneur goes through as an adventure.
Fiction Posts
Now our human heroine was rescued by a sentient wolf. And wakes up with his thoughts in her mind. Of course, she’s not out of danger yet…
Yes, you can get the book already. Even though I’ll be fixing and tweaking things slightly through out - and so come out with a revised version later. Here’s the book link to get your copy.
Expectancy Tips
All the work I do to make a decent life here has everything to do with what I expect out of it. And what I wind up with as results depends on how big or small my expectations are.
It looks like I need to return to the basics that Nap Hill had in his Think and Grow Rich. I found out this week that his one big success was due to his wife, who was a decent editor. And so I have her story in this upcoming course.
Life itself runs like we expect our stories. Only the dramatic versions we like to hear, watch, and read are simply “life with the dull parts left out”, according to Hitchcock.
Your expectations are then as dull as you make them. Goals would then be the high points — which pull everything else right along.
Thanks for being there, opening this.
Sharing is caring. You’re who I do this all for. I value your input.
Leave a comment if something strikes your fancy.
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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