Cat Nap Publishing

Well, not quite.

My mom came back from her trip to Taiwan to visit family, which means I was finally released from my cat sitting her tortie duty. That cat is really too much for us to live with. She chews on everything. Super social. Hyper energetic. I try to apply the Jackson Galaxy principles of understanding the cat but jeez Luiz. I had her chase a cat toy around until she was panting and a half hour later she was up to no good again. I built a model of an Imperial Star Destroyer a long time ago that I was pretty proud of because I took my sweet time following the instructions and waiting for the glue to dry before moving on to the next part. Usually I just want to glue the whole thing together in an hour and that never ends well. That cat gnawed off one of the shield generators. I should call the cat Wedge or something. I’m still hoping it’ll turn up.

So during that time I had a free book promotion where I gave away digital copies of Buried Instincts. It was very successful as the number of people who now own my book increased by sixteenfold. If you’re one of those people I hope you enjoy it.

Today we had a water damage repair guy come in and start fixing one of or damp corners. It’s been raining quite a bit here in California in case you haven’t heard. Somehow the water is getting in from an outside wall and soaking the drywall in a corner of our place. It’s been going on for a while now, but we just haven’t paid much attention because, well, drought. Can you believe that it rained so much the drought is officially over? So now that corner and my entire board game closet has been sectioned off by plastic tarps going from ceiling to floor and a dehumidifier is drying the walls out. Guess we’re not quite back to normal yet. Of course, I had to empty the closet which means that I’m am now surrounded by stacks of board games.

I’m making good progress on the second part of Buried Instincts. Now that the first one is launched I’m trying very hard to get back into writing regularly which means frequenting my local coffee shops. I might be able to write at home after a couple of weeks, but right now I get too easily distracted. Somehow the coffee shop has a perfect level of distraction and I’m always astonished by how much I get done. Plus, I’m excited to see what Blake and his gang are getting up to. I mean, I know what’s going to happen. Sort of. In a big picture way. But sometimes as I’m writing it, I’m probably as surprised by what happens as you are. Er… will be.

We’ve also resumed our evening walks. Because of this we noticed a game store had opened several blocks from us. I was thrilled to see that it had tables for gaming, and more thrilled to see all the tables full. Before that the closest thing we had to a game store in our neighborhood is Redbox.

Today, I’m running a 24 hour promotion where anyone can go on Amazon and get the novel for free. I’ve been so busy posting on this website, and filling out forms and that website, that I almost forgot to announce this on my own website.

If you’re reading this, then what are you waiting for???

Maybe you’ve read it already and are looking for the next one? I’m working on it. When I started writing I had a complete story in mind, but I had to stop and do a reality check. It was a good thing too, because I had to rewrite and rewrite. But now that it’s done and out in the world, I’ve just picked up where I left off.

If you’ve already read it, do me a favor a tell a friend to get it while it’s free. Or maybe tell your frenemy the day after it’s free.

I’m hopefully that I can reach new readers today. Fingers crossed!

Well, it was more work than I thought it’d be, but after tackling weird formatting discrepancies, working with my cover artist on trying to get the cover just so, and two rounds of looking at proofs, the book looks good! I submitted it to Amazon last night and approval came this morning. The actual book book that you can hold in your hand, turn pages, read on the bus when your smartphone is out of juice, and put on your bookshelf to be the envy of your friends is now available for purchase!

If you click through my affiliate link and buy the novel I might get a couple nickels more!

Today Buried Instincts is featured on at Awesome Gang today! Scroll to the bottom and find my name to read the interview to learn a bit more about me!

Today is when I started my big advertising push to sell the book! Amazon ads should be active and hopefully trying to get people to see my book’s page. Maybe they’ll even buy it! Also I came out of Facebook hiding and told people what I was doing and trying to get them to like Cat Nap’s FB page.

Last night I commissioned an artist to create a logo for Cat Nap. We liked his style so we’re looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.

Despite it being launch day, I ran errands. I went to Costco and bought a bunch of my staple fruits. Big bag of greens because I should be eating more. Also got some kettle corn because it’s delicious AND on sale.

Hopefully today I can get some writing in on the next book. Now that I’m an actual author it’s a little tough to actually write.

I finally figured out how to make the blog page work like a blog page. Go me!

The Amazon book upload approval process was much faster than I expected, and Buried Instincts is already available for purchase on Amazon.

My ad campaign starts on February 6, which is supposed to be an auspicious day. Hopefully people will find my book!

There are some superstitions surrounding what you’re not supposed to be doing on New Year’s Day:

Don’t wash your hair

Don’t eat rice porridge

Don’t use knives or scissors

Don’t take a nap

Don’t rush your spouse out of bed

Don’t sew anything

Don’t say negative stuff

Everything listed above are acts which might set a precedent for the year to come. Like taking a nap on the first day of the year means you’ll be lazy for the whole year. Porridge is a food that classically, poor people eat, so eating porridge means a year of poverty.

I’m game to try to obey the rules today. I am launching a novel after all. I could use all the luck I can get. So to that end, when I made my usually breakfast of cereal with fruit cut into it I ran into the knife prohibition immediately. For the banana I peeled it then just pulled it apart with my fingers then dumped it into my bowl. It worked surprisingly well in that I got a good amount of bite sized portions. Thankfully, blueberries are already bite sized. They got washed and dumped in the bowl. The strawberries though I decided to wash them and eat them like dipping bread into soup. It worked ok.