Sunday Night ROW80 check-in: Oh, Sunday night!

What have I learned this week? That I shouldn't pack away those summer clothes just because temps dipped below 40 at night. This week we have afternoons back up in the 80s, and I'm sweltering in this end-of-summer time. As for the rest, I'm grateful for each day that Allen recovers from his surgery. Maybe life will return to normal, whatever that may be. Now for the ROW80 check-in, again, short and still sweet.

Writing/Blogging: I'm too distracted to do much writing, but I did get the next installment up on the writing blog -- Writer's Construction Zone, Part Two -- to look at what we write and how we write. Making a commitment to post at least once a week on the writing blog seems to be working well. Next week, I'll explore: How do we as writers make the best use of limited time for professional development and marketing?

Community/Marketing: Met with my F2F writing group and was surprised once again at how much I see to change in my writing when I just read it out loud.

I'm trying to reach out to Australian readers and am not sure just how to go about this. Perseverance furthers. 

Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant-Governor,
Van Diemen's Land (Wikipedia)

Sent a press release to the local paper, and it worked! Did you read about the discovery of one of Arctic explorer John Franklin's ships, lost in his effort to discover the Northwest Passage? It just happens that my just released Years of Stone is set in Van Diemen's Land, where Sir Franklin served as governor. Here's the resulting article, "Spokane writers buoyed by recent British ship discovery."  Which ties in nicely to the reading I'm doing at a local bookstore here in Spokane later this month.

I'm also very curious about these new subscription services -- by Amazon (Kindle Unlimited), and by Smashwords (Scribd and Oyster).  Subscribers pay about $10/month for unlimited access to books in the program (Amazon touts over 600,000 books).

Does anyone have an opinion? I've looked at the promotion materials for these and wonder if indie writers will simply be lost in the grand pyramid of books being offered. Perhaps this puts even more importance to the marketing that we each must do, especially if we are self-published.

Thank you Sandy Brown Jensen, inspired teacher and digital storyteller, for including my Standing Stones in her list of top ten reads.

ROW80 writers, we're winding down this round and soon will begin again. Link HERE to see what other ROW80 folks are doing this week and offer words of encouragement. Join in, if you like!