I'm going to whine here for a minute.  It's still getting into the 100s everyday. I'm hot, I'm tired and I'm discouraged.

All will pass in time, but that's where I am today. 

The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone who is considering self-publishing the great American novel is to have a huge budget.

You will be inundated with offers guaranteed to launch you the top of all lists necessary to be a smashing success.  How do you know who is legit and who isn't? No easy answer.  One thing they all have in common is they're costly. 

I'll be the first to admit I didn't do enough homework to begin with. Like any author, I believe in my characters and where their journey is headed.  They have garnered a fair number of fans, but not enough to claim any degree of success. 

I've made plenty of mistakes too.  I deviated from my initial agenda by writing a Prequel to please a group of followers.  The upside is I was able to introduce some new characters, but they would have come anyway.  Perhaps not as they were in the prequel but they were in the plans.  Slobbers parents and how he became a shelter dog.

I launched the prequel, which is really just a short story, too soon after launching the second Book in the series and that took away valuable time in promoting it.  It got lost in the shuffle.  Now the enthusiasm of the prequel has died down too, so I have to ramp up everything.

Plus, at the advice of my publishing people, I created an Etsy site and a shop on Zazzel to sell Slobbers merchandise as a means of generating revenue for the publishing fund.  Designing anything takes more time.  Fortunately I don't have to work on book illustrations at the moment.  And truthfully, I don't think I can generate enough income to make it worthwhile so I may just chuck it and concentrate on promoting the books -  if I can figure out something innovative.  You can only do so much on social media.

So, okay.  End of Whine and I apologize for having indulged myself.  Sometimes it helps to just shout it out.  Consider it done.

What's next? I don't know but I'll keep this old blog going.  It just won't all be on self-publishing. Thanks fo the ear.