I completed an outline version this week. I read the outline aloud after finishing to see how it sounded, and how quickly and simply it explained the conflict. Reading an outline of a dystopian book the includes genetically modified killer insects can sound silly—like me singing in the shower. If I didn’t have the experience of taking a semi-silly idea and turning it into the outline that resulted in Insecticide, I probably would have been discouraged by how my outline sounded. But, it sounded just bearable—unlike me singing in the shower—so, I kept reading and moving forward.
The outline is eleven chapters, but it is bare. So, I started working back through it adding character, environment, and foreshadowing detail. I think I’ll finish a second, fuller outline this week.
In addition to outlining, my marketing education continued. The Awesome Gang promotion ran on Tuesday and—in conjunction with the eBook being free—it was downloaded ~170 times over three days. I’m hoping those downloads lead to additional reviews—the book did get its fourth review this week.
Once the promotion was over, I made the eBook’s price $2.99. I’m hoping that’s low enough to overcome the lack of reviews for intrigued shoppers. Also, the book will be highlighted on www.digitalbookspot.com on Monday. It will be interesting to measure activity from that relative to the 170 downloads of the free book.
I also got Insecticide added to Goodreads this week and set up my author page. Incremental progress, hopefully it adds up.