Blog No. 337
The Neon Heart has been out for just about a month and I’ve sold at least 70 copies. I say at least, because I have 18 left in person and there are 12 out in the wild (currently at Biblioasis and Anchor on Huron Line). I know some of those have been sold, but it’s a bit like Schrodinger’s books. Until I get a report from the store and/or a payout, I can’t say for sure if they exist or not. Considering that I printed 100 copies for my first run, I did pretty well for a month. I’m going to have to order more. The only problem is the money. I was supposed to recuperate the funds from those first 100, but somehow, that never happens. You get bits of cash for one or two sales. You deposit some, but hang on to a bit (because you were going to take our cash for whatever anyway). In the end, you tend to get some of the money back, but never the amount that you put in. So, when it comes time to order again, you are still digging into your pocket for the funds. Usually, it takes longer, so the sting isn’t so pronounced. Continue reading “One Month Later”
Welcome to May. I’m not sure how we got here, or what I’ve been doing for the first four months of the year, but here we are. Somehow, things have happened. 
I forgot how fun it can be to go to an event and actually sell some books. Don’t get me wrong. It’s work. It’s making sure everything is organized and packed ahead of time, getting up early and piling everything into the car, finding where you are supposed to go and where you can (or can’t) park, then carrying everything to your table, sitting there for eight or more hours, packing it all up, and heading home. Most of the day is spent sitting at the table, greeting the people who wander by, giving the same pitch over and over again. It seems like no big deal, but it can be exhausting. When you have two events in two day, in two cities (though it’s easier when one of them is in your home town) the fatigue is magnified. Those days can feel like years. Sure, it can be fun and when you go year after year, you make friends, but the one thing that helps more than anything else is getting the first sale and keeping the momentum from there. 
So far, February has been a blur of activity, work, and circumstances. Unexpectedly, it may end up being the busiest month I have this year. I thought April would be a shoo-in, but I may end up not going to Shock Stock (they may not have the room). I still have two other events that month, but neither of them is overnight. The Neon Heart is due in April as well, but since I am currently working on that right now (furiously) I don’t think I will be any more busy with it. (Famous last words, perhaps?). I do hope to get a first (and maybe second) draft of a novel done this year, but while that will be a ton of work, it will be spread out over months. I could end up having some absolutely monstrous months head, but for now, February has completely taken me by surprise. 
The 
I’ve already had a 
So, this is the blog post where I look towards the next year and pretend that all my plans and hopes are within reach and not just the fever dream of a regretful writer who not only fell off the goals he set for himself this time last year, but is constantly and consistently slipping farther behind every week (for the last six or so years). If you’ve been reading this weekly blog post since the beginning (thanks mom and dad) you’ll know that I do my recap post in January as I started weekly writing on 
Last week I was invited to a last minute event at 
Before I started to write today, I too a look at the calendar and realized this will be my third last post for the year. Usually I do some kind of end of the year thing that starts around now and finished with the post closest to January 10th of the following year (since that was the date of the first post since I’ve been doing this weekly almost six years ago). I may keep that for next week, or for the final week of 2018. Not sure. Today, I’m going to talk about other things. I suppose. That doesn’t mean that I know what I’m going to write about. I’ll figure it all out as we go! 
The last ChiSeries Windsor of the year took place last night. I’d like to say it was a smashing success, but (as I’ve said before) I write these blog posts early, for a number of reasons, and I don’t know how it went yet. I’m pretty nervous. Christian and I put a lot into this one (both time and some money) so I hope that the low numbers on the event page and the severe lack of people signed up to read were inaccurate indicators of what to expect. I hope we filled Phog to the brim and had so many people to read that we had to cut it short. I hope that all the extra effort, the time volunteered by the people we roped in to be judges, and the bumping of a regular Wednesday night musicians was worth it and we had the best ChiSeries Windsor yet! As I write this, I do not think that will be the case. 
Ben Van Dongen 