The “TL; DR” [Duck Duck Go it—I had to 🤣]

I’ll be selling books in person this year:

Falcon Gun Show, Silverdale Washington, June 8 & 9

Modern Homesteading Conference, Coeur D’arlene Idaho, June 28 & 29

Panhandle Preparedness Expo, Sandpoint Idaho, October 5 & 6

I’ll most like be adding a few more of the local gun shows later in the summer and early fall, too. I may also add a local community event in my county in August (Crosby Logging Days). I also have an opportunity to go to a prep expo in Colorado, but the travel would be pricey (I went in 2022—nice but the travel costs almost guarantees it is a money loser). I’m at a less than 1% chance of attending that, if I had to guess today.

Writing:

I’m plugging away steadily on the Echoes of the Just series for Aethon Books. I have to give them the manuscript to the first book at the end of May. Wow—typing that, and I suddenly feel anxiously behind 😅 But the reality is that they are in charge of the release dates. And having all or most of a series written and edited before releasing is a viable strategy. So I have to keep plugging on the two following novels as quickly as I can this year.

More about those two expos:

Many of my local readers who are of the preparedness mindset already know about the Sandpoint expo. For its isolation up in the panhandle, it still gets attended pretty well. I, and my fellow author/good friend Millie Copper, did not attend in 2023. I don’t think Glen Tate and Shelby Gallagher did, either. 2021 had been a very great year, so when we took a small loss (like I said, hotels and gas require a lot of sales to overcome the expense) in 2022, I decided to take a break. But Millie talked me into going this year! In fact, we are sharing one of the larger end-cap booths! The “Doomsday Writers Corner” or some such fun-&-games.

What I’m truly excited about is the homesteading expo in June. It is a large conference with a huge list of demonstrators and lecturers, which draw in a very large crowd. My biggest regret will be being stuck in my own booth! But they had 4500 attendees last year and expect up to 6K this year. So I’ve pumped a ton of money into beefing up my supply of books. It’s a fine art—you don’t want to run out, but you also don’t want to have inventory sitting for years, chewing up usable capital.

I had originally started penning this blog post as a mindset piece, but it felt “boring.” I guess the point would’ve been that like most of us at any particular moment in our lives, there are good things and less-good things at work for me. It all comes down to perspective, right?

On the good: my focus on writing, improving my craft, improving the quality of my final drafts, and learning to do Facebook ads have all led me to higher rankings and sales on Amazon. I’ve even had a small amount of sales on my website. And all of those things, along with others in e-commerce, are a constant learning game. AI is shifting things like ads or social media presence on a daily basis. There are always new tools coming out to help authors get better at the craft and the business. Learning is a time sucking but necessary evil, not unlike car insurance. You know… if car insurance sucked time instead of money…

I have become convinced that Continual Education will be a non-stop thing in this career. I enjoy the success paid ads have provided me, but it is a constant battle trying to keep the ads as profitable as possible. And I’ve always been very weak in the ‘online presence’ thing. While I’ve grown tired of social media, I’m creating a plan to get better at using it. Things like creating Reels and YouTube videos will be even more critical in future. I need to start diversifying my non-writing time into this a bit. It will help me grow my newsletter subscribers; which in turn will help me start relying less and less of Meta and Amazon ads.

And I’m going to start blogging regularly, too. My content (in blogs and in social posts) will be exactly what you’ve come to expect from me. I’ll discuss what drove my books, the writing processes, self-publishing, preparedness, homesteading, my perpetual battle for health/fitness/discipline, dealing with depression and anxiety, etc. Whatever I’m feeling at the moment.

As always, I’m humbled that you’ve read this far, and I truly appreciate it. I hope you have a splendid May! Remember—you’re the best-qualified person on Earth to fill your role, so do it well! 👊🏻