First Thursday

So, here we are, in a brand new month, in a brand new year. An odd year. Given the events of yesterday, I suspect it's going to be a really ODD year. So, how have we all been? Did we make it through the holiday madness with our sanity intact? Are we ready to... eh... why do we need to start off all bright and sunshiny and refreshed for what is just another day week month year? I've never known.

SIGHS!

I don't like January. I was born in January. I was born on a Monday in 1969, and my birthday is on Monday this year. YAY! Another year of, if I want something special for the day, I have to do it myself.

And that's why I hate January. And February. After age ten I was lucky to even get a birthday card. 

But, that's a whole different topic, one I'm not going any further into. I'm nearly 56, my parents have been gone a long time. Nothing to change any of that now.

Anyway, I'd love to do one of those 2024 wrap up posts. Of all the books I've read, or written, or whatever. The truth is I think I read three books last year. I stopped reading a series that I enjoyed because it should have ended at least three books back. The author keeps dragging it out. The books get shorter and shorter because there's no story to tell, but the price stays the same. I had KU for the first part of last year, I think I put a hundred books in my library over that time period. I didn't make it through the first chapter of any of them.

Bad writing. It's all just badly written outlines of what could be good stories. But most of those books were in the top 100 charts, the authors filling more than one slot at a time. And it's all just terrible. Hastily written, no plot, bad sex, just... ugh.

I haven't written anything. Mostly because, well, because I don't write hastily. It takes a long time for me to work through a plot. To get the tension just right. To build a story. And that type of writing is no longer in vogue. And believe me, I've tried to sling out some quickie first person fluff piece. I can't. It all bogs down with drama and... yeah.

Excuses, excuses.

Also, I really just don't want to read or write sex anymore. I'm old. I keep saying. My three oldest kids are now older than most of my characters. I just can't write about young people having sex. It gives me the icks. I feel dirty.

Nor do I want to write dramatic fiction. You do not want me writing some regular fiction drama about life and I have no real work place experience. I worked service industry. Mostly fast food and pizza delivery. I spent six months in a sewing factory. It took me six months to clear all of the fabric fuzz from my lungs, and I wore a mask. Stops here and there to get out of the service industry that were worse than restaurant work. And my fantasy/ paranormal books have been widely avoided.

Amazon now has a feature on their KDP dashboard that lets you see your lifetime sales and page reads. Until last year you could only see the past 90 days. I went through my lifetime data yesterday. That lifetime starting November 11, 2011. And KU starting in October 2014. From 2014 to 2016 I had several million page reads each year. 2 in 2014 for the ten or so weeks I was in KU. 5 in 2015 for the year and a bit under 8 in 2016 with Out of the Blues being the top book that year. In 2017 I didn't even reach a million. The graph drop is startling. It wasn't a gradual decline. It was a deep dive off of Mt Everest. And I've never recovered. And I don't know why. What happened in 2016 to 2017? There was no gradual decline. It was swift and absolute. I put out 3 books in 2016 and 2017 each. Nothing. No interest. No anything. Like I was just...

Yeah, it doesn't matter. I released Out of the Blues November 2015. It's been nearly ten years since then. I've tried so hard to hang on. To keep going. To figure out what I did wrong. Or why the market changed and left me behind. I simply can't forget that end of year round up from a reviewer that tagged me with an honorable mention for Blues "I know everyone hated this book, but..." and that's where I stop. Whatever it was, it ended with that book. That book that spawned millions of page reads and then nothing. The bad reviews for all books to come after. 

I just can't continue to smile and say, I'll figure it out. I'll release another story. I have to face the horrible fact that I was shown the door and missed the social clues and have worn out my welcome. 

I can't continue to smile and pretend to be a person I am not with hopes of selling old books that no one is ever going to read.

And I think... It's time.

This is my final post as Mercy. It's been a hard decision to make. One I should have made a long time ago. I should have just walked away like the others of my time did. It's time to move on. And I never will if I try to keep this pen name alive.

I don't know what to do about my social media. But I will no longer post to this blog. I will keep the book pages up to date. I won't be pulling books from Amazon at the end of the month, but when the Adventure, INK series and the two stand alones fall out of KU that will be the last time I use that service. You can get all of my books at Kobo, and read them free in Kobo Plus, and Apple. I'd prefer you bought them from my Payhip store. And I might try Smashwords again.

Thank you for following along with me all these years. If you've been with me since the beginning, I love you so much, thanks for hanging around through the good times and the bad. But it's time. 

Wishing you nothing but the best.

Peace,

Mercy Celeste