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Oops! 3 Mistakes I’ve made in Self-publishing

Oops! 3 Mistakes I’ve made in self-publishing since I started with Zombie Turkeys in 2016. I’ve made unique mistakes with each novel, but I’ll cover the big ones in this blog.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Zombie Turkeys, where my self-publishing started

Oops! 3 Mistakes – The First Mistake I Always Make

What could it be? I’ve got an MBA. I’ve written computer programs to schedule, I’m a certified project manager. I have both training and experience in managing projects, like self-publishing.

Time estimation. Things always take longer than you think.

Oop! 3 Mistakes
I break time deadlines

For example, my latest book, Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse, should be in my hands today. I planned to sell it at the Chambanacon convention. It’s not.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Andy Zach and Brenda Sutton at Chambanacon 2016

The book isn’t printed. The covers are done, but not the binding. And I just fixed a problem with the ISBN yesterday.

What went wrong?

First, writing the book took longer than I planned. I traveled to California and Israel, which impeded me. I also waited until the last minute/month to finish up.

Second, my editor took longer than I thought. She got a lot of work all of a sudden. No problem, if I had been done a month earlier.

Third, we found a mistake in my binding. Oops! 3 Mistakes I’ve made, number 1.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Andy’s soon to be published book

Oops! 3 Mistakes – My Second Mistake in Self-Publishing

Where else did I go wrong?

I thought nothing would go wrong. Never before did I have a typo in my binding. I never made a mistake with my ISBN before. But I have the capacity to make new, never before seen mistakes.

Maybe you do too.

Plan for mistakes in your plan.

Unplanned fly under
Do you think this was planned?

Finally, Mistake Number Three

I know better about this one. I haven’t always failed here, but this time I did.

What else did I do?

Andy Zach at Archon, instead of writing in October 2019

I didn’t plan for slack time.

When I realized how little slack time I had to publish by November 29th, I should have blocked off all October as slack time to catch up with any problems. I should have targeted September 30th as my writing deadline.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes.

The final back cover of Oops!

I’m Thankful for You This Thanksgiving

I’m thankful for you, my blog readers and newsletter subscribers. I’m giving you 15 free middle-school books. Click below.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Click to get 15 free middle-school books, including Secret Supers

That’s right. You’ll get my latest novel Secret Supers for free here. Enjoy the first promotion I’ve run for this book.

But that’s not all! Click here next to subscribe to my newsletter and get my free short stories in my upcoming Oops! anthology.

Finally, newsletter subscribers will be able to get my audiobooks for free! Find out how in my next newsletter this month.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Gobble! Gobble!
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How Do You Keep Writing and Where Do You Get Ideas?

How Do You Keep Writing and Where Do You Get Ideas? I’m glad you asked because that’s what I’ll tell you.

The first rule is to desire to write. I love writing crazy ideas into books, surprising and entertaining people. I truly would do it for nothing. In fact, my net profits so far are nothing.

I loved writing Zombie Turkeys. That way I got to write ridiculous chapters with weddings and zombie turkeys.

How Do You Keep Writing
Zombie Turkey dressed for a wedding. Chapter icon

Then, I sought to top myself with My Undead Mother-in-law. I had to make a new villain, one so evil you would feel sorry for the zombies. I made a sociopath who used cyborg animals to commit crime, like capuchin monkeys, rats, and black mambas.

How Do You Keep Writing
Rat, capuchin monkey, and black mamba cyborgs chapter icon from My Undead Mother-in-law

Now, how would I top myself again for my third book? I hated repeating myself. I needed something related, but totally beyond a mere undead mother-in-law. How about if I put the zombie family on a luxury yacht, give them a letter of marque from the President, and send them around the world fighting American enemies, public and private? That’s a start!

My undead family would be zombie pirates. But that phrase is too common. Paranormal Privateers became the title of my third book.

How Do You Keep Writing
Paranormal Privateers Andy’s third book

Next, a disaster happened.

Ruh Roh! Writer’s Block

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEffUAATOY8

I got stuck writing this book. How could I keep topping myself? My paranormal privateers fought pirates, slavers, terrorists, and prevented a nuclear holocaust. What could come next?

I needed a change, a total surprise. But how do I get there? What did I want to write? I loved 1950s science fiction movies. So I wrote what I loved. That is how you break writer’s block. Return to your passion.

I can’t tell you what I did without spoiling the book, but I’ll give you some hints.

Your first hint:

Your first hint

Now, your second hint.

Your second hint.

That is your second rule to keep writing year after year: write what you love.

I finished Paranormal Privateers two months after NaNoWriMo, in January 2018. It appeared in ebook and print on Amazon and later Audible.

(By the way, you can get all my books at Audible. They’re free if you’re a member. Zombie Turkeys, My Undead Mother-in-law, and Paranormal Privateers. Or, if you want a free copy, just write me and I’ll send you one in exchange for an honest review.)

But what would I write next? I burned myself out on zombies. This leads to your third rule.

How Do You Keep Writing: Write Something New

Where could I go next? What else did I love writing? What did I love reading? Young adult science fiction. Everyone wants a superhero origin story. I wanted to do one of those for my fourth book.

But this had to be different, unusual. Superman got his power from birth on another planet. Batman got his power through intelligence and training. How about an ordinary hero? How about an unlikely hero? What was the least likely hero?

Now I get personal. My daughter’s been disabled with cerebral palsy since her birth. What if my hero had cerebral palsy–and his superpower didn’t take it away?

Then superheroes often come in teams. What if they were all disabled, each with a different disability and a different superpower?

I had my next book: Secret Supers.

Finally: Your Free Books

These offers are just good until October 31st.

First, you get Zombie Turkeys for free. Click here.

Free Zombie Turkeys
Free Zombie Turkeys ebook

Now you get your BIG GIFT: 31 Free books follow and end this blog post.

31 free books for you
Click for 31 free books. Only until October 31, 2019
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5 Weird Things I’ve Never Shared With You

5 Weird Things I’ve Never Shared With You in the whole three years I’ve been writing this blog. How can I be sure? I’ve just learned about them in the past month.

But first, let’s have this:

I wasn’t planning to count this as one weird thing since it’s satire, but I wanted to start with something funny.

Okay, this next item begins the weirdness:

This triggered so many things in my mind: first, the cloaking field from Star Trek.

The Enterprise decloaking

Next, Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility:

https://giphy.com/gifs/harry-potter-magic-J5lxA8X7kisRG
Harry Potter getting his invisibility on

But the oldest example is below:

The Invisible Man – “I’ll show you!”

On we go to the next weird thing.

Your Second Weird Thing of 5 Weird Things

How can I not have the phrase ‘intelligent slime mold’ in my blog post? You may ask, ‘How can a slime mold be intelligent?” They can efficiently solve the famous ‘Travelling Salesman’ problem. You haven’t heard of that? Check out the following article:

5 Weird Things
The Travelling Salesman Problem – click the image for more

Earlier in my life, I worked in operations research and this problem was difficult to solve by computer. How difficult? It belongs to a class of problems called ‘NP hard problems’. That means the difficulty goes up as a factorial (1*2*3 = 3 factorial) of the number of cities.

You can solve this by brute computing force, but the slime mold does it without brains! That’s weird.

Your Third Weird Thing

But first, a book break!

I am an author, so I love books. Tell me your favorite and I’ll send you a free short story.

On to our next weird thing! How about a robot that does gymnastics? It also weighs about four hundred pounds.

If this robot isn’t grist for a science fiction story, then I’ve never read SciFi before!

The Penultimate Weird Thing

I love vocabulary for its own sake, ever since I read the ‘Abecedarian Book’ when I was twelve. Penultimate is one of those weird words you read, but may not know the meaning. Look it up.

I read this book when I was 12.

Your new weird thing begins here.

Do you believe this?

You know it’s weird when you can’t believe it (I didn’t) and yet it’s true.

The Last Weird Thing of 5 Weird Things – And Free Stuff

Who doesn’t like dragons?

Finally, I bid you adieu!

5 Weird Things
Andy Zach at Archon in St. Louis

PS: I forgot to tell you where you can get free stuff.

First, you can get 31 free books here:

5 Weird Things
Click image to get 31 free books

Then, you can get my comic paranormal animal book, Zombie Turkeys here:

5 Weird Things
Click to get your free copy