ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY, UNDERCOVER PART II, LICENSE PLATE RECORDS, AND DRUG MONEY - 053

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transcript:

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This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast's one year anniversary, undercover part two, license plate records and drug money. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Just days away from our one year anniversary. This is episode number 53 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional, quality crime related fiction. And this week I'd like to thank gold shield patreons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chysann, Jimmy Cowe of crimibox.com and Larry Darter for their support.

I'd also like to thank my newest Coffee Club patreons, Terry Thomas, Carol Tate, and Marty Knox, along with all of my longtime Coffee Club patreons for their support month after month.

You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/53. And to learn about setting up your own patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

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August 6th, 2019 marks the one year anniversary of this podcast and this podcast has been listened to over 26,000 times over the course of this year. So to say thank you, I will be giving away a few prizes on Tuesday, August 6th, 2019 just in case you're listening, those in the future, but you can enter to win by going to writersdetectivebureau.com/entry for your chance to win a Writer's Detective Bureau coffee mug, a private story consultation with me, or even a full license for the latest version of Scrivener writing software. So I will be drawing the winners after I get home from work on Tuesday, August 6th, 2019 so the actual time of the drawing may vary depending on what emergencies I'm handling that day.

So when you go to writersdetectivebureau.com/entry you'll see that I'm using one of those contest websites that encourages you to share the contest with your friends. It's like for additional chances to win, but that is not my goal here. So I want to say thank you to you, my loyal listeners. So when you go to that page you should see that you get entry points for only three things, by entering your email address, that way I can notify you if you win, for following me on Twitter and for following me on Instagram.

Anything else like sharing the contest with your friends on all the different platforms and stuff gives you exactly zero extra points. So I'm not trying to gain more followers by doing this. This is a contest just like I said to give back to you. Oh, and about that email address you will use to sign up. I am a big fan of privacy and I hate spam, well at least the email kind. So the only thing you will get by opting into the sweepstakes is the monthly APB email from me, which is filled with curated links for crime fiction writers.

And if you don't want to get the APB emails, you can unsubscribe from that at any time. And speaking of the APB email. Today, which is August 2nd and I still haven't sent out the APB for August because I've been working nonstop ever since that last podcast episode dropped, and for the foreseeable future, and I'm talking about my day job. My next day off is over a week away. So, and this is ... Okay. What I'm about to share here has been a knot in my stomach, literally making sick to my stomach, making me ... I can't even speak.

It's really impacted me having all of these work days, wrapping up the book that has a delivery deadline in just a matter of days. I mean it's not even two weeks away. And I have come to the painful realization that the book is not going to be ready in time. So if you are one of the amazing folks that pre-ordered the book, I am so so sorry for failing to deliver. At this point there is only one thing I can do, and that is to be upfront, open and honest about how this all happened and share the ramifications that I'm going to be encountering here.

Well there's also finishing the damn book, but real quick, let me explain how this happened and what the immediate consequences are going to be. You might remember that I was interviewed on the Creative Penn Podcast in early June of this year. So at the time of that interview I was well into the second draft of my book, and I felt super confident that my book would be completely done by the end of the summer. And realizing the opportunity I had by being featured on such a popular writing podcast, I went ahead and put my book up for pre-sale on Amazon and immediately the countdown clock started ticking.

And if you haven't done a presale on Amazon before, I mean that, that there is actually a literal countdown timer on the page. So there is no question how much time you have until your deadline. Now, Amazon sets the final deadline for your manuscript three days before it goes out as a live release. So with my launch date set at August 18th, it means I had until August 15th to get it turned in, which is still a couple days away. And back in early June, I totally thought this was a cinch. But despite my diligent efforts throughout the summer and not because of procrastination, I still came up short on time, and it's given me a completely new understanding, perspective and appreciation for what you guys do in putting your books out.

And since I'm not going to be able to meet this deadline, all of my presales are going to be lost. So thank you to the 68 of you that pre-purchased the E-book version. I feel beyond horrible for letting you down. And as a side note, I did see a few weeks ago that the book earned an Amazon Orange Number one new release banner that happened with 62 presales in its subcategory. And I'm only sharing that number and info as an indicator of what it may take for you, sales number wise to get the orange banner.

Honestly, I wasn't even thinking about the orange banner. I know many of you will have that as a goal when you release your book. But when I saw that with this book, or it's not even a book, it's the concept, it's the second draft of this book really. But when I saw that banner, it really filled me with dread and anxiety. Surely a sign that things were not on track. So the most important thing for you to know about missing your pre-sale deadline is that not only do you lose your presales, Amazon also prevents you from offering presales for a full calendar year.

Now, this is not going to have a devastating effect for me personally as this book is pretty much a one off. But if you are starting your career as a self published author, this would be devastating to your business as presales count as first day sales when it comes to calculating bestseller status. So anyway, I will end it here about the book. I just wanted you to know, it's still coming very soon, just not in the immediate next few weeks, unfortunately.

I'm teaching fall semester as well at the college where I work in addition to all the other stuff I do, so that time demand we'll be back in full force in a few weeks as well. But anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to apologize to everyone that I let down, to say thank you for the support during the presale and let you know exactly what was going on. So now let's get onto making sure your books are on track for a spectacular launch with this week's questions...                                                                                                                                  Continue reading...