Just an April Fool

April sped by so fast! I can't even. How is it time for an Ishness post already? AND I completely forgot to do a Nightstand Post... AGAIN??? In my defense, I'm on vacation and shouldn't be expected to remember what day of the week it is, let alone blog about stuff.However, I saw Deborah's Ishness Post went live yesterday, so I thought I could probably muster up the ability to write one, too. Especially since April was pretty awesome.ReadingI didn't read much at all in April. Like, anything. The only real reading I did was of blogs, my own Minstrel's Call and anything I had to read to/with Leiana for school.It was sad.I can't go for a month without reading, it's not cool.Writing/EditingI made a ton of progress on Minstrel's Call. My goal was to finish this first round of edits by April 29th so I could go on vacation and not have it hanging over my head... but that did not end up happening. Still, I only have about 100 pages left in this pass of editing. Then I'm going to run it chapter by chapter through ProWritingAid, which I purchased a year-subscription for back in the fall when I was finalizing my edits of Yorien's Hand... I really like it, but I think it's better as an early editing tool than a proof-reading tool... so I'm going to try using it before line-editing and beta readers. I didn't hit my goal, but I think I'll definitely be ready to send it off to my line editor and beta readers by June 1st, which is exciting!WatchingWe got The Hobbit Extended Edition Trilogy on blu-ray for Christmas and Derek and I have been spending an inordinate amount of time watching the special features on that. Some movies, those sorts of things kind of ruin the "magic" of the movie for me... but not with these. In the cases of The Hobbit and LOTR, the special features just intensify my admiration for the effort and detail that went into making those movies awesome.Life-ingAWANA finished up with a bang and the girls both participated in their first ever AWANA Grand Prix. Leiana took home a 2nd place trophy for design in SPARKS, and Nathalie took home 3rd place trophies for both design AND speed in the CUBBIES group! They were so excited and we are very much looking forward to AWANA starting up again in the Fall!We had some people over who could possibly become friends at some point... which was cool. Making friends is good.We've been driving around a lot looking for land.Leiana and Nathalie both got bikes and have been working hard learning to ride them.Brant cut his final 1-year molar and seems to have started in immediately on his remaining eye-teeth.MarketingDon't see this category much, as I usually don't have much to report. However, for any author-friends out there, I know sometimes this information can be useful, so I share.The last week of April I had a couple of free promos running on King's Warrior. On April 26th, King's Warrior was Book of the Day at OnlineBookClub (a truly fantastic experience... the readers over there are super nice. I was fielding encouraging messages on twitter and facebook from them all day long!) and was advertised as being free on ReadCheaply and Fussy Librarian.April 27th it was advertised with Freebooksy and ENT.April 30th it was advertised with Book Barbarian.Total promotional costs were $217.00Over the course of the free days I gave away 3,437 free downloads of King's Warrior. (Highest number ever for me)Between April 26 and May 5, I sold 89 ecopies of my books (a mixture of purchases of all three, and have made back every penny I spent on promos). Pretty exciting stuff. I have found that having 2 free days with a big promo on each of those days can work well... a lot of it is just the chance of timing, though, and it can be hard to predict. I've also had promos where I only had about 50 downloads and no sales... I've never spent anything close to that much on marketing before, though... so it does appear that one has to spend some money to make some money.Definitely my best promo ever.May PlansFinish editing Minstrel's Call and get it sent off to beta readers and my line editor. (Anyone interested in being a beta reader for a colossally huge book that is also the last book in this series?) LOLGet some work done on the Fantasy Oscars feature I'm participating in with a bunch of other awesome bloggers! So excited about that! (That begins in June, so be on the lookout)Some other blogging projects - more InterFiction assignments are landing on my desk, so that's exciting. And I have a new character to introduce you to, and I think you're all going to enjoy him a lot!I have a book to beta-read for a fellow author. Looking forward to that!I'm reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (re-reading... one of my favorites)Finish second grade with Leiana.Generally enjoy the fact that it's spring.Also, now that April is over, I can finally get "April Fool" by Collin Raye out of my head... because it kind of plays in there on repeat throughout the entire month every year. I do love April.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oggkHuPaaC4You're welcome.