Ask Annabelle (January 2019 Edition) (Patreon)

Hey all!

So it's been a bit since I did one of these, so I'll toss out a couple of questions that stood out.

Q1: Are you going to finish Iceman?

A1: Yep. I am about 4000 words into it as of right now. I want to give it the finish it deserves while maintaining the momentum of my Patreon page, which means it does get pushed back. Once it is done, I plan on putting it on Amazon (after Lit). This will probably be one of the last non-HFHM stories I upload to Lit (but you will still get them on Patreon, don't worry).

Q2. How often are you updating your website? (AnnabelleHawthorne.com)

A2. As often as I can. I've discovered that there is a balancing act between writing and literally everything else. I have some people to move up the wall, but that comes after producing content. Luckily I have amazing (and very gracious) readers. That being said, send me a message via Patreon if you are getting inpatient about any of that stuff. For those of you who aren't sure what I am talking about, I will be inviting another round of Patrons to the Hall of Caretakers in early February if you have the appropriate donation levels.

Q3. I wish there was somewhere we could talk about the latest chapter!

A3. This is in progress. One of my Patrons is helping me set up my discord channel. This is a place where you can go and argue about breadcrumbs I've left for you, who your favorite girl is, and more. The comments here seem rather quiet (for the most part), but I think a chunk of that is the interface here on Patreon.

Q4. How well is the book selling?

A4. At last count, I broke the 500 copies barrier. Originally, I felt a little disheartened, but then discovered that I am well ahead of the curve for the average author right now. It's my hope that I can keep carving out my niche in the digital landscape and then somehow tap into the mainstream down the road, reap all my rewards, and then have everything in my house gold plated.

Q5. What are you doing to care for yourself/for fun these days?

A5. I can't really measure my success against others in this field, but I do work fairly hard to keep up and many of you have noticed. While I am not burned out or anything, my real life plus my erotic writer life gobbles up my time like no other. I am lucky to get more than eight hours of sleep, but that isn't a complaint, just a simple reality.

Really, anything I can do from my bed (insert jokes here) is what I do for fun. That includes reading on my kindle, playing a game on my tablet, or writing on my laptop. I got the Kindle Unlimited deal for 99 cents and am hunting down some fun scary stories.

Oh, and I recently got into The Adventure Zone podcast. I do a lot of driving during the day, so have been loving having a story to listen to.

Q6. Wait, you have a laptop?

A6. Yeah, this isn't a question anybody asked, but I wanted to brag about it!

So my tablet could no longer keep up with me. You see, I used to sit up at night and write on my tablet, but it wasn't good enough anymore. I could only do so much on the tablet, and that included accessing Patreon, uploading stories, etc. Even more frustrating was the fact that I wore my tablet keyboard into the ground. I was draining the battery on the tablet and the keyboard so fast that I actually had nights where I couldn't write because one or the other was dead.

I found a great deal on a laptop and bought one with Patron funds! It's nothing complicated, but now I can actually multitask (and listen to music) in bed at night! This was yet another way that you, my Patrons, helped support my craft. It also helped me up my average daily word count! 

My tablet is semi-retired now and used primarily for games, email, and surfing the web. It got the job done in the beginning, but I definitely needed something more traditional.

That's it for me. Looking forward to seeing the results of the most recent name poll!

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Annabelle