Lowrywrites.com

I did a deep dive into my business today. I’m very disappointed in myself. It’s like looking in the mirror and seeing a gut grow. I know how it got there. I stopped running. Stopped eating right. Drank more beer. All the things that got me into the best shape of my life, I quit doing them. Same thing for the business. I can complain that the algorthym changed or that the market shifted or blah blah blah. I can also look in the mirror and see what I did. Or what I didn’t do. Let’s look at last quarter. I did soft releases of four new books. In four separate series.   I preach staying in one series until you master it and are making the money from it you want. I didn’t practice it. I launched at full price in a new genre where I have no presence and no list. This worked for a couple of other writers. I wanted it to work for me. It did not. So it’s back to the basics for me. That means running at least a mil...

How to reach 1,000 fans in 24 Hours I needed some cash. Fast. Isn’t that always the case? I remember reading a book when I was younger that talked about opportunity. Most people miss out for two main reasons. They don’t have enough time to pursue the opportunity because they are working a 40 hour a week job, have a family, etc. Or they don’t have the cash to make it happen. Time and money. Two things that are the main ingredients to building success. It should be easier to create both now. Take my book covers for example. I have a guy in Bangladesh that builds my book covers. I send him an order during the day on my time, and he wakes up and builds it on his time. He works while I sleep. I have the cover when I wake up the next day. I can do the same with ten other tasks. Reaching fans is another thing. A fan is someone who will go into their pocket and give you money for your product. Book promotion i...

365 thoughts. I have a thousand per day. Maybe more. A lot revolve around money. Or dinner. A lot more about marketing. And writing. I think about telling stories all the time. But can i write 365 thoughts as blog posts in one year? I published 85 in October. I got advice to put it out there. To share more and list ideas. I did. I made .30 cents. I don't think I found new readers. Nobody went to KU to read through a whole series.  Maybe that wasn't the point. Maybe the point isn't a lot of money.  Maybe the point is to practice. Practice makes permanent. When instated running long distance, the best days were five to nine mile runs. I did them after work. They would take an hour. Or an hour and a half. I had my loop picked out and distances mapped. I knew the playlist.  It wasn't easy. But it was good practice for longer runs on the weekend. Practice made permanent. ...

CHAPTER ONE He stared at the drop of golden amber liquid on the tip of his finger. It glistened in the neon glow of a beer sign behind the bar, beaded up and hiding his fingerprint underneath. He imagined for a second he could see the twirl and swirl of the unique lines that only he owned in all the world. Fingerprints, the ultimate identifier. “Are you going to bet?” Jake shot a look at Amanda behind the bar. She had one hand behind her back, a bottle of what was on his finger hidden in her grip. “Double or nothing?” he shot her a cocky grin. “You’re on,” she snapped back with a smile. He put the tip of his finger on this tongue, transferring the drop onto his taste bud. He let it roll around a minute, savoring the miniature volcano of heat on just that one section of his tongue. It made the rest of his mouth water in anticipation. “Dewar’s,” he announced. Amanda pulled the hidden bottle from behind her back and showed him the label. “I’m impres...

CHAPTER FOUR They lay on top of the white duvet on his queen size bed under a skylight he had installed himself. The noon sun drilled through at an angle, casting an oblong rectangle of bright yellow on the white wall. It had tracked along the wall as they finished the shower and started time number two in the bed. Number three finished him for the day for good, he thought as he collapsed into a quivering heap next to her, one hand draped across her flat stomach tracing indentations in the smooth expanse of skin. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back one hand and rubbed the small of his back with the other. “Just like I remembered,” she said. “That could go either way,” Jake said. Gretchen rolled over to one side and cocked her head on her hand. “I think you know which way it went.” “You told me,” he nodded and switched to writing circles on her hip with the tip of his finger. “You were a little different.” “I’m a different man...

CHAPTER THREE Jake almost fell when the door opened and Gretchen stepped around the end of the shower. He was sure his mouth dropped because she wore the gold necklace he got her as a gift and nothing else. “Got room for me?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question because Jake wasn’t stupid, and neither was she. He had installed the shower himself. It was the width of the room, partitioned by a single pane of glass with an entry on either side that led to four shower heads. There was a giant picture window on the exterior wall, double paned for energy and tinted so anyone standing in the shower could see the width of what once was his empire and now belonged to a developer he no longer called friend. “Save me some hot water,” Gretchen scooted around the end of the glass partition and turned on a second spray of steamy water. He still thought of it as her end, he mused as his eyes travelled over the rest of her. Same Gretchen, same lines, sam...

CHAPTER ONE The phone trilled on the nightstand.  3:00 A.M. Brill rolled over and scooped it up without seeing who it was.  There was only two people who had this number and only one who called him this early in the morning. "I thought you would be running," said Carver. His deep melodious voice sounded like it belonged on a radio or television announcer, his South African accent muted but clipped after many years in his adopted country. "Another hour," Brill answered. He had planned to do heat training today, eighteen to twenty four miles that put him under the noon sun at the hardest part of the run when the willpower was sapped and the sweat stopped running.  This was the way he tested his body over and over again, working on that part of the mind that begged him to stop, begged him to quit and sharpened the senses of his bulletproof will. Carver knew he wasn't an early morning runner, so it was a constant joke between them.  Brill ...

“Will you sign this for me?” My shields went up. “Are you a cop?” I joked. Mostly joked. I added a smile to make sure she knew it was a joke. She took a step back. Sometimes I forget my smile and snarl look almost alike. “I saw you on tv,” she said and held out a book. One of mine. “I got it on Amazon,” she explained. “I wanted your autograph.” My autograph?!? I barely kept from looking around to see if she was talking to someone more famous behind me. I saw this happen before. Not to me, of course. A lifetime ago, when I worked in LA, I hung out with Mark Wahlberg’s crew for a bit, which meant lunch with the artist formerly known as Markie Mark a couple of times. Women would ask for his autograph all the time. That made sense. He was famous. Not as much as he is now, but back then, he had a couple of movies under his belt and a hit or two. Plus they saw his Calvin’s. I didn’t even have Calvin’s.  ...