At the very least, if you're not having fun, you're probably not producing your best work. Any time something feels like a chore, people tend not to do it as well, even if the effect is largely driven by the subconscious, and we really don't notice it.

For what it's worth everyone, Love at Lookout Lake has now been released on Tubi etc.

Here's a link:

https://tubitv.com/movies/100050774/love-at-lookout-lake

I just watched on Tubi.

It sure doesn't look like something that was made for $25,000. I guess it was actually somewhat more, since Nicely did the post work. But in any case, it doesn't look anywhere near as low budget as it was. It's amazing what can accomplish on a low budget.

Wow, I'm impressed by the dedication and discipline of everyone doing their daily word-counts, and dismayed by my lack of the same. I used to be like that - years back I was occasionally writing 5K words to satisfy a deadline - but nowadays motivation is the issue. Mind you, I'm writing and editing all day, and flipping to my own universe of writing isn't easy. Excessive screen time can be fatiguing.

For the record, I've spent 2025 consolidating my existing works, republishing existing books that I've regained the rights to ... and I started writing something new that would fit with my best-performing novels, but I found myself writing to (my own) market and the spark of excitement didn't carry through. It's been shelved for a while. I have plenty of plans and ambitions, some I've mentioned here, it's just hard to get enthusiastic with the obstacles we face for gaining visibility and an audience.

A serious issue for me, and for others I expect, is the ability to check sales and "success" on a daily basis - and even multiple times in a day. It gets discouraging to see results that aren't encouraging, if that makes sense. Sure, I advertise and make sales and KU reads, however it can feel like a hamster wheel of effort that isn't really getting traction. In the past, when I was trad-published (midlist, remember) you often didn't get real sales figures for something like 12 months. You might see an initial print-run on 10,000 books sell out ... awesome! Then the sales-or-return system might kick in and half of those would be remaindered, with allowances for promotions and stuff on top. Not so awesome. But the point is, you'd be living the dream and blissfully writing the next book for a year or so, unaware of whether or not anyone was actually reading your novel.

Now, we can analyse daily sales and even page-counts to the nth degree. And it can take the wind out of your creative sails very easily. It's often a necessary evil if you're running promos and ads, trying to assess if these are effective, so you can't be proactive in promotions and ignore the sales figures.

I know we're not supposed to be writing for "sales" or "success", and it's all about the love of writing regardless. But KDP and self-publishing has opened a Pandora's Box of judgement on our worth and appeal as writers. It's in the graphs, and the figures, and the reviews and ratings.

2025 for me was about trying assess what can and can't be done realistically. 2026 will be about finding some balance between enjoying the creative processes and finding an audience, however large or small, that makes it feel I'm not writing and sending my books into a vacuum.

None of my video trailers are under 30 seconds.  I think you have a good start, but you might want to add some people or creatures, etc. for anything over 20 seconds.  Otherwise, the smoke and field work well.

Here's one I did for my WW2 short story.  It's a trailer rather than an ad, but it does get some people to take a look at the ebook.

Sorry, too much reading.

The audio needs to be louder, as well.