Ok, I get that not every word in that title should be capitalized.

But. I like to capitalize every word of a title. It's just my preference. Even if it's not grammatically correct.... I want the title to STAND OUT. Yes, I probably would make every title look like that if I didn't think it would read like I was screaming at you.

I'm not so much of a yeller at people.

Yeller at my kids?

Um. Well.... That's a different story.

Also. Miriah. I have been to both Paris and Vail. Both are fantastic. Amazing. You would love both. But. Nothing compares to Paris. Absolutely nothing. It is second only to Omaha and I'm only saying Omaha because it's home.

The museums. The cathedrals. The food. The wine. The Champs-Elysées. The food.... The wine........ Need I say more?

Don't take the subway, it smells like.... what's the word.... poop. And take a taxi to Notre Dame, and decide once you see how long the line is if you want to see it. The Moulin Rouge is super far away from everything. And, the Mona Lisa is so not worth the hype, unless you are a huge art buff, in which case pay your respects and you have to go the Louvre anyways. It's a must. Also, NEVER get your picture sketched by random French Men that just walk up to you and start drawing before you can tell them no and draw your boobs SUPER big in a totally creepy way and then get dragged away by the French police while you stand staring after them, holding your caricature self-portrait....

In hindsight, that should have probably been a private, like, facebook message.

Ugh. Now I'm heart sick for Paris.

So bad.

I am not entirely sure if I can go on....

Let's rally. The blog must continue.

Well, really, that's not so much the case. But since I am up before the sun this morning and when thinking back on the night, realize I am not even sure if I got more than like three hours of sleep, this blog is necessary to my eyes staying awake with the very same children I am pondering putting up for adoption instead of slipping into a sleep coma and letting them have the run of the place.

Seriously, Stella woke up at 3:30 and was up for HOURS. She kept trying to get me to turn on the TV, and was just chattering away, while I kept falling asleep on her so she would wake me right back up and talk my ear off. All the way off.....

What in the world?

That is SO not her style!

And then, with all the noise she was making, she kept waking up Stryker, who might be the lightest sleeper ever.

I'm pretty sure.

He's worse than Scarlett. And Scarlett can hear the sun rising.

So, Scarlett is my fave this morning. She's just sitting at the table quietly putting puzzles together. Whilst Stella sleeps off her midnight adventure in my bed. Where I should be sleeping.

Ahem.

I'll move on....

On the bright side of this morning. And by that I mean, the other side of me that is not consumed with regret for how little sleep I got last night. Reckless Magic is FREE right now for Kindle and Nook.

This is very, very exciting!

I've been trying to get it free on Kindle for literally over a month, but Kindle takes FOREVER.

My idea was to make it free with the release of the second book in order to hype it up a little bit. Well, that didn't exactly go the way I planned. I kept reporting myself to Amazon, being like hey, look!! Over here!!! This book is free on the Nook!

Until finally, FINALLY, last night at about 8 it went free.

And can I just say, maybe it should have always been free??? Oh. My. Word.

I can be a bit of an obsessive sales-checker. (Real word, don't worry about it.) And so every month since I started this thing in March, my sales have pretty much been doubling. Which sounds amazing, but in reality it meant last month, I sold about 40 books. And that was the first month with two books available for purchase.

And I was feeling pretty good about that.

Ok, and since I make like 30 cents off every Reckless Magic book, I was finally going to get a paycheck for the first time.

So. I checked my sales after dinner last night, while the girls and I were having some Dora time and yesterday by that time I had sold one book. The whole day. No big deal, that's like average for me.

After I put them to bed, and then ate dinner with Zach and then didn't clean up the kitchen, in fact avoided it like it was the black plague and I'm so paying for it this morning.... and watched the finale of Flipping Out with him, so like two hours later, I sat down to do some writing and just for fun (Which is what I always tell myself...) checked my sales again. The number had gone from 8, from 8 books sold this month to 330.

Yes, that's right. 330. And then it jumped to 335 while I was staring at it, mouth open, hands gripping the table, trying to figure out if I had actually lost my mind and was hallucinating.

Of course, and this is only natural, my first thought was, oh, the word must have gotten out, people are just flocking to my books! And then I realized, when reality came crashing down on me that probably, most likely, in the world that the rest of humanity lives in, it was free on Amazon. Which was still AMAZING news.

But, I never thought I would sell that many books. In the period of like two hours. In fact, and this is real...., I was just looking forward to the day I would sell FIVE books in one day.

Yep, Five was my goal for myself. And I thought it felt very similar to a pipe dream.

So Zach, my fantastic, realistic, skeptical, gorgeous, pessimistic husband gets immediately online, ok, he waited until sales were over 400 and then he got online and started researching this phenomenon. He was like, this can't be real, I bet it's like a bunch of automatic downloads and spam stuff. Let me check.

And I'm like breathing, like Child-Labor-Breathing. Like, you're right, you're probably right. Meanwhile in my head, until he walked in the room with his raincloud of reality I was totally like picturing myself doing an interview on the Today Show and shaking hands with the president Sarah Palin.. :)

I mean, this is why I married the man. Ok.

And, yes it is a bit of a phenomenon. It's called the Newbie Rush and will not last all month that the book is free.

BUT. As of this morning. For this month. I've sold 875 Reckless Magic. 8 Hopeless. And 3 books in the UK.

And NO books in Germany. Which. Pssshht. Hello Germany! Get with it!

JK.

That's a ton of books.

Don't worry, I've totally listened to my husband who lets me down so gently with, Rachel, just because they've downloaded the free book, doesn't mean they're going to read it. (Please remember he is also the one encouraging me to do all of this, he just lives in the world of realistic expectations and I live in a world so different. So, so, so different.....)

Which is so true. Or even like it. Or buy the second book. Or ever look at it again. But it is fun. And it was fun to be successful for a night! We'll see what happens the rest of the month.

I'll hold off trying to book the morning show tour and late night circuit until I can AT THE VERY LEAST hire a stylist. Oh lord.

And maybe a behavior coach.

I would be a disaster on stage.

I bowed to French people. Bowed to them.

Talk about a hot mess in front of a live studio audience.....