Comparisons and Jealousy

I recently came across an article that focused on a writer, a very successful writer who is now making a six figure income. The thing that kills me is she only burst onto the scene a few years ago. I used to follow her blog. I don't anymore. Why? I'll admit because I'm jealous of her success and I hate to compare myself. Pretty simple.

Don't get me wrong, she's a perfectly lovely woman. She's smart, funny, well-spoken, well-written, and we could probably be friends (or at least in the same book club if we lived near each other.) However, this woman is all over the place with book ads, podcasts, blog posts, guest appearances, and is quoted by everyone. Yup, she works hard for her money. And I don't begrudge her one cent.

What I do begrudge is how she makes it look so easy. Her books are everywhere, she is everywhere, and I'm just sick of it.

Why? Because I'm not.

Why? Because I can't.

This woman has no children. She is also married and her husband is her marketing manager. She focuses her life 100% on her books, writing, marketing, and promoting. Oh, if we all could live in that world.

I'm lucky if I can find time to wash the kitchen floor. (I swear when I'm rich I'm getting a maid.) I have so many things pulling on my time CONSTANTLY I fall into bed exhausted just thinking about all the shit I have to do TOMORROW. Between school, my parents, the yard work, not to mention Monster and figuring out how to feed her eight times a day (my God, the child never stops eating), I barely have time to take a shower every day. (Yes, I know that's just TMI and too disgusting for words, but I'm sure a lot of other moms out there know exactly what I'm saying.)

So, yes, I'm jealous of the writer who has time for all the stuff I can barely dream about. Sure, I'd love to do podcasts. Sure, I'd love to write timely and interesting blog posts. Sure, I'd love to have a six figure income. But, I don't have time.

And I can hear a whole bunch of you screaming, "Well, make the time." I hate to inform you, there's only 24 hours in a day, and of those I need seven to sleep. (Although, I never get the full seven because something is always waking me up in the middle of the night--be it my to-do list for the next day, the scene in Chapter Ten that's giving me fits, or an uncontrollable bladder. Again, I apologize for TMI.)

I remember when Kindle was the new craze. Yes, I jumped on the bandwagon and self-published and made a lovely little name for myself. But then, as more and more writers took the plunge, I found myself drowning in a sea of other Regency authors. I was no longer arriving at #11 in the Top 100 on launch day without a review. Now, I can't even get placement in the Top 500 with three reviews.

What do these other authors have that I don't?

Time. Time to blog, and Tweet, and FaceBook, and Instagram, and whatever other social media craze is out there to talk, discuss, mention, brag, and sell the latest book they have out. It's disheartening for a writer like myself. I can't even do ONE of those things on a steady basis, never mind for a book launch.

I'm jealous of this author's time management skills and envious of her success. Does it drive me to distraction? No. I've given up worrying about what other people do or don't do to achieve the limelight.

I have a new book out. I Tweeted about it a couple of times. I posted it on my blog (which then gets shared to Goodreads, LinkedIn, and Amazon.) And that's pretty much it. I don't have time for the other stuff. (By the way, in the article about the famous author, it was also revealed she doled out five grand for a BookBub ad. Ha! If I had five grand, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Yes, I would. I'd put new floors in my house.)

I've always maintained the way to a book's success is by word-of-mouth. No ad in the world will make people buy your book. (Okay, that's sort of not true and I know it, but for argument's sake let's just go with my premise.) If one person likes the book, then hopefully, she'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on and so on. (Or we could hope for one particularly brilliant review that ignites a spark.)

I can't do anything about the concept of time and my lack thereof. The only thing I CAN do is to use what I've been given wisely. One hour equals ten pages of edits, two can get me a blog post written for next week, three hours could possibly find me finished with the dreaded Chapter Ten rewrites.

We can only do what we can do. Will I continue to be jealous? Hell yeah. There's nothing wrong with a little envy--it's what actually spurred me into writing to begin with (I thought I could write a better book than an author I had read). Will I allow it to eat at me until I can't function anymore? Nope. I don't have time to wallow.

I'll write my books, publish my books, and continue in this vein until I get rid of what is sucking my time (right this moment it's the lawn. Between the rain and the humidity I haven't been able to do the yard in almost ten days.) And hopefully, I'll make enough money next summer to be able to hire a lawn guy so I can shave off four hours every week for myself. Wouldn't that be nice?

Tell me -- Are you jealous of other writers who have TIME to do the things you can't? Do you have (or have you ever used) BookBub to promote your books? Do you have a lawn care guy?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2016

Shout Out for Mac

My friend R. Mac Wheeler has just published his 28th!!! novel and this is a shameless promotion for him. I love his stuff. His voice is distinctive and the stories are wild and wooly. If you haven't read him yet, you should. (My favorites were the REVENIR series--gotta love those vampires. But really, any of Mac's stuff is great. You won't be disappointed.)

Book 3 of the 6 Ways Series

At eighteen it’s tough to decide a life path when the threat of pandemic hangs over the world, your brother is the genius who engineered the plague, and you’re repeatedly drawn into the fight against the terrorists spreading it. Plenty of people would kill an Abernathy on sight so it would be wise for Mar to visit the dojo, otherwise play invisible, but her brother is manipulating her into another adventure.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015WNJJBU
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/1122714188
Read an excerpt here

If you haven't read Book 1 or 2, and like to start at the beginning...

BOOK 1

Alcoholic parents treated Margarite as an unwelcome stranger, then left her at fourteen with her thirty year old autistic brother. At sixteen, things really sour, thanks to her brother. A medical researcher, Reggie engineers the ultimate plague. Fanatics seek to control him. The government pursues them as terrorists. Margarite witnesses ruthlessness, compassion, and competence she couldn't imagine from her brother, but the world needs a miracle. The best she and Reggie can do is wing it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010E8N0Y0/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/1122198437
Read an excerpt here

BOOK 2

Nightmares. Panic attacks. Depression. Margarite is hammered by the typical issues of a seventeen year old loner, whose parents sympathized with insane people intending to collapse civilization. The few who care about Mar have more concerns. Her drinking. Fighting. Jumping out of airplanes.

Her brother engineered the plague that’s breaking out across the globe and she holds a little guilt for not stopping it. Or being one of the first to die. Still, conspirators behind what they call The Correction are not done with her.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015WNJJBU

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/1122714188
Read an excerpt here

The Author

R. Mac Wheeler writes about characters with a lot of baggage, men who make many men look like wimps, tough chicks that can whip most men...puts them in situations that push them to the edge...in worlds that don’t overly stretch the imagination.

A former IT professional,  he now focuses full time on suspense, paranormal, science fiction, and fantasy  that leverages the quirkiness and baggage of real life more often than the far fetched.

Visit his Home Page: WWW.RMACWHEELER.COM

The Shoulds and Should Nots

Good Morning. Today I'd like to discuss things we should and should not do when we're writer/authors. I've been around the blogs for a couple of years now. I've followed agents and big name writers, read blogs followed by thousands of people. These people know what they're talking about. I guess. But as with everything, I take what they say with a grain of salt.

We SHOULD blog with captivating content no less than 500 words no more than 800. We SHOULD Tweet and be friendly and engaging. We SHOULD have a Face Book author page and update it once a day. We SHOULD do blog tours when we publish. We SHOULD do this, that, and the other, so our name will be seen and heard and we will sell millions and millions of copies.

Uh, no. We don't. What we SHOULD do is find a place where we are comfortable.

I blog because I like it. I started my blog to meet people, like minded writers who I could engage with. Some of you who have been around with me from the beginning know me. I've written whatever the heck I want. Some days it's about writing, some days it's about romance, some days it's about my daughter, or the fact I'm building another fence. Some days I'm captivating, others I fall flat on my face. But I'm not blogging with specific content because I SHOULD. I'm blogging because I want to.

I've been reading forever about how to do a blog tour when you have a book coming out. You SHOULD set up no less than 15 stops, guests posts mixed with interviews, make sure you reply to every person in the comments etc. etc. I personally, don't do blog tours. Yes, I may do a cozy interview or two when my book comes out, but that's about it. And you know, there have been a couple of books I've released and only mentioned it once on my blog. (One story I never mentioned at all.) But that's me.  I don't have time for all that fuss and bother. Sure I might be missing a whole lot of sales, but you know,  I'm of the old school where word of mouth sells books. The writing should speak for itself.

I read a big name blogger a few weeks ago who said you SHOULD NOT reply to every single comment on your blog -- she said, it's padding the comments. Makes you look like you have 50 comments when you really only have 25. Now I had a "block comment" system in place for years. It's a pain in the butt sometimes. So I decided to go with "reply" comments instead. But you know, that turned into a pain as well, so I'm back to block comments. I'm making life easier on myself.

I also read over and over how I need to be on Twitter 3 or 4 times a day. I need to "engage" with people. I should be friendly and retweet. Then I also read that I should not retweet anything. Makes me look like a brown nose. I should have a schedule for Tweeting, 15 minutes morning, noon, and night. Uh, no. I don't have time to be sociable. I'm a writer. And personally, I don't think people give a fig what I had for lunch, or if Monster is home from school. I get on Twitter when I feel like it. I retweet interesting stuff if I think someone I know might like it. I Tweet because I want to and when I have the time.

And I've also read over and over how I need to get on Face Book so my "fans" can find me. As I've said before, I will never get on Face Book. In the back of every one of my books is my blog link to my Anne Gallagher Regency Romance Writer blog. I update every Sunday. I share what I'm doing in my books so my readers will know what's coming out next, what I'm doing, what's happening in my little writing world. My readers don't give a flying fig what page line edits I'm on, updating my status every 15 minutes. They just want to know when the damn thing will be finished.

I SHOULD do blog hops to find new followers. I SHOULD NOT do blog hops just to find new followers. I SHOULD follow every single person who follows me. I SHOULD NOT just follow someone blindly because they follow me. I SHOULD do memes and writing themes. I SHOULD NOT put my writing on my blog. I SHOULD use pictures. I SHOULD NOT use pictures. On and on and on.

Let me tell you what I have learned from the SHOULD and SHOULD NOT list. I SHOULD be true to myself and do whatever I feel comfortable doing. I WILL NOT do what every one else is doing. I mean, fish all swim upstream together. Why SHOULD I? I can zig zag if I want to. I'll still get to the same place. Maybe not as fast as the other fish, but I'll get there eventually.

Tell me -- What's on your SHOULD and SHOULD NOT list? What else have you seen on the blogs that you SHOULD be doing but don't? Or are not doing, but SHOULD?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013

Marketing and Promotion with Pinterest

Good Morning. Well, after publishing my latest book, I've had nothing to do this last week. Ha! Like that is ever possible. There's always stuff to be done, marketing and promotion come to mind, hence this post.

Because I'm a "quiet" marketer and hate to do blog tours, or ask anyone for help, I really haven't done much in the way of promoting my books. A few cozy interviews here, (as a matter of fact, I'll be over at my good friend Nicki Elson's on Wednesday if you want to stop by), a guest blog post there, a couple of review requests, but that's about it.

Social media has never been my strong suit. Yes, I have this blog, but this is primarily my writing blog. I blog at Anne Gallagher Regency Romance Writer to allow my fans (if any) to see what I'm doing with my books, because I don't have a website, and quite frankly, a website is static. I blog to let people know what's coming up next in my series.

I've set up a Twitter account. I've been on and off it for a couple of months. It's like an addiction when I get on it, and when my kitchen timer goes off warning me my time is up, I generally ignore it. No one can really say with a definitive answer if promoting your books on Twitter gets you more sales, and if you do promote, then you're labeled as a spammer. (But I see people promoting their books all the time, so who knows.)

I have accounts at Linked In, Goodreads, and Shelfari. But they don't really work for me. I refuse to join FaceBook, MySpace, or Tumblr.

However, after much debate, I decided to join Pinterest. I haven't worked out all the nuances yet, there's still things I need to add, and look at, but I think it takes my books to a whole other level, something I can't really do on my blog. If you want to take a gander and see what it's all about, click on this link Regency Anne and you can see what I'm talking about. If you click on one of the titles of my books, it will give you the cover blurb, and then show you all the pictures of whom I think my characters are.

I'm also planning on doing more boards with Regency clothes, homes, and architecture. Like I said, I haven't really figured out all the tricks (like how to repin, or how to find my friends to follow them) but I'm working on this slowly. Building it up over the next few months. I can then add it to my repertoire of places my fans can find me.

The nice thing is, even if I don't sell a book from my being there, it's wicked fun to do. I had a blast setting up the boards, arranging and rearranging them. It's soothing, like ironing, helps me get my organizational freak on. You know.

If you do decide to stop over there, let me know in the comments what you think. Comment here if you don't mind. (The link opens in a different window, so you don't have to worry about clicking twenty times just to get back here.) I have no idea how to comment there. If you're on Pinterest, please follow me, and once I figure out how to follow you, I'll do the same.

Tell me (the truth if you don't mind) -- Do you think this is a good idea? Or is it just a time suck? Are you on Pinterest with your books? How do you like it?

Free is the New Black...Or Is It?

We've all heard the stories of authors putting their books up for free, clocking thousands of downloads, and then once the promo is over, selling thousands of copies. One author I know about bought a new car after her free promotion. Another paid off her mortgage.

Well, guess what, that doesn't happen every day. It depends on the book, the genre, the writer, why you're doing it, as well as the day of the week, and the position of the moon. Yeah, no not really, but luck like that is very rare. Also a back list is worth a thousand downloads.

I'll tell you my story, and you can decide if you want to put your books for free or not.

We all know I write Regency romance. In the beginning I wrote a novel -- THE LADY'S FATE. But I didn't know how to promote it. I decided to write a short story to give away as a loss leader. You know, like the prize in the box of Cracker Jacks. Give something else away for free, to get them to buy what you really want them to buy.

I gave away A WIFE FOR WINSBARREN when I launched LADY'S FATE. This was before the days of Amazon's KDP Select. It was a win-win for me. When I launched THE DUKE'S DIVORCE, I also gave away copies of A HUSBAND FOR MISS TRENT. Another win.

All my books shot up in the rankings, got me sales, made me delight in my forethought and cunning that I was so smart to do so. I thought I was the golden child of the Regency world.

But all that soon came crashing to a nasty halt. Amazon caught on to the game (If you uploaded to another venue, Smashwords for instance, and offered your book free before they went to Premium status, the spam bots at Amazon couldn't track you.)

Last December they decided to install KDP Select. Which would give you the option to offer your book for free on Amazon for 5 days. It also allowed its Prime members to borrow your book for free, but you would still get paid. Which sounded like a good deal. Everyone was still making money, and you could also use those 5 days for a loss leader promotion. It was only 90 days and if you wanted to re-up or not, that was your decision.

Well, the first month, everyone and their brother tried it. It worked for me too with WINSBARREN. I took it off Smashwords, enrolled it in KDP and although I never put it for free (as I had already done so) I did get a lot of hits off the Prime membership.

But now, we come to the big bad Amazon (in March) changing their algorithms. (Okay does anyone know how to spell that word? Really? I've seen it spelled like 3 different ways.)

For those who don't know what algorithms are, I don't actually know either. But to hazard a guess, it's a scientific analytical spreadsheet that marks (in Amazon's case) how many books are sold by genre, by price, by author, then makes calculations based on how, when, and where they're selling, then takes all that information and plugs it into another spreadsheet and figures out who's going to sell more, who's going to buy more, and who's going to make more money. (Amazon.)

Anyway, once Amazon plugged FREE into their algorithms, authors were shooting up to #1 with a bullet. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone was doing it. Authors were getting on lists, authors were selling more books, people were reading more books. Amazon was making more money. (Because that's what Amazon does.)

But then, as with every good thing that's too good to be true, authors began to suffer from lackluster sales after their free promotion. They'd hit #1 or #2 during, but after, nothing. You know why? Because everyone else was giving their books away for free so why should they buy yours. People were grumbling, authors were in uproar, marketing analysts were writing articles in the NYTimes and Huffington Post. Oh my.

So here we are, 8 months after the initiation of the KDP Select program and what's happened is Free is now the norm. Authors who are having lackluster sales decide to offer their book FREE in the KDP Select program after it's been out for awhile. You know what that does. Makes people wait to buy your book. Because they know eventually, it will be free. That's why there are lackluster sales. They're waiting. Everyone loves a bargain.

Free is what you make it. In my opinion, offering a book free at the launch would be the way to go. Making that free list, getting higher in the rankings, garnering some reviews. Then set your price and stick with it. (Which is what I did with REMEMBERING YOU. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and then once I have all my notes in place, I'll tell you what happened with that book. Probably in late August, early September.)

In my opinion, once you publish a book, instead of trying to sell it forever, write the next book. If people buy your first book and like it, they want more. It's called a fan base. (Unless you have a 1000 followers on your blog and Twitter, you don't have a fan base yet.) Perhaps write a short story and offer that as Free, possibly for the launch of the next book instead of the book itself. It couldn't hurt. And besides, how long did it take you to write the 80k words in your novel? How long did it take you to write the 15k words in your short story, or 25k words in your novella? Which would you like to take a loss on?

I think, and again this is only my opinion, now that Amazon has changed its algorithms again (June) free is not what it once was. Sure it might get you to #1 for a few days, but after that, you go back to where you used to be. Rankings don't follow the free promo anymore. So save yourself, and your sanity. Think about your loss leader before you go offering anything for free.

And again, this is only based on my experiences on what I've done. Comments, questions are welcome. No spam please. Next week I'll discuss price points.

Marketing Quietly

Good Morning. As most of you know I self-published several short stories and two novels to Kindle/Amazon with a third on the way. It's been a truly life changing experience in more ways than one. Yes, I am exceedingly proud of all I've achieved with my writing. I've also learned how to upload, download, fix html codes, and all kinds of other "fun" stuff I never in a zillion years thought I'd ever do. (With the help of some very dear friends, I might add.)

When I first uploaded A WIFE FOR WINSBARREN to Kindle back in October, I had no idea what "ranking" was or "best-seller lists" or any of that. However, as I uploaded more books, I found my ranking was getting higher. Now, one of my dear friends said that being at #63 was an amazing achievement.
I even wrote about it here on my blog.

As of this writing, I'm on three different best-seller lists, with that one book, at #5, #16, and #52 respectively. People are actually buying my books and reading them. (And these rankings change HOURLY so what may have me sitting in astonishment one moment, has me plummeting to the dregs of the earth in another.)

Now there're all kinds of ways to get to the top in a short amount of time. Here are three I've heard about. Put it free, get tons of reviews, do a blog splash. I never did any of those. As a matter of fact, WINSBARREN sat with the same 3 reviews it had, written by dear friends, for the first 4 months it was out. It now has 4. (Two stars I might add.) So reviews don't have anything to do with ranking as far as I can tell.

As of this writing, THE LADY'S FATE has 5 reviews. My other two short stories and novel have none. And quite honestly, I don't care. They're all selling. Quite well I might add. So as far as I'm concerned, word of mouth is selling my books. Either that OR the fact I have so much reading material out there
I did do "free" on one of my other books (A HUSBAND FOR MISS TRENT), but I did that the wrong way, using Smashwords for the "free" instead of Amazon/Kindle, hence, a lesson learned.

As for a blog splash (or marketing blitz) nope, didn't do that either. Not that I couldn't, but quite frankly, I just didn't want to. With so many people complaining (myself included) about people shoving their books in your face on every social media site known to man, I just couldn't do it. As a matter of fact, I hardly did anything -- I believe 2 interviews and a guest post and that was it. Some very nice people wrote some very nice things about my books and posted them on Goodreads, but I didn't ask them to do it. I Tweeted once and only once for each book release. That's it. I posted once for each book release on both of my blogs. That's it.

(The one thing that I haven't done, that I really want to do, is get bookmarks and/or postcards made. I'm waiting on my third novel to go out before I do that.)
As for my actual stats on how many I've sold, well, that's kind of personal, like asking what religion you belong to, or if you ever inhaled. I want to tell you, really I do, but I'm not going to. You know why, because my sales will be different than yours. There are all kinds of reasons why -- different genre, different publication dates, different marketing strategies, hey, even different covers. And we can't compare. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY CANNOT COMPARE. It wouldn't be fair to you or I, or any of the other writers out there.

Yes, some people have sold 50k in the last year. Some only 100 books. You have to find what works for you to be able to sell. You have to find your own marketing groove and go with it. J.A. Konrath suggests playing with pricing. David Gaughran suggests putting books out for free. K. K. Rusch suggests putting excerpts up on your blog. And all of these are really great ideas. And yes, I've done them. Some worked, and some didn't. But only you can make the decision of what works best for you. Sometimes it's just the difference of changing the cover.

What I do know, however, is that putting out great content, with a pretty decent cover, keeping the typo's and mistakes to a minimum, and keeping that momentum going, will see your sales grow over time. This isn't a race. There's a long tail on this roller-coaster. What sells today, might not sell next year, or even next week. Who knows. Then again, even if you don't sell this year, in five years, you might be the next gazillionaire.

I guess what I'm saying is, you don't have to beat people over the head to buy your books. I didn't and I'm making a nice living now. I keep my nose to the grindstone and write. I guess you could say I "Market Quietly", and just do what I think is best and let the chips fall where they may. But then again, I'm not you and you're not me. We each have our own way of looking at things.

Tell me -- What are the most effective ways you've seen writers market? What are some of the most detrimental? What are some of your marketing techniques?

There's a Change in the Air

Good morning. And no, I'm not talking about snow, or the lack thereof. I'm talking about the blogosphere, the blogoverse, blogging, whatever you want to call it.

I've been picking up on these little threads lately, these little discussions, sometimes rants, often times questions, about what the hay-zoo is going on here. I remember when I started blogging, we were all in this together -- to write the best book possible, land an agent, a contract, and be published.

Then somewhere along the line, the publishing world shifted, Amazon became a god, and we found ourselves in new territory. The imposed taboo of self-publishing was magically lifted and thousands of books began appearing on this thing called a Kindle. We didn't have to query anymore. We didn't have to suffer through the agony of rejection. If we put our book out there, someone would buy it.

And the blogosphere changed. We were no longer looking for ways to write better dialogue, or find out where a hyphen truly belongs, we were looking for information in how to format, to upload, to write cohesive 400 character cover copy. We shifted our focus to meet the new demand. To jump on the bandwagon. To make a gajillion dollars as promised by the new gods of Kindle -- Konrath, Hocking, et al.

We somehow turned the blogosphere into a side show, hawking our wares, asking, telling, begging, people to buy our books, to read our books, to please just look at our books. We became singular in our attention. It wasn't about "us being in this together" anymore, it was about me, me, me.

I am guilty of this as well.

And I hate every freaking minute of it. I loathe it with a passion. Which is why I try not to do it. It annoys me. And I know how much it annoys you.

But the problem is, how the hell are we supposed to sell our books if we don't publicize, market, promote. For most of us, this isn't some little "hobby" we do late at night when the kids are in bed. Sure, it may be the dream we've finally achieved, but it's also our "job" now. We're writers, who sell books, which makes us authors, who need to make money, to put food on the table, to pay the electric bill, to maybe make enough to finally get the damn car fixed.

There's a fine line some of us seem to be walking now in the blogosphere. We have to promote, yet we don't want to annoy. But what can we talk about these days? Can we go back to being the same bloggers we used to be? Can we really discuss the merits of a semi-colon without sounding like some lame asshat? Can we actually have a decent comment thread on the nuances of close third POV? or does it all now revolve around how many we sell, what our rank is, what royalty rate is best?

I want to go back to the way it used to be. I'm sick of being an author already. And it's only been three months. I want to go back to just being a writer. Who's really stuck in the last third of her book and can't decide whether to make her hero love the heroine or hate her guts. I want the blogs to be fun again, where I can learn something, where I can help someone. Where I don't have to be Anne Gallagher - Author of Regency Romances.

I just want to be the plain old Piedmont Writer.




photo courtesy of Jimmy Emerson, AL 2006

I'm On the Veranda Today

Good Morning. Today I have the honor and priviledge of hanging out on the veranda with Christine Glover. She's going to interview me, a la Barbara Walters style. I've long admired Christine's interviews with other authors and I can't believe she's going to interview ME! I'm so excited. So I hope you'll stop by as we dish the dirt on writing, self-publishing, and other little tid-bits about the craft.

photo courtesy of FeatherStone Winery

There's a Book Fair Today

There's a book fair today hosted by M.A. Leslie, and I'm involved, at my new author website as well as 90 other authors which you will be able to find here at M. A. Leslie.

Please take a look-see, you might be able to find something you like. Genres are extremely well represented. The links at M.A. Leslie are up and running.