I finally finished Hornet, the second novel in the Pacie Rose Mysteries series. It is available on Kindle Unlimited. If you don’t have KU, it will be free to download on Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, for Free First Friday.
Here’s a bit about it:
A citizen reporter must stop hummingbird-sized hornets from destroying a resort town before the government unleashes its own devious scheme to eliminate them. When a swarm of murder hornets invades a Lake Michigan resort town, citizen reporter Pacie Rose and her sidekick cousin struggle to find what is causing mutant stinging wasps, now grown to the size of hummingbirds, from attacking the residents of Black Water, while also working against an aggressive, and unwelcome, secret government plot that could do as much if not more harm to the residents as the killer hornets in this natural horror.
My Website
You’ve heard this before, but I’m moving my website from Shopify, back to Dreamhost and WordPress. Why? Shopify increased its cost by 30%!
Every single bill I have has gone up in price. I’m being nickel-and-dimed to death! I’m even cutting my Adobe Creative Cloud account (if the contract lets me) at $58.29/mo. (it increased by two dollars) and going back to Corel Paintshop Pro. The version I have is a couple of years old, but hey, it’s already paid for—no monthly fees.
Even my writing program has changed. I’ve moved back to Scrivener because it’s a good organizational tool, and it’s already paid for—no monthly fees! I love Papyrus Author, but paying the monthly fee of $14.99 for the premium version does not fit into my budget anymore.
And LinkedIn Learning (used to be Lynda) has to go. It is valuable for learning things like software, but when it comes up for renewal in May for $324, it will be canceled. I’ll miss it.
I’m not sure what to do with Staples iPostal at $99/yr. It gives me a dedicated address for handling things like my print books. I’ll probably keep it for now.
As far as Amazon Prime, I haven’t canceled this yet, but probably will.
What won’t I give up?
Midjourney: It’s simply a fun tool for creating images. The $10/mo. is so worth it.
YouTube Premium: I can’t tolerate some videos having an ad every five minutes! It forces me to stop watching the channel or pay the $11.99/mo.
I have several other monthly bills that can be canceled, but I kinda want to keep them—Microsoft Office, Kindle Unlimited, and iDrive, just to name a few.
Inflation
This is the most that I’ve seen the price of groceries increase in my entire life. For example, eggs were $1 two years ago; now they’re $5-6. And coffee went from $6, to $10-15. And that’s just two items that I use. Oatmeal is my friend.
Anyway, that’s my money rant. 🙂
~ Connie
Hornet: Pacie Rose Mysteries, #2: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BT8HVTF4