I'll be very honest with you, blog reader friends. Just between us, negative reviews about a book you've written can suck. Even though every book gets them, even though you can always learn something from feedback, even though it's part of what you signed up for when you decided to take the self-important step of foisting a book on the world. Even though, even though, even though.
It doesn't matter how you re-frame it or how much you're expecting it; if any part of your fragile writer's ego is exposed when you peruse the one- and two-star reviews that are an inevitable part of the publishing process, you are open to be a little wounded by them. The ones that make valid critical points are challenging enough to swallow, but at least they offer you something you can take away with you to improve for later. Or, choose to ignore and better define who you are as a writer. Both useful behaviors.
More difficult are the reviews that seem just plain mean-spirited. These are definitely the minority, even of negative reviews, and they don't bother me as much as they did at first. I'll admit to being surprised sometimes at the vitriol that some people feel after reading a book that wasn't exactly what they expected, or they felt was wordy, or whatever. But I'm the writer, and I knew the minute I clicked "publish" that one of my new jobs was to work on checking my sensitivity and keeping perspective.
Hubs, on the other hand, is still working on growing thicker skin. He's learned to handle my (often intense) self-criticism and even helps me wade through feedback to pull out themes to improve my writing for next time. But when people are mean, he still gets a bit hurt and defensive. And, you know what? I think it's sweet. At the end of the day, I'd rather have the guy who gets mad on my behalf than a thousand five-star reviews.
All that said, I also wanted to share that I have received some incredible emails in the last few weeks that have been really heartwarming. Several people have reached out to let me know that The Marriage Pact was more to them than just an entertaining read (which was my primary goal), but that it had some personal significance to them. Whether it was something Marci experienced that resonated with them or just a connection with one of the characters, some people have a special experience with the book, and I've been delighted to hear it.
One note in particular landed in my inbox last week while I was taking a break from working on Regrets Only. The note was from someone who would probably not be considered my typical target audience (as he pointed out): a 63-year-old man. I'll respect the privacy of what he shared with me specifically, but several events in his life mirrored some of those in The Marriage Pact; though his real-life story was in many ways far more beautiful than my fictional one.
It meant the world to me that he enjoyed the book, and that he took the time to send such a personal email about it. It means even more, since my Dad -- who was also 63 -- died last year before he could finish reading my first novel. I never got to hear his impressions, but it's nice to know that it's at least possible he might have enjoyed it.
Self-publishing can be both a raw and rewarding process. We get to play a lot of roles: from parent to author to spouse to business owner to editor to marketer. Sometimes in the midst of the chaos, the universe gives us what we need: useful feedback, a supportive spouse, or an encouraging word at just the right time. The trick is being able to look up from the keyboard long enough to appreciate it!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Enough About Books... Let's Eat!
This isn't a foodie blog, but I just want to do a quick update for those interested: I did a guest post this weekend on my friend Meghan's plant-based living blog. It has a yummy Curried Veggie recipe and some pictures of my kids chowing down. You can find it here.
As someone who's spent most of her life in the "Plus Sized" section of the world, I am not exactly the expert on healthy eating habits. But I get a little better all the time, especially as I try to help my boys not to have the same struggles that I've had. I don't obsess about calories, pounds or size anymore. I've decided I'm too old for that crap. I like myself the way I am, and more importantly, I accept myself for who I am. I don't beat myself up for my imperfections and mistakes, in any area of life, but especially related to weight.
Instead, Hubs and I just try to focus on making healthy choices, whenever we can. This year we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that my best friend has been doing for years, and I'm so excited to get my hands on all the new and interesting fresh veggies. I love to cook, but rarely make time for it, so I think the influx of produce is going to force me to do more of that. You may see more veggie-related posts in the future!
In the meantime, if you are interested in plant-based eating (as a participant or observer), go check out Meghan's blog. She manages to be really informative without coming off all judgmental and crazy.
And in case you don't have time to follow the links, here's a picture of a kohlrabi. Because kohlrabi is fun!
As someone who's spent most of her life in the "Plus Sized" section of the world, I am not exactly the expert on healthy eating habits. But I get a little better all the time, especially as I try to help my boys not to have the same struggles that I've had. I don't obsess about calories, pounds or size anymore. I've decided I'm too old for that crap. I like myself the way I am, and more importantly, I accept myself for who I am. I don't beat myself up for my imperfections and mistakes, in any area of life, but especially related to weight.
Instead, Hubs and I just try to focus on making healthy choices, whenever we can. This year we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that my best friend has been doing for years, and I'm so excited to get my hands on all the new and interesting fresh veggies. I love to cook, but rarely make time for it, so I think the influx of produce is going to force me to do more of that. You may see more veggie-related posts in the future!
In the meantime, if you are interested in plant-based eating (as a participant or observer), go check out Meghan's blog. She manages to be really informative without coming off all judgmental and crazy.
And in case you don't have time to follow the links, here's a picture of a kohlrabi. Because kohlrabi is fun!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Two More Free Days for The Marriage Pact
I know many of the folks reading this blog have already downloaded and read my first novel, THE MARRIAGE PACT, but in case you know people who haven't and you think it's worth sharing...
In celebration of Memorial Day, all day Wednesday May 22nd and Thursday May 23rd, you'll be able to download TMP for FREE. This will be the last time it's available for free, at least until the release of REGRETS ONLY later in the summer, so get it while it's hot!! I wanted to make sure everyone is loaded up with something fun to read over the long weekend.
You can read the free download on your Kindle, of course, but you can also read it using a free Kindle app for your PC, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android phone, etc. http://www.amazon.com/The-Marriage-Pact-ebook/dp/B0055LH79Q/
Please feel free to share this post with friends and family. The book has done really well since the first free promotion in April, spending 30+ days in the Top 100 Paid for Kindle, and longer than that in the Top 10 for Contemporary Fiction and Women's Fiction. There are more than 65 reviews with an average of more than 4 stars. You know, in case you want some credibility for your recommendation! :)
While you're doing that, I am slaving away on REGRETS ONLY, the sequel (though it's a bit of a tangent from the original plot line), which I think will be even better than TMP. You'll be the judge!
Have a wonderful Memorial Day, everyone!
In celebration of Memorial Day, all day Wednesday May 22nd and Thursday May 23rd, you'll be able to download TMP for FREE. This will be the last time it's available for free, at least until the release of REGRETS ONLY later in the summer, so get it while it's hot!! I wanted to make sure everyone is loaded up with something fun to read over the long weekend.
You can read the free download on your Kindle, of course, but you can also read it using a free Kindle app for your PC, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android phone, etc. http://www.amazon.com/The-Marriage-Pact-ebook/dp/B0055LH79Q/
Please feel free to share this post with friends and family. The book has done really well since the first free promotion in April, spending 30+ days in the Top 100 Paid for Kindle, and longer than that in the Top 10 for Contemporary Fiction and Women's Fiction. There are more than 65 reviews with an average of more than 4 stars. You know, in case you want some credibility for your recommendation! :)
While you're doing that, I am slaving away on REGRETS ONLY, the sequel (though it's a bit of a tangent from the original plot line), which I think will be even better than TMP. You'll be the judge!
Have a wonderful Memorial Day, everyone!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Post #160: In which I whine an awful lot and then try to learn something
Did you ever have one of those weeks?
I did. Week before last, actually. Some people would say, "when it rains it pours." I would say, "it felt like our house was on a vortex of crap."
Those of you who have or have recently had preschool-aged children understand that once your kid goes to daycare, you get every imaginable communicable illness, every time it comes around. I used to pride myself on having an iron constitution, but ever since Monkey started bringing home those lovely germs, I'm amazed at how often I am knocked flat by something that barely fazes him. Two weekends ago, despite my best efforts and loads of Emergen-C, I came down with a nasty little virus that came with a fever, sore throat, sinus infection, bronchitis, and after a couple of days, a double ear infection.
Little Fozzie Bear got it, too, so we were both miserable while Monkey was feeling fine at full blast. Just in time for Hubs to go out of town on a business trip. I got sick Friday night, he left Monday, and the three of us were planning to drive out to New Orleans on the following Friday with my mother-in-law to meet him for a wedding. Over those four days, I was supposed to be packing myself and both boys for the long car ride, working, and writing.
But then I didn't get better, and neither did Fozzie Bear. He was so unhappy, he couldn't sleep, and needed to be held 100% of the time. So I took him to the doctor, got antibiotics for his ears, and then promptly lost my voice. I cancelled my clients and the nanny (to keep from getting her or her other charges sick). Tuesday I got worse instead of better, so I took myself to the doctor -- moms know what a rarity it is, and how BAD you have to feel, to take yourself to the doctor. You pretty much have to be losing a limb or at death's door. More antibiotics for my ears and sinuses.
Cranky baby, no nanny, feeling crappy. Hubs out of town. To top it off, Monkey is brilliantly mastering the art of being an almost-three year old, which means he can annoy you within inches of dropping him off at an orphanage and running like hell.
Times like those, I miss my parents more than ever. Especially my mom. When you're really sick, you just want someone to come stroke your hair and tell you it will be alright. Or to give your kids dinner so you can go get a shower. Whichever. That night, in the midst of trying to negotiate both boys through dinner, medicine and bath, I sat down and cried for my Mom. Big, pathetic tears. Monkey came and asked me why I was crying, and I answered him honestly in my raspy squeak: "I miss my Mommy today."
He said, a little befuddled, "You miss your Mommy?"
I nodded. He knows who my Mom was, in theory, though of course he never got to meet her. She died eight years before he was born. Sometimes, however, kids understand simple things that we have forgotten. "It's okay, Mommy," he said. "You can talk to her. I'll show you where Grandma Peggy is."
He motioned for me to follow him, and feeling a little silly, I did. He led me upstairs to the hallway where we have a black and white picture of my mom, taken around her senior year in high school when she was Homecoming Queen. It's one of my favorites. "There she is," he said simply. "Talk to her."
Needless to say, this did not stop the crying. I held him close, and for a few precious moments, everything was okay. I mean, in a couple minutes, he was back to throwing enormous tantrums for no rational reason, and Fozzie was crying nonstop as I tried to funnel Tylenol down his throat. But still. I got them to bed and called my Mom's childhood best friend, who was nice enough to talk and let me listen for a while.
The next morning, my sinus infection decided to take over my whole face. I woke up with one eye swollen shut and both eyes leaking some kind of disgusting goo. Pink eye. Awwwwesome. Back to the doctor, this time with both boys in tow, where a nice but odd nurse suggested I could've saved myself a trip by putting baby pee in my eye. I took this in stride, and said to her without irony, "That's a good idea. I guess since I'm already here, though, maybe I'll just go ahead with the drops."
My aunt came that evening to help me get the boys to bed and catch up on dishes, which was an enormous blessing. One nice thing about not having lots of family nearby and available to help is that you really appreciate what you get. The nanny was returning Thursday afternoon, and I had a desperately-needed haircut and pedicure scheduled to get ready for the almost-forgotten-in-the-shuffle wedding. Oh, and I needed shoes and jewelry to go with my new dress, too. Plus the packing to leave early Friday morning. No problem. I had five hours of nanny time and a plan to use every minute wisely.
We stopped by the pediatrician on the way to preschool Thursday morning, since Monkey had been complaining about his ears and I didn't want to take any chances on our road trip. It turned out that saying "my ears hurt" was just another fun way to get attention (sigh) because they were fine. So we dropped him off and I went home to try to pull some things together before the nanny arrived. Half an hour before she was supposed to get there, I got a call from the school. Monkey had been hit in the head with a sand bucket by another kiddo, and they thought he *might* need stitches. I think I actually said to the poor teacher, "Are you kidding me?"
She was not, in fact, kidding me. I called the nanny and bribed her with the entire contents of our refrigerator and pantry to skip picking up her own lunch and get to our house a few minutes early. She did, and so I drove frantically to school and picked up my brave but bloody Monkey. I canceled my hair appointment (for the third time in two weeks) on the way to urgent care, where Monkey and I went through the decidedly un-fun process of getting him his first stitches (three of them).
It was around then that it happened. I realized the week had defeated me. I had not packed a thing, I had not seen a single client, had not written a word. No hair cut or pedicure. Nothing had gone as I'd planned. But as I held my terrified, screaming child while the doctor speared him with a fish hook needle, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Woman plans, universe laughs. But maybe for a reason.
Even though I was packing at midnight and had frizzy hair and an emergency stop for accessories along the interstate, the trip was uneventful and the wedding quite lovely. I got to spend Mother's Day in New Orleans with Hubs, the boys, and my wonderful mother-in-law. And I think I appreciated it more for the trials and tribulations of the previous week.
Originally I thought this blog might be about Motherhood, or Mother's Day. And it is. I thought it might be about learning to give up control and replace it with gratitude. It's that, too. But since it took me an extra week to get back to writing it, I've realized there is more to it...
Throughout my frustrating week, I reminded myself that there are lots of parents of young kids out there who have partners whose jobs pull them out of town far, far more often than mine. Some of those parents have great support systems around them to help out, and some don't.
As Memorial Day approaches, though, I started thinking about sacrifice, and it occurred to me that one of the hardest weeks of my cushy life is a standard week for many military families. Parents and grandparents, husbands and wives, give every minute of every day just to keep their families up and running. They do this while their loved ones are not only away from home, but putting themselves in peril for all our sakes. If I'd had to add Hubs' bodily safety to my list of worries last week, or the prospect of not being able to see him for months on end.... well, I can't imagine.
It's a tiny gesture, but I'm going to be offering The Marriage Pact for free for a couple of days this week, to give folks a chance to pad their Kindles for the long weekend and the start of summer. If you haven't yet read it, I hope you'll enjoy it. I also hope you'll have a chance to spend time this holiday weekend enjoying things you love, with people you love.
As for me, I have some writing to catch up on, and I'm looking forward to some down time with the fam. Of course, we will take a few minutes this weekend to honor the sacrifices of those who've given their lives for our country, and those who risk their lives each day. This year, I'm also going to think especially about the families they leave behind -- some for a while, some forever -- who make equally important and difficult sacrifices. I'm in awe of the strength of those families, and grateful for them. "Thank you," seems inadequate, but I'll say it anyway: Thank You.
I did. Week before last, actually. Some people would say, "when it rains it pours." I would say, "it felt like our house was on a vortex of crap."
Those of you who have or have recently had preschool-aged children understand that once your kid goes to daycare, you get every imaginable communicable illness, every time it comes around. I used to pride myself on having an iron constitution, but ever since Monkey started bringing home those lovely germs, I'm amazed at how often I am knocked flat by something that barely fazes him. Two weekends ago, despite my best efforts and loads of Emergen-C, I came down with a nasty little virus that came with a fever, sore throat, sinus infection, bronchitis, and after a couple of days, a double ear infection.
Little Fozzie Bear got it, too, so we were both miserable while Monkey was feeling fine at full blast. Just in time for Hubs to go out of town on a business trip. I got sick Friday night, he left Monday, and the three of us were planning to drive out to New Orleans on the following Friday with my mother-in-law to meet him for a wedding. Over those four days, I was supposed to be packing myself and both boys for the long car ride, working, and writing.
But then I didn't get better, and neither did Fozzie Bear. He was so unhappy, he couldn't sleep, and needed to be held 100% of the time. So I took him to the doctor, got antibiotics for his ears, and then promptly lost my voice. I cancelled my clients and the nanny (to keep from getting her or her other charges sick). Tuesday I got worse instead of better, so I took myself to the doctor -- moms know what a rarity it is, and how BAD you have to feel, to take yourself to the doctor. You pretty much have to be losing a limb or at death's door. More antibiotics for my ears and sinuses.
Cranky baby, no nanny, feeling crappy. Hubs out of town. To top it off, Monkey is brilliantly mastering the art of being an almost-three year old, which means he can annoy you within inches of dropping him off at an orphanage and running like hell.
Times like those, I miss my parents more than ever. Especially my mom. When you're really sick, you just want someone to come stroke your hair and tell you it will be alright. Or to give your kids dinner so you can go get a shower. Whichever. That night, in the midst of trying to negotiate both boys through dinner, medicine and bath, I sat down and cried for my Mom. Big, pathetic tears. Monkey came and asked me why I was crying, and I answered him honestly in my raspy squeak: "I miss my Mommy today."
He said, a little befuddled, "You miss your Mommy?"
I nodded. He knows who my Mom was, in theory, though of course he never got to meet her. She died eight years before he was born. Sometimes, however, kids understand simple things that we have forgotten. "It's okay, Mommy," he said. "You can talk to her. I'll show you where Grandma Peggy is."
He motioned for me to follow him, and feeling a little silly, I did. He led me upstairs to the hallway where we have a black and white picture of my mom, taken around her senior year in high school when she was Homecoming Queen. It's one of my favorites. "There she is," he said simply. "Talk to her."
Needless to say, this did not stop the crying. I held him close, and for a few precious moments, everything was okay. I mean, in a couple minutes, he was back to throwing enormous tantrums for no rational reason, and Fozzie was crying nonstop as I tried to funnel Tylenol down his throat. But still. I got them to bed and called my Mom's childhood best friend, who was nice enough to talk and let me listen for a while.
The next morning, my sinus infection decided to take over my whole face. I woke up with one eye swollen shut and both eyes leaking some kind of disgusting goo. Pink eye. Awwwwesome. Back to the doctor, this time with both boys in tow, where a nice but odd nurse suggested I could've saved myself a trip by putting baby pee in my eye. I took this in stride, and said to her without irony, "That's a good idea. I guess since I'm already here, though, maybe I'll just go ahead with the drops."
My aunt came that evening to help me get the boys to bed and catch up on dishes, which was an enormous blessing. One nice thing about not having lots of family nearby and available to help is that you really appreciate what you get. The nanny was returning Thursday afternoon, and I had a desperately-needed haircut and pedicure scheduled to get ready for the almost-forgotten-in-the-shuffle wedding. Oh, and I needed shoes and jewelry to go with my new dress, too. Plus the packing to leave early Friday morning. No problem. I had five hours of nanny time and a plan to use every minute wisely.
We stopped by the pediatrician on the way to preschool Thursday morning, since Monkey had been complaining about his ears and I didn't want to take any chances on our road trip. It turned out that saying "my ears hurt" was just another fun way to get attention (sigh) because they were fine. So we dropped him off and I went home to try to pull some things together before the nanny arrived. Half an hour before she was supposed to get there, I got a call from the school. Monkey had been hit in the head with a sand bucket by another kiddo, and they thought he *might* need stitches. I think I actually said to the poor teacher, "Are you kidding me?"
She was not, in fact, kidding me. I called the nanny and bribed her with the entire contents of our refrigerator and pantry to skip picking up her own lunch and get to our house a few minutes early. She did, and so I drove frantically to school and picked up my brave but bloody Monkey. I canceled my hair appointment (for the third time in two weeks) on the way to urgent care, where Monkey and I went through the decidedly un-fun process of getting him his first stitches (three of them).
It was around then that it happened. I realized the week had defeated me. I had not packed a thing, I had not seen a single client, had not written a word. No hair cut or pedicure. Nothing had gone as I'd planned. But as I held my terrified, screaming child while the doctor speared him with a fish hook needle, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Woman plans, universe laughs. But maybe for a reason.
Even though I was packing at midnight and had frizzy hair and an emergency stop for accessories along the interstate, the trip was uneventful and the wedding quite lovely. I got to spend Mother's Day in New Orleans with Hubs, the boys, and my wonderful mother-in-law. And I think I appreciated it more for the trials and tribulations of the previous week.
Originally I thought this blog might be about Motherhood, or Mother's Day. And it is. I thought it might be about learning to give up control and replace it with gratitude. It's that, too. But since it took me an extra week to get back to writing it, I've realized there is more to it...
Throughout my frustrating week, I reminded myself that there are lots of parents of young kids out there who have partners whose jobs pull them out of town far, far more often than mine. Some of those parents have great support systems around them to help out, and some don't.
As Memorial Day approaches, though, I started thinking about sacrifice, and it occurred to me that one of the hardest weeks of my cushy life is a standard week for many military families. Parents and grandparents, husbands and wives, give every minute of every day just to keep their families up and running. They do this while their loved ones are not only away from home, but putting themselves in peril for all our sakes. If I'd had to add Hubs' bodily safety to my list of worries last week, or the prospect of not being able to see him for months on end.... well, I can't imagine.
It's a tiny gesture, but I'm going to be offering The Marriage Pact for free for a couple of days this week, to give folks a chance to pad their Kindles for the long weekend and the start of summer. If you haven't yet read it, I hope you'll enjoy it. I also hope you'll have a chance to spend time this holiday weekend enjoying things you love, with people you love.
As for me, I have some writing to catch up on, and I'm looking forward to some down time with the fam. Of course, we will take a few minutes this weekend to honor the sacrifices of those who've given their lives for our country, and those who risk their lives each day. This year, I'm also going to think especially about the families they leave behind -- some for a while, some forever -- who make equally important and difficult sacrifices. I'm in awe of the strength of those families, and grateful for them. "Thank you," seems inadequate, but I'll say it anyway: Thank You.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
A Word About Ethics and Title Confusion
I remember distinctly how I heard about Jeffrey Eugenides's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, The Marriage Plot. I was in Target with my boys last fall, probably trying to keep one of them from destroying a rack of clothing and the other from screaming his newborn head off while we finished our shopping. We rounded the corner of the diaper aisle to see a huge end-cap display featuring rows and rows of the distinctive cover and THE MARRIAGE PLOT professionally, casually scripted across thirty or so books. And the super-cool twisty wedding ring design! My first thought was something I couldn't say in front of my boys (and won't write in a blog). But the follow-up, expletive-free version is: Are you kidding me?
This was followed by, Oh well, guess I'd better get busy writing another one, because this one is in the toilet. I'd just self-published THE MARRIAGE PACT a few months before, on a shoe-string budget and with only the grassiest of grass-roots marketing behind it. I knew anyone who might randomly go looking for my book would find Eugenides's super-publicized book first, and that anyone who happened across my book would be likely to think it was a rip-off of his. I was really bummed. I debated, briefly, changing my title, but I had already published it.
What's more, (writers will understand this) after spending weeks trying on different titles, testing them with beta readers, and having my working-for-love graphic designer incorporate them into cover designs, it didn't seem fair that I should have to do that when my book was out first. I assumed that Eugenides's publisher did the same searches I did before putting their title out, and they either didn't come across my book or didn't see it as a threat. And let's be honest, it's not a threat. I'm enormously proud of my book and the chutzpah it took to put it out there in public, but I don't think the Pulitzer committee are going to be knocking on my door anytime soon. Maybe in a few years.... :)
The idea that my little book might benefit from Eugenides's publicity machine didn't occur to me until a friend suggested it a few days later, and I dismissed it as ridiculous. I believed then, as I do now, that they are so different in appearance and tone, it would be very unlikely for anyone to mistake mine for his -- especially since his Kindle version retails for $12.99 and mine is $0.99. On an indie author's budget, I haven't been able to purchase Eugenides's book yet, but my impression from the jacket summary is that they are quite different.
Up until this month, the sales numbers reflected the truth of this. I didn't see even a little uptick in sales when THE MARRIAGE PLOT was published, nor did anyone refund my book after purchasing, which could be one indication that people were buying mine by mistake. I was actually relieved about this, because if people downloaded my book thinking it was the latest Pulitzer (rather than a light romantic comedy), I'd be getting some pretty harsh reviews.
After putting my book on promotion with KDP Select, it did really well for free downloads and has sold pretty well since then. It's stayed in the top ten lists for Women's Fiction and Contemporary Fiction consistently and the top 100 for Kindle books overall. The reviews have been mostly very positive, and the return rate is around 1.5%, which seems pretty small to me (though I don't know what the average is). I had one snarky comment on a previous blog entry implying that the only reason people were downloading it was because they were confusing it with Eugenides's work, but it's hard for me to believe that is true, at least on a wide scale. Did the similarity in our titles help propel my book to the top of Amazon's free list while it was on promotion? Maybe. I have no way of knowing, nor is that within my control.
Today on HLN's Morning Express with Robin Meade, there was a teaser/one-liner about being careful when you buy eBooks because some people are posting scam eBooks, titled very similarly to popular books, trying to lure people in to buy them. Meade cautioned the audience to be careful, but I didn't see a follow-up story before I had to leave for the office, nor have I been able to find anything on either HLN or their parent site CNN.com about it. I've tweeted them to ask if there is a follow-up story, and I'll update the blog if I get a response.
[Edit to add: I did hear back from HLN via twitter with a link to the clip I must have missed this morning. You can find it here: http://www.hlntv.com/video/2012/04/17/beware-knockoff-e-books. They are wrong about Amazon's return policy on eBooks, but otherwise I'm assuming the knock-offs they mention were published after the famous books in question.]
It would be nice, from a journalistic perspective, if HLN would run a whole story with some kind of specific data or examples to help consumers know what to look out for when buying books. I have no idea if mine is one of the books to which they are referring, or if there are other, more blatant examples out there. Hearing this mentioned on the news, however, made me concerned that maybe my anonymous blog commentator wasn't the only one who thought my book could be confused with its more famous counterpart.
I've debated amending the editorial description of my book to include a disclaimer that it is not THE MARRIAGE PLOT. On the one hand, it doesn't seem fair that I would have to do that, since mine really was out first, and I know that I haven't done anything remotely wrong. People spend mere seconds reading a book's summary, and I worry that the distraction of a disclaimer could turn folks off from reading the actual description of my book and deciding whether they want to read it or not.
On the other hand, I want readers to be informed about what they're buying. Being above reproach when it comes to writing and publishing ethics is important to me The satisfaction of my readers is the only product I have to sell, and losing their trust gains me nothing. I have exactly zero desire to 'trick' anyone into buying or reading my book, nor have I been hoping to capitalize on Eugenides's work or publicity. I would much rather my book stand on its own, for better or for worse.
I want people to read my books, of course, and I hope they enjoy them. But I would never intentionally try to ride another author's coattails.
I am still trying to put together all the pieces of the puzzle on this one. It will be interesting to see if there is more in the news in the next few days about the eBook scamming problem and whether my book is being included as an example. I would also love to find out what the average rate of returns is on eBooks for sale after their promotional period has ended, to see if more people than average have been returning mine because they actually thought it was '...PLOT'.
In the meantime, for anyone who doesn't already know it - amazon.com has a 7-day return policy on eBooks, for any reason. If you bought my book, or any other book, under mistaken pretenses, you can easily return it for a refund. Or if your almost-three-year-old got a hold of your Kindle and somehow managed to make a purchase while trying to watch Thomas the Train, for example...
In my (figurative) book, it's totally acceptable to return a book that you bought by mistake, or that was blatantly misrepresented in either the marketing materials or the editorial summary. Is it okay to return something you bought on purpose and read in its entirety, because you didn't like it or couldn't relate to the characters? Good question. I'd say that one depends on your ethical code!
This was followed by, Oh well, guess I'd better get busy writing another one, because this one is in the toilet. I'd just self-published THE MARRIAGE PACT a few months before, on a shoe-string budget and with only the grassiest of grass-roots marketing behind it. I knew anyone who might randomly go looking for my book would find Eugenides's super-publicized book first, and that anyone who happened across my book would be likely to think it was a rip-off of his. I was really bummed. I debated, briefly, changing my title, but I had already published it.
What's more, (writers will understand this) after spending weeks trying on different titles, testing them with beta readers, and having my working-for-love graphic designer incorporate them into cover designs, it didn't seem fair that I should have to do that when my book was out first. I assumed that Eugenides's publisher did the same searches I did before putting their title out, and they either didn't come across my book or didn't see it as a threat. And let's be honest, it's not a threat. I'm enormously proud of my book and the chutzpah it took to put it out there in public, but I don't think the Pulitzer committee are going to be knocking on my door anytime soon. Maybe in a few years.... :)
The idea that my little book might benefit from Eugenides's publicity machine didn't occur to me until a friend suggested it a few days later, and I dismissed it as ridiculous. I believed then, as I do now, that they are so different in appearance and tone, it would be very unlikely for anyone to mistake mine for his -- especially since his Kindle version retails for $12.99 and mine is $0.99. On an indie author's budget, I haven't been able to purchase Eugenides's book yet, but my impression from the jacket summary is that they are quite different.
Up until this month, the sales numbers reflected the truth of this. I didn't see even a little uptick in sales when THE MARRIAGE PLOT was published, nor did anyone refund my book after purchasing, which could be one indication that people were buying mine by mistake. I was actually relieved about this, because if people downloaded my book thinking it was the latest Pulitzer (rather than a light romantic comedy), I'd be getting some pretty harsh reviews.
After putting my book on promotion with KDP Select, it did really well for free downloads and has sold pretty well since then. It's stayed in the top ten lists for Women's Fiction and Contemporary Fiction consistently and the top 100 for Kindle books overall. The reviews have been mostly very positive, and the return rate is around 1.5%, which seems pretty small to me (though I don't know what the average is). I had one snarky comment on a previous blog entry implying that the only reason people were downloading it was because they were confusing it with Eugenides's work, but it's hard for me to believe that is true, at least on a wide scale. Did the similarity in our titles help propel my book to the top of Amazon's free list while it was on promotion? Maybe. I have no way of knowing, nor is that within my control.
Today on HLN's Morning Express with Robin Meade, there was a teaser/one-liner about being careful when you buy eBooks because some people are posting scam eBooks, titled very similarly to popular books, trying to lure people in to buy them. Meade cautioned the audience to be careful, but I didn't see a follow-up story before I had to leave for the office, nor have I been able to find anything on either HLN or their parent site CNN.com about it. I've tweeted them to ask if there is a follow-up story, and I'll update the blog if I get a response.
[Edit to add: I did hear back from HLN via twitter with a link to the clip I must have missed this morning. You can find it here: http://www.hlntv.com/video/2012/04/17/beware-knockoff-e-books. They are wrong about Amazon's return policy on eBooks, but otherwise I'm assuming the knock-offs they mention were published after the famous books in question.]
I've debated amending the editorial description of my book to include a disclaimer that it is not THE MARRIAGE PLOT. On the one hand, it doesn't seem fair that I would have to do that, since mine really was out first, and I know that I haven't done anything remotely wrong. People spend mere seconds reading a book's summary, and I worry that the distraction of a disclaimer could turn folks off from reading the actual description of my book and deciding whether they want to read it or not.
On the other hand, I want readers to be informed about what they're buying. Being above reproach when it comes to writing and publishing ethics is important to me The satisfaction of my readers is the only product I have to sell, and losing their trust gains me nothing. I have exactly zero desire to 'trick' anyone into buying or reading my book, nor have I been hoping to capitalize on Eugenides's work or publicity. I would much rather my book stand on its own, for better or for worse.
I want people to read my books, of course, and I hope they enjoy them. But I would never intentionally try to ride another author's coattails.
I am still trying to put together all the pieces of the puzzle on this one. It will be interesting to see if there is more in the news in the next few days about the eBook scamming problem and whether my book is being included as an example. I would also love to find out what the average rate of returns is on eBooks for sale after their promotional period has ended, to see if more people than average have been returning mine because they actually thought it was '...PLOT'.
In the meantime, for anyone who doesn't already know it - amazon.com has a 7-day return policy on eBooks, for any reason. If you bought my book, or any other book, under mistaken pretenses, you can easily return it for a refund. Or if your almost-three-year-old got a hold of your Kindle and somehow managed to make a purchase while trying to watch Thomas the Train, for example...
In my (figurative) book, it's totally acceptable to return a book that you bought by mistake, or that was blatantly misrepresented in either the marketing materials or the editorial summary. Is it okay to return something you bought on purpose and read in its entirety, because you didn't like it or couldn't relate to the characters? Good question. I'd say that one depends on your ethical code!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Recapping My Free Promotion Experience on KDP Select
Whew! It was just over a week ago that I decided to try the experiment of putting my first novel The Marriage Pact on a free promotion through amazon's new KDP Select program. I'd just read this blog post by Will Entrekin, and it got me thinking about whether a free promo might be a good way to get the word out about TMP. I'd been busy working on the sequel and finally starting to gain some momentum, and I realized that it was spring break in my part of the world - maybe a good time to spread the word about the book.
When I decided to try the free promotion for three days, it truly was an experiment. A toe in the water. I didn't want to do any hard-core promoting until I'd finished Regrets Only so it would be there for people to purchase if they liked TMP. Will mentioned having given away 8,000 copies of his book this way, and I thought, I can't imagine how excited I would be if 8,000 people had my book. Up until then I had sold around 300 copies, mostly to people who knew me already. To be completely honest, I would've been excited just to double or triple that number. Most of all, I was curious about the process and how it would work for my little book.
Here we are a week after the promotion started, and not only did my book garner 8,000 free downloads, it got that number six times over. At last count, the number of free promotional downloads over the three days was 48,108. The credit for that, I believe, belongs to my amazing friends and family, who happily forwarded, emailed and re-posted the announcements I put out about the promotion, spreading the word like wildfire over social media. [Thanks again, y'all!] I also got connected with some websites that basically function as clearing-houses for cheap and free Kindle books, so the word got out that way as well.
Even after the promotion ended, people have continued to seek out the book to borrow from the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, or to purchase and download for the bargain price of $0.99. At this writing, I've sold more than 4800 copies, or roughly 10% of the free downloads. I've been honored to be ranked at the top of the Amazon free list for Kindle, and then to make it as high as #21 on the paid list after the promotion was over. I've been in the Top 10 for both Women's Fiction and Contemporary Fiction for several days. Such a huge thrill!
The reviews have been great for the most part, and I'm trying to learn something from the few negative ones, too. People have been very kind to post messages on my Facebook page telling me how much they enjoyed the book. If I never sell another copy of this or any other title, it's already been a dream come true for me. I'm beyond grateful.
All of this has really spurred me on to work even harder on Regrets Only. It has already taken some interesting turns, and I am finding that I'm doubly excited by both the characters and the storyline, especially now that my "audience" is no longer the far-off hypothetical they were when I wrote the first book.
Beyond my personal story, I think this program from Amazon certainly brings up some interesting marketing issues for authors. As Will Entrekin points out, how do we make meaning out of a term like "Amazon bestseller" when the bestseller lists are updated hourly and some of the top-downloaded books are free? Amazon does a great job separating the lists, of course, but how do authors and readers make meaning from it? With so many ways of categorizing a book and quantifying success, how can we truthfully let readers know that our books are worth reading without requiring a whole paragraph to explain? Somehow "ranked for 10 hours in the Top 5 for Kindle ebooks in Women's Fiction" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "New York Times Bestseller."
It's also interesting to note that authors have no access to information about who is downloading, buying and borrowing their books. Naturally I don't want to invade my readers' privacy in any way, but it would be interesting to know some basic demographic information about the aggregate. Were most copies of TMP sold in the South? How many of my readers are women? How can I get in touch with those folks (or at least those who liked the book) to let them know when the sequel is out?
Amazon doesn't appear to be offering up any of that information at this time, but I wonder if one day they will offer some advanced features like the ability to sign up for an author's newsletter at the same time someone purchases a book, or direct links to author's Facebook and twitter pages. I wonder if authors will have the opportunity one day to send follow-up messages about their books to the people who purchased them. As a reader, I wouldn't necessarily want an inbox full of marketing materials from every author I've ever read, but I might want to have periodic opportunities to opt-in to the authors I like the most. This way of reading is so new, it will be fascinating to watch how things evolve from here.
In the meantime, I am slowly learning the ins and outs of both Amazon and social media, and trying to continue making time for, you know, writing. Again, I'm so grateful to everyone who has voiced support and enjoyed the novel. I'm looking forward to the next big promotion!
When I decided to try the free promotion for three days, it truly was an experiment. A toe in the water. I didn't want to do any hard-core promoting until I'd finished Regrets Only so it would be there for people to purchase if they liked TMP. Will mentioned having given away 8,000 copies of his book this way, and I thought, I can't imagine how excited I would be if 8,000 people had my book. Up until then I had sold around 300 copies, mostly to people who knew me already. To be completely honest, I would've been excited just to double or triple that number. Most of all, I was curious about the process and how it would work for my little book.
Here we are a week after the promotion started, and not only did my book garner 8,000 free downloads, it got that number six times over. At last count, the number of free promotional downloads over the three days was 48,108. The credit for that, I believe, belongs to my amazing friends and family, who happily forwarded, emailed and re-posted the announcements I put out about the promotion, spreading the word like wildfire over social media. [Thanks again, y'all!] I also got connected with some websites that basically function as clearing-houses for cheap and free Kindle books, so the word got out that way as well.
Even after the promotion ended, people have continued to seek out the book to borrow from the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, or to purchase and download for the bargain price of $0.99. At this writing, I've sold more than 4800 copies, or roughly 10% of the free downloads. I've been honored to be ranked at the top of the Amazon free list for Kindle, and then to make it as high as #21 on the paid list after the promotion was over. I've been in the Top 10 for both Women's Fiction and Contemporary Fiction for several days. Such a huge thrill!
The reviews have been great for the most part, and I'm trying to learn something from the few negative ones, too. People have been very kind to post messages on my Facebook page telling me how much they enjoyed the book. If I never sell another copy of this or any other title, it's already been a dream come true for me. I'm beyond grateful.
All of this has really spurred me on to work even harder on Regrets Only. It has already taken some interesting turns, and I am finding that I'm doubly excited by both the characters and the storyline, especially now that my "audience" is no longer the far-off hypothetical they were when I wrote the first book.
Beyond my personal story, I think this program from Amazon certainly brings up some interesting marketing issues for authors. As Will Entrekin points out, how do we make meaning out of a term like "Amazon bestseller" when the bestseller lists are updated hourly and some of the top-downloaded books are free? Amazon does a great job separating the lists, of course, but how do authors and readers make meaning from it? With so many ways of categorizing a book and quantifying success, how can we truthfully let readers know that our books are worth reading without requiring a whole paragraph to explain? Somehow "ranked for 10 hours in the Top 5 for Kindle ebooks in Women's Fiction" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "New York Times Bestseller."
It's also interesting to note that authors have no access to information about who is downloading, buying and borrowing their books. Naturally I don't want to invade my readers' privacy in any way, but it would be interesting to know some basic demographic information about the aggregate. Were most copies of TMP sold in the South? How many of my readers are women? How can I get in touch with those folks (or at least those who liked the book) to let them know when the sequel is out?
Amazon doesn't appear to be offering up any of that information at this time, but I wonder if one day they will offer some advanced features like the ability to sign up for an author's newsletter at the same time someone purchases a book, or direct links to author's Facebook and twitter pages. I wonder if authors will have the opportunity one day to send follow-up messages about their books to the people who purchased them. As a reader, I wouldn't necessarily want an inbox full of marketing materials from every author I've ever read, but I might want to have periodic opportunities to opt-in to the authors I like the most. This way of reading is so new, it will be fascinating to watch how things evolve from here.
In the meantime, I am slowly learning the ins and outs of both Amazon and social media, and trying to continue making time for, you know, writing. Again, I'm so grateful to everyone who has voiced support and enjoyed the novel. I'm looking forward to the next big promotion!
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
And Our Kindles Shall Grow Fat on Freebies
Well, my experiment with amazon's new KDP Select program is going gangbusters. At this writing, it's been a little over 24 hours since I put The Marriage Pact on free promotion. There have been 15,279 downloads so far, and TMP is at the top of the Kindle Contemporary Fiction List. It's Number 6 on the Free Kindle list overall.
Amazon updates those rankings hourly, so by the time I finish this blog (especially with my sweet little interruptions), it may have changed. Still, as a first-time author, it is an absolute thrill to know that something I've written is in the hands of more than fifteen thousand people. And to be at the top of any best"seller" category is something I wouldn't have dreamed of a few months ago.
Please pardon the Oscar speech. I'm humbled by the experience and grateful to everyone who has participated so far. My friends and family, as well as loads of Twitter followers, have been downloading and spreading the word with enthusiasm. I also want to send a particular shout of gratitude to my amazing mother-in-law. Neither of my parents is alive to share these little moments of triumph with me anymore, but she took the ball and ran with it last night. We were on the phone half the evening, and it was like watching election returns come in. There's a reason Hubs is such an amazing man. End of Oscar speech.
Not only have I been promoting my own book lately, I've been taking advantage of the opportunities these free promotions are offering. I have seen some really interesting books come across the Twitterverse for free -- independent authors promoting horror, mystery, suspense, sci-fi, fantasty, etc. And of course, contemporary fiction like mine. I love taking advantage of the opportunity to download some of these for lots of reasons.
For starters, it's a chance to support other authors, which is a no-brainer. My kindle is getting fat and happy and I will soon have enough free reading material to get me all the way through the summer. And maybe next summer, too. :)
But it also allows me the opportunity to download, risk-free, books from a variety of authors and genres -- maybe even those I wouldn't normally explore. I'm not a huge fantasy person, for example, but I do love a good story and I respect that sci-fi and fantasy authors have the enormous task of creating whole new worlds - with rules and places and languages - in addition to the usual writing tasks of plot, character and conflict.
I think it's good for writers to read lots in their own genre, to understand what works and what doesn't. Obviously, you probably aren't writing in a particular genre if you don't already like to read it. But other genres can teach us a good bit about the craft of writing: details, suspense, language, emotions... the list goes on. Good writing is good writing. I'm happy to find it and learn from it wherever I can. And if I get hooked on a suspense or fantasy series in the process, so much the better for me and my writing.
It's not clear what kind of impact the KDP Select program will have on reading and writing, but it certainly will be a venue for many independent authors to go from unknown to less unknown. The strength of our stories and honing of craft will have to carry us from there.
Again, thank you to everyone who has downloaded, forwarded, tweeted, and taken a chance on my little book. I hope you enjoy Marci's adventures and will be awaiting the sequel featuring Suzanne this summer. Feel free to join the email list if you want to be notified when it comes out.
PS - For those who are curious, the number of downloads is now up to 15939. Incredible.
Amazon updates those rankings hourly, so by the time I finish this blog (especially with my sweet little interruptions), it may have changed. Still, as a first-time author, it is an absolute thrill to know that something I've written is in the hands of more than fifteen thousand people. And to be at the top of any best"seller" category is something I wouldn't have dreamed of a few months ago.
Please pardon the Oscar speech. I'm humbled by the experience and grateful to everyone who has participated so far. My friends and family, as well as loads of Twitter followers, have been downloading and spreading the word with enthusiasm. I also want to send a particular shout of gratitude to my amazing mother-in-law. Neither of my parents is alive to share these little moments of triumph with me anymore, but she took the ball and ran with it last night. We were on the phone half the evening, and it was like watching election returns come in. There's a reason Hubs is such an amazing man. End of Oscar speech.
Not only have I been promoting my own book lately, I've been taking advantage of the opportunities these free promotions are offering. I have seen some really interesting books come across the Twitterverse for free -- independent authors promoting horror, mystery, suspense, sci-fi, fantasty, etc. And of course, contemporary fiction like mine. I love taking advantage of the opportunity to download some of these for lots of reasons.
For starters, it's a chance to support other authors, which is a no-brainer. My kindle is getting fat and happy and I will soon have enough free reading material to get me all the way through the summer. And maybe next summer, too. :)
But it also allows me the opportunity to download, risk-free, books from a variety of authors and genres -- maybe even those I wouldn't normally explore. I'm not a huge fantasy person, for example, but I do love a good story and I respect that sci-fi and fantasy authors have the enormous task of creating whole new worlds - with rules and places and languages - in addition to the usual writing tasks of plot, character and conflict.
I think it's good for writers to read lots in their own genre, to understand what works and what doesn't. Obviously, you probably aren't writing in a particular genre if you don't already like to read it. But other genres can teach us a good bit about the craft of writing: details, suspense, language, emotions... the list goes on. Good writing is good writing. I'm happy to find it and learn from it wherever I can. And if I get hooked on a suspense or fantasy series in the process, so much the better for me and my writing.
It's not clear what kind of impact the KDP Select program will have on reading and writing, but it certainly will be a venue for many independent authors to go from unknown to less unknown. The strength of our stories and honing of craft will have to carry us from there.
Again, thank you to everyone who has downloaded, forwarded, tweeted, and taken a chance on my little book. I hope you enjoy Marci's adventures and will be awaiting the sequel featuring Suzanne this summer. Feel free to join the email list if you want to be notified when it comes out.
PS - For those who are curious, the number of downloads is now up to 15939. Incredible.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Free Chick Lit eBook Promotion - April 3rd through 5th
If you are into great chick lit, need a spring break read,
or just want to help a newbie author get noticed, then this is your moment to
shine!
For the next three days, you can download THE MARRIAGE PACT
(http://www.amazon.com/The-Marriage-Pact-ebook/dp/B0055LH79Q/) for free on
amazon.com! It will be yours to keep, and you don't have to have a Kindle to
read it (you can read it on any device that is compatible with Kindle apps,
including iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android... even your PC or laptop).
THE MARRIAGE PACT is all about what happens when two college
friends make a pact to get married if they're both single at age 30. It's a
familiar promise, but what happens when 30 actually arrives? The story is told
from the perspective of Marci Thompson, a slightly awkward long-term temp who
is stuck in a secret relationship with her married boss. Marci's life in
Austin, Texas is a mess, and she's floored when her best guy friend, halfway
across the country in Georgia, reminds her of the pact they made long ago. It's
a funny, touching story that's had my female readers staying up all night to
finish it, and male readers confessing that they cried in public. I hope you'll
enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Please visit
http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Pact-M-J-Pullen/dp/1463600682/ and click on the
Kindle version to download. Then please spread the word to the chick-lit lovers
in your life (or 'women's contemporary fiction readers', if you want to be all
classy about it).
Here are some great reasons to take a moment to do this
today:
- Spring break is the perfect time for a fun, entertaining read that will leave you laughing, crying, and satisfied at the end.
- It's FREE. I've looked into it, and that's not very expensive.
- You can read this version of The Marriage Pact on Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or even your home PC.
- A great book is the perfect complement to a glass of wine. Or a bottle of Yoohoo.
- Downloading my book helps me rise in the amazon rankings, which will help other readers find my book, too. I also get a share of a special monthly fund based on number of downloads.
- On your PC, you can read an intriguing, funny love story while you pretend you're doing your taxes.
- Maybe you already own the paperback version of TMP, but want a digital version to read on a plane or loan to a friend.
- Helping an indie author gets noticed TOTALLY counts as your good deed for the day. It will certainly offset whatever you did in traffic this morning.
As always, thanks for reading!
[Updated April 4, 2012 to remove random weird formatting. Sorry!]
Monday, March 26, 2012
Stranger than Fiction (Parts Three and Four)
This is a continuation from the previous blog entry about a week I couldn't have made up if I'd tried. It will make more sense if you read that one first.
Part Three: Situation Comedy
After Tuesday's crisis, you would think I'd had enough drama for a good long while. Apparently, there is never enough drama in my life.
This storyline actually started at the very beginning of the week, when we turned our 2 1/2 year-old Little Monkey's doorknob around to lock from the outside. This was a last resort effort to help him learn to get to sleep on his own, without .5 mg of melatonin every night and a parental song-and-dance that ranges in length from 30 minutes to 2 1/2 hours.
He used to be a great sleeper until we transitioned him to a big-boy bed, about a month before Fozzie was born. Once he learned he could get out of bed and stake a claim on some of that attention his little brother was getting, we were done for. Nearly seven months later, we have become desperate enough to reclaim our evening peace that we have begun locking him in the room (after books and kisses and water and goodnight) and letting him work it out by himself. It actually did seem to help after a first night of chaos and destruction.
Monkey's doorknob is very old, one of many we've been meaning to replace upstairs. It's the kind that locks inside and has a key lock on the outside, for which we have never had the key. We put gobs of masking tape on the lock as a temporary solution the first day we moved in, planning to replace the doorknob ASAP. And here we are over a year later... Of course when we turned the knob around we removed the masking tape so we could lock it from the outside.
We were planning to meet some friends at the park Wednesday morning. I had just put Fozzie in his crib, and Monkey and I were discussing our differing opinions about whether I would be allowed to change his diaper and get him dressed before heading off to the shower myself. As a show of personal power, he attempted to lock me in his room, but I caught the door before it closed (whew!), unlocked it (I thought) and closed it behind us so our diaper-clothes battle wouldn't wake Fozzie up in the next room. When he was dressed and ready, I headed out of the room to get a quick shower.
I headed out of the room. Out of the -- oh, no. Are you kidding me?
It was nine o'clock in the morning. Hubs had gone to work for the day and was not expecting to hear from us until at least noon for lunch, and probably wouldn't get worried until one or later since he knew we were going to the park. Fozzie would be asleep in his crib in the next room for an hour and a half, tops. My phone was downstairs, along with anything else remotely useful. We'd done a great job childproofing the room - no tools, keys, wire hangers, or blunt objects in sight. Hell, I wasn't even wearing a bra.
Locked in a second-story bedroom with nothing but an energetic toddler and a few toys and books. Ho-ly crap.
It was easier not to freak out since the previous day's adventures had really put things in perspective, and I told myself that even in the worst case we'd all be hungry and miserable but safe. (Deep down, though, I didn't know how long I could listen to Fozzie cry when he woke up without tearing through the wall to get to him).
Monkey was calm and brave through the whole thing. He stood on his bed next to me and we shouted out the window, hoping to attract the attention of neighbors, walkers and/or passing cars. Every time a car would pass, we'd call out fruitlessly for help, and then he'd look at me and say, "Oh, well!" Can you tell we've been practicing handling disappointment?
We were lucky that it was cool outside and not raining, or we might seriously have been stuck there until Hubs came home after work. But a passing jogger - our Good Samaritan - heard us and came up the driveway to help. He didn't have a cell phone, but he was very nice and tried to break into our house. No luck. He went across the street to my neighbor who works from home, but she was understandably hesitant to open the door to a strange man in jogging clothes. So, he took off jogging back to his house a few neighborhoods away and promised to return with a phone as soon as he could.
For the next little while, Monkey and I played with his trains and waited. After a little bit had passed, the slight possibility occurred to me that maybe this guy would get home, realize he was late for work or something, and think I'm sure they've already flagged down someone else by now. So I went back to the window, just in time to see another neighbor pull up in their driveway caddy-cornered to ours.
We don't know these neighbors well at all, but we did attempt to introduce ourselves when we first moved into the neighborhood and were greeted somewhat brusquely. Still, in an emergency they'd respond, right? We shouted to them for help and, when they turned in our direction, I tried to yell out the explanation of what we needed. They turned and headed toward the door. "No! Wait!" I yelled, "I need to borrow a phone - we're trapped in my child's bedroom!" They looked at me for another long minute, went inside and closed the door.
Fortunately for us, not everyone is so jaded, and the Good Samaritan returned with his car and a phone. He called Hubs for me, explained what was going on, and chatted with us for a minute to make sure everything was okay before heading off. It turns out we have a mutual acquaintance who lives in his neighborhood, so we are going to try to track him down to thank him properly. He also reported that on his way home, he tried to flag down several people in cars to get help to us faster, but no one would stop for him.
In any case, Hubs was home in a few minutes to release us and appropriately, to laugh at me. Crisis #2 of the week brought safely to an end.
Part Four: Friends and Neighbors
When I was a little girl my mom and the other women in the neighborhood spent more time in one another's kitchens than they did in their own. We kids flowed freely back and forth between the houses and up and down the streets. We knew which neighbors would let you cut through their yards and which didn't. We knew who would buy candy bars for the school fundraiser and who wouldn't. We knew their pets' names, their kids' names, their cars. We had friends in other places, too, but that little community was the center of our world. It wasn't pleasant all the time, we had our issues, but we knew each other.
Nowadays I feel more connected to people on Facebook than I do those who live within a mile radius of my house. I can tell you what someone in another state who I haven't seen in person for more than two decades had for dinner last night, but I couldn't tell you the name of the guy who turned his back on me when I was locked upstairs. We've lived here for a year and a half, fifty yards away from his front door.
Maybe this is a function of the age of our neighborhood and the fact that it's a relatively busy residential street. But I can't help but notice that more of us are paring down our relationships to the known quantities and easy connections. The friends we know through other friends, the people we've found on pinterest. Texting, status updates, blogging (ahem). We can gather and send information and feel 'connected' without having to actually connect at all.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Luddite. I love technology and social media (insofar as I can keep up with it) and I'll continue to use it. But it seems to me that we are taking fewer and fewer social risks as a culture, choosing the perceived safety of our computer screens rather than braving the challenge of getting to know new people. We lock away 'Others' and the world outside.
I don't pretend to know all the facts of the Trayvon Martin shooting, nor do I even remotely compare my scary experience last week with the hell that his parents are going through. What I do know is that while I got relief after forty minutes, Trayvon Martin's parents have no relief or justice in sight. Their unarmed child was murdered by someone who was supposed to be the neighborhood watch captain. He was supposed to be looking out for the safety of all the children in their neighborhood, and instead he let baseless fear turn him into a perpetrator himself. I can't help but wonder how that situation might've ended differently if the 'neighborhood watch' had focused more on bringing neighbors together and less on rooting out potential villains.
This probably sounds weird, coming from someone who had a scary experience with the stranger I hired to care for my child. Part of me wants to quit my job and stay home so that I never have to trust anyone else with his safety again. But I believe we do not make ourselves safer by disconnecting from 'Others' or 'Unknowns.' Ours is a global village, and it's time we all took responsibility for getting to know our neighbors. In the flesh, warts and all.
Losing our real, live, imperfect connection with others means losing our village, along with the fundamental thing that makes us human. And that is dangerous.
Part Three: Situation Comedy
After Tuesday's crisis, you would think I'd had enough drama for a good long while. Apparently, there is never enough drama in my life.
This storyline actually started at the very beginning of the week, when we turned our 2 1/2 year-old Little Monkey's doorknob around to lock from the outside. This was a last resort effort to help him learn to get to sleep on his own, without .5 mg of melatonin every night and a parental song-and-dance that ranges in length from 30 minutes to 2 1/2 hours.
He used to be a great sleeper until we transitioned him to a big-boy bed, about a month before Fozzie was born. Once he learned he could get out of bed and stake a claim on some of that attention his little brother was getting, we were done for. Nearly seven months later, we have become desperate enough to reclaim our evening peace that we have begun locking him in the room (after books and kisses and water and goodnight) and letting him work it out by himself. It actually did seem to help after a first night of chaos and destruction.
Monkey's doorknob is very old, one of many we've been meaning to replace upstairs. It's the kind that locks inside and has a key lock on the outside, for which we have never had the key. We put gobs of masking tape on the lock as a temporary solution the first day we moved in, planning to replace the doorknob ASAP. And here we are over a year later... Of course when we turned the knob around we removed the masking tape so we could lock it from the outside.
We were planning to meet some friends at the park Wednesday morning. I had just put Fozzie in his crib, and Monkey and I were discussing our differing opinions about whether I would be allowed to change his diaper and get him dressed before heading off to the shower myself. As a show of personal power, he attempted to lock me in his room, but I caught the door before it closed (whew!), unlocked it (I thought) and closed it behind us so our diaper-clothes battle wouldn't wake Fozzie up in the next room. When he was dressed and ready, I headed out of the room to get a quick shower.
I headed out of the room. Out of the -- oh, no. Are you kidding me?
It was nine o'clock in the morning. Hubs had gone to work for the day and was not expecting to hear from us until at least noon for lunch, and probably wouldn't get worried until one or later since he knew we were going to the park. Fozzie would be asleep in his crib in the next room for an hour and a half, tops. My phone was downstairs, along with anything else remotely useful. We'd done a great job childproofing the room - no tools, keys, wire hangers, or blunt objects in sight. Hell, I wasn't even wearing a bra.
Locked in a second-story bedroom with nothing but an energetic toddler and a few toys and books. Ho-ly crap.
It was easier not to freak out since the previous day's adventures had really put things in perspective, and I told myself that even in the worst case we'd all be hungry and miserable but safe. (Deep down, though, I didn't know how long I could listen to Fozzie cry when he woke up without tearing through the wall to get to him).
Monkey was calm and brave through the whole thing. He stood on his bed next to me and we shouted out the window, hoping to attract the attention of neighbors, walkers and/or passing cars. Every time a car would pass, we'd call out fruitlessly for help, and then he'd look at me and say, "Oh, well!" Can you tell we've been practicing handling disappointment?
We were lucky that it was cool outside and not raining, or we might seriously have been stuck there until Hubs came home after work. But a passing jogger - our Good Samaritan - heard us and came up the driveway to help. He didn't have a cell phone, but he was very nice and tried to break into our house. No luck. He went across the street to my neighbor who works from home, but she was understandably hesitant to open the door to a strange man in jogging clothes. So, he took off jogging back to his house a few neighborhoods away and promised to return with a phone as soon as he could.
For the next little while, Monkey and I played with his trains and waited. After a little bit had passed, the slight possibility occurred to me that maybe this guy would get home, realize he was late for work or something, and think I'm sure they've already flagged down someone else by now. So I went back to the window, just in time to see another neighbor pull up in their driveway caddy-cornered to ours.
We don't know these neighbors well at all, but we did attempt to introduce ourselves when we first moved into the neighborhood and were greeted somewhat brusquely. Still, in an emergency they'd respond, right? We shouted to them for help and, when they turned in our direction, I tried to yell out the explanation of what we needed. They turned and headed toward the door. "No! Wait!" I yelled, "I need to borrow a phone - we're trapped in my child's bedroom!" They looked at me for another long minute, went inside and closed the door.
Fortunately for us, not everyone is so jaded, and the Good Samaritan returned with his car and a phone. He called Hubs for me, explained what was going on, and chatted with us for a minute to make sure everything was okay before heading off. It turns out we have a mutual acquaintance who lives in his neighborhood, so we are going to try to track him down to thank him properly. He also reported that on his way home, he tried to flag down several people in cars to get help to us faster, but no one would stop for him.
In any case, Hubs was home in a few minutes to release us and appropriately, to laugh at me. Crisis #2 of the week brought safely to an end.
Part Four: Friends and Neighbors
When I was a little girl my mom and the other women in the neighborhood spent more time in one another's kitchens than they did in their own. We kids flowed freely back and forth between the houses and up and down the streets. We knew which neighbors would let you cut through their yards and which didn't. We knew who would buy candy bars for the school fundraiser and who wouldn't. We knew their pets' names, their kids' names, their cars. We had friends in other places, too, but that little community was the center of our world. It wasn't pleasant all the time, we had our issues, but we knew each other.
Nowadays I feel more connected to people on Facebook than I do those who live within a mile radius of my house. I can tell you what someone in another state who I haven't seen in person for more than two decades had for dinner last night, but I couldn't tell you the name of the guy who turned his back on me when I was locked upstairs. We've lived here for a year and a half, fifty yards away from his front door.
Maybe this is a function of the age of our neighborhood and the fact that it's a relatively busy residential street. But I can't help but notice that more of us are paring down our relationships to the known quantities and easy connections. The friends we know through other friends, the people we've found on pinterest. Texting, status updates, blogging (ahem). We can gather and send information and feel 'connected' without having to actually connect at all.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Luddite. I love technology and social media (insofar as I can keep up with it) and I'll continue to use it. But it seems to me that we are taking fewer and fewer social risks as a culture, choosing the perceived safety of our computer screens rather than braving the challenge of getting to know new people. We lock away 'Others' and the world outside.
I don't pretend to know all the facts of the Trayvon Martin shooting, nor do I even remotely compare my scary experience last week with the hell that his parents are going through. What I do know is that while I got relief after forty minutes, Trayvon Martin's parents have no relief or justice in sight. Their unarmed child was murdered by someone who was supposed to be the neighborhood watch captain. He was supposed to be looking out for the safety of all the children in their neighborhood, and instead he let baseless fear turn him into a perpetrator himself. I can't help but wonder how that situation might've ended differently if the 'neighborhood watch' had focused more on bringing neighbors together and less on rooting out potential villains.
This probably sounds weird, coming from someone who had a scary experience with the stranger I hired to care for my child. Part of me wants to quit my job and stay home so that I never have to trust anyone else with his safety again. But I believe we do not make ourselves safer by disconnecting from 'Others' or 'Unknowns.' Ours is a global village, and it's time we all took responsibility for getting to know our neighbors. In the flesh, warts and all.
Losing our real, live, imperfect connection with others means losing our village, along with the fundamental thing that makes us human. And that is dangerous.
Friday, March 23, 2012
SERIOUSLY Stranger Than Fiction (Parts One and Two)
Part One: Prayer
I'll be honest: prayer has never been a big thing for me. I spent most of my formative years as a staunch agnostic (yes, that probably is an oxymoron -- decidedly undecided). For many more years I was a kind of spiritual wanderer, searching for a home. Now that I'm happily settled into my identity as a Jew, I like to concentrate on prayers of gratitude and the ritual prayers that surround my heart during Shabbat and holiday services like comfortable old sweaters.
I have never been one to consult the Almighty on big decisions -- at least not consciously -- nor do I tend to pray for help when I'm in trouble. It's just not my style. Sometimes I like to think that G-d knows this about me and maybe even finds it amusing, the way I do when my two and a half year old is trying to jump high enough to reach the ceiling by himself.
This week, however, has been a different story.
Even though I work very hard to keep good emotional boundaries, sometimes my professional life affects me personally. I'm human after all. In the past couple of weeks, I have taken on one of the most challenging and heart-wrenching cases I've ever worked with, a child (and family) suffering so cruelly from OCD that it hurts my heart.
I can't say more about that for fear of compromising confidentiality, but suffice it to say I caught myself saying a prayer this week, that I would be able to help this family in some small way and would not add to their frustrations by being useless.
Part Two: Horror Film
Those thoughts, however, were eclipsed by my own crisis on Tuesday. We had a new part-time nanny, who had been with us for about three weeks (2 days/week). Though we adored her at first and my almost seven-month-old seemed to love her, too, things just didn't seem right after the first few days. There was nothing glaringly wrong, just little things that didn't quite add up. Things that made hubs and me just a touch concerned about her personal life and overall stability. I had tried addressing our concerns with her, and she responded appropriately, but I still wasn't 100% satisfied.
That day I was on my way to lunch and had a sudden impulse to drive by the house, just to make sure everything was okay. As our house came into view, time slowed to a crawl and my brain struggled to process the fact that the sitter's car was not in the driveway (she did not have permission to take little Fozzie Bear anywhere except on walks, and I knew she didn't have a car seat base installed in her vehicle).
I slammed the car into park and ran inside, frantically looking for a note or some other indication of where she might be. My son, the diaper bag, and the carrier part of the car seat were all missing. Everything else was in place. Panic rising, I called the nanny from both my cell phone and the house phone. She didn't answer.
I called 911. The operator took my name, address, the nanny's name, a description of the car, etc. I forced myself to be calm while giving her the information. Only when she asked me to describe my son and what he was wearing when I saw him last did my voice break, threatening to bubble over in suppressed fear. Visions of an Amber Alert with my child's name and information raced through my mind.
I paced wildly and willed myself not to vomit, trying to keep the horrifying possibilities at bay. The operator asked if I had any reason to be suspicious of the nanny, and I gave her what information I had, including some things that weren't necessarily incriminating, but had given me pause. Some of those I won't mention here.
But I knew she was having financial difficulties. I knew she had a boyfriend (and what sounded like a rather tumultuous relationship). I didn't know his name or the kind of car he drove, or what he did for a living. I knew she was from out of state, but I didn't know the names or locations of friends and family of hers who lived in the area. Why hadn't I asked more questions? The operator said she would send a patrol car.
I called my husband to come home using the other phone while the operator dispatched the unit to our house. She said that I could hang up and wait for the officer, but I couldn't bear the thought of being alone with my thoughts, so she stayed on the line with me until he arrived.
The next half hour was far and away the worst of my life. Talking to the officers, leading them around the house, continuing to call and text the nanny. Watching my husband pull into the driveway on two wheels and immediately begin reciting everything he knew about the nanny and her car. And, praying as I never have before that my child would be okay.
It was 31 minutes between the time I called my husband and the time the nanny finally returned his frantic calls to say she was on her way back with the baby. Hubs made her stay on the phone with him the entire time and continually report her location to make sure it made sense to him and that she was headed directly back. [Have I mentioned that I married the most amazing, brilliant man?] Not until she was in view of our house did he inform her that the police were there. All told, I would guess about 40 minutes elapsed between the time I discovered Fozzie missing and the time he was back safely in my arms.
The police officers, who were very kind to me, seemed mildly concerned that some kind of violence might erupt when the nanny got back (and trust me, gouging her eyes out did cross my mind); but once she was back all I wanted to do was hold my baby boy and never let him go. I also had to fight the urge to go pick up Monkey from school three hours early and never let him go, either.
Sanity prevailed on all fronts, however, and I was able to calmly listen to the nanny's pathetic-even-if-true explanation for her ridiculous and irresponsible behavior, and then just as calmly tell her to please take a few minutes to gather her things because she would not be back. There were so many bad decisions, from leaving the house in the first place to not calling me or leaving a note, to putting the carrier in the car without its base, to not keeping her phone on her while she was gone. And that's all if I believed her story about the supposed emergency that took her away.
The cops took her information/driver's license and filed a report, but did not ask us if we wanted to press charges and -- a little surprisingly -- did not give her a ticket for the car seat violation. I think they were just glad the incident was resolved, and I was too relieved to care either. After checking him over carefully and kissing him like crazy, I canceled the rest of my day and put an exhausted and disoriented Fozzie down for a nap.
My mother-in-law was kind enough to drive up from Macon to be with me -- and to get her hands on the little guy -- for the rest of the afternoon. The five of us went out for dinner after school/work, and the day ended far better than I could've imagined at noon.
It's funny, if I hadn't been through that experience, I think what happened the next morning might've thrown me for a serious loop....
Stay tuned!
I'll be honest: prayer has never been a big thing for me. I spent most of my formative years as a staunch agnostic (yes, that probably is an oxymoron -- decidedly undecided). For many more years I was a kind of spiritual wanderer, searching for a home. Now that I'm happily settled into my identity as a Jew, I like to concentrate on prayers of gratitude and the ritual prayers that surround my heart during Shabbat and holiday services like comfortable old sweaters.
I have never been one to consult the Almighty on big decisions -- at least not consciously -- nor do I tend to pray for help when I'm in trouble. It's just not my style. Sometimes I like to think that G-d knows this about me and maybe even finds it amusing, the way I do when my two and a half year old is trying to jump high enough to reach the ceiling by himself.
This week, however, has been a different story.
Even though I work very hard to keep good emotional boundaries, sometimes my professional life affects me personally. I'm human after all. In the past couple of weeks, I have taken on one of the most challenging and heart-wrenching cases I've ever worked with, a child (and family) suffering so cruelly from OCD that it hurts my heart.
I can't say more about that for fear of compromising confidentiality, but suffice it to say I caught myself saying a prayer this week, that I would be able to help this family in some small way and would not add to their frustrations by being useless.
Part Two: Horror Film
Those thoughts, however, were eclipsed by my own crisis on Tuesday. We had a new part-time nanny, who had been with us for about three weeks (2 days/week). Though we adored her at first and my almost seven-month-old seemed to love her, too, things just didn't seem right after the first few days. There was nothing glaringly wrong, just little things that didn't quite add up. Things that made hubs and me just a touch concerned about her personal life and overall stability. I had tried addressing our concerns with her, and she responded appropriately, but I still wasn't 100% satisfied.
That day I was on my way to lunch and had a sudden impulse to drive by the house, just to make sure everything was okay. As our house came into view, time slowed to a crawl and my brain struggled to process the fact that the sitter's car was not in the driveway (she did not have permission to take little Fozzie Bear anywhere except on walks, and I knew she didn't have a car seat base installed in her vehicle).
I slammed the car into park and ran inside, frantically looking for a note or some other indication of where she might be. My son, the diaper bag, and the carrier part of the car seat were all missing. Everything else was in place. Panic rising, I called the nanny from both my cell phone and the house phone. She didn't answer.
I called 911. The operator took my name, address, the nanny's name, a description of the car, etc. I forced myself to be calm while giving her the information. Only when she asked me to describe my son and what he was wearing when I saw him last did my voice break, threatening to bubble over in suppressed fear. Visions of an Amber Alert with my child's name and information raced through my mind.
I paced wildly and willed myself not to vomit, trying to keep the horrifying possibilities at bay. The operator asked if I had any reason to be suspicious of the nanny, and I gave her what information I had, including some things that weren't necessarily incriminating, but had given me pause. Some of those I won't mention here.
But I knew she was having financial difficulties. I knew she had a boyfriend (and what sounded like a rather tumultuous relationship). I didn't know his name or the kind of car he drove, or what he did for a living. I knew she was from out of state, but I didn't know the names or locations of friends and family of hers who lived in the area. Why hadn't I asked more questions? The operator said she would send a patrol car.
I called my husband to come home using the other phone while the operator dispatched the unit to our house. She said that I could hang up and wait for the officer, but I couldn't bear the thought of being alone with my thoughts, so she stayed on the line with me until he arrived.
The next half hour was far and away the worst of my life. Talking to the officers, leading them around the house, continuing to call and text the nanny. Watching my husband pull into the driveway on two wheels and immediately begin reciting everything he knew about the nanny and her car. And, praying as I never have before that my child would be okay.
It was 31 minutes between the time I called my husband and the time the nanny finally returned his frantic calls to say she was on her way back with the baby. Hubs made her stay on the phone with him the entire time and continually report her location to make sure it made sense to him and that she was headed directly back. [Have I mentioned that I married the most amazing, brilliant man?] Not until she was in view of our house did he inform her that the police were there. All told, I would guess about 40 minutes elapsed between the time I discovered Fozzie missing and the time he was back safely in my arms.
The police officers, who were very kind to me, seemed mildly concerned that some kind of violence might erupt when the nanny got back (and trust me, gouging her eyes out did cross my mind); but once she was back all I wanted to do was hold my baby boy and never let him go. I also had to fight the urge to go pick up Monkey from school three hours early and never let him go, either.
Sanity prevailed on all fronts, however, and I was able to calmly listen to the nanny's pathetic-even-if-true explanation for her ridiculous and irresponsible behavior, and then just as calmly tell her to please take a few minutes to gather her things because she would not be back. There were so many bad decisions, from leaving the house in the first place to not calling me or leaving a note, to putting the carrier in the car without its base, to not keeping her phone on her while she was gone. And that's all if I believed her story about the supposed emergency that took her away.
The cops took her information/driver's license and filed a report, but did not ask us if we wanted to press charges and -- a little surprisingly -- did not give her a ticket for the car seat violation. I think they were just glad the incident was resolved, and I was too relieved to care either. After checking him over carefully and kissing him like crazy, I canceled the rest of my day and put an exhausted and disoriented Fozzie down for a nap.
My mother-in-law was kind enough to drive up from Macon to be with me -- and to get her hands on the little guy -- for the rest of the afternoon. The five of us went out for dinner after school/work, and the day ended far better than I could've imagined at noon.
It's funny, if I hadn't been through that experience, I think what happened the next morning might've thrown me for a serious loop....
Stay tuned!
Friday, March 16, 2012
Be a Force for Good: Review a Book Today!
I've written before about my experience with self-publishing and the changes in the publishing industry. The subject continues to fascinate me as a reader and a writer. The world of books is in flux, to say the least, and readers are presented with an overwhelming array of choices. Hardback and paperback, sure. Familiar authors, yes. But now, thanks to the low cost of entry, there are ebooks available from literally thousands of independent, self-published authors in every genre imaginable.
Readers with Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and even smartphones can choose from just about any book in the universe and get it the instant they want it. Many tried and true authors have ebooks available through traditional publishers, and often those range from $10-$14. Because of the costs built into the "legacy" publishing system, as author Joe Konrath calls it, these prices are not that different from paperback versions of the same books.
We indie authors, however, are free to be more flexible with our pricing because we don't have all the overhead of the Big Guys. We also don't have the polished editing or the marketing machine of the Big Guys, so the low price is an incentive for readers to sample what we're offering. We know you're taking a chance when you buy a book from an indie author, and believe me we're grateful. I think most of us put a tremendous effort into making sure you don't regret the decision to choose our books.
But with so many options in the marketplace, how are readers supposed to choose their next book? Here's the part where you come in. Never before have book reviews by average people been so powerful or so important. It used to be that a staff member at the New York Times (or Oprah) told us all what to read, and their opinions could make or break an author. These days, such high publicity can still make a book, but thanks to online review systems, it can't always break it.
Readers don't have to wait for a book to gain widespread distribution or critical acclaim to decide whether they want to read it. They can find books on specialty sites, genre-specific chat rooms, review blogs, etc. And they can turn to their fellow readers for all the information they need to decide whether to purchase a book. That's you!
Star ratings are great because they give an at-a-glance view of the public's overall opinion. The numbers next to the rating are an indication of how accurate the star ratings are -- the more people have rated a book, the more a reader can trust that the book really does deserve 4.5 stars. If you're short on time, doing a stars-only rating is great. But if you have a few seconds to add your reasoning for the rating with a review, it really helps potential readers trying to make a decision. It also helps authors connect with the right audiences, and even improve their work for next time.
You don't have to be a book junkie or seasoned critic to write a great book review. And you certainly don't have to go on for paragraphs about symbolism and allegory. Just say in a few sentences what you liked (and didn't) about the book. Positive or negative, the best reviews are specific and honest. If you loved it, what did you love about it? If not, why not? Was it badly written, or just not your cup of tea? This information will help other readers decide whether they want to give it a shot or keep browsing.
As an author, I really appreciate honest reviews because they let me to see what worked and what didn't in my inaugural effort as a novelist. I like that they help readers who would appreciate what I've written to find it. Readers who might not enjoy my style, on the other hand, will not waste their money and end up resenting me for it. It's a win-win-win!
So exercise your reader power today! If you've read a book lately and have an opinion, please take a minute to visit the site where you bought it and rate it for others. You'll be playing a valuable role in the publishing process and helping authors you enjoy get noticed.
And if said book just happens to be The Marriage Pact, well that's even better. :)
PS - For those who have read TMP, or are considering it, you might enjoy this independent review I stumbled across this week. It's a great website, too!
Readers with Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and even smartphones can choose from just about any book in the universe and get it the instant they want it. Many tried and true authors have ebooks available through traditional publishers, and often those range from $10-$14. Because of the costs built into the "legacy" publishing system, as author Joe Konrath calls it, these prices are not that different from paperback versions of the same books.
We indie authors, however, are free to be more flexible with our pricing because we don't have all the overhead of the Big Guys. We also don't have the polished editing or the marketing machine of the Big Guys, so the low price is an incentive for readers to sample what we're offering. We know you're taking a chance when you buy a book from an indie author, and believe me we're grateful. I think most of us put a tremendous effort into making sure you don't regret the decision to choose our books.
But with so many options in the marketplace, how are readers supposed to choose their next book? Here's the part where you come in. Never before have book reviews by average people been so powerful or so important. It used to be that a staff member at the New York Times (or Oprah) told us all what to read, and their opinions could make or break an author. These days, such high publicity can still make a book, but thanks to online review systems, it can't always break it.
Readers don't have to wait for a book to gain widespread distribution or critical acclaim to decide whether they want to read it. They can find books on specialty sites, genre-specific chat rooms, review blogs, etc. And they can turn to their fellow readers for all the information they need to decide whether to purchase a book. That's you!
Star ratings are great because they give an at-a-glance view of the public's overall opinion. The numbers next to the rating are an indication of how accurate the star ratings are -- the more people have rated a book, the more a reader can trust that the book really does deserve 4.5 stars. If you're short on time, doing a stars-only rating is great. But if you have a few seconds to add your reasoning for the rating with a review, it really helps potential readers trying to make a decision. It also helps authors connect with the right audiences, and even improve their work for next time.
You don't have to be a book junkie or seasoned critic to write a great book review. And you certainly don't have to go on for paragraphs about symbolism and allegory. Just say in a few sentences what you liked (and didn't) about the book. Positive or negative, the best reviews are specific and honest. If you loved it, what did you love about it? If not, why not? Was it badly written, or just not your cup of tea? This information will help other readers decide whether they want to give it a shot or keep browsing.
As an author, I really appreciate honest reviews because they let me to see what worked and what didn't in my inaugural effort as a novelist. I like that they help readers who would appreciate what I've written to find it. Readers who might not enjoy my style, on the other hand, will not waste their money and end up resenting me for it. It's a win-win-win!
So exercise your reader power today! If you've read a book lately and have an opinion, please take a minute to visit the site where you bought it and rate it for others. You'll be playing a valuable role in the publishing process and helping authors you enjoy get noticed.
And if said book just happens to be The Marriage Pact, well that's even better. :)
PS - For those who have read TMP, or are considering it, you might enjoy this independent review I stumbled across this week. It's a great website, too!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Seeds
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| Front Field |
For today's blog, I'm including some pictures from our family farm in South Georgia. These were taken back in December 2008. I have always loved the farm, and always struggled with what it represents.
The farm has been in our family since the late 1800's. It's part of who I am, and memories of my childhood, parents and grandparents will always echo across its fields and blow through its orchards. On the other hand, I'm increasingly aware that farm life in rural South Georgia is far, far removed from my own practical reality in suburban Atlanta. Now that my Dad is gone, the question of what will eventually happen to his childhood home looms in the distance. Like everything else in life, there are hard decisions to make and countless factors to weigh out - some tangible, some not. I'm glad it's not something we have to decide right away.
I also wanted to share these pictures because they remind me of some of the earliest moments I knew I wanted to be a writer. Was I inspired by the beauty and tranquility of a simpler time? Honestly, no.
More often than not, time at the farm meant long stretches of boredom in which my brother and I were forced to entertain ourselves in ways that sound a lot like a bad country song. We went fishing, which was always a highlight and lots of fun. We rode our bikes along the dirt roads (once I broke my ankle doing that), we tossed the ball around. We picked up pecans for my grandmother at the bargain price of 50 cents per 5-gallon bucket. I tried rather pathetically to learn to sew and cross-stitch (don't tell anyone, but my brother was better than I at both).
It was a simpler existence in many ways, but I didn't always appreciate it. I begged to go to the closest mall or the movies -- both 40 miles away -- or even better, 240 miles away to where my friends were presumably enjoying more traditional spring break or summer vacation pursuits. After all the begging and pleading, after I'd worn out fishing and bike-riding and the TWO channels the ancient TV would pick up, do you know what I most often did? I wrote. And read. I read almost the entire Reader's Digest collection of abridged literature (hey, you work with what you have) and hundreds of entries in the World Book encyclopedias. And my favorite, my great-aunt Eunice's ancient volume of 1,000 Poems for Children.
In addition to the farm, my grandparents owned a photography and framing studio in town, where I 'worked' for a week or two just about every summer from the time I was eight or nine. My absolute favorite thing to do there? Play on their old-school typewriter. I'd spend hours at it - whenever they would let me - writing poetry, pining over whatever boy was ignoring me at the time, composing over-dramatic letters to my friends, piddling with short stories.
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| The Pond |
The truth is, as much as I resented the isolation and boredom, that unstructured time helped me to figure out what I liked to do. I felt I had no control back then, but it allowed me to experiment with writing and fall in love with books as friends. Now that I've made all my grown-up choices, and live a life with almost no time to myself, it's easy to look back nostalgically on the strange freedom afforded by what felt like captivity. Funny how easy it is to long for the past or yearn for the future. Enjoying the present is always a challenge.
As for the farm, I don't know what its fate will be. I would love to think my boys will have a chance to experience the place where my Dad and Grandfather grew up, and to have opportunities to play in the dirt and see firsthand where food comes from. On the other hand, I realize that our life as a family has to start in the place we are now. We have to grow where we are planted. I know I, at least, am not cut out for farming life anytime soon.
Whatever we do, I hope that I can give my kids (and myself) the gift of unstructured time to play, explore, and maybe even a chance to fight off boredom now and then. It's hard, with TV and internet and phones and soccer practice and the push to be constantly connected to everyone we've ever known and all the people they know, too... It seems like it would take both a tremendous effort and a long-term power outage just to get bored in the first place. Still, if it helps my kids figure out who they are and connect more with themselves and each other, maybe it's worth it.
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