Tag Archives: author

I Repeat, It’s Redundant

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social-media-cube

Do We Need All This SM?

I’ve blogged about how I feel overwhelmed at times with Social Media (SM). I’ve also been thinking about how much of it is actually redundant. We build a nice website, maybe with an RSS feed or comment section on our blog page, and we add to that mix more SM than we have time for in our daily lives because we want everyone (or anyone) reading our books. If you can visit an author’s FB page and like it, do you also need to visit the website, or vice versa? Or the Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, or Twitter accounts? What’s different? What’s not?

I question the necessity of having more than a few good SM accounts. I understand we’re not all on the same SM so picking those that do the most good for you and your business (because writing is a business, if you’re selling your work) is smart. Which SM do you really need? Do you need to be on ALL of them? Only you can know the answer, after researching how you want to market yourself and your work. Factors in that decision might be age, gender, or cultural, for example; these are your target demographics and you need to know whom they are and where to find them on SM. Do you believe that all your fans (readers) are on the same SM as you?

How much of your SM is redundant and taking away from the quality of your life? Or more importantly, your writing time? (Really, how many pictures or videos of cute puppies or kitties can you get excited about?)

Marketing, Branding, Promotion, and SM

Marketing our work and our selves is important and necessary as authors. A SM-savvy person can utilize SM to its fullest capacity, if you do the homework. The rest live with a basic marketing plan and will (eventually) work their way up to the one that provides the most benefits (more sales, increased exposure, better branding, etc.). It all depends on what you want to achieve (fame, fortune, notoriety, bestseller lists, be besties with your readers, etc.) and the steps you must take to achieve it.

In a recent blog by USA Today bestselling author Kristen Lamb wrote “ads without an established relationship (platform and brand) don’t work.” She’s right. And neither does spamming everyone on your LI list (or any SM list) with a link to your book (like I did years ago; lesson learned). You need to establish yourself (brand) before readers begin lining up to buy your books; you have to build the excitement. Be selective about which SM works best for you (read: what is my target audience and where are they), build your platform on those SM and work from there. Are you on YouTube or other video sites? Or do you prefer sites where you communicate only via texting/comments? You need to know what you’re comfortable with; you also need to understand that you can’t spread yourself so thin (be everywhere on all SM) and expect to build trust in your brand (you) and your product (books) if you don’t offer something unique on each one.

Promotion is nice but it’s a long way from establishing and maintaining that critical relationship with your readers/fans. If you can tie your name (brand) with your book (marketing) with an emotional experience, then according to Kristen Lamb, you’ve got a winning combination. (Think Harley-Davidson or Geico) What emotional experience will readers gain from reading your work?  

Mix Up Your SM Options

Let’s do some math:

Website/blog + POD publishing site (Lulu, Ingram, Book Baby, etc.) + Facebook + Twitter + Instagram + LinkedIn + Snapchat + YouTube + Social Media2 = Redundant; same information in too many places; reduce the load unless you can offer something unique on each of them

Here’s my math:

Website/blog + Facebook + Lulu Press + radio interviews + car signage (I often drive to areas far from home; great advertising on the highway) = global distribution (includes Amazon, B&N, Ingram, and many others) = minimalist approach but smart, affordable, and a good start (last year I began earning royalties every month so now I can up my game a bit)

Here’s another option:

Website/blog + Lulu Press + Facebook groups (literary) + Twitter + Goodreads + guest blogging + radio interviews = easy to maintain, affordable approach

And another:

Website/blog + Ingram (this gets your book into physical locations) + Twitter + YouTube + Goodreads + author podcast = easy to maintain, offers fans text, video, and recorded/live access to you

Consolidate Your SM

How many author pages do you need (Amazon, KDP, Smashwords, B&N, etc.)? Too many ‘author pages’ can become difficult to keep track of (again, lesson learned), especially when you need to update personal or book information. Keep it simple and manageable.

Ask yourself: What do I want from SM? More book sales, people reading my blogs, connecting more with my fans? Do you want/need to be rich and famous or are you happy with the fact that some, but not all, folks are reading your works? Do the math; see what works, what’s in your budget.

Avoid redundancy; stay original.

Then repeat (for your next masterpiece).

Responsibility

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crowdfunding1

Something has been nagging at me since I watched the news the other night – the concept of crowdfunding. It’s strange to me that it has become acceptable for so many people, including writers and authors-to-be, to ask for free money from strangers to help with a book/situation/health condition. (I get asking for help with disaster relief.) But is that money truly free? No. You have a responsibility to spend that money on what you campaigned for and nothing else (or you might end up in legal trouble). I don’t understand how people  can ask for money to help publish a book, then ask them to spend more money to buy the book. 

There are so many affordable and even free options out there; you just have to do the research: Lulu Press, Amazon KDP, Lightning Source (Ingram), just to name a few; these are great options. Check their criteria to see which one fits your needs best. I’ve always used Lulu Press and have had good results. They pay me on time every month, without a hitch. To get your book into bookstores, libraries  and other public venues, Ingram Spark is the way to go. There are a few up front expenses that you must budget for: book cover (eBook or hard copy), editing (developmental or finishing touches), and layout. And there are so many options out there for these, you certainly can find what you need to fit your budget.

On the news the other evening, there was a blurb about a new website, GoFraudMe. Its purpose is to expose fraudulent crowdfunding campaigns, mainly on GoFundMe. I searched through the site and read about several campaigns where people have fraudulently collected a lot of money (one was for over $400K for a homeless guy who never saw the money) and spent it NOT on the issue of the campaign or just plain faked the health issue or situation. Luckily, the folks at GoFraudMe are bringing these cases to law enforcement and many are or have been charged with the crime of fraud, some as felonies. So be careful where you donate your money. 

That said,  if you have a campaign to help with publishing your book, make sure that money only goes towards publishing and keep receipts/details of your expenses. I’m thinking that because others have paid for the publishing and other miscellaneous expenses (editing, layout, etc.), that you cannot claim them on your federal taxes, as these were not paid for with your money. Might want to check with a tax specialist to be sure, or call the IRS, to be safe. 

I did read about a new crowdfunding option to publish one’s books on one of the author blogs I follow. A new site where crowdfunding campaigns can lead to a publishing contract is Inkshares. This is a legitimate site where, if you navigate their process successfully, you can land a publishing contract. After a quick read, I surmised that this might be a more plausible option; they will offer a publishing contract if you can secure a pre-order of 750 books. According to their FAQs page, they write: “We publish any work that successfully hits a pre-order threshold on our platform.” Sounds like a good deal if you’re on SM and have 750 friends who might be willing to ante up. Certainly is worth looking into, don’t you think? 

Inkshares appears to be a safer, smarter crowdfunding option for those who choose this road. I still question the integrity of asking the public to pay for both the process and the finished product. When it comes down to it, as writers, we have a responsibility to be both self-sufficient (to earn a living this way) and to provide work that is worthy of the price we charge. That, in my opinion,  is our responsibility. 

Tinker, Tailor, Oyster Pirate, Writer

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Jack London

In a recent blog I wrote about my visit to author Jack London’s Napa, CA home, now a state park. I’ve been a JL fan since I was a kid, when I read White Fang in grade school as required reading. He quickly became one of my favorite storytellers with that book. I think it’s because he lived what he wrote, which made his stories all that much richer.

Sci-fi novels are experiencing a resurgence, along with romance novels. I can’t help but wonder: how much of these stories were lived by the authors? My guess? Few to none. We live in a world where fantasy is favored over real life, where digital relationships (texting, sexting, selfies, vlogging, etc.) and its inevitable voyeurism have replaced the human experience. The richness, depth, and complexity of our existence is slowly disappearing as machines distract us from our lives and connections.

Jack had been a sailor, a fish and game warden, an oyster pirate, a gold prospector, a war correspondent, a rancher, and a farmer (the first in America to utilize terraced farming that he learned of in Asia), just to name a few. He was a busy man, experiencing life in the deepest possible way – by living it, then writing about it. How many writers can claim that today? And does writing solely from imagination make one a good writer? Is it possible to become a superior storyteller without living any part of the story? I’ve blogged about how bad decisions make good stories (sometimes the best ones) so I guess I’m old school in the idea that at least some part of the story should come from personal experience.

Maybe that’s what happens as we shape the characters in our stories; we pepper in a bit of ourselves, friends, family members, coworkers. The unusual color of the protagonist’s eyes, the wry smile of your antagonist belonged to a previous lover, the righteous anger of a scorned relative showing up in a minor character. Your pool of character quirks and physical/mental traits can be endless. Dig from your life to build your stories; no one has experienced your life but you, so no one else can enrich your readers the way you can.

Here’s a short list of some of the jobs/experiences I’ve had that flavor my writing:

  • Waitress/bartender – met lots of interesting characters here!
  • Private investigator 
  • Tennis player
  • Lecturer/public speaker/facilitator
  • Behavioral/psychiatric technician
  • Doctor/clinician in Chinese medicine
  • Drug/alcohol counselor
  • Criminal justice system/various positions – lots of characters here!
  • 4 cross country trips –  where I met some great & some odd personalities, and experienced multiple landscapes

Wanna write? Get your ass off the couch. Seek out adventures. Make some bad decisions. Then make a similar list. They’ll make your stories feel more real, even if they aren’t.

Scribbling

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Clothesline Notes in Jack London's Country Cottage

Courtesy Jack London State Park, Google Images

Here in Northern California, we’ve been experiencing a spate of wildfires (15 statewide total) that have all but drained our firefighting resources. A local news station did a Special Report on the damage inflicted by these wildfires, including land, homes and lives lost. Terrible. As they looked back over the past seven years to show how fires have increased in frequency and size, they focused on the 2017 Tubbs fire, the most disastrous fire in California history. They talked about how it nearly decimated the Jack London State Park in Napa County.

For those of you who grew up reading great classic authors like Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, etc., Jack London was a prolific writer and adventurer who settled here in the Napa/Sonoma region in the early 1900s. In fact, it was much of his worldwide adventuring that lead to the writing of some of the best works of the 20th century, including my personal favorites, White Fang and The Call of the Wild. 

The newscasters shared details on how State rangers packed up his personal belongings in order to save them in case the fire reached his home and property (it came close, but thankfully missed), storing them all the way out here in Sacramento for safekeeping. Now returned to its former glory, his writing room still contains all of his writing instruments and materials, his desk, and other accouterments: the twine strung across a closed-in porch, with a multitude of little notes clothes-pinned to the line. Jack scribbled these notes on small square pieces of white paper whenever something came to him (which was daily, evidently). He pinned them to the line for later use in his books.

And did you know that Jack London wrote ONE THOUSAND words EVERY DAY, BY LUNCHTIME? 

The closest I come is a notebook marked “Write What You Know” on the front and it’s where I scribble when I need to unload. It’s not a journal; it’s simply a place to jot down whatever is rumbling around in my mind at a certain moment in time instead of pinning them around my house and looking like a crazy person. It’s where I scribbled the first chapter of my novel, a dark short story, and some senseless meanderings I tore out. I have never come close to a thousand words a day and likely never will. I’m not that motivated, even in a good month.

Out there on the world wide web you’ll find a plethora of expert advice by professional writers telling you to write daily. That’s nice if you’re fortunate to be earning a living from your writing, but what if you aren’t? And does it really matter if you write daily? I think not. I think we each should adhere to whatever writing principles fits our lifestyles, since one size surely does not fit all. Jack, like many famous writers, wrote daily (what else was there to do in the middle of a jungle at night?). I think it’s because he had so many stories in him to share it was the only way he could get to the next book.

Do we have any less stories? Perhaps, perhaps not. Some of us don’t travel or adventure as much as folks did back then, when it was easier and more affordable; you didn’t need a passport (until WWI), so moving between countries was much easier. And we’re busy working full-time jobs, part-time jobs, raising families, caring for parents, finishing a college education, etc. We have (modern) lives to live! Which brings me back to the point of the title – those lives give us fodder for our stories. So if you’re not scribbling daily, that’s okay (see Call of the Word); but it’s probably a good idea to at least have a place (notebook, clothesline, etc.) for you to scribble your ideas – the good, the bad, and the ugly, so at some point you, too, can turn them into a cohesive work. Like Jack.

Scribble on!

 

What a COCKY Thing to Do

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cocky

I tried sharing this to my site via the article’s page several times, but it won’t go through except to my FB page. So I’m providing a part of the article with the link for you to read the whole kit’n’caboodle. This is a must-read for all writers, as the words we use in our work, well, make our work what it is. How any one writer can assume she can trademark an everyday word is simply outrageous and narcissistic.

The Continued Tale of Trademarking A Commonly Used Word

Ruth Ann Nordin

I struggled with how to title this post. When I first heard about this whole trademark on the word “Cocky” thing, I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say. Then, after a few days, I grew worried over what this will mean for the future of being a writer because this kind of thing of trademarking commonly used words stifles creativity. Over the past couple of weeks, I became aware of other words that were in the process of being trademarked, and I just shook my head in disbelief this was even happening. Then I found out about someone trying to trademark the word “Forever” yesterday, and that’s when something snapped inside of me. I also heard something about “shifter world” being possibly trademarked, but I didn’t see too much about that. (As a side note, it looks like the author isn’t going to go through with trademarking “Forever” so that’s good.)

But anyway, now I’m mad. It’s taken some time for me to soak in the ramifications of what this whole #cockygate thing really means. It’s not just about the word “Cocky”. It’s not just about Falenna Hopkins. I had no idea who Falenna Hopkins even was until I found out she had trademarked the word “Cocky” and was threatening authors with C&D letters to change their titles just because she doesn’t want other authors to use that word in the title of their books.  Kevin Kneupper sent in a petition to cancel the trademark on the word “Cocky”, so I thought this was all going to go away.

Read the rest here:

https://selfpubauthors.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/the-continued-tale-of-trademarking-a-commonly-used-word/

Also check out #cockygate for more information

Book Sales Fraud or Smart Marketing?

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Today is a day off for me so I decided to catch up on some online work and update my books’ Facebook, Lulu, and Amazon pages. I came across something on Amazon that I have encountered there before; I wasn’t happy about it then and I’m not happy about it now. Have you (authors) found someone, a third party seller, trying to sell your work for an unreasonable (and I mean ungodly) price? I published my first book, a creative nonfiction, back around 2007. A few years later, I retired the book (it was a personal memoir and I’d moved on by then) but Amazon never completely removes the page (their policy). There are probably two dozen or so copies of the book (yeah, I was a monster publisher back then, ha ha) in circulation, most of them signed by me at a book award ceremony back in 2006 (yes, I actually won an award for that little book). Not that my “autograph” begs that kind of money, mind you, but I do have to question the veracity of the seller when my simple paperback is available for ONLY $629.81!!!!!!

Red Rhino Fraud Book Price 09.11.17

Unbelievable.

When I encountered this issue with my nutrition book (a third party seller was offering it for a huge, unrealistic amount, again on Amazon), I contacted a publicist and book marketing expert I’ve been following for some time now. She was nonplussed about the situation and told me I already got my money so don’t worry about it. Am I worrying too much about this? Or is this fraudulent activity? At the very least, it’s misleading since the seller lists the book as ‘new’ and there are no new copies available. What would motivate someone to price a book at that level? Have any of you experienced this? What did you do? Were you successful or not? I’d love some advice here…maybe it’s just me but I’m perturbed about some greedy idiot trying to overcharge for one of my works…and offering it as ‘new’ when it’s not. Not that anyone’s buying it at that price, I’m sure…but I did contact the seller via Amazon so we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, it’d be nice to hear from some of you about your experiences and how you handled them. In this Digital Age, I think, some illegal activities will be beyond our control…including when it affects one of us personally. Like I don’t have enough stress in my life…

Sheesh.

Update 09.18.17: the fraudulent offer has been removed! It’s sad to have to monitor our work so closely in this Digital Age; lots of scammers out there and people who ruthlessly take advantage of hard working writers. A flick on the forehead to them.