Writers: In These Covid Times, Are You Prepared For The Unthinkable?

Posted on November 19, 2020 by mestengobooks

Thinking of the Unthinkable

It’s a topic I’ve covered on two other occasions (first post; second post). Now we’re in a pandemic and I’m once again compelled to share this vital information for all writers out there. We’re living in unpredictable times and no one can afford to be arrogant or in denial about the unthinkable: not surviving a Covid infection. I won’t bore or scare you with statistics or probabilities. Covid is a real infection, a real threat. Writers, you must get your Digital Assets (DA), aka intellectual property (IP), in order.

So I ask:

If It Comes Down to It, What Will Your Writer Legacy Be?

Is this a conversation you’ve even had with yourself or loved ones? Procrastination will only draw out what could become a painful situation for your family. It’s vital you prepare for what may come. Just in case.

“In this new digital world, our lives are complicated by our dependence on many devices, each with its own password and accessible only by you.” A Writer’s Legacy, part 2, January 2019

Your first step is to take inventory of all your intellectual property, both completed and unfinished works. Are your files backed up and easy for others to locate in online folders or another organized system? Now is a good time to get it all organized.

Your Legacy To-Do List

The following is a reiteration of a list that is by no means finite, from a previous post. While it may be time-consuming, you’ll be glad to do it because it’s an opportunity to clean out any work you know you won’t finish.

Do you have a PayPal, Google Pay, or any account, in addition to personal banking, with monetary value? Who will have access if you die? What happens to the money? Whom will you designate as your beneficiary? Who will you appoint as your Literary Executor (look this up, it’s important)?
What about personal and business email accounts, blogs, and podcasts? Personal and business websites? Do you want them up and running for people to read/listen to your when-you-were-a-breathing-starving-artist work?
Do you keep a list of logins and passwords to all of your online accounts? Make sure your designated Estate attorney has the most recent copy on file or at least your computer password so s/he can access the information (best kept in one location, like a cloud account).
What electronic devices do you own that need a password for access? Do you have a laptop, smartphone, tablet, DVR/Tivo, Ring, or a home security system? How many apps do you access from your phone? Does anyone else have the access code for your phone so they can access (and delete) the apps?
Do you bank online? What about mortgage payments, investment banking, utilities, airline, or other memberships? Which memberships automatically renew online? You’ll need to spell out which to cancel and which to keep active for your heirs/estate.
Do you have any Social Media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube? Any accounts with e-commerce sites like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Ebay, etc.? Check the policies of these companies regarding access by another person. You’ll need to legally designate someone if you want that person to clean up your online life.
How much of your work is unfinished? Do you want someone else to finish it? Or would you prefer your Executor/Executrix just heave every incomplete project, every potential novel/poetry book/best-selling short story into a shredder? What will you do with the work you have completed? Who gets the royalties? Who will do the marketing to keep the sales going?
Do you have translations of your book? Movie deals? Audio books? Who will oversee these if they are optioned after your death? Who will make the decisions about maintaining and growing your work after you’re gone?
Will you leave the option to own, sell or operate your business and control your intellectual property up to your heirs? Or will you decide so your heirs don’t have to? One option is to designate a micro-publisher to oversee your work so that royalties will be properly paid to your heirs.
What about cleaning up your personal information collected by data-mining companies? If you think it won’t matter once you’re gone, you’re wrong. Someone could use your identity and gain access to your intellectual property and online life, and then your hard-earned money. This can affect any heirs you designate and their ability to oversee your IP or pay any monies owed. Many sites mine all sorts of personal information; you will likely need to join now to have access to your personal information and request they delete it.
You need to be concerned with writer scams popping up all over the web offering unauthorized copies of authors’ books or scamming writers out of money. Writer Beware is one of many sites that track predatory sites and unscrupulous people trying to steal our IPs. Make sure all is good before passing it on to the heirs.

“It’s a sobering experience to think of your life in these terms, but in the long run you’re doing your family or loved ones a favor by setting it down on paper.” A Writer’s Legacy, Part 2, January 15, 2019

#covid19 #coronavirus #intellectual property #digitalassets #bookAholic #storytellers #writersoninstagram #writer #amwriting #author #writerbeware

The Bloom Is Off The Rose

Posted on May 28, 2019 by mestengobooks

Source: Pixabay

That’s it, I’m done. This morning I read an interesting post by a writer I follow who took a 6-week break from SM (which explains why I didn’t get any new posts from her in my inbox). Many of the comments I read for that post agreed and offered some useful words on how to handle SM if you choose to stay in the game. I’ve posted before on the pros and cons of SM and how much we actually ‘need’ to be on it. I was inspired by her desire to cut the proverbial ties that bound her to her followers and the global writing community, the ties that took her away from her writing time. I constantly struggle with a similar issue. But her honesty encouraged me to take a small step today and I deleted my Goodreads account (for the second, and hopefully, last time) while reorganizing and thinning out my online bookmark manager.

Honestly, why should I give a damn which books complete strangers are reading? And why would they give a damn what I’m reading or have read? FYI – just finished Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan; I hope knowing this changes your life in some way. 🙂

I’ve also wrestled (many times, actually) with closing my Mestengo Books FB page; it contains the same information as my website and I’d rather you visited that over a lackluster FB page. All my FB followers (a whopping 35 people) can visit my website, if so inclined. Well, that’s gone now, too. Whew. A moment of trepidation but I quickly recovered. (And I have fourteen days to make it live again, in case I change my mind and realize I simply can’t live without an ineffective FB page.)

I’ll keep the FB page for my nutrition book (author’s note: skanky Meta shut it down in May of 2020 for no apparent reason). I’m trying out Instagram and Twitter (with Elon taking over, I switched to Tribel in 2022); I don’t spend more than about thirty minutes a day on each (first thing in the morning is best for me) so I don’t yet feel they’re sucking the soul out of me. Give ‘em time.

Does this mean I’m focusing more on productive writing? Not necessarily. I am currently in a predicament that is engulfing almost every moment of almost every day and invading my thoughts almost round the clock . Exhausting. But that’s life: the ups and downs, hills and valleys, ebbs and flows. Due to unforeseen circumstances, my life is currently in that ebb/down/valley so I’m not focused on writing other than this post. Maybe I should be, it would bring a welcome relief from the stress and insomnia.

As I’ve posted before: all we can do, in my opinion, is what’s best for each of us, no matter what the ‘experts’ tout. If you like SM, are good at it, and are finding success with it, then stay the course. Too many people are in burnout mode from the addictive lure of instant success, instant money, instant something. As always with a fad that rapidly becomes popular, (almost) everyone wants on board, wants their ‘piece of the pie.’ What was once shiny and new quickly fades into oblivion, replaced more quickly by the newest, baddest, greatest, freshest, cheapest, etc. And many of us (writers) are exhausted from trying to keep up. In that realization, a host of writers are backing off, reverting back to doing things ‘the old-fashioned way.’ They’re taking a step back to view the bigger picture. Exhaustion is then replaced with serenity, clarity, and wisdom gained only by the experience.

I will continue to post to my blog because I need it, even if you don’t. And I will make a concerted effort to keep only a small space in my life for SM. The bloom is definitely off that rose for me.

What has been your experience with SM? Positive or negative? Care to share? What are some good arguments for keeping up with it? What are some good arguments for letting it go?

I Repeat, It’s Redundant

Posted on January 20, 2019 by mestengobooks

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).

A Writer’s Legacy Part 2

Posted on January 15, 2019 by mestengobooks

In November 2016, I posted a blog, A Writer’s Legacy in a Digital World, where I discussed the importance of planning for the future of your digital and intellectual property. I recently read two blog posts on the same subject but with a few more bits of information, like appointing a Literary Executor (separate from the Estate Attorney) to protect your intellectual property (IP).

To reiterate, it’s vital you prepare for the inevitable. You must decide what kind of legacy you wish to leave, if you wish to leave one at all. In this new digital world, our lives are complicated by our dependence on many devices, each with its own password and accessible only by you. The first step in the process is to take an inventory of your digital (online world) and intellectual properties:

Do you have a Paypal, Google Pay, or any account, in addition to personal banking, with monetary value? Who will have access in case you’re incapacitated, or worse, if you die? What happens to the money? Whom will you designate as your beneficiary?
What about personal and business email accounts, blogs, and podcasts? Personal and business websites? Do you want them up and running for people to read your when-you-were-a-breathing-starving-artist work?
Do you keep a list of logins and passwords to all of your online accounts? I keep an updated copy in one of those many cloud accounts, just in case. Update it regularly and make sure your designated Estate attorney has the most recent copy on file.
What electronic devices do you own that need a password for access? Do you have a laptop, smartphone, tablet, DVR/Tivo, Ring, or a home burglary system? How many apps do you access from your phone?
Do you bank online? What about mortgage payments, investment banking, utilities, and airline (or other) memberships? Which memberships automatically renew online? You’ll need to spell out which to cancel and which to keep active for your heirs/estate.
Do you have any online accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube? Any accounts to e-commerce sites (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Ebay, etc.)? Check the policies of these companies regarding access by another person. You’ll need to legally designate someone if you want that person to clean up your online life.
How much of your work is unfinished? Do you want someone else to finish it? Or would you prefer your Executor/Executrix just heave every incomplete project, every potential novel/poetry book/best-selling short story into a shredder? What will you do with the work you have completed? Who gets the royalties?
Do you have translations of your book? Movie deals? Audio books? Who will oversee these if they become options after your death? Who will make the decisions about maintaining and growing your work after you’re gone? (Think: Elvis Presley estate.)
Will you leave the option to own, sell, or operate your business and control your intellectual property? Or will you decide so your heirs don’t have to? One option is to designate a micro-publisher to oversee your work so that royalties will be properly paid to your heirs.
What about cleaning up your personal information collected by those data-mining companies? If you think it won’t matter once you’re gone, you’re wrong. Someone could use your identity and gain access to your intellectual property and online life, and then your hard-earned money. This can affect any heirs you designate and their ability to oversee your IP or pay any monies owed. One site, My Life, mines all sorts of personal information; you’ll need to sign up and join to have access to your personal information and request they delete all of it.
You need to be concerned with writer scams popping up all over the web offering unauthorized copies of authors’ books or scamming writers out of money. Writer Beware is one of many sites that track predatory sites and unscrupulous people trying to steal our IP. Make sure all is good before passing it on to the heirs.

I don’t have children so I’ve been thinking about how to ensure my IP is safe so that whomever I designate as heirs (charities most likely), they will benefit properly. It’s mind-boggling for sure, but getting started is the hardest part. Start with making a list for numbers 1-4; those alone will take some time. Once that’s done, you’re more than halfway to protecting your IP. Nolo.com is a good site to find Estate and Literary attorney recommendations; you can also call or check online with the Bar Association in your state. You can find Last Will and Testament forms (as well as Healthy Proxy, Power of Attorney and other estate forms) online and at Nolo.

I’m not trying to be morose; this is a necessary part of owning a business (yourself) and smart business owners/independent contractors prepare for the worst. How many famous people left no Will for their estates, tying up legal proceedings for years in probate with family members each trying to get his share? Don’t let this happen to you – or your heirs.

Some links to good articles on this and other subjects:

Anne R. Allen on Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris
New Writing Scams to Look Out for in 2019
“As long as there are writers, there will be writing scams. Hungry predators will always be lying in wait, ready to pounce on any tender young scribe who strays from the safety of the mainstream herd.”

Maggie Lynch on Self Publishing Advice From The Alliance Of Independent Authors
Why Indie Authors Need Literary Executors & How to Appoint One
“Today I’m going to address how to make sure your heirs (whether that is family, friends, or a nonprofit) benefit from that and who makes the decisions about licensing future intellectual property rights (eg translations, movie or TV deals, audiobooks, etc.) that may not have been licensed at the time of your death.”

Chris Syme on Smart Marketing for Authors
Why Word of Mouth Marketing Will Sell More Books [Research]
“In this episode of the podcast, Chris reviews the 2018 Word of Mouth Marketing Report from Convince and Convert Consulting and how it can help authors sell more books.”

A Writer’s Legacy in a Digital World

Posted on November 21, 2016 by mestengobooks

I’m not trying to be morose but something has been nagging at me for some time now, and it’s important to discuss with all of you. I’ve been wondering what to do with my intellectual property (as well as my material property) once I’ve walked on from this life (or become incapacitated in some way). Perhaps some of you have pondered this as well if, like me, you’re in the second half of life. I perused a few articles and even asked an acquaintance, who happens to be a lawyer, about this issue. He mentioned that since this is such a new situation, it has presented some difficulties and obstacles when drawing up the paperwork for a client’s estate: Will, Power of Attorney, Health Proxy, Advanced Directive, etc. Did you know that most Americans don’t even have a Will? They figure the family will somehow work it all out. Believe me, they couldn’t be more WRONG. (I would’ve had a nightmare situation with my family if I hadn’t taken my mother to an attorney to complete all the paperwork years before her death.)

Attorneys refer to these as your Digital Assets (DA). Do you trust someone enough to have access when you’re unable or gone? Need to think about this one, because not everyone’s as trustworthy as one might think, especially if money or personal information is involved. First step is to take an inventory of your DA:

Do you have a Paypal or any account that has monetary value? Who will have access in case you’re incapacitated? Or worse, if you die? What happens to the money? Who benefits?
What about email accounts (personal and/or business), blogs, and podcasts? Personal and business websites? Do you want them up and running for people to read your when-you-were-a-breathing-starving-artist work?
Do you keep a list of logins and passwords to all the accounts you use? I do, and I update it regularly. But I abbreviate the logins so no one else will figure them out if they get their hands on the list. I also keep an updated copy in one of those many cloud accounts in case something happens to my computer. The list is getting longer, though, since one can’t shop on sites as a guest anymore. I just cleaned out my list and it’s still a full page of two columns (it had been two pages)!
What electronic devices do you own that need a password for access? Do you have a laptop, smartphone, tablet, DVR/Tivo, or a home burglary system?
Do you bank online? What about mortgage payments, investment banking, utilities, or airline memberships?
Do you have any online accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube? Any accounts to e-commerce sites (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Ebay, etc.)? You also need to check the policies of these companies regarding access by another person – which is why you will need to legally designate someone if you want that person to clean up your online mess.
How much of your writing is unfinished? Do you want someone else to finish it? Or would you prefer your Executor/Executrix just heave every incomplete project, every potential novel/poetry book/best-selling short story into a shredder (digital or physical)? What will you do with the work you have completed? Published? Who gets the royalties? It’s a bit mind-boggling to think about it. But you MUST think about it – and DECIDE.
What about cleaning up your personal information collected by those data-mining companies? If you think it won’t matter once you’re gone, you’re wrong. Someone could use your identity and then perhaps gain access to your DA and online life – and then your hard-earned money.

Whew. This is not an exhaustive list but it will hopefully get many of you thinking more about your DA and how to protect it (in perpetuity) or do away with it. It’s a sobering experience to think of your life in these terms, but in the long run you’re doing your family or loved ones a favor by setting it down on paper. If you’re not sure you can trust someone to take care of everything, why not designate your attorney? They’re legally bound to follow the client’s directives, so your DA would be protected or disposed of according to the terms of your Will.

I’m planning to do this; at least then I’ll have some peace of mind about what happens to my work when I’m gone. Perhaps I’ll set up some sort of trust so that revenues (royalties) from my books will be donated to nonprofit organizations of my choosing. That will be my legacy.

What will your legacy be?

Losing Your Mind on Social Media?

Posted on August 28, 2016 by mestengobooks

This morning I came across an interesting article in one of my LinkedIn Groups, Book Marketing (amidst so many others that are not – at least to me). The author, Kirsten Oliphant, writes about the overwhelm many of us experience these days with Social Media (SM) and how to choose which ones will work best for each of us. As I read the article, knots formed in my stomach. I admit I’m not tech-savvy in the world of SM and just reading about it gives me the willies. She makes a good point, though, at the beginning, about struggling with mastering SM and balancing the marketing we do there with finding time to write.

She provides three options: 1) Hire out (don’t know about you but I certainly can’t afford this option), 2) gripe and procrastinate (welcome to my world), and 3) master and manage (oh, here come the willies again). While she makes valid arguments for all three, I’m focused on the third, master and manage. If only I could learn, understand, and utilize at least a couple of SM to my advantage as a writer.

Good news: Kirsten provides a free resource guide describing many platforms in detail, so that even I, the un-savvy, can understand and utilize SM. She also provides sensible advice: choose one or two platforms you’re comfortable with and start with those. And maybe use only those, as she does advocate not going hog crazy and trying to be everywhere and everything on SM. This makes sense to me, as it allows for time to write (and work a full-time job since writing has not yet completely replaced the J-O-B lifestyle).

Still, I’ve not heard of some of the SM sites she mentions and I’m likely to stay with what’s familiar (Facebook, etc.). I’m toying with opening a Twitter account; have any of you found it to be useful for your published works? I’m just not a big fan of being “followed” by anyone, and evidently I have to follow others first for that to happen. And by nature I tend not to follow others – rather, I prefer to take my own, less-traveled road, so I don’t know if Twitter is right for me. Which means I need to read her booklet in more detail, because who knows what I may discover. Perhaps I’ll find a SM site that doesn’t overwhelm or confuse me; perhaps I’ll discover an inroad to a new marketing adventure. Regardless, I know I’ll learn something that can help me to the next step in the process, all the while not losing my mind over the there-are-too-many-options-to-choose-from menu of Social Media.

You can check out the full article here.