Category Archives: Humor
Why Book Promotion Sucks
1. It’s tedious. Not at first. At first it’s new and exciting. Kind of like falling in love. But as time passes, monotony sets in. How many ways can you say “buy my book”? How many times do you have to say it? The answer? Forever! It’s an endless Groundhog Day of tweets, blurbs, and blogs. (Groundhog Day. The movie with Bill Murray where he lives the same day over and over. Just rent it and watch it. You’ll see what we mean.)
2. Everyone else is doing it. Yep. Me, you, our plumber, your mother-in-law, and everyone else on the block. The result? A cacophony of white noise in which nearly everyone’s attempts to be heard are lost. Like The Cricket in Times Square. (A book by George Selden. Go to the library. Borrow it and read it. You will see what we mean.)
3. It’s time consuming. Hours and hours every day. Must post. Must blog. Must check stats. It eats loads of time. Time that could be spent writing. Most authors are aware that the more books you write, the more income you bring in. And writing is what authors love to do. But who has time to do it? (Yes, we can already hear the writers who will say, I network, raise children, sew my own clothes, bake my own bread, and write ten novels a year. We admire you. We also promise to send flowers when you drop dead from over-work.)
4. It’s painful. In several ways. Physically. (Repetitive strain injuries from being on the computer too much. Also headaches from banging one’s head on the desk. ) Mentally. (I can’t possibly think of one more blog/post/tweet. Plus my head hurts from banging it on the desk.) Emotionally. (Riding the roller coaster of feelings as we watch our stats rise to new heights only to tumble back, dashing all our hopes. And the drama of restraining each other from banging our heads on the desk.)
5. We suspect it is not quite as necessary as everyone believes it is. Do our tweets, blogs and posts really make a difference? Probably not. We don’t have enough followers on any site to claim that we have reached a broad range of people. And yet our books are selling; sales are steady. (Phew. We can stop banging our heads on the desk.)
The bottom line? Ratings, reviews, and pricing seem to matter the most in promoting a book. What do authors do when they want their books to be noticed? They cut the price and have a sale. Some give a book away for free, knowing this will draw attention to their work. The hope is that if readers like the free book, they will be willing to pay for other novels by the same author.
We are going to try an experiment. (Actually it is already underway.) We are cutting back on all the social networking. Not abandoning it, just reducing the amount of time spent on promotion so we can spend more time writing. for when it comes right down to it, a good quality story is the best promotional tool of all.
Owls, Larks and the Writing Process
What do owls and larks have to do with writing? Well, when you are two authors writing under one pen name and one of you is an owl and the other a lark, finding the perfect time for writing sessions can be challenging.
For those who are wondering what we mean by owls and larks, we are referring to people who like to stay up late (owls) and those who like to get up early (larks). It’s annoying enough if you happen to be an owl married to a lark (or vice-versa) but things really get frustrating when owls and larks try to work together.
From an owl’s point of view, larks are those annoying creatures who rise and shine with smiles on their faces and a song on their lips. Very painful for any nearby owls who can’t help wondering what the irritating lark can possibly be so cheerful about at such an ungodly hour of the day. Larks think nothing of awakening an owl just as the sun is rising, eager to relate the fantastic plot idea they had during the night. Larks have the mysterious ability to wake up with their brains fully functioning. No warm-up time seems to be required. Owls just can’t relate.
A writing lark will often fly out of bed and head straight for the computer. The bubbly, oh, so sickeningly alert lark will then proceed to check all social networking sites, email accounts, etc., and call out interesting tidbits to the owl sleeping in the next room. The enthusiasm can be overwhelming to the poor owl, who dives deeper under the blankets in a classic owl-camouflage maneuver. The oblivious lark continues to chirp, unaware that her chatter is not even being processed by the sleepy owl brain.
From a lark’s point of view, owls are those annoying creatures who stay wake half the night prowling through the house and wanting to engage in animated book discussions just as the poor lark is trying to fall asleep. How anyone can be so full of energy after being awake for so many hours is a mystery to the lark who operates on theory that people should be full of energy after a good night’s sleep not just as they are going to bed. The owl flies in the face of such drivel, hitting his stride as the midnight hour approaches. Larks often wonder what they have done to deserve such a spouse.
Owls will often grab a yellow legal pad, turning on the bedroom light and jotting down several pages of notes on an upcoming chapter, repeatedly expressing their ideas to the lark, who, by now, has wrapped a pillow around her head in a standard lark-avoidance move. The owl, oblivious to such tactics, continues to hoot, his enthusiasm wasted on the nearly but, unfortunately, not quite asleep lark.
So what are owls and larks who work together supposed to do? We don’t know about other owls and larks, but twilight is our answer. The owl is truly awake and the lark has not yet begun to get drowsy. Thorny issues of character development and sticky plot problems can only be resolved during this magical time when both the owl’s brain and the lark’s brain are still firing on all cylinders.
The owl/lark problem is an old one, addressed by many writers and artists over the years. We’ll end with our favorite commentary on the issue by the legendary Charles Shultz in his wonderful cartoon “Peanuts”:
Lucy: Physicians can learn a lot about a patient by asking what may even sound like a very simple question. Which do you prefer, a sunrise or a sunset?
Charlie Brown: Well, a sunset, I guess!
Lucy: I thought so! You’re just the type ! I might have known that! What a disappointment! People who prefer sunsets are dreamers! They always give up! They always look back instead of forward! I just might have known you weren’t a sunrise person! Sunrisers are go-getters! They have ambition and drive! Give me a person who likes a sunrise every time! Yes, sir! I’m sorry Charlie Brown. If you prefer sunsets to sunrises, I can’t take your case. You’re hopeless! (She leaves.)
Charlie Brown: Actually, I’ve always sort of preferred noon!
How Writers Exercise
You would think that sitting at a computer all day would mean that writers get darn little exercise. Not so! Using just a few objects found in any house, writers can stay fit. Here’s how:
1. Cat. Preferably, more than one cat. Sit at the computer. Begin to type. At the sound of a loud crash in another room, jump up and race to the scene. Clean up broken vase/lamp/knickknack. Return to computer. Begin to type. When loud hissing and snarling breaks out, run to the next room. Observe cats sitting calmly washing themselves and looking at you as if wondering why you are breathing so hard.
2. Washer and Dryer. Throw a load of clothes in the washer. Run back upstairs. Sit at computer. Begin to type. Remember fabric softener. Run back downstairs. Add fabric softener. Run back upstairs. Sit at computer. Actually type a few pages. Washer buzzer sounds. Run back downstairs. Transfer load to dryer. Start second load. Run back upstairs. Begin to type. Remember dryer sheet. Run back down stairs. See washer spilling water all over the floor. Grab mop and begin aerobic mopping.
3. Stove. Place main course in oven. Sit at computer. Begin to type. Jump up and run to kitchen to start the potatoes. Return to computer. Begin to type. Jump up and run back to kitchen to turn down potatoes which are boiling over. Return to computer. Begin to type. Buzzer sounds. Jump up, run to kitchen and turn meat over. Return to computer. Begin to type. Encounter really exciting scene which is flowing so beautifully you are transported. Come to when smoke alarm sounds. Race madly to kitchen to put out the fire.
4. Spouse. Get married. Sit at computer. Begin to type. Spouse calls from basement. Jump up and run downstairs. Answer perfectly simple question about what to do with old box of junk. Run back upstairs. Begin to type. Spouse calls from garage. Run out to garage. Help lift several heavy boxes of junk to make room for new box of junk. Return to computer. Begin to type. Spouse calls from front yard. Get up and run outside. Cat escaped while spouse was carrying box of junk to the garage. Spend next twenty minutes jogging around the yard chasing the cat.
5. Kids. Self-explanatory.
6. Telephone. Sit at computer. Begin to type. Phone rings. Jump up, since it is the land line in the other room, and run to see who it is. A telemarketer. Return to computer. Begin to type. Cell phone rings. Jump up (because the phone is in the bedroom on the nightstand) and run. Friend texting silly joke. Return to computer. Begin to type. BOTH phones ring. Answer cell phone (which you have cleverly brought with you) while running for the other line. Friend wants to know if you received the funny text. Telemarketer wants to sell you a gym membership. Laugh so hard it counts as aerobic breathing.
A Cat-Friendly Book Trailer
While experimenting with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) we created the following book trailer for Time’s Edge.
Diary of a Power Outage
The recent Halloween storm left many of us in New England without power. Being writers, we recorded the event for posterity.
Day One. Power mysteriously goes out early Sunday morning, the day after the storm. WTF? The storm is over. We thought we were home free. Oh, well, we have a fireplace and some wood left over from last winter. We’ll just build a fire and spend the day relaxing and writing. After all, how long can it last?
Day Two. Took turns staying up all night keeping the fire going. The temperature dropped to 21 degrees overnight. Most of the state is without power. We have plenty of food in the fridge and a little hot water left in the tank. Do a little more writing. Speculate that that the power will probably come on sometime today. We’re not really worried about the dwindling wood supply. After all, how long can a power outage last?
Day Three. Took turns staying up all night keeping the fire going. Hot water gone. Husband goes forth and manages to score the last half-cord of wood from a local supplier. Haul pots of water out to grill to heat water for washing. Husband banned from kitchen while the womenfolk bathe. Starting to feel like Little House on the Prairie around here. But we laugh and joke. After all, how much longer can it last?
Day Four. Another night sitting up with the fire. Kittens have learned the art of hibernation and refuse to come out of their basket next to the fireplace. Had to throw out all the food in our refrigerator. We have bread, peanut butter, Cherrios, raisins, and ice cold tap water. No local grocery stores are open and many roads are still blocked by fallen trees and downed lines. Nevertheless, husband braves the wilderness and finds a deli running on a generator. He brings back warm hamburgers, and we marvel at his hunting skills while wondering, how much longer is this #@$!&! outage going to last?
Day Five. Becoming psychotic from lack of sleep. Fantasize about hunting down executives from the electric company. Wife has gone to happy place and is writing about idyllic lands with never-ending energy supplies and abundant hot water. Husband is writing about blowing things up. The next book is going to be interesting! As daylight fades, we sit staring at each other, unwashed, unshaven and contemplating another night of keeping the bleeping fire going.
And then we hear a distant rumble. We stare at each other, recognition of the sound hitting us both at the same instant. We leap to our feet. “The furnace!” we scream. We hug. We kiss. We dance.
Yes, the furnace is rumbling to life. Power has been restored. We are born again. (But keep an eye out in our next book for electric company-like executives. We have some interesting things planned for them.)
We’re Blogging When We Should Be Writing
We saw an interesting post on Twitter last week. An author wrote that he was spending more time promoting his books than writing them.
We know the feeling.
Facebook. Twitter. Blogs. Etc., etc., etc. Get the word out. Plug that book. Get another follower. Create some book trailers. Speak at a library, school, town fair, supermarket, doctor’s waiting room. (Yes, we did.) In short, SPREAD THE WORD.
Why do we spend all this time on promotion? We were asked that question by a student in a school where we recently spoke. Sigh. There are several reasons.
1. The book promotion elves are not taking any new clients.
2. The reading public, amazingly, had never heard of us before our first book came out.
3. Do you know how many books are published each year? (Um, we didn’t either. A quick check produced a figure of over 955,900 according to worldometers. The scary thing was the counter that was recording the number of published books changed every few minutes. Goodness knows what it will be when you are reading this.)
4. The cost of hiring someone to do it for us made us hyperventilate.
Seriously, book promotion is a necessary evil. Evil? Well, perhaps, time-suck would be a better term. Yes, yes, we have read the blogs from authors who tell us we should glory in promotion, look it in the eye, wrestle it into submission. We’ve also seen the posts about making book promotion our friend, lavishing it, loving it for all the good it does for us.
We admire the authors who are gung-ho about promoting their books. We marvel at them, wondering how they do it all, where they get the time. We are secretly convinced some of them have a time machine, or perhaps a Time-Turner just like Hermione in the Harry Potter series. Write a few chapters, turn back time, do some book promotion. Write a few more chapters, turn back time, do some more book promotion.
However, the small, rebellious writer in each of us resents the time spent promoting books. Time spent on promotion is time spent not writing. And writing is what we love to do. Does this mean we are going to stop blogging, tweeting, posting on facebook? No. We’re committed to our writing careers and therefore committed to promoting our books.
But if anyone has a spare Time-Turner they aren’t using, please let us know.
The Mom Voice
We have interesting discussions at our house. The other day we were talking about universal constants. (We can’t remember how this worked its way into the conversation, but that happens a lot around here.) We talked about the speed of light. Gravity. Moms.
Moms was our daughter’s contribution. She firmly stated there is one thing that is instantly recognized everywhere, regardless of where in the world you happen to be. The Mom Voice.
Everyone knows the Mom Voice. It is the voice that freezes children on playgrounds. It stops physical action with one word. It can be heard over distances that would make even fire truck horns sound muted. It is the ultimate authority, that instantly recognized tone to which all beings respond.
We have seen the Mom Voice in action many times. Once, while on vacation, we had a room overlooking the hotel pool. It had begun to rain and thunder, but several kids were still swimming. One irate mom, who had sent her husband to (unsuccessfully) extract their children from the pool, came to the edge of the water, put her hands on her hips and commanded, “Get out of the pool. NOW!” Not only did her children promptly vacate the pool, every other child (and a few dads) also sprang from the water.
At our house, the Mom Voice showed its awesome power just yesterday. One of the kittens was attempting to paw open a cupboard door. After being removed from the kitchen half a dozen times, the kitten waited until Mom had settled comfortably in a chair with a good book. Then she crept back into the kitchen. The unmistakeable sound of kitten claws against wood drifted into the living room. Not wanting to get up again, Mom yelled, “I know what you’re doing and you had better stop it!”
The results were immediate. Down the hall in her bedroom, our daughter froze, thinking “But I’m just doing school work.” Joe came out of the office and poked his head around the corner with an inquiring what-have-I-done-now expression. Both kittens went scampering. And outside the open window, in the neighbor’s yard, two boys stood frozen by the rock wall that divides the yards. They carefully put down the rocks they had been removing from the wall (for what purpose we do not know) and crept away.
The Mom Voice. It’s a superpower.
A Not-to-be-Missed Book Trailer: The Highlander Trilogy
We love book trailers and are constantly delighted by all the creative ones we have seen. Today we want to feature a very funny, very creative trailer for Maya Banks’ Highlander Trilogy. This video was part of Operation Auction, a romance community effort to aid a family hit by tragedy. You can read more about it and find a Donate button here: http://operationauction.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/operation-auction/
J.M. Dattilo 