 It doesn't take much to put a smile on an author's face. Believe me. It's the small things that we authors live for that keeps us motivated and willing to rise from our beds and sit our butts back down at the computer each and every day (basically, it consists of someone--anyone--letting us know that what we've created wasn't a big ol' waste of time and effort). So if you want to put a smile on an author's face, then do one of these three things, or better yet, do all three (an author's face just might break from continual grinning. So go on...break an author's face).  #1: Buy their book. So simple and yet, so very effective. Authors are obsessive souls. We know when our books sale (we can watch our seller rankings) and we know when our books don't (so sad). For most authors, we dream of selling kabillions of books, but the reality is that for most authors that will never happen. So selling one book or two books or maybe even ten books here and there is a VERY BIG deal. It's the only tangible thing an author has to hang onto. So if a book looks great then download a sample from Amazon, give it a chance to draw you in, and if it does...then click BUY IT. Did you know that every time a book is bought an angel gets their wings? Okay, that's not true, but it does make an author's day and that is no lie.  #2: Review their book. The percentage of people who buy books and read them is something like 87.56% of the world's population. The percentage of readers who will leave a review, even for a book they absolutely love, on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble is roughly .000567% (percentages are completely made-up, but for the purposes of this argument, it doesn't matter. Just go with it). So as you can see, many people read but very few leave reviews. But did you know that reviews, even the bad ones, are just like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or the creamy peanut butter center in the middle of a candy bar, or the prize in a box of unhealthy (though, oh so delicious) cereal, or your significant other letting you know that THEY will make dinner tonight. Reviews are awesome. Reviews are necessary. And the more the merrier. Readers base a lot of their decisions on whether to buy a book or not on the reviews left by other customers, so their importance is crucial. Authors love reading reviews--even the bad ones. It's instant feedback to let them know if what they are doing is working or not. The biggest reason that so many readers don't leave a review of any kind is the fear that they will not write a "good enough" review, or that they simply don't even know HOW to leave a review. As far as being good enough, don't worry about it. Just be yourself and be honest. I'm telling you, as an author, those are some of my most favorite reviews. They are pure and they are genuine. You don't have to dissect the story or use elaborate words to describe your feelings for the book--just be you. I promise that being you is perfect. Now for not knowing how to leave a review, it's actually pretty simple. Most sights such as Amazon and Goodreads will require you to set up an account. Then just search out the book you'd read, near the top will have a button for leaving a review, click it, title it, and then write about what you liked and didn't like about the book. It doesn't have to be long. Even just a sentence or two will do the trick. Pretty simple. For more information on How to Leave a Review, click here.  #3: TELL EVERYONE. If you read a book you love, then tell your friends! Heck, tell your enemies, too. Authors don't mind. The biggest thing an author has going for them is word or mouth. It's more powerful than any marketing plan will ever be. Imagine for a moment, if you will, having read a book you loved and then letting your friend know about it, "Oh my gosh! I just read this amazing book about zombies and cowboys! It was so cool, and Trace is SOO hot! You gotta read it!" (Shameless plug here).
Now think about it, your friend is more likely to read the book because a) she/he has built a relationship with you based on trust and b) she/he secretly wants to be you and reading a book that you just read gets them one step closer (kinda creepy, huh?). An author can promote and market and talk about their book all they want, but you're more likely to try a new book based on the recommendation of a friend you trust and who's opinion you value. Word of mouth has the ability to spread like wild fire. Did you know that in nearly half of all product purchases (books included) was done based on word of mouth alone? (This is a true fact. Not made up like the above statistics. Click here or here if you're not quite wanting to believe me based on previous misleadings). If you tell one friend and then that friend tells a friend, and so on and so on...then imagine the possibilities. It would be a dream come true for an author. An author's face will break for certain from all the smiling they would do. Read a book and then help spread the word. So as you can see, readers can do A LOT to help and support their favorite authors and they're not even all that hard to do. The power to break faces is yours. Go out and see how many author faces you can break today :) What other things can readers do to help support an author?
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Today is my birthday. Yep, the big 4-0! And because this is a monumental birthday (I'M STILL ALIVE), I wanted to do something big. Not just cake. Not just some balloons. Something BIG. So, I'm off to Paris and London for a fun-filled week. I can't wait. So au revoir USA and Bonjour Paris! 
I will see the Eiffel Tower. I will eat cheese and french chocolate. I will walk by the Seine River, perhaps even take a boat ride. I will watch artists paint and visit gardens and museums. 
The thing that is slightly scary about this whole trip is that despite having had 3 yrs of French classes in high school and enough French in college to earn a BA, I can't speak a lick of French. I can count to ten. I can ask, "Parlez vous, Anglais?" But that's about it. Still, I can't wait to get lost in France. 
A taste of Paris for you, my friends. Enjoy! When I come back I will post pics of my time there. Not a lot-- I won't bore you to death like relatives who make you watch hours and hours of vacation movies :) I promise.  Actually, my postman is rather...shall we say...unattractive, but BOY, today I found myself swooning over the guy as he carried this lovely box up several flights of stairs (we live on a mountainside and we have a good 20 or so steep steps to the front door). I was all giddy, knowing full well what the box he carried contained. And as soon as he rang my bell, I flung the door open, snatched the box like a greedy little child, and tore through the packaging tape. Then I breathed in...the glorious smell of years of hard work come to fruition. It smelled SO good! This box was more than a box of books to me. It was everything I had ever wanted from the time I was old enough to string words together--an impossible dream come true. In a lot of respects, I still struggle to wrap my mind around the idea of it. Me, an author? It's much like a child playing dress-up in their mother's clothing. It's fun and it feels so grownup, yet there is still so much growing to be done before the shoes, the hat, and the dress fit properly. The one thing that really amazes me is that a little over two years ago I told a few people that I would love to have my first book published by the time I turned 40--ideal, but seemingly impossible in a topsy-turvy publishing world, especially when I just lost my agent (she quit the literary biz due to the publishing world being upended) and had to start the entire process over. I will turn 40 (yes, the big 4-0) on the 16th of this month. The ebook went live the end of March, and I received this box of books exactly one week before my birthday. Amazing. I want to hang onto this feeling for as long as I can.  My not-so-attractive postman also brought me this lovely piece of happiness the same day as the box of books--->
I'm not one to litter my car with bumper stickers and whatnot (though I REALLY do like reading them--I will speed to catch up and read your sticker) but as a zombie writer, I HAD to have it. I live in Utah. Everyone has the cute little family stickers on the back of their vans (and some families stretch from one side of the window clear to the other--big families). But when I saw this lovely zombie family, I slapped down my money and then slapped it on my car. It brings tears of joy to my eyes, which is a weird thing to say, I know, but it does. My kids love the fact that they are zombies. LOVE IT! And then look, there's me, with a missing leg--so cool! Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the whole zombie phenomenon. Also, anyone who knows me knows I won't make it longer than 10 minutes in a zombie apocalypse. I'm a survival wimp, but I WILL make one fierce zombie, I'm warning you. Anyway, this week has started off amazing, and several days into it, I still feel glorious (just ask the random lady at the dollar store who I showed my book to after she asked me why I had a basket full of brains and body parts--toys for my book launch party at the end of the month. What were you thinking?). Next week will be pretty freakin' amazing too--I'm going to PARIS! Oui Oui! That's how I'm bringing in my 40th birthday. I'm one happy lady right now! (More on that another day). I look like a big grinning idiot, and I'm loving it! How's your week going? Anything exciting? Tell me all about it.  (I may get some backlash writing this, but I must speak my mind--I must. So if you feel the need to fight me, then lets do it in a pillow fight kinda way :) "That's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more"--Popeye I'm up to my eyeballs in crazy social media, and author/writer online shenanigans, I tell ya! And yesterday, I completely lost it! No one knew I lost it (I'm a master of disguise), but I did, and let me tell you why... About a year ago, I thoroughly enjoyed Facebook. In fact, I loved it! I loved chit-chatting with distant friends and family members. I played a few games, and I commented on friends baby photos and even poked a few people. I had an awesome farm with a big house and plenty of pumpkin patches on Farmville (yep, I played that game for a very long time, and I ain't afraid to admit it). Then, when I delved more heavily into my writer/author career, everything changed. I was told by various advice-giving sites that to increase my online presence and create a better platform, I needed to befriend other writers. So I did. It started off slowly, a few authors at first, and then a little more. It was nice and rather pleasant. I enjoyed discussing writerly type things with them and loved the support we all gave one another, because we all know that the life of a writer can be rather lonely.  Then I was told, join Twitter--Twitter was where the action was, and my platform would be bigger by joining. And since we all know that bigger equals better (ask an Texan) I jumped on board. I loved it even MORE than I loved Facebook! It was cool! It was instant! I was meeting other writer/author peeps from all around the world, people I wouldn't have met any other way. It was awesome! We asked about each others works in progress, about each others families, and even had some inside jokes. We shared and we interacted. But then I was told having only a few writer friends on Facebook and Twitter wasn't enough--I needed MORE.  I wasn't popular (Klout told me this--dang you Klout!) Ack! Not popular? Shoot! For a little nerdy girl who played the clarinet all throughout her Jr. High and High School years, and was the Vice President of the FBLA club (Future Business Leaders of America--yeah, you heard me), the idea of, once again, not being popular brought back horrible memories causing me to start clicking away on everyone and anyone on Twitter who looked remotely interesting. I followed and followed and followed...(see where this is going?) and as people returned the gesture, I became even more addicted to the process. WAH-HA-HA-HA!!  Then someone on Twitter (not exactly who, since there are just SO many of you there) mentioned using Triberr to extend my reach. Extend my reach...that sounded FANTASTIC. So I joined one tribe and then another and then a another. I bought 40 dollars worth of bones so I could join various tribes, thinking this was the way to go. Right now, I'm a member of 8 tribes and have well over 160 tribe mates. Pretty cool, huh? Well...I'm not so sure anymore (I will tell you the reason why in a minute).  Then, to top it all off, I joined various Karma chains--I like you, you like me kind of thing. I created a Facebook Author Page and stared LIKING other author's facebook pages and loved watching my number of LIKES on my page increase. "People like me! People like me!" It was super cool...for a bit. Now here I am, with a twitter reach (per the statistics on Triberr) of over 300,000 people. I have over 6K followers on Twitter. I have nearly 400 LIKES on my author facebook page, and I feel less connected to people, and less happy, than I was a year ago. You wanna know why? Because quantity (sorry, Texans) doesn't equal quality. I think in the process of trying to become popular, trying to increase my online presence, trying to get my name out there, I shot myself in the foot. At least, this is my experience. Maybe it's just me, and maybe I went about the process all wrong. Yes, the hits on my blog have doubled. That's great. But the number of comments I receive to my blog posts have dwindled. How can this be? It doesn't make sense! But it does. It really does. I'm blasting my twitter followers with random tweets from tribe members--in other words, spamming them. I've been told on Triberr that I shouldn't be reading the posts I tweet, not to pick and choose, but to select them ALL, or I will be kicked out of the tribe for not playing fair. Heck, I wanna play fair. Since I'm tweeting all of these random tweets and links for tribe members, my own blog post links are becoming lost. No one trusts me anymore it seems. My followers don't know which links are mine and which are going to take them off to some other blog which very well could be full of erotica posts and other kinds of weirdness (not that I'm calling erotica writers weird, because I'm not). But do you see where I'm going?  And, by LIKING so many author pages and using my personal account on Facebook to do so, I have littered my stream with so much promotional, random information, that I no longer see posts from family members announcing they're expecting a new bundle of joy. (I actually ran into a family member, noticed her belly was rather large and decided to be brave and ask her if she was expecting. She was 7 months pregnant! She asked me how I didn't know this since she was posting weekly pics of herself). I'm missing out.
Twitter is much the same way. I can literally scan tweets for pages and not find one tweet that is interactive. Not one. As I said before, I like chit-chatting. When someone says, "Hey, how's the weather?" or "My dog just ate my cookie!" I will reply. This is how I build relationships. This is how I make friends. This is how I love my social media life. So onto the ninja smackdown... Yesterday, I unfollowed probably 1000 people on twitter and I plan to do more today--mostly unfollowing people who only post links and have no interaction with their followers at all. It amazes me when you scan someones tweets and see link after link after link and nothing else. I also went through my facebook stream and clicked HIDE ALL on many author posts. It amazed me how much this cleared out my stream and how many posts from people that I actually wanted to hear from came into view. I had had enough! KARATE CHOP! I can't keep up with all of it anyway--Pintrest, Goodreads, Google+, etc.... It's TOO much! Now, don't get me wrong, I know I'm just as to blame, doing some of the same things I unfollowed other people for doing, and I promise to be better. I will be picky on Triberr. If the post interests me, or think it will be beneficial for my followers to read, then I will share it. Otherwise, no. If that gets me kicked out of tribes, so be it. On Facebook, if an author/writer interacts with me, then I will click like on their author page and become a fan. Otherwise, no. TALK TO ME! Don't blast me with links and promotional junk 24/7! And I will promise to return the favor. If this causes my quantity to falter and people to unfollow me, so be it. I'm looking for quality anyway. Quality is far better than quantity anytime. My experience proves it. I just had to learn it the hard way. So let the pillow fight begin! How is your experience with social media? What ticks you off and what do you think works best? Let me know. I want to do my part and fix myself.  Think about it...it's probably the only profession in which if you make an income of $5000 over a three year period you're considered a success. Writers will high-five their writer friends, "Heck ya! Look at me now!" and TRULY believe that all their sweat, tears, endless hours of writing (years and years worth), self doubts (there will be plenty of those), and lots of rejection (lets not even go there) was all worth it. Now, lets contrast that with any other profession, shall we? A lawyer who makes five G's over a three year period would be considered a REALLY bad lawyer. A doctor making five thousand bucks in that same time...ummm...how many patients did he kill? Even part-time pizza delivery guys will make three times that amount, working only a few hours a week, AND they get to smell like pepperoni and cheese, which is a bonus. So why in the world would ANYONE want to become an author, because it's obviously not for the money (author's making lots of money--ha, that's hilarious)?  So if it's not for the money, then it must be for the recognition, right? Ha,ha, ha...Oh wait, I'm not supposed to be laughing.
Yeah, recognition...in a world where EVERYONE is a writer (don't believe me...just take a peek at twitter. It's mind boggling), exactly how is an author supposed to stand out in the crowd and get their face, let alone their name, recognized? If anyone has the answer to this one, please paste it in the comment section below *wink wink*. So if we've ruled out writing for the money and for the recognition, it must be for the pure relaxation and joy that comes from the act of writing--that's gotta be it! *wags finger and demands self to stop laughing and be serious* I don't think I've felt relaxed in years! And in fact, now that I have a book out there fighting for attention among kabillions of other books, I think I've never been more on edge in all my life *takes a break to hit refresh on my Amazon listing*. Lets not mention how the actual process of writing and editing can take it's toll on a person's psyche and self-perception, because boy, does it! INTERNAL DIALOGUE: "I suck!" "I'm on the cusp of writing something profound!" "I suck!" "This is the best idea EVER!" "This blows!" "I suck! I suck! I suck!" "I'm not getting out of this bed, and you can't make me!" "Okay, let's write some more!" THIS ISN'T HEALTHY, FOLKS! There should a public awareness campaign or something that should warn people, specifically young children, that becoming a writer/author is bad for your health--both physical (I have writers butt) and mental (I'm not normal). So, more than likely I will put more money into my writing career than I will get out of it (editing costs, graphic artist costs, marketing costs, etc...). My name will only be chanted by my mother, "Did you hear about my daughter? She wrote this book called...wait a minute...shoot, I forgot, but it's a good book...or so she tells me." And I will never feel relaxed again--EVER--because despite knowing all of the above, I will keep on writing. Yep, you heard me right, I will keep on writing. Because I may always be poor, and I may only be considered famous in my parents eyes, and I may never know what it is like to live life without a big knot of stress and tension in my neck and shoulders, but DANG IT...I am an author and have no idea how not to be! So why would anyone want to be an author? I don't know. I guess, for me, it's because the alternative seems so much worse. Why do you put yourself through this craziness? Why do you write despite the odds? How do you define success in your writing career? Let's chit-chat in the comment section below. We'll call it therapy :) |
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Ahh, the fruits of my labors...
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