change the character, everything changes

There's a folksong that starts, "A young man goes to Paris, as every young man should.  There's something in the Paris air that does a young man good."

Paints a picture, doesn't it?  Youth and strength, brisk walks along the wintery Seine; smokey cafes and experienced women; late night philosopy over cheap wine.

Change the character.

"A woman goes to Paris, as every woman should.  There's something in the Paris air that does a woman good."

What picture does that paint for you?  And why?

when you do a book signing

Take your knitting.  A book signing is an excellent opportunity to accomplish a lot of knitting. Having some handwork gives you a neutral topic to discuss in case people want to talk to you but are reluctant to be pressured into buying the book.  If it ties in to the book, so much the better!  My protagonist works her sorcerery through her fiber arts, and the books include patterns, so knitting is a no brainer. 

Unless you are already famous, there will quite possibly be spells during your book signing when you are waiting for an adoring fan, or an interested customer, or even a chatty nine-year-old to show up.  Book signings can have lonely spells, and knitting helps. People say to me, "I don't have the patience to knit."  I shake my head in puzzlement.  If I didn't have my knitting to keep my patience, I'd kill somebody. 

marketing!

On Friday, June 3, from 4 till 8,  I will be at

Make One  (a wonderful yarn store)
10558 SE Main ST
Milwaukie, Or

Reading and autographing  my first book, Sanna, Sorceress Apprentice. 

I am so excited I could just squeee!! 

All you folks from the Portland area, c'mon down!

There's writing and there's marketing

Amy Rose Davis http://modicumoftalent.com/ has been blogging about how writing can take over life, and she has me thinkng.  I am a writer.  I always have and always will be writing one thing or another.  Letters to friends, poems to my beloved, stories that demand to be let out of my head, . . . I love to find the good word and the accurate description.  I will always write and it will make me happy. And it always fits into a balanced, healthy life.  It's the damn marketing that rips my guts out.  Marketing evidently is a full-time job.  If you're going to market successfully, you have to do it constantly.  You have to blog, Twitter, facebook, and sell, sell, sell even if  you alienate your friends like an Am-way distributer.

 I have three books that were in print with vanity press, and the fourth and final one in the series in re-write.  Then I went with Puddletown Publishing Inc. and the first of the books is now available as an e-book (          )  I am getting requests for the sequels, but the publishers, reasonably enough, want to sell a few more copies of book one before they launch book two. (and book three and book four) It does, after all, cost them time and money to get these things up and running.  Puddletown is not a vanity press.  It's not a case of throwing more money at them to get them to spit out more books.  They want to turn out quality books and still run at a profit.  So if I want to bring out the rest of the series, I have to start selling what I have.

Problem:  I'm a writer, not a marketer.  The whole process of spamming the world to get my name out there appalls me.  I can not bring myself to twitter.   I don't want to read those pushy, Am-way tweets I see hourly on the twitter screen.  And I CERTAINLY don't want to read their damn books! Tell you what - you buy a copy of my book, and I'll come over to your house and clean the hair clogs out of your bath-tub drain, OK? Or I'll review your book if you'll review mine.  The Sanna Chronicles are funny, light-hearted, swords, sorcery and knitting books with horse races, dancing girls, brawls, and evil mad-boy villains.  Try it, you'll like it!   $.99 on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Sanna-Sorceress-Apprentice-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B004UCHQ3I/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

 

Starbucks

What is it about a coffeeshop that inspires me to write?  I'm kicked back with my beverage of choice (Earl Grey tea with three shots of raspberry syrup and soy milk) and the ebb and flow of humanity in this downtown coffee emporium is SO stimulating.  A guy who looks flat out homeless is buying a $6 caramel macchaiatto and a $3 slice of cinnamon coffeecake.  There are two exquisitely polished young women who blew in, grabbed their lattes, and are tete-a tete over one of these tiny tables, giggling and squealing, "Oh you didn't!  Then what did he do?"  A college girl in knee-length shorts, little canvas slippers, and four - count them, four layered cardigans in various stages of unbuttonage, breeze in, bought an iced fappe thing, and plumped down on a sofa, taking over the entire corner of the room with her books, papers, laptop, and right now she has a mirror set up on the coffee table and is braiding her pretty curly hair.  The young man next to me is frowning at his laptop, checking a tiny notebook, poking a few keys, then frowning again.  The baristas are young, stylish, and bored.  If you need characters, go to a coffee shop downtown.

Sanna, Sorceress Apprentice

Multnomah Learning Center in Portland Ore, is using Sanna, Sorceress Apprentice as a read-aloud book to accompany their special project about sheep, wool, and the construction of fabric. They are going to ask me to come speak to the kiddos soon. How do I make e-books available and how can I autograph copies?

X is for

XYZ which stands for eXamine Your Zipper - a coy way of warning that the barn door is open and the stallion's running free, or, to put it more prosaically, your fly is open.  Now this, frankly, is the sort of thing I want to be told, by anyone, as soon as it's noticed.  Do I have spinach on my teeth?  Has my deoderant failed me?  Is there toilet paper stuck to my shoe?  Please, please, tell me right away.  Don't let me wander around with my hem tucked into my pantyhose while the general public laughs and mocks me.

Assuming that other people would rather not flash in ignorance, I am quite unembarassed to walk up to total strangers and say, "Your blouse might have some slippery buttons.  Did you mean to show that much?"  Or, "Sir, your fly is open."  I also offer mints to people with bad breath. 

So what is the other side of this?  Would you rather not know?  Would you prefer that I politely ignore that shred of jerkey stuck between your teeth and waving at me each time you laugh?  Should I try to find a more tactful way of saying, "You have baby puke all down your back."