Author Interview at Self Publish or Die

I'm being interviewed at Self Publish Or Die today. Come on over and join the fun!


 http://www.selfpublishordie.com/indie-interviews/

Also, SEAL Encounter has been extended as a freebie through the weekend. Let me know what you think of this short, which leads to the full length novel, Accidental SEAL.

Today is wedding day for my son. I will be off the computer most of the day, but have a great weekend all. The grandkids gave me a doozie of a cold, so pray I get some relief today.

Now back to bed...

Being Thankful for What I Do Have

A much wiser person than me said one time, "Don't compare your insides with someone else's outsides." I have to remind myself about this all the time. Isn't it interesting, then, that I should pick careers that are highly dependent on what other people think: writer and Realtor?

Selling real estate for 25 years has taught me how to listen to what other people want, not what they say they want. Get the big picture. Be of service where they really need me. I tell my clients they could buy a better friend. But as far as getting the job done? I can definitely be counted on to tell them the truth. In an industry where people are often legends in their own mind, I became very successful because I tried to focus on the truth, not the fluff, the fantasy.

I even had rubber stamps made. One was a castle from one of the Disney brochures. Underneath it is the word Fantasyland. I'd stamp that in red on the lists of homes for sale, without offers. The other stamp said Reality, and it was a picture of a home with a sold sign across it. I would stamp that in green across the solds. Fantasyland or Reality?

Some days I want the Fantasyland, no question. I recently posted to my FB page the following:

There are definitely days when there is too much reality for me. Time for a good fantasy book, a spicy paranormal romance with characters I can fall in love with. Enough checking the stats on Amazon, checking other writer's stats on Amazon. I forget that not everyone can pop to the top of the charts with their first or second or even third book. I forget some days that the success lies in the words I write every day, not the checking my stats for what I don't have. No one writes like me. No one sold real estate like me, either.

One time I drove home from a very successful day. I had listed two homes, sold one and closed one. In the lingo of agents, it was a 4-deal day. I was on cloud 9. Until I drove past a home with someone else's sign in the front yard. I had thought they were my clients. But obviously, they thought otherwise. That yard sign stuck like a spear through my middle. Cursing and slapping the steering wheel all the way home, I am certain I made my family miserable. My husband reminded me, "What are you doing? You had a really great day!"

And he was right.

I've learned that I get to doubting things when I forget all the blessings in my life. I start focusing on what I don't have instead of what I do have. I have four wonderful children and 3.5 grandchildren. All healthy. All doing things they love. And despite my lapses in judgement, we've managed to have relationships I'm proud of. Adult relationships. I have the love of my life who has been by my side for over 40 years now. Who likes to read especially my spicy parts and believes in me.

Now how could stats on Amazon or Barnes and Noble ever compete with those things? Only if I let them.

HOW DO YOU START AND RUN A SUCCESSFUL BLOG?

The witty crew from WG2E are going to be here next week to show us the ins and outs of successfully doing a blog and holding it together.

Come back all week and check out what we have in store for you. And thanks to the gals at Naked Hero and WG2E for the gift of their time, and experience. I think you'll be as impressed as I have been with what they've done, and how they do it.

We start the week out with author Lee Lopez, on Monday, HOW TO START A SUCCESSFUL BLOG.

ePublish It!

What a wonderful time we live in. Now as writers, we have choices, perhaps more choices than ever before. I think of all the writers who are gone and how they would salivate at the opportunities we have at present. And to clarify, the ePublishing I'm talking about is self-publishing.

With changes in the publishing industry, the big houses have been described as, "a gate in the desert with no fence attached to it." You have thousands, if not millions, of aspiring writers, "wanting to get in" and millions of readers who wanted to read good books, manned by this narrow gate of publishers, who were struggling with their business profits (no blame attached here), keeping all but a trickle from passing through. Well, not a trickle, but they've been selective which authors they chose to print, and careful about anticipating what titles would sell. From contract to shelf the timing is at least twelve, if not eighteen months. A lot can change in that period of time. They can't afford duds.

So now writers are going around the gate.

Readers want things, and they buy on impulse with their online purchases, provided they aren't too expensive. So pricepoint is important. Someone asked me if all these ebooks being purchased are really being read. My answer was, "Who cares? They bought the book." Have you ever bought a book you didn't read? This great self-pub engine works because readers want to read, and they don't want to wait to get the books they love. That was a problem that was never anticipated, in my opinion. As soon as readers discovered this, they jumped on the ebook bandwagon and you are seeing soaring sales. And every boat in the water was lifted.

Um....but there's still the competition for readership. Will more books be read now that there are ebooks? I'm not sure. Instead of the vetting being done at the publishing level, it will be done with readers.

And I'm okay with that. Some great books will be bought and read that would never otherwise see a reader. And some will fall like a stone. Some good books won't sell because of lack of promotion and legitimacy the publishing houses give.

Still, the bottom line is the same: a good book is a good book. With more available to readers, and more of them will be poor quality, I think a writer should get a professional editor to help them with the finished product. There's some cost to that, but the writer takes the gamble because they get the lion's share of the profits. At over 60%, if your books are priced correctly, it's only fair, in my opinion.

Now the writer has to not only tell the tale with skill and craft, but has to be a marketing genius, select a correct cover, and know all the ins and outs of blogging, connecting to other writers and readers, and be fully responsible for sales. Now the writer is in the Business of writing, not just being an author.

So there's competition. Just like there always was. And there will be the resultant cat fights and ego-driven spats between authors trying to grab the same readers. It's a good time to be a good person, and rise above all that. Some authors will do so well, it will blow everyone's mind. Others, who are really good, will languish.

Both paths have road kill. But what I like about the path that is emerging for authors now is I have more control of the outcome than I did before. I can never match what a great publishing house could do for me, but I can promote and get my name out there, and get the buzz started. Maybe it is the first step to picking up a big publisher. Or maybe the self-publish phenom will be here to stay.

And for all the mid-list authors who haven't had an outlet for their backlist, now they can be dusted off, and brought back to life. Who knew? Vampire backlists! Back from the dead...

One thing is for sure. Putting all your eggs in one basket probably is not a good idea. Pushing to be one of the trickle that gets print published, may be a worthy goal, but may not ultimately feed your family.

I like the idea of burning the candle at both ends.