Go Towards the Good

May 15th, 2012

I’m busily typing away on the book I’m doing for Miraval and frankly, it’s a bit overwhelming.  Twelve chapters due in by June 1 and I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.  But as I’m working,  certain common demoninators are drifting up to me through the interviews.  The twelve Miraval experts I’m quoting are a wildly diverse crew.   Nutritionists and intuitives, medical doctors and spiritual healers, yoga teachers and cowboys.  So when you hear the same things coming out of all of them….it’s noteworthy.

One of the ideas they all stress is to go toward what’s good.  We’re obsessed with correcting what’s wrong with our lives.  We need to stop eating carbs.  We’re in conflict with a certain friend.  In our writing, we tend to run on and on while never getting to the point.  But the experts are suggesting to me, all in their different mediums and thus expressing the idea in different ways, that we’ll get farther in life by emphasizing what is good rather than correcting what is bad.

It plays out like this.  Rather than fretting about not eating pasta, make it a point to get a serving of nuts, beans, and fruit into your diet every day.   Rather than trying to analyze why you can’t get along with one friend, spend more time with the friends who make you laugh.    If, as a writer, you’re more descriptive the perscriptive, look for genres which celebrate description:  travel writing, food writing, romance, poetry. 

 It seems this is what successful people already understand, or maybe they gravitate toward their strengths instinctively.  

The direct pay off is that if you make a conscious effort to move towards what’s already working, emphaszing and celebrating your natural talents, you get more done and you’re happier while you’re doing it.  The indirect payoff is that expanding the good automatically displaces the bad.  If you’re focusing on getting the top ten nutritional foods into your body every day you won’t have room for the caloric bombs.   If you’re happy with most of your friendships you’ll be more generous and less snappy the next time you’re with the difficult friend.  And if success in one style of writing builds your confidence, you’re more likely to think of smart strategies for overcoming difficulties in another area.  

Wallowing in what’s not going well rarely works.   We probably call it something other than wallowing, like “thinking” or “planning” but it’s still wallowing.   Better to build successses in other parts of our day and hope they lap over into the areas that aren’t so easy. 

I love this idea.   Do what you’re good at and let the chips fall where they may.

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Writers Never Retire

May 8th, 2012

The good thing about writing and the bad thing about writing is the same thing:  It’s never done.

Mostly I like this.  In the days when I was doing primarily journalism and non-fiction I did have the steady satisfaction of finishing articles abd bothing is quite so gratifying as hitting “attach” and then “send.”  But there was always a new assignment on the desk, clock ticking.   And fiction seems even more neverending, especially when you’re projecting a series.  My desk is never blank.

I’m working on a chapter for the Miraval book and came across research that said three things will make you live longer – exercise, volunteering, and belief in God, however you might define him. The most effective of the three life-extenders was volunteering.  On one level it stuck me as odd that older people in the study who volunteer, those 75 and up, were 44% more likely to survive each year than those who don’t, then it hit me.   Volunteering is their work.  The only work that most people over 75 have the opportunity to do.  And I firmly believe that work keeps you not only alive but sane, happy, and smart.  We all know people who fell apart after they retire, who found the unlimited free time and lack of structure in retirement to be more of  a curse than a blessing.

I always say that I hope I write on the last day of my life.  I want to go out swinging.  And because I am a writer, I need never retire.  Most writers continue to produce up to the end, or at least very near the end, and it’s possible to do your best work very late in life.   So here’s to our never-ending job.  It may drive us nuts in the short haul but I suspect, over time, it will be our salvation.

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The heart wants what the heart wants

May 5th, 2012

Woody Allen said that.  I always thought it was an exceptionally perceptive remark, which was unfortunately marred by the fact he said it under the most reprehensible circumstances – just after his longtime lover Mia Farrow had found nude pictures Allen had taken of her teenaged (and reportedly mentally handicapped) adopted daughter.  Woody had done such a crappy career-damaging thing at that point that his excuse – i.e. “the heart wants what the heart wants” came off as narcisstic and self-serving in the extreme.

So I’ve never admitted I like the phrase.

Just a couple of hours ago I saw  Facebook post by one of my son’s friends.  I like all Jordan’s friends but have always had a special soft spot for this particular kid.  Maybe because he tried to make red wine as a class project for a French course he took back in tenth grade, maybe because his first job was being the Chick-Fil-A spotted cow.  Who knows.  But Patrick has just spent four weeks backpacking alone through Europe, the standard dream of 23-year-old men.  In the facebook post he said he was tired, ready to come back to the States.   He posted it from  an airport in Paris trying to change his ticket to an earlier flight.  He wrote that when he found out he could get on a plane tonight he was relieved and added “I guess this makes me sound like a pussy.”

I actually think it makes him sound incredibly brave and honest.  Unusually so for  23 year old, an age where you’re so often busy proving that your heart wants precisely the things society tells you it’s supposed to want.  People like the idea of backpacking through Europe alone….it’s supposed to be the best time in your life.  And a lot of it is, as Patrick’s previous FB posts have proven.  But it’s also, as anyone who’s ever spent any time traveling knows, lonely, scary and exhausting.  This is a truth we’re not supposed to state.   Americans romaticize Europe, and specifically the idea of young men bumming their way through Europe.  To know when to say “Enough, time to come home,” is a brave, brave thing.

And all this is melded in my mind with another Facebook post, a new writer friend I’ve made who seems to be having a small breakdown in the middle of his book launch.   He’s just gotten some bad reviews and reports he’s having trouble getting going on book two. He sounds, frankly, depressed as shit but he wrote  just this morning “I know this is what I’m supposed to want….”

Ah, that rub.  What we know we’re supposed to want is so often at war with what we really want.  Or perhaps our desires are hybrids, somewhere between the socially acceptable desires and our quirkier, less rational longings.  Woody was supposed to want Mia, a bright, accomplished woman close to his own age.  Patrick was supposed to want to stay in Europe as long as possible.   Daniel was supposed to want a book published by a Big Six house.   And no doubt they all did and do want those thing on many levels. 

But on another level they want  a simple young girl who won’t question them, a trip back to a familiar place, an excuse to crawl under their desk and ignore the reviews and sales figures. 

And then there’s me.  It’s a funny night….a confluence of three unlikely events.  The supermoon, the Kentucky Derby, Cinco de Mayo.  I had multiple invitations to do things tonight and I told everyone I was going out.  A couple of friends, my cousin.  Leaving for a cinco de mayo party.  Yeah, let me shower.  I’ll be out the door any minute.

Instead I spent the evening watching three straight episodes of America’s Next Top Model and eating  Bisquick biscuits.  What can I say?  My heart evidently wanted to be alone doing inane things, not being social or cute.

I feel a little creeped out by this admission.  Not that I lied to my friends and family about the fact I was going out (I’d already put on my nightgown before I made that last call, knowing full well I would not be drinking margaritas tonight) but also that tomorrow I might lie again.  If anyone asks me how the party was….who knows, I may say “fine” instead of going with the lengthier and stickier explanation that since I turned fifty six years ago I hardly ever seem to want what I think I should want.  A lot of the time I want to be left alone with familiar and soothing things.

I guess that makes me sound like a pussy.

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Things That Might Save Me

April 29th, 2012

I’ve made a new friend via Amazon lately – another writer who has recently launched a first book.   Our circumstances are different and our books are different but, as I’ve written here before, people whose books enter the market about the same time become a variation of war buddies.  They don’t have to have a lot in common prior to winding up in the same foxhole…that’s enough to bond them right there. 

Anyway, my friend debuted about a month ago and now the initial buzz is fading and she’s panicking.   I remember that time so clearly from the Love in Mid Air days.   She just wrote me that her book has slid to about 5000 in the Amazon rankings, after being below 1000 for an enviable length of time.  She said “I guess that’s respectable, but what do I do now?  I’ve got to think of something.”  Here’s what I wrote back:

“5000 is indeed very respectable, but you’re right, this whole industry circles around the feeling of ‘Now what?’ and there’s never a perfect answer. About a month after my first book Love in Mid Air came out with Grand Central I was finishing up a small book tour which simply hadn’t gone well – either small crowds or big crowds where nobody bought the book – and we were driving back my daughter found a list I’d made titled “Things that might save me.”  On it I’d written every thing I could think of which might swoop down from the sky and propel my book into the best seller list. 

When Leigh found that list with the pitiful title, she was like “Mom, maybe you’re going a bit overboard on all this.” But I remember that feeling so well. One month out and the initial buzz starts to fade and it’s just panic, panic, panic. But yours is a great book and it will get more bounces as people read it and word of mouth starts to kick in. I think in the long run that is what really “saves” us all – readers telling readers, not writers telling readers.”

She wrote back asking how long word of mouth took, which I certainly don’t know.   There’s no guarantee a book will ever even gain it and for some books it takes months or even years.  But I do know this.   The status of formal reviews is fading.   Not only are there fewer newspaper and magazine reviewing outlets than ever before, but those which do exist don’t have the clout they used to.  The new reviews which really matter are peer reviews – especially those on blogs and on Amazon and also, I’d suspect, the verbal recommendations people give each other in book clubs, on airplanes, around the clubhouse pool.  People don’t want to know what some overly intellectual stranger writing in a newspaper thought about the foreshadowing.   They want to know if the person in the plane seat beside them thinks it’s a good read. 

So how do you get this sort of word of mouth – which I’m convinced in the long run is the only thing that will really save any of us?

It takes a while.  First of all, you have to get a certain number of people to read the book.   Not a ton of them, but enough to get the word of mouth ball rolling.  That’s where your early promotion matters, whether you have a publicity team at a publishing house to help you or whether you’re all on your own with a KDP free promo.   While the actual number of readers doesn’t have to be huge, their collective impact can be.   I know from experience that one person who really loves a book can get everyone in her book club to read it and if they like it, they’ll recommend it to their friends and you can have a true groundswell.  A similar thing can happen online.   Buyers like to see that a book has been reviewed by a lot of people – the sheer number of reviews alerts them that this is a book with buzz and if the majority of the reviews are favorable, so much the better. (But somehow, you don’t want them all to be favorable.   Ten five star reviews is a a sign that no one but the author’s friends and family are reading the book.  Fifty five star reviews points can also be a mixed blessing.   The hottest books seems to generate more controversy and a wider range of opinion.)

But after the ball is set in motion, there does come a point where the author has to step back a bit.  The first month usually seems to prompt the need for a break.   You’re burned out, feeling frantic, watching the book sink and wondering “So what the hell comes next?”   It’s a good time to do anything else but stare at your Amazon ranking – start a new project or take a vacation.  Preferably one in Nepal where I understand wi-fi service is spotty.

Because you have to give the people who bought the book time to read it and tell others.  The second wave is coming, there’s just a dip between them.

And yeah, eventually you’ll need to begin actively marketing again because that’s the name of the game with all publishing these days, whether you self publish, go with a big house, or a small one.  The writer has to be out there advocating for his book, all the time.  But I think you do have to have your breaks, your periods of stepping back and rebooting it a bit.  

This is such a brutal business.  Word of mouth can save your book, but when it comes to your psyche, you have to save yourself.

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Surfing the Amazon, Part II

April 17th, 2012

To pick up the tale where we left it….my historical mystery, City of Darkness, was up and loaded in the KDP program and I had chosen two days in which to go free.   I tweeted and announced the news on Facebook but, frankly, my friends and following on those two sites are not so ginormous that they’re enough to launch a book.   A lot of it seems to come back to Amazon, how you’re categorized, and what they decide to feature.

The book began to climb, which was gratifying.  By the end of the first day I was about 1000 in Kindle Free and in the top 100 for historial mysteries and general history.   I tweeted and promoted on Facebook some more….and waited for the number of free downloads to climb.

On midmorning of the second day, the tide really turned.  City of Darkness was number one in historical mysteries, top ten in history and bouncing around the lower rungs of the top 100 overall mysteries.  And all of a sudden the number of downloads exploded and I shot to the top twenty of the Kindle free list overall.   And there I stayed for the rest of he day, peaking out at number twelve.

I was ecstatic.   Almost 14,000 people had downloaded my book in a 48 hour period.   But would it translate to paid sales?

One of the weird things is that when you move from free to paid the book seems to be lost in cyberspace for a few hours.  The book is shown  for sale but there’s no ranking at all.    It takes a while – some people say even two or three days - to start moving up the charts.  The first time I even found any City of Darkness paid ranking it was at 98,033.   Which, considering it had been around 17,000 before the promo was genuinely underwhelming.

But then it started to climb.  About 24 hours after the free promo was over I was at about 1000 on the paid charts.  That’s good.  At that point, at least on the days in question here, a 1000 ranking translated to about 90 books sold a day.   And I stayed in the 1000s for five days before I began to drift back down.   Now, nine days after the promo ended, I’m at 9204.   And in the nine days post promo I’ve collectively sold about 400 books.

The slipping is continuing – once you fall out of the top 10,000, which I’m on the edge of, I understand the drop can be pretty swift and demoralizing.   So I have a decision to make.   Do I burn another free day pretty soon, while I’m already fairly high in the rankings and a bounce could possibly move me into the top 1000 and not merely knocking on the door?  Or do I let things calm down and save my remaining three free days for a time when I really need them, when the book has gone into a dead zone?

I still haven’t decided.

I did some things wrong in the promo.  I held it too close to the beginning of a month, which I now understand is a time when lots of people run promos and books face more competition than they would later in the month.   I tinkered with the categorization because I wanted to see how I would fare in the romantic mystery category.  I didn’t understand until I’d done it that this meant the book would be unavailable for download for a couple of hours – a very dumb thing to do when I was trying to fight my way up the free rankings ladder.   And I got way too obsessed with staring at the damn thing, so much so that the whole weekend the book was free I was in a sort of zombiesque stupor, my mood rising and falling with each uptick or downtick in the rankings.

The smart thing was doing it at all, since the free promo days did just what they promised, got me some exposure.  City of Darkness was listed as “New and Hot” in its category, which I think helped it hold its own, at least for a while, after it went paid.  I made contact  with some other writers who were close to my ranking numbers on the list and we swapped tips and war stories.   I had the book’s Facebook, email, and Twitter accounts set up in advance so I could collect names of readers who wanted to be informed when the sequel came out.

So now….to go free again or to wait?

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