​Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to sell my books at a bookstore run by the Wisconsin Writers Association in conjunction with the annual Lake Fly Writer’s Conference in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  It was a unique concept.  You paid a minimal table fee and were provided space created as a mock book store.  Staff were provided to sell books.  The author received all the proceeds of the sale.  Each author participating in the bookstore was asked to donate 30 minutes to help sell books.  Each author was also given 30 minutes to sign books and mingle with participants.  When registering for the bookstore authors were asked to select the time they would work and the time they would sign books.
The trouble began with registration.  The number of tables set up for the bookstore was based on the number of authors who registered in advance and paid their fees.  There were three authors assigned per table.  Three authors showed up Saturday morning, their books in tow, wanting space in the bookstore.  None of the authors registered in advance.  I’m not sure if they paid the table fee on Saturday, I doubt it.  The person running the bookstore couldn’t tell the authors “No” and ordered another table from the conference center.  The extra table was an additional, unexpected cost.  This is bad behavior from an author.
The bookstore manager asked for people to help volunteer to set up.  Lynette and I volunteered and one other author came for set up.    The other author did absolutely nothing to help with the set up.  Instead she staked out her location in the bookstore and took a full 30 minutes to set up a display of her three books.  This was bad behavior because it was self-serving.  After helping set up the bookstore I signed up for my time to sign books.  I chose 1:00 pm, immediately after lunch.  After I signed up the early bird author signed up for the same time.  The bookstore manager explained that two authors could share the same time, I didn’t argue.  When 1:00 pm rolled around I found the author had already set up her three books and a huge purse in the signing area.  I didn’t want to be confrontational so I didn’t say anything about no space being left for me.  Again, being territorial was bad author behavior.  As it turned out people streamed out of the room after lunch to attend 1:00 pm sessions and they ignored the bookstore.  Not one person stopped by the bookstore.  I just observed and laughed to myself.
Mid-morning another author came, set up and then also signed up to do book signing at 1:00 pm which would have made three authors at that time.  I pointed out to the bookstore manager that things were out of control and it was inappropriate for the author to sign up for 1:00 pm.  The bookstore manager confronted the author and had her change her time to 1:30 pm.  This was bad behavior by the author.  As it turned out, by 1:30 pm there wasn’t a single person in the room.  I chuckled to myself again.
The same author that horned in on my “signing time” decided she didn’t like the space assigned to her in the bookstore.  On her own she moved her items to another location.  When she moved her items she moved the items for another author to make room for her books.  This was bad behavior by the author.  As luck would have it the author who was imposed upon stopped by and challenged the offending author and re-arranged her own display.  As it turns out the misbehaving author didn’t sell a single book all day – seems right to me.
In every event I’ve attended I’ve found other authors friendly, helpful, willing to share tips and their experiences in selling our own books.  This was the first time in three years that I witnessed bad behavior from authors.  I’ve thought about it and I can’t figure out what was different about this event. 
For all other author events we sell our own books and often are also responsible for the financial transactions.  The bookstore format was different; maybe some people couldn’t adjust and felt a loss of control.  Whatever the reason, authors need to remember, we will all be successful if we help each other out.  We need to cooperate, not compete.   

​I have written several separate blogs on my experiences with independent bookstores.  In total I have direct experience with five independent bookstores in two states.  Recently I just picked up by books from a Madison indie bookstore after a two year relationship and I want to summarize my experience in one blog.
Indie Bookstores have a special relationship with indie authors and bend over backward to support indie authors – THIS IS AN URBAN MYTH.
Our kids used to live in Omaha and loved an indie bookstore.  I met with the owner and gave them just 3 books on consignment, a signed agreement.  After a year I had no contact with the store.  I e-mailed them for an update on sales of my book.  I was told to e-mail the accountant.  The accountant took a month to respond.  No books were sold.  I was told in the future it would be my responsibility to contact the store on any sales, they would not report sales to me.  Ok, I just donated three books to that store.  End of relationship.
An indie bookstore in Madison offered the standard 60/40 consignment agreement (60% to author) but wanted to charge me $15 to shelf five copies of my book.  That reversed the deal to 40/60 (40% to author).  So I challenged them – are you kidding.  You know exactly the cost to shelf one book in your store?  The store easily has +2000 books.  They claimed they knew the cost and to have my book on their shelf I would have to pay the $15 in advance.  I told them I would never do that and I would also never buy a book at their store and tell as many people as I knew about their treatment of indie authors.
I spoke at a small Wisconsin town indie book store on Mother’s day.  The only customers were one guy who wandered in off the street and listened to me out of curiosity.  There were also two women who were having lunch who competed with me in volume when I began talking.  I was told there would be a special display for my book.  The special display was a small table with my book and three other books in front of the cash register.  The table was so low I didn’t even see it.  The manager agreed to pay to send my books back to me.
A well known and respected indie book store in Milwaukee had a reputation for being supportive of indie authors.  They often had at least indie authors present a week and had a special book shelf near the front door of indie authors.  Their support for indie authors was geographically limited.  Because I don’t live in Milwaukee I would have to send their reader a free copy of my book and they would decide if they would schedule an author event for me.  Since when did bookstores start screening book?  I never sent a book – it’s insulting.
I’ve had my first book at a Madison indie bookstore since January 2014 and my second book since February 2015.  I have had tremendous response to selling my books as a pair Two Books for $20.  I convinced the store owner to have a special sale on my books in April to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the 1916 Rising.  I had two special 8 ½ x 11” advertising placards made that I delivered to the bookstore.  Last week I went to pick up my books.  Since January 2014 only ONE book was sold.  There were no books sold during the April special sale.  On top of that they lost one of my advertising placards.  I couldn’t believe it.  I told the poor guy working in the store the morning I picked up my books to let the owner know to find my advertising in the next two days and mail it to me or I would send an invoice for them to pay for it.  The next day I received an e-mail from the owner telling me they found the advertising and needed my mailing address.  My mailing address is on the consignment agreement – they didn’t need to pay for it.
So my advice to indie writers – forget indie bookstores.  Do you want to know where I sold books?  I sold 30 books in one month at a bar in Columbus Wisconsin!  Too bad the bar went belly up the next month – go figure.   

​When I published my first historical novel in 2013 (can it be three years ago already?) I felt alone in the writer’s world.  Yes, I had friend writers and a cadre of friends and writing professionals that helped me launch that first book.  However, I wasn’t connected to the rest of the world.
At the time the solution was simple.  Join.  I joined everything came to my notice from people on twitter, facebook, blogs, and many author groups.  I could receive up to 10 e-mails a day with newsletters, notifications and people wanting to sell me services; especially people wanting to sell me services.  At the time, everything landed in one giant e-mail box.  I didn’t want to set up separate e-mail accounts for personal and author business.  Through my website (www.rexowens.us) I have a web e-mail account and it is rarely used, except by companies who want to sell me a service or software.
Sometime in the past two years, I don’t recall when G-mail started categorizing e-mails into primary, social, promotion and forums.   I must have set up filters to distinguish each e-mail received or maybe g-mail recommended how to do it and I just followed their recommendation.  That is the most likely isn’t it?  Anyway, that was useful and for the first time I saw how many social an promotion e-mails I receive – a lot more than primary e-mail from people I actually know.
In the last few weeks I found myself spending a lot of time deleting e-mail that I don’t read.  My wife asked me why I spent so much time in that useless activity each day.  I didn’t have an answer.  The she uttered the magic word:  Unsubscribe.  I had to ask how.  It turns out that at the very bottom of the e-mail in the tiniest print allowed there, buried among a lot of other rubbish, is the word – “Unsubscribe.”  When you click on it you’re whisked away to a screen that gives you a lot of choices about how to unsubscribe.  I always choose “All”.  There is always a box provided to tell them why you don’t want to receive their e-mails any longer.  I never fill that box in, although from the business perspective, it is useful information.  I’ve learned that if you don’t give them a reason in some cases the Unsubscribe becomes nil and void and you continue to receive the e-mails.  I think that is rude.  I keep unsubscribing until the company tires of my request and finally drop my name from their list.
It’s a refreshing experience and I estimate that I’ve gained about an hour a day which is 365 hours a year or more than 45 days.  I can do a lot of things with 45 extra days.  So, my advice to readers is – review your e-mail.  If you have e-mail that is deleted and not read – Unsubscribe.       

​Last year I started beekeeping but didn’t get a single ounce of honey.  Some may view this as a failure but I don’t.  I bought a bee package which contains three pounds of bees and a queen.  For some reason the bees didn’t accept the queen, she died.  A hive can’t survive without a queen.  I bought another queen.  My luck didn’t change, the second queen died.
My beekeeping venture is not a lonely undertaking; a friend and I are working together.  After my second queen died, we combined our bees into one big hive.  As luck would have it the merger didn’t happen until June which we learned was too late to expect any honey production.  We also learned too late that you have to buy a special box called a “super” for the bees to make honey that we could then extract.
Our goal for 2015 became getting the bees to survive a Wisconsin winter.  We learned at one of the monthly Mad Bee Association meetings we could expect to lose 50-100% of our bees over winter.  As I wrote in a previous blog our bees not only survived but prospered in early spring this year.  On April 14th we checked our hive, drones were already hatching and we had a ton of bees.  We split the one hive back into two hives and began giving them 50/50 mix syrup to hold them over until blooms started popping.  The split prevents bees from swarming.   As it turns out bees don’t like overcrowding in the hive.  When there are too many bees in a hive a bunch decide to leave all and once and swarm away to create a new colony.  I’m sold that a swarm of bees can be caught but that’s not for me.  It’s better to add to their housing.
We also bought two more bee packages this year. My friend’s wife isn’t fond of the bees and couldn’t tolerate two more hives on their property so I decided to put one hive in my backyard.  I’m lucky; my wife likes bees – at least for now.  I researched hive location and spent several days tracking the sun’s path in our backyard to find just the right place for my new hive.  The perfect place turns out to be near the top of the hill in front of a small grove of four pine trees.  The hive gets early morning sun and is protected from afternoon boiling sun and strong westerly winds by the pine trees.  The bees came from Florida and our Wisconsin weather has been an adjustment.  We’ve had highs in the mid-40’s so I didn’t see any bees for three days.  The other day I checked to make sure the queen had successfully exited her traveling apartment – she did.  The bees were all huddled together in the center of the hive keeping themselves warm.
So far so good.  I’ve decided to keep a bee log this year so we create a record of what we did and when we did it.  I think agriculture, including beekeeping, is the mother of record keeping in human society.