On one of the linkedin author chat groups I participate in some brave soul finally asked – has anyone had experience getting book sales from their facebook page?  Guess what the answers were?  That’s right – not one person could document a single book sale as a result of having a facebook author page.

I have done numerous google searches for data on book sales and facebook.  I have not been able to find any data.  Then there is the question of buying advertising on facebook to sell books.  A number of my linkedin colleagues experimented with facebook advertising.  It’s not cheap.  Again, there was no hard data to link facebook advertising with book sales and even if there were, the cost effectiveness is murky at best.

I don’t intend to be crass and demand or have an expectation that an author facebook page generate fabulous sales.  It would be beneficial to be able to demonstrate that there is some correlation between facebook and book sales.  As an author I need to allocate my time.  Is a presence on facebook a good use of my time?  I wonder?

There is one question no one has asked.  Are those that participate in the various forms of social media readers?  If your limit is 144 characters my guess it’s unlikely you could handle more than 144 pages.  Some may argue that social media people purchase e-books.  Again, where is the data?  An e-book is only a change in format – you still need to be a reader.  While I don’t have any objective data, my guess is that if you spend a great deal of time (more than 1 hour a day) on social media, you’re not a reader.

I already have a webpage, linkedin and twitter and I’m thinking about having an author facebook page, at least on Amazon.  My solution is simply to devote the minimum amount of time to each.  If I don’t spend time working on my novel anyone finding me in the social media world won’t have a book from me to read. 

The right division of time for me is, 90% novel writing and 10% everything else – until someone can SHOW ME THE BEEF!

If you have any objective data on the relationship between book sales and social media – PLEASE – respond to this post – for now I’ve used up my 10%. 

                 

Generally I am a creature of habit.  Habit is where my comfort zone lies.  Like many novice writers I struggle to create a pattern to write consistently.  It isn’t a matter of lack of desire, or lack of time, or procrastination.  It’s a matter of habit.

Graham Greene was once asked if he wrote my creativity or routine (or close to that).  His response was that he was fortunate in life in that creativity found him at 9:00 am every morning at his typewriter.  Greene touched on the key.  Inspiration and creativity don’t strike a writer out of the clear, blue sky unexpectedly.  It happens when we work.

Recently my content/development editor suggested I needed to add two chapters to my manuscript to further character development and set up events that occur later in the novel.  Intuitively, I knew his suggestion had merit but I didn’t have a clue where to start.   The lack of self-direction became the perfect excuse to delay working on this project.

We agreed to meet for lunch and for some reason I told him I would have the chapters for him when we met.  This promise became my deadline.

The deadline did the trick.  I sat down to write and I fell into a natural pattern.  Write four hours in the morning.  Take an hour lunch break.  Work for two hours after lunch.  Quit every day by 3:00 pm.  It worked!  I completed the chapters after about three drafts each and was able to deliver them when we had lunch.

I discovered that I had hit my stride, a pattern of work that fits for me.  I’ve been looking for this for years.  I’m so relieved I finally found it.

Share with me your story of how you hit your stride – or didn’t.

The Strange Case of the Missing Visitors (to my website)

I receive detailed monthly statistics from my website provider, Ipage.  In particular I keep track of the number of visitors.  In April I was a member of the Success Panel at the UW-Madison Writer’s Institute and I provided by website to everyone.  With over 300 attendees, I expected a spike in the number of visits to my website.

To my shock and chagrin there were 251 LESS visits in April than in March.  How can that be?  Can I conclude that my participation in the Success Panel was a failure in attracting conference attendees to my website?

I freely admit that I don’t understand where all my visits come from.  Since June 2012 I’ve averaged 1216 visits per month.  In April 2013 I had 489 MORE visits than my monthly average (the initial 4 months of 2012 were bleak).  Taking that view April doesn’t look so bad.

What’s the right perspective?  Can anyone in Social Network Land (SNL) help me out?  Should I be tracking other data such as:  number of pages or number of hits?  And what happened to 251 visitors?  Anyone who can help me out with this will be greatly appreciated.

  

Several years ago at a Writer’s Institute Conference I was convinced of the wisdom of having one or more beta readers for my novel.  The first person that had the job I didn’t know.  It was a relative of a friend I met at the conference who swore by his sister-in-laws skills at reading and commenting on fiction.

Several weeks after submitting my manuscript to her she sent me a three page, scathing e-mail that ripped my manuscript and me apart.  It was very personal and disturbing.  She closed her written critique by stating she hated historical fiction and felt she had wasted her time in reading my manuscript.  My friend was embarrassed and I felt I wasted my time in letting a stranger serve as a beta reader.  Lesson learned – ask someone you know and trust to be your beta reader.

I asked my friend Rob for his help.  He was thorough and insightful and helped me with theme and timeline but he insisted on telling me what the title of the book should be.  In fact, he obsessed about the title and would even call me for weeks with his latest rendition of what the title should be.  That should have been a warning to me but I didn’t heed it.

After getting a galley back from the publisher I parted ways with in February I asked Rob to serve as my beta reader again.  Again, he took about three weeks to give it a good read and took copious notes and made many notes in the manuscript.   I also gave him a copy of my latest version of the back of the book blurb.  When he called me to arrange a time to meet to review his comments he proudly announced that he had re-written my back of the book blub.  What?  

Making comments, suggestions, having a discussion is fine.  But re-writing just isn’t acceptable, it crosses the line.  My friend is a song writer and we discuss his songs, I make comments and suggestions but I’ NEVER re-written the music or lyrics to one of his songs.

He also claimed I had a number of misspellings.  One he constantly corrected was Midleton (one d) a city in Ireland east of Cork and the location of the distillery making Ireland’s finest single malt whiskey.  He corrected everyone to Middleton (two d’s).  He didn’t take the time to ask me about the spelling or research it himself, he was arrogant enough to correct me.

So, as you might imagine, I’m searching for a new beta reader.  Anyone interested in being a beta reader to help a writer? 

The annual UW-Madison Writer’s Institute just wrapped up a three day run April 12-14.  The number attending swelled by over 100 from last year, which forced a move to the Concourse Hotel downtown.  For three days I questioned why the attendance grew so substantially.  In previous years attendees had the opportunity to pitch their work to agents in 8 minute sessions for a meager $15.  This year editors and local publishers were available for pitches also.  It was the opportunity to pitch, not the quality of the conference that attracted the masses.

The Concourse proved totally inadequate as a venue. Four previous suites were converted into ‘conference rooms.”  Every session I attended in one of these conference rooms overcrowded with people sitting on the floor and standing throughout the presentation and breaking the firecode for number of people in a room creating a safety risk.

Another traditional conference room had doors that clanged shut and as people came and went to their pitch sessions the speaker’s were interrupted and the constant noise was a distraction.  The food at lunch on Friday was cold and I was one of the first to go through the line.  There was only one choice for lunch, pasta with a choice of a red or white sauce and mystery sausage.  The food was a real disappointment.

The speakers,well, with the exception of one professor from UW-Madison were forgettable.  I’ve forgotten them already.  I did have one surprise.  I was talking with the President of a small publication house in Rice Lake and shared by story of woe with the micro-publisher I dumped in February.  I was asked what my book what about and I rattled off my previous pitch automatically.  The President asked me to send her my manuscript.  I think I will. 

What 20th century author would you have dinner with, if you could choose anyone living or deceased?  For me it would be Ray Bradbury who died last June at the age of 91.  Bradbury had a unique creative genius and a gift for storytelling that sucked you into a story and then lead you to believe the most incredible, surrealistic things.   I suspect that most boys, at some point, have an obsession with Bradbury, mine started in high school and lasted until my mid 30’s.

At dinner I would ask Ray how he imagined stories such as Fahrenheit 451 and the Martian Chronicles.  Although Bradbury’s reputation rested on science fiction and dystopia societies, I like the “down home” books like:   Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine and I Sing the Body Electric.

Bradbury was a self-made writer, didn’t attend college and didn’t attend writer’s conferences or have an MFA.  Bradbury took Faulkner’s advice, “Don’t be a writer.  Be writing.”

Who would you have dinner with?  

I’m posting a day early this week and posted a day late last week, not that anyone would notice.  My former publisher strongly encouraged me to develop an author/book website.  I completed my own research and agreed it was a good idea.  I selected ipage because it allows you to include a blog on your website.  To me, that seemed efficient.  I wasn’t keen on supporting both a website and a separate blog site.

My webpage went live in December 2011 and I posted my very  blog on 12/12/11.  I have not been consistent in posting blogs, I admit it.  I accept responsibility for not seeking visitors to my website by posting interesting blogs weekly.

However, in the past 14 months the number of comments I’ve received can easily be counted on one hand.   So I’m beginning to wonder if I made a tactical mistake to bury my blog within my website.  Should I have created a separate blog on blogspot like many others have done?

Everyone in blogland – help me out.  Let me know if you think it would be worthwhile to create a separate blog on blogspot?  

I am new to freelance writing for income, it’s just been three years.  I like to freelance because it gives me an opportunity to research and write about the “real world” things that matter to me like; farm to fork issues, organic gardening and other green topics.

I talked with a friend who is a retired Journalism professor and he advised me to send out a ton of queries and develop a portfolio of “clips” that I could use to build credibility and some authority in my area of interest. He told me that initially don’t expect to be paid but with each publication I had reference material for the next query.

After a year I decided it was time to get paid for my research, time and writing.  I targeted regional publications because I thought it more likely to get published versus a national publication at this stage of my freelance career.  I received a phone call from the owner of a regional publication after sending a query about a friend who raises heritage Belted Galloway cattle.  The article and five pictures were accepted and published in the February 2011 issue.  I received a copy of the publication but no check.

I sent several e-mails but never received a check.  Later that year I received an e-mail asking for submissions to the same publication.  I sent an inquiry.  Again, my inquiry was accepted.  I responded that I would submit an article only if paid for the first article.  The owner assured me that I would receive payment for both articles.  My second article was published in Jan-Feb 2012 issue.  Guess what?  No payment.

In mid-December 2012 I received another e-mail asking for submissions.  Again, I responded I would be happy to submit if I received payment for my previous TWO articles.  Then I was asked to submit an invoice.  No problem, invoice submitted.  I waited.  A month went by – no check.  Two months went by- no check.  Finally on March 6th I received an e-mail that a check would be sent soon plus copies of the publication my articles appeared in.  I waited. 



The check arrived on March 11th and I cashed it the next day – you can’t be too careful.  My experience is getting paid for freelance work is a roulette wheel.

   

The theme for the readings the Winter Session of my book group TUESDAY MORNING BOOKTALS IS “Unhappily Ever After”.  One of three books in the series is The Living is Easy by Dorothy West.    One reason for being a member of a book group is to get the opportunity to read books you generally wouldn’t chose for yourself – not out of bias – out of ignorance.

Dorothy West was a member of the famous Harlem Renaissance.  The Living is Easy was published in 1948 but sadly went out of print.  West didn’t publish fiction again until 1995 at the age of 85 when The Wedding was published.  Oprah Winfrey turned the book into a TV mini-series.

The Living is Easy tells the story of a middle class Black family in Boston at the turn of the 20th century.  The family matriarch and protagonist Cleo (Cleopatra) runs a household of sisters, children and her husband with a unique maternal vision, gile, lies, conniving, ingenuity, and improvisation.  For me, Cleo will be one of the most memorable characters in literature.

While successful for many years, Cleo’s husband, Bart Judson, loses his fruit importing business and moves to New York City to find a job and send money home for the family.

The book raises the themes of intraracial oppression, assimilation into a white society and how marriage can be suffocating.

I highly recommend reading The Living is Easy, it will change your world view.

If any readers have ready Dorothy West,  I invite you to post a blog on this site. 

I’ve been involved with our local civic theater for about six years.  The theater has contributed the gift of live entertainment to our community for over 43 years.  I’ve had a variety of jobs from props, to running the light board, to running sound affects and being a stagehand.  In the past four years I’ve concentrated on serving as show producer.  I have collaborated with a director that is a friend of mine and we’re currently on our 5th show working together.

Both the director and my wife (mostly my wife) have encouraged me to go on stage.  I have fought off this suggestion for years.  However, fortune dealt me a trick hand when an actor in the current production of Wait Until Dark had to drop out due to illness.   The director asked me to fill and I said yes, to help him out.

It is a very small role at the close of the 2 hour play.  My role is so small that my character doesn’t have a name – just Patrolman #2.  Working with the actors, rehearsing, I’ve learned how the theater is like acting.

First, actors love words – as much as writers.  They love the sound of words and how words along with action and produce emotion and convince an audience to suspend disbelief.  In writing action and words should be interwoven – we call it showing not telling.

Everyone involved in a theater production develops a strong comradery while working on the play.  The degree to which they support each other, make suggestions for improvement and support the crew is incredible.  To be honest, writers, at least in my experience, could learn something from actors in supporting each other.

I invite other authors to post about their theater experience.