Marketing Images

My mind has been occupied with real life concerns. The writing has suffered. I am not hopelessly blocked, but the output has been more akin to a trickle than a deluge of words.

The consolation comes in the form of tiny royalty returns that remind me that this dream is possible because some readers find the idea of reading my work fun, intriguing, pleasant, or at least worth the money and time.

It’s hard to focus when things are not going your way, though there is the whole struggling artist mystique… Of course, a bohemian existence sounds very romantic on paper as long as you poetically disguise that it is not much more than trying to decide which bill doesn’t get paid this month while wishing you could afford better booze to get through it.

If I can’t write to close out stories and put more books out to catalogue, at least I need to concentrate a bit of effort on marketing and the goal is to have at least one or two images for each title before week’s end.

I started the ball rolling with a poster for Justified that seems tailor-made for a Twitter world. I'm not entirely sure that they are all equally good or that they all convey the same level of enthusiasm or "talent" -- but if any of these speak more to you than others, please let me know. 

At any rate, these are the flyers I drafted today. Whattathink?

Program Notes

A few program notes, as it were. The back catalogue/online portal has changed URL to http://www.amapolapress.com. An international committee of lovely investors gave me a hand in purchasing the domain name and giving a cohesive persona to my self-publishing endeavor.

Writing on May You Grow Old and Fat has halted for the time being, as I try to decide the fate of a few characters – each alternative moves the story forward differently. Each ending, for its part, proposes distinctly different morals to the story.

No writing has begun on the new projects suggested earlier, although a placeholder cover for Love and the Android was uploaded to the Hopper page at the portal. The catalogue description reads: “A study in loneliness and sexuality, a compendium on the civil rights of artificial intelligence, and life in space… [It] will explore the ethics and consequences of using artificial intelligence as surrogates in a not-so-distant future.”

My favorite discussion of this included a comment from a friend whom is concerned the image speaks more of horror than sci-fi (in his opinion). My reply was that the only difference between romance and horror was "the tone of the screams involved." If I can maintain that level of humor as I write it, there is hope for this project!

Research for that is ongoing and right now I know of two main characters and the android. I have not done character studies yet, but I have very specific archetypes in mind. It is imperative that these characters stand on their own as three-dimensional people, if flawed, because otherwise the story is useless.

The bigger challenge, I think, will be trying to depict the loneliness of living in space without making it boring—and without making it sound like a 2001 rip-off, though any comparison to Arthur C. Clarke would be a cause for joy.

I’m also wondering if the project will benefit from a short story treatment rather than a narrative that has a linear thread from beginning, middle, and end. I haven’t decided this and it can wait…

  

For those of you who have been with me for some time, you realize that I detest February with a passion – and this year it promises to be crueler than usual – so instead of new projects, I will begin transcribing the six or seven chapters I wrote longhand for Poetic Justice. There remain at least three more chapters and assorted details of cultural relativism to sprinkle across the pages, but it will bring me closer to the conclusion.

Real Life concerns will probably derail any plans I make, so instead I make notes until I can peacefully devote life and love to it.

Fun Things to Come

Happy New Year from the Big Apple!

I’ve allowed several distractions to keep me from writing and the business of being a writer. To be fair, some distractions can be defined as Real Life Concerns and should not be ignored – though they tend to harsh my writer’s mellow…

Then again, one of my superpowers is the ability to give up vices without a second thought. I gave up recreational fun substances, alcohol, strange men, and even smoking without any bellyaching. The time came to put those things aside, and that was that!

Just as well, I decided it was time to stop playing around – and it is granted that some of those concerns will have to be addressed but without interfering with my writing. I will have none of that.

To that end, I finished a chapter of the NaNoWriMo novel and began a new chapter that brings the story closer to a climax.

Recently I’ve become curious about robot rights and sexuality and it may result in a novella, though I am not entirely sure where that is going just yet. I know there is a woman manning a space station and I am not yet sure whether it will be a study in loneliness, a study in sexuality, or a compendium on the civil rights of artificial intelligence… It ain’t gonna be 50 Shades of I, Robot!

There are still two other titles that need to be released: a crime novella set in a speculative political reality and one of the books in the steampunk series that introduces the alternate universe.

There is real life drama and humiliation, misery and frailty to be observed in the next few weeks that will surely become part of the journals that will soon make their way to another collection of stories. I may not be looking forward to the experience on a personal level but appreciate the opportunity for new material and hands-on research. (Things are about to get very real at my end, but as long as I can grab on to a silver lining, I know I will survive.)

While I am very happy to get back to work, I also realize that I need to sit down and work out a plan for the year – including a marketing plan (which I’ve been neglecting lately, despite growing sales in India, Brazil and Mexico).

I am thinking that I ought to do another short story collection, a sister companion to Because She Was a Woman. The first collection revolved around women and I was wondering if the second ought to revolve around something like a house, a locale, apiece of music, a dish…

What do you guys think?

Birthday Lesson

The last coupe of weeks I have been distracted on a personal project: a virtual birthday bash. The plan was to try to sustain a week-long celebration. I was not exactly sure how this would work, but it sounded like an interesting experiment.

You all know how I love to experiment! There was a lesson to be learned here…

Others have done this and I suppose if I look, there probably is data being collected on such things. But I wanted to document some of the experience and adapt the parameters of it to a book launch.

When Google Plus first appeared in the ether, I said that hangouts had a great potential for book launches. I admit that I did not go ahead with the planned virtual launch of One Night with B.B. because I panicked: What if I throw a hangout and nobody comes? What if they hate the story? What if nobody wants to buy your silly little e-book?

Tortured by my own doubts, I denied myself the experience.

Granted, the virtual birthday bash lasted well over a week and it was such a smashing success, we kept the group (it is private) and continued the conversations. A book launch is likely to last a very limited period of time. But I think I have learned a few things…

Here are the details that I wish to translate to a book-related event. The group was international, comprising three continents. It was balanced along gender lines. Involved were three distinct generations.

Obviously the majority had two people in common, the minority at last one of the two birthday girls. Some of them were familiar with my work but not all, but that was hardly important because it was not a publishing event.

There were no rules as such, but we did define what the virtual gathering should look like.

Music: Parties should have music! Dancing music, make out music... Bring us a good song!

Party Games: What's a birthday party without a game or two? Run your own trivia threads, if you'd like. I will give away a few books as prizes.

Food: Of course, you can link up some good food porn. And drinks! I even got you started in the cocktail department.

Gifts: No purchase necessary! But you can bring all those wonderfully weird, conversation pieces you haven't shared on your wall because . . . well, just because. If you get stuck, K and L enjoy looking at sexy boots neither can afford.

Stories: We like words! Stories, poems, songs, jokes. You got some? Share!

Video: Seen something interesting or funny and want to share or just discuss? Throw it in the mix. Especially if there's cute kittens in it!

The only thing that did not go as planned were the games and we did not need them as such (they were referenced). The conversations pretty much extended 24 hours as the group spanned several time zones.

What transpired was an exchange of ideas, philosophies, jokes, stories and ephemera that defined each of us, the group, cliques within it, the times in a much larger sense and the event itself.

I had a fantastic time and was left with ideas for more writing projects; a deeper bond with some and a deeper appreciation of the whole; a new hangout place simply called The Lounge; and a playlist of over 200 videos and 18 hours of sheer entertainment (which you are free to peruse and amuse, explore and use as a muse).

So it was an epic birthday, but also it expanded my idea of how to present my work and market it online. Plus I got to explain kinky boots. Like other defining experiences in life, it’s always best to try them out with friends you trust before taking the plunge…

I am ready to do this! And I am already working out the details in my head for a fantastic virtual book party (and I'm dying to try out the technology to include a virtual signing as well). O brave new world!

NaNoWriMo: FTW!

This one was interesting. It started with a glimmer of an idea and although I planned out a few scenes I pretty much wrote straight through. This, of course, is a crazy way to write!

At any given point, you my run out of steam or (gasp!) words… It didn’t happen. I managed to reach those 50,000 words, with days to spare. There is still story left to finish the book, probably two or three more chapters.

What I did on this book was to write each chapter pretty much as a scene. Some are more self-contained than others, but these scenes that extend beyond a moment are linked by it.

I’m not done yet, but as I write this I wonder if it was at all what I intended to begin with and realize that it was always a work in flux. I don’t recommend doing it this way on a deadline but it was still quite a rush!

The ending that I envisioned when the idea took hold of me is probably only going to be hinted at – a literary big tease? The part I thought would be the most interesting, once I began to write it, became the most boring and ended being nothing more than a few sentences to segue into action scenes.

What of the gravitas of politics, religion, and a cultural revolution? Some of it is in there. I am sure that it is not as originally intended. Will it be glaringly offensive, shocking, or even daring? I don’t know. Some of it was awfully uncomfortable to write and some scenes suggested themselves that made me cringe. Will it be easier to read that it was to write? We shall see.

Some characters emerged that I had not planned but it was they who dictated their fate. I just wrote what the voices told me…

Despite certain trepidation about some of the content in this project, I never fell behind this year. There were a few times when I was not sure where I was going because I had not planned that far ahead. This did not affect output as much as I feared it might.

And the research was fascinating. Not all of it made it in the book, but there’s some fun Hawai’ian trivia floating in my head, some sustainability data, and lots of very colorful reef creatures!

For those who asked: Yes, I will finish it. I will edit. I will publish.

I hope that May You Grow Old and Fat has its own voice (not necessarily mine), and that there are at least a dozen moments that are strong and colorful and emotionally cathartic enough to ingrain themselves in the readers’ souls. But that part is not up to me.

Finally, there were some lovely people whose support was very palpable and I thank them for it. Y’all know who you are: feel the virtual hugs and occasional kisses (some with tongue!).  

NaNoWriMo Blues

NaNoWriMo has been interesting this year. I seem to be fighting either a bout of tendonitis or carpal tunnel. The city and state seem to be under a barrage of natural disasters, though none seem to be touching me much (it’s as if we are being cocooned in a protective bubble).

So far, I’ve stuck to the original idea and just finished 23,399 words and 12 chapters – or the entire first act.

I am almost halfway done. Now I’ve reached the point of the story I do not really know. So I am really making it up as I move forward…

Next: hippies take over Lanai (may Larry Ellison forgive me!).

Available on iBookstore

There is something very exciting about the e-book markets going international in just the blink of an eye. The iBookstore in iTunes now carries all my titles, including The Scent of Honeysuckle. More importantly, this is true in the US, the UK, Italy, France, Panama, what-have-you. I suspect that the iBookstore will overtake my Nook sales within the next couple of weeks.

I’d sell more if I weren’t slacking on marketing, but there is so much I can manage at once. I have to work on it.

In the meantime, I am plugging away at the NaNoWriMo novel (12,151 words and 8 chapters so far).  I’m hoping that I can thread the narrative later, because although I am writing it in chronological order, I am not entirely sure how much of what I’ve written stays in…

This time around I have less of an outline and more of a general idea of where it is going and I will run out of stuff in about three chapters.

The challenge will be not so much getting May You Grow Old and Fat to market for the holidays, but the other two novels I’ve put aside for the moment (Volume One of Chronicles of Ash and Poetic Justice). If not, then I need to step up the marketing.