Be Polite, Stupid!

I have been a published author for four years. In those four years, I have had a lot of book signings. I’ve had signings at cafes and bagel shops and pizza places. I’ve had signings at craft fairs and antique machinery shows. I once signed books during Bingo at my old church, and even braved 40-degree weather sitting outside signing books at a donut shop, but then I caught a cold.

On April 27, 2014 I had my second-ever signing at a bookstore. The store employees set a table up by the front doors, and I covered it in a tablecloth, bookmarks, business cards, and neatly arranged my books among them.

Then I sat down and waited to ensnare innocent customers and tell them about my books.

Partway through, one of the employees walked by and I said, “I’ve sold two so far! That’s two more books than at my worst book signing!” Then he said, “That’s two more books than most of the authors here have sold at their book signings.”

At the conclusion of the signing, I pried into this matter further. According to the employees, whom I found friendly and helpful, most of the authors who have had signings at their store sat in the back, didn’t talk to any of the customers, and became angry when they didn’t sell any books.

My mind was blown.

Sure, I’ve had my fair share of disappointments. But you know what? IT ISN’T ANYONE’S FAULT. I am one author out of a million. So are you. And you and you and you. You are not a princess so it would only be logical not to act like one.

As an author, you’re probably trying to build a name for yourself. Part of this involves forming lasting relationships with other people, whether they be readers, other writers, bloggers, or–you guessed it–employees at a bookstore. If you throw a fit when things don’t go your way, you’re only hurting your reputation. Nobody wants to read something that was written by a brat.

Muser Rob says, “To connect to people in such personal ways and then behave like a tool towards the very people who facilitated the connection to whom the connection was made, just seems…counter-writer. But then again, entitlement is more contagious than the flu.”

You can say that again, Rob. It seems that some authors want to be treated like the next Stephen King when they’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve the treatment. You have to WORK to build an audience. You can’t expect a bookstore to do it for you. And treat other people the way you would like to be treated. Show some respect. If you don’t sell any books at your book signing, thank the store anyway for letting you be there and for having given you the opportunity to sell them. 

And when you refuse to talk to any of the customers at the place where you’re signing books, it’s your own fault when nobody takes an interest in your novel. You know what I do? I greet people as they walk by. Then I ask them what they like to read. Then I tell them what my novels are about.

It’s that easy.

Granted, many people still won’t be interested in your books. And that’s okay. Not everyone reads thrillers. Not everyone reads paranormal romance. Not everyone reads mysteries. Find the people who do. And be nice to them. Because when you’re rude, you give authors a bad name and pretty much kill your chances of ever being successful.

So, authors, I implore you to be polite with everyone you encounter, whether it’s online, on the phone, or in person. BE POLITE. Because if you don’t, I will find you. And then I will kick your butt.

A Belated New Year

I'm always the sort of person who lags behind. I still don't own a smart phone. My Christmas tree is still up. I put up my 2015 calendar yesterday. That water bill I've been meaning to pay is still sitting on the table amid a bunch of crap I need to clean off of it.

I haven't even set up any events yet this year. I should probably be ashamed of myself.

What HAVE I been doing, you ask?

Well, I've been writing, catching up with my reading, and staying inside with my cats where it's warm.

With kitties as cute as these, wouldn't you stay inside with them, too? ;)

I'll start posting updates about my current projects when they near completion. In the meantime, stay warm, and have a happy new year!

Servant: The Chronicles of Servitude, Book 1

Servant has been released.

It has a shiny new cover (it's a long story why I ultimately could not use the first one, which was beautiful), and is my thickest novel to date, which is a little bit misleading since it's printed on thicker paper than my previous two novels. I mean, it DOES have more words than the other two, but if it was printed on the same kind of paper as the other two, it wouldn't be as thick as it is.

Wait, am I rambling? [glances around nervously]

Anyway.

Servant has been more than three years in the making. Needless to say, I'm glad this project is finished. In the meantime I've been working on a manuscript called SACRIFICE, which will be Book 2 in The Chronicles of Servitude. (If you couldn't guess, Servant is Book 1. Solitude is Book 0. It's fun counting from zero.) Sacrifice will probably be released in the fall of 2015. I say "probably" because crazy things happen and like to throw giant wrenches into one's plans.

Blue Harvest Creative did an amazing job formatting Servant and designing the cover. And look how they did the interior!

Servant is available in both Kindle and paperback formats from Amazon. You can order the Kindle version here and the paperback here. Happy reading!

Bobby Roland knows things he shouldn't. 

Plagued with premonitions of disaster, he fights to save others’ lives. What Bobby doesn't foresee is that rescuing a stranger from death will place him in the line of fire. 

He discovers a world of evil spirits and tormented souls when he becomes entangled in a madman's plot to kill the Servant, a man chosen by God to exorcise demons from the possessed. When Bobby falls under spiritual attack following the encounter, he must choose between saving others and saving himself.

Solitude: The Chronicles of Servitude, Book 0

Yesterday, September 9, the prequel short story to my upcoming series of novels was released on Amazon.

Originally I had no plans of writing Solitude. Servant was to be the first book of the series, and that was good enough for me.

But then fellow authors Katie Cross and LaDonna Cole each released stories that tied into their own series of novels, and my author brain said, "Hey, I can do that, too!"

To my surprise, it wasn't that hard for me to come up with an idea for a story that would lead into the beginning of Servant. In Servant, twenty-year-old protagonist Bobby Roland has been in Oregon for a year after previously having lived in Utah, New York, and Ohio. Bobby tells Randy Bellison, a man who for some reason seems to attract poltergeists or some other unsavory thing, that he used to work at a music store in Utah before moving to Oregon.

And you know what's funny? I had no idea what compelled Bobby to pack up his bags and leave Utah.

So when writing Solitude, I finally figured out why, and now you can, too.

Premonitions of disaster tend to put a damper on one's plans. 

Bobby Roland would much rather spend his evenings practicing songs on his electric guitar, but fate has a different idea tonight. 

Bobby hangs out with a local rock band on the weekends, and he knows one of the members will be killed at tonight’s jam session. But who will be hurt, and how will Bobby save him? Can he set aside his fear and be vigilant enough to find out, or will it be too late?

Download your very own copy of Solitude today!

http://www.amazon.com/Solitude-Chronicles-Servitude-Story-Book-ebook/dp/B00NE9EBA4/ref=la_B00BPFG71A_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410364158&sr=1-5

And add it to your to-read list on Goodreads, too!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23171260-solitude

If you've read this far, let me tell you a fun little fact. A couple years ago I discovered The Piano Guys, a beautiful music group from Utah, and that's where I came up with the idea that Bobby worked in a music store there. Also, go listen to The Piano Guys. There's a cello involved, too, but I guess "The Cello Guys" didn't sound as good.

Ragged Edge Reunion

Yesterday I came home from my first-ever writing conference feeling totally stoked. I learned so much and absorbed so many things this past weekend that I'm still sifting through it all and probably will be for the next several weeks.

The funny thing is that a non-writer person who is very close to me asked, prior to my departure, what the writing conference was going to be about.

I drew a blank. "Um...there's going to be stuff on how to write query letters and stuff."

Yeah. Stuff.

Since the conference has concluded, I can sum it up in a few short words:

Inspiration
Community

Okay, that was only two words. Authors aren't supposed to know how to count.

It was such a beautiful feeling finally getting to meet so many wonderful, creative people in person. I felt like I knew almost everyone already. We writer types are like one big, happy, demented family who should not be permitted to touch sharp objects or fireplace tools.

Or ketchup.

Here are some snippets from this weekend.

1. I kept coughing because I'm not used to talking and the act of speaking was irritating my throat.

2. A fellow writer was constantly brushing her teeth. Note to self: create a character who is constantly brushing her teeth.

3. I nearly gave myself a hernia laughing at Katie's Ted impression.

4. "We must love the brown monkeys."

5. Two words: war paint.

6. I won a sweatshirt for being voted Biggest Grammar Nazi.

7. There was a surprise guest who passed out advance copies of his newest book.

8. The surprise guest tried to steal my red Sharpie.

9. Instead of plaques, we give out headstones.

10. When it rains in Nashville, IT RAINS.

11. It's okay to not have any idea of what you're doing.

12. Have a ridiculous amount of belief in yourself.

13. We are enslaved by our desire to be perceived in a favorable way.

14. Writing can't be taught, only learned.

15. Blue is the color of all that I wear.

16. And I was not the weirdest person there.

Editing, Schmediting

SERVANT came back from the editor on Monday, and I've spent every day since then trying not to be disheartened by all the red marks with which my editor painted my document.

Every time I send off a novel or short story to be beta-read or edited, fear reaches out its knobby fingers and latches onto my heart. My chest tightens. I feel like I can't breathe right. What if they say my story sucks? What if it's so bad it can't be published and I have to start all over from the beginning?

I'm sure many authors have this fear. We want our work to be perfect but know it isn't. What is clear in our minds does not always translate to the page, which I have learned time and time again.

In SERVANT'S case, I understood my characters, but the editor found their motivations murky. She said they needed to be developed better. So far I've altered one scene to read from a different character's point of view, flip-flopped two scenes so they appear in a different order, wrote in some flashbacks so a relationship could be understood better, consulted a native Spanish speaker to check the correctness of a sentence, picked a different Bible verse for a passage at a wedding, and fixed what a character was doing since the editor said it was physically impossible for him to do it.

And that's not all, because I'm not finished combing through the document. When I'm done, I'll comb through it again to tweak things further, and then again after that. Then it gets sent back to the editor so she can look at all my changes.

[wipes sweat from brow]

The plus side? She said my writing is tight! (Which means I don't use excessive words.)

SERVANT should be coming very soon now. I can almost taste it. Can you?

Waiting in the Dark

Photo credit: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/File:Dark_parking_lot.jpg

SERVANT is coming!


But you probably knew that already.

On Thursday I spoke with a book formatting person on the phone for an hour and a half. Do you know how long it's been since I talked on the phone that long? About 7 years--I kid you not. I learned lots and lots of stuff during that hour and a half and even found out that said book formatting person is a huge Dean Koontz fan. (If you don't know, my discovery of Dean Koontz's novels completely changed the style and themes of my writing.)

Anyway--to further whet your appetite while we all await SERVANT'S unscheduled release, here's a snippet from Chapter 11, when Bobby Roland waits for Randy Bellison in the dark...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He sat up and stared at the distant door of the unit Randy had disappeared through. The light still glowed behind drawn curtains. He hoped everything was okay in there. Randy had told him he’d be back, but it grew so late that he considered asking if Randy would be willing to stay there until morning.

            But Bobby wasn’t going to be the guy to interrupt their conversation.

            Or anything else that might be going on in there, for that matter.

            Ever the gentleman, he waited for Randy to emerge.

            Seconds turned into long minutes. It had to be two o’clock by now. Tomorrow he would be cleaning a church at this time of night. By himself. In a seedy part of town. Where people cut brake lines on cars and unseen beings tapped on the windows.

            As if on cue, a small object bounced off the windshield and rolled down the hood. Fear seized his heart for a second before he realized it was only an acorn that had fallen from one of the tree limbs hanging above the car.

            The night became still once more. He waited.

            A length of time passed. He shifted positions and gazed out the window again. The apartment lights were still on.

            He sighed.

            A speck of orange light inside the car to his left caught his eye as he went to lie down again. He squinted. It looked like the burning tip of a cigarette, but aside from that he couldn’t see anything within the vehicle.

            It would seem Bobby was not the only one waiting for something in the dim parking lot, and since nobody had entered or exited the other vehicle since Bobby arrived, the smoker must have lurked behind dark windows for the entire duration of Bobby’s wait.

            Creepy.

            He continued to watch the cigarette. Intuition told him the person smoking it was a man. What was he doing here? Casing the joint? Waiting for someone to meet him? Or was he just out here to smoke?

            Bobby held his finger over the automatic lock button, knowing he was probably overreacting. But he wasn’t in the best shape. Kids in school had made fun of him, calling him Knobby Bobby and Skinny Ninny and things like that, generally before he got slammed face first into a locker. If this guy wanted to break into his car and steal his wallet, Bobby wouldn’t be able to stop him without getting broken himself.

            He pushed the button. The sound of the locks engaging was as loud as a car backfiring in the quiet air.

            The cigarette went out.

            Bobby stopped breathing. Two eyes that he couldn’t see were likely staring in his direction.

            “Randy,” he whispered, “it would be great if you could get out of there so I can leave.”

            He supposed he could leave the car himself and take refuge inside the girlfriend’s apartment, but it would be rude to barge in on such a scene. The woman had tried to kill herself. She had to be messed up on something. Drugs, maybe. Normal, healthy people didn’t want to die. They wanted to—

            The voice of reason spoke inside his head. Get out of the car. Now.

            Bobby didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled across to the passenger seat, made sure he had his keys and wallet, and dove out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more SERVANT sneak peeks, check out these posts:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

SERVANT is coming! It has a cover now! And words!

And be sure to visit SERVANT'S board on Pinterest!