Self-published does not mean unprofessional.

A little story for you…

Once upon a time there was a little girl. We’ll call her Emma. Emma wanted to join Facebook, but she was a long way under the required age and her mum said no. Emma begged and begged, but her mum wouldn’t budge because, she said, people were not always what they seemed and Emma was not old enough to know who was nice and who was not. Emma wasn’t happy. Her friends had Facebook. What do mothers know? 

Then she had a great idea. She took her iPod into her bedroom when Mum wasn't watching, downloaded the Facebook app and joined up anyway. She used a different name of course, so her mum wouldn’t find her in her list of ‘possible friends’. She wasn’t that silly.

Of course the whole idea of joining Facebook was so that she could talk to her friends. So she told her friend at school, swearing her to secrecy so that word of it wouldn’t get back to her mother. But the friend proved to be no friend at all. She didn't keep secrets. Within days, Emma’s whole class knew. Worse, they used it against her, making her do things for them - with the threat of telling her mum if she didn’t do it.

Fortunately, Emma’s teacher worked out what was going on. She advised Emma that the best solution was for her to tell her mum what she’d done. Emma was scared, but she did as her teacher said. Of course, she lost her iPod for a while as punishment for doing what she’d been told she shouldn’t, and she no longer had Facebook under any name. But she had a clear conscience, no one could force her to do anything any more and she had learned a couple of big lessons: 1.Mum does know best 2.People are not always what they seem.

The second of those lessons is one that a lot of writers would be better off to learn before they publish. In fact there are a few lessons that many writers seem not to have even thought about when they launch themselves as self-published authors. Let's look at some. The first bears repeating –

© K.Stewart

1. People are not always what they seem.

Don’t misunderstand me. There are some absolutely wonderful people out there on the internet. I’ve been privileged enough to ‘meet’ quite a few of them. But there are also some who are out to dupe the unwary, by pretending to be something they are not. Scammers and shysters. They might do it just for the sense of power it gives them, they might do it to forward their own cause at the expense of others. Either way, the new author needs to check and double check before jumping into any scheme that looks too good to be true (because it probably is). They also need to sit on their hands and be patient when they think someone is ‘out to get them’…see the next rule.

2. The laws of physics relating to action/reaction don’t necessarily apply on the internet.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about arguments that have blown up between writers and reviewers. Apparently some authors, irate at what they see as a personal attack have reacted to reviews and started a flame war that got out of control. Readers run to the defence of reviewers, authors run to the defence of authors and pretty soon it’s like a couple of gangs in the schoolyard throwing stones at each other. The author needs to remember a couple of things before reacting to any review. Firstly, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What seems like an attack may be a perfectly honest opinion given in good faith. Nobody can write a book that will please everyone. Secondly, if they have given a bad review in order to annoy the author or to promote another, the very thing they probably want him/her to do is to react. So writing a comment after a review is ‘feeding the trolls’ – never a good idea.

3. Nobody owes you anything.

As I’ve said, there are some incredibly nice people out there in cyberspace. They give their time generously to help authors – giving reviews, tweeting links, advertising books on their sites, buying books. Unfortunately their generosity is sometimes taken for granted. Authors ask for reviews and become annoyed when they’re turned down, or worse – react badly to anything but a five-star review. They put their book on a site and get annoyed when the site is taken down due to lack of time to maintain it. The truth is, the self-published author needs to work hard to get ahead and can’t expect others to constantly give them a leg up. Give and take is a wonderful thing. Arrogance will get you nowhere.

4. Mud sticks for eternity on the internet.

If I look on Google, I can find articles and snippets of information about my favourite entertainer from before the internet even existed. Once a piece of information is there, it is there for good. It is almost impossible to have something removed. So, just as youngsters are warned not to put photos of themselves on the internet that will embarrass them in twenty years, an author must learn not to do anything that will come back to haunt them in years to come. That big negative reaction to a review will never be forgotten. That rude remark about another author will be held against you forever. It’s about never letting down that professional front. It’s about not giving the trolls ammunition.

5. Separate you-the-writer from you-the-person.

The internet is like a huge window with the whole world looking in. In a way it’s great for an author to be able to interact with their readers so easily, but at the same time, some distance has to be kept for your own privacy and that of your family. While I love my family and would love to show them off, those people who are not what they seem make me wary of doing that. So I have a page on Facebook for me, mother of my children and a page for Katie W. Stewart, author of fantasy books. Even within my private page I have things that are shown only to some. It seems the safest way to go, hidden away from the trolls.

Book Review: Iditarod by Andre Jute

A while ago, I read something about the concept of 'setting as character'. I didn’t understand it until I read ‘Iditarod’ by Andre Jute. The book has two main characters, Rhodes and James, both skilled athletes, both determined to better the other in the Iditarod, an annual sled race across Alaska. At first, I presumed that James was the antagonist. With his fame and wealth and slightly arrogant approach, he was the obvious candidate to be the baddy of the piece. It soon became obvious, though, that the real antagonist is the place, Alaska itself. Both Rhodes and James, while competing with each other, face this wild, desolate landscape alone and it throws everything it has at them to stop them succeeding. 

As in all good books, though, the antagonist is a three-dimensional character with enough goodness about it to draw the reader in. Even when Rhodes and James were fighting the worst Alaska could muster, I was in awe of the spectacular beauty of the place so clearly described. It was not hard to understand why people would pit themselves against the place in such a dangerous way. 

This is a determined adversary that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. Hardly a page goes by without the potential for disaster being raised. At times, I must admit, I was a little annoyed at Jute’s use of chapters written from the point of view of a pack of wolves. It took me some time to understand the significance of these chapters and-- as he tended to put them in just as one or other of the characters was in dire straits-- I became impatient with them for a while. In truth though, they gave chance for the reader to have a rest from the fast paced action* whilst they quietly developed the setting as a character. By the end of the story, I felt sympathy for those wolves (who epitomised Alaska) despite their actions.

This is a book that has obviously been the subject of detailed research. Everything, from the history of the Iditarod to the detail of the landscape along the way, is meticulously described. It’s an old-fashioned, beautifully written adventure story that won’t disappoint any modern reader who enjoys fast-paced action. I highly recommend it.

*If I have any criticism of the story, it would be that perhaps sometimes the action scenes were so fast that I couldn’t quite picture what was happening. However, that could have been more to do with the fact that I know nothing about sleds, snow, ice etc., rather than the writing itself.

Scams and Shams

I ‘Googled’ my books last night, as I do about once a week to see if I’ve missed any reviews etc and was shocked to find a site that seemed to be offering my books for sale. Horror! I’d been pirated! But on further investigation from friends with more intelligence than me, it became clear that in fact, the site didn’t have my books or anyone else’s books. It was just a big scam to get money off those who would like to download free books rather than pay for them. 

After that little adventure, I went on and found another site offering ‘The Dragon Box’ for sale. Again it was a ruse, what for I’m not quite sure, but the ‘extract’ it had for the book had me in stitches. Another Perth writer, Meg McKinlay, once blogged on something similar she’d found as a ‘review’ of one of her books. It’s obviously a conglomeration of phrases from a huge number of books, but I don’t recognise any of them. The result, though, is hilarious –

“The claims stewart justice being thus satisfied and the majesty katie the law fully vindicated, the deceased crocodile is lamented and buried like a kinsman; a mound is raised over his relics and a stone marks the place of his head. If possible keep breast halves in a separate pan from legs and thighs as they will cook more quickly. For some time it had influenced the kings mind. For the first time in his life, he did long for revenge,-revenge against the one for stealing his patrimony, and refusing his hand; and that revenge he hoped to gratify. Der Herr hat auch wohl den schwarzen Storch gesehen, der nicht weit von der Burg auf einer abgestumpften Buche horstet. I saw the torches Flash on their visages a dreadful light- I saw them whilst the black blood rolld adown Each stern face, even then with dauntless eye Scowl round contemptuous, dying as they lived, Fearless of fate. " Mrs. Through these hidden caves I found my way; but your young feet may the dragon the mountain summits.”

Doesn’t that just make you itch to read The Dragon Box? 

Heaven knows where all the lines came from, though they did cite Shakespeare at the end. Ah, I needed a good laugh.

Looking back on July

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. So far, August for me on a private level has been the month from Hell. But I wrote this post at the end of July, so I thought I’d post it now, just to try to cheer myself up. It’s not meant to be a list of how wonderful I am, just a reminder to myself during the darker times, that things can go well.

What a month July has been as an author! To start with, at the beginning of the month, I heard about the Smashwords Summer/Winter Promotion. I decided to add Treespeaker to it, to see what happened if I just gave it away free for a while. The answer was, it did a whole lot better than selling it, the high point being one day, early on, when I gave away eighteen in one day. 

Later in the month, a lovely little site called Love Thy Author, which features Indie books and links them back to Amazon, included Treespeaker, listing it as an “Undiscovered Gem”. While I was still high from that, I received a great review from Tracy at Booked Up. 

Still flying, I sent an interview to India Drummond as I’d arranged to do months before. It was only supposed to stay up on her site for a few days, but was actually there for two weeks and I began selling books at Amazon, even though I was still giving copies away via Smashwords. At the same time the number of people ‘adding’ my book on Goodreads began to grow.

The cover of Treespeaker was also featured on Cover Art Review. That was less successful, with the few comments it got being rather negative, but at least they were looking at it!

In the meantime, I had two projects on the go – firstly to get a new website up and running and secondly, to get my children’s book ready for epublication (as I mentioned in my last post)*. My website was sadly out of date and because I’d done it myself and then lost all the files when the computer crashed, I couldn’t do much about it. I couldn’t even take it down and start again, because the most up-to-date Microsoft Office no longer has Front Page, which is what I’d used. Then I discovered Weebly, which allowed me to do everything I needed free-of-charge and keep my old domain name. If I’d know how easy it would be, I would have done it ages ago. It’s simple, but I can add to it as I go along.

Towards the end of the month, as an experiment, I changed the category that Treespeaker was listed under to “Christian Fantasy”. It’s not a book about Christianity, but it does have Christian themes and nothing that might offend sensibilities, so I thought it might appeal to that market. I sold two books in Britain one weekend and it shot to #6 in Christian SciFi and Fantasy which was a thrill while it lasted!

I also added a tag to the book of ‘Environmentalism’. Within days the book was being advertised on various environmental websites. I’m not sure that it led to sales but it was interesting to see that happen!

Another thrill was when only three days after joining iAuthors.org, my book was chosen as ‘Book of the Day’. Not only that, but a piece on ‘professionalism’ was put with it to explain why it had been chosen.

So, that was the month of July. Now to try and get this month back onto an even keel personally, so that I can relax again and start writing.

*The book, ‘The Dragon Box’, edited and with the cover approved by a class of ten-year-olds is now available on Amazon

Self-talk

I’ve been doing a lot of ‘self-talk’ these past few days, preparing myself for life as an author…

One day, when Sausage was very little, we went to a service at a Korean church in the city to commemorate the Korean War. While we were there, I was approached by a Korean lady, who shyly asked, “Excuse me, but do you know that your daughter is very beautiful?” I laughed and assured her that, yes, I did know that, (she’s beautiful in any language) but it made me feel wonderful. Only days before, I had stood in the checkout at our local supermarket and grown progressively more uncomfortable as the woman behind me stared at my beautiful black-haired baby with undisguised contempt. In the end I turned around and stared back at her. She simply lowered her sunglasses so that I couldn’t see where she was looking. Obviously she couldn’t see past her own bigotry. I could really only feel sorry for her. She had blinkers on long before she lowered her sunglasses.

I’ve just spent my first weekend as a published author (I did write "published" but I changed it…positive thinking). The experience has been a strange one. I’ve taken my baby out into the world and now I know I have to deal with those two extremes: those who understand perfectly what my book is about and those who can’t understand it at all. With that last group, I’ll lump those who have no interest in even trying it. Having had the book critiqued by numerous people, I’ve already met the two extremes, and I’ve developed something of a thick skin. But is it thick enough? I have to admit that waiting for people to comment is extremely nerve-wracking.

I’ve had one lovely, fantastic, wonderful, beautiful, heart-lifting review. That person understood perfectly. I’m still floating from that one. But I know that there will be people who won’t like my book. They’ll say so and I have to accept that. I spent some time the other day looking at other self-published authors on Amazon, namely the ones that are doing really well. They’re selling tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of their books. Yet in amongst the five star reviews, there are still plenty of scathing one star reviews. You could never tell that these people have read the same book as everyone else. Are they wrong? Who can say – they’re probably just coming at it with a very different perspective to everyone else. 

So it has five legs, who cares? It's beautiful.(Aged 4)

But before anyone can like or dislike Treespeaker, I have to persuade them to buy it! The marketing ‘experience’ is a whole other post.

Success of sorts

As I think I mentioned in an earlier blog, a few months ago I joined a review site for writers. The idea is that you post the first few chapters (6000-10000 words) of your novel and other writers on the site (mostly unpublished) review them. They give you a score out of 5 on each of 8 categories. On the basis of those scores, you go into a chart. The Top 5 each month (those there on the first day of the month) get a professional review from a published writer (Michael Legat features fairly regularly). For the past five months a publishing company have also been giving reviews to the Top Ten, so competition has been fierce.

I originally put up the first three chapters of my fantasy novel. It did reasonably well at first, staying in the top 20 for quite a while. But then one particular review wrecked my average and I couldn’t get it back again. In the end I took it down. I also posted the first four chapters of my children’s novel. It came into the charts at No.11 but went down from there. Again, one particular review (from the same man!) wrecked my average and I sank to 19 or 20. I began to feel very despondent and questioned my ability as a writer (whilst feeling very unchristian towards that one man who insisted on giving me 3/5 for everything).

In a last ditch effort, I rewrote the first chapters of my children’s novel and reposted it. You have to have five reviews before you can get into the Top Ten and I waited ages for that fifth review. The chapters came in at No 11 again. But this time I knew, from something someone had said, that I had the same average as at least one person in the Top Ten. Unfortunately you can’t enter the Top Ten in the last week of the month, so I had to sit there on No.11 until August 2nd. I expected to maybe get to number 8 or 9, then fade out. So it was a bit of a shock to find myself at No 1!

It’s a fickle game. The scores are controlled by standard deviations, something I’ve never understood. I do know that the person who gave me nearly all 2s made no difference to my overall scores because everyone else has given 4s and 5s, but if Mr Threeforeverything gets hold of it again, it will sink fast. The different categories are weighted too, so what you get for each makes a difference. I’ve been up and down between first and fourth since then, even though I’ve not changed overall score.

Am I exultant, ecstatic, excited? In a word - no. I was for a little while, but not now. Oh, it is nice to have got there (albeit at the wrong time for the professional review), but I’m not counting on it making any difference to my future. The best thing I’ve got out of it is that I’ve finally got a version of those early chapters that actually works - for me. It feels right. The first version was way too slow, the second draft too confusing. Now I think I have something I could actually send to an agent…with just a little more polishing. For the first time in months I feel motivated to get something done.

Now where was that wireless switch again?