Toxic People

On my last post, I stated that regardless of how busy and hectic my routine gets I won't give up blogging. Seriously. The relationships I've made as a result of blogging are valuable in so many ways, one of which is that it's a safe place to hide from toxic people.

You know the kind. Those who make you feel little and insignificant as they laud their great lordliness over your many failures and weaknesses. Which of course they in their glory do not have. Those who somehow manage to diminish people just by opening their mouths. How do they do that? And why would anyone want to have such a dubious talent?

Toxic people are everywhere unfortunately. It's so hard to find a safe place free of them. I feel bad for anyone who has TP in their families. *shudder*  That would be hell on earth, and anyone who has the misfortune to live with a TP and still manages to get out of bed in the morning and face each day with a smile, I applaud you.

I feel very blessed that toxic people have been rare in my life. Maybe because I don't leave my house? LOL, no really, there was a time that I went out to work and stuff, and only ran across a few TP's here and there. But in the workplace where you can giggle and gossip with your coworkers about the insane new manager behind her back, the TP's poison is somewhat diluted.

As opposed to having only an email relationship. Hooo boy!! That's toxic concentrate which really burns when you work from home, because there's no coworker sitting next to you doing a sympathetic eye roll. And then the two of you go out to lunch later and really dish on the shared TP. I can't dish at lunch with my friends on the psycho woman who is currently blocking my sunshine because then I'm spreading the toxicity and ruining everyone's meal, and that's not cool.

So instead I turn to my blogger buddies. Here's your chance to rant about the TP in your life. Just let it all out. Pretend like we're coworkers hanging out at the Olive Garden eating endless soup and salad. Is there a TP currently ruining your day? And if so, how do you best deal with it? I'm listening.

Why Keep Blogging?

After one has been blogging for awhile the question inevitably comes up-- Why am I doing this? With limited time one must make choices and set priorities. No, this isn't a "I'm taking a break" post, it is a "Why I blog" post.

Top  ten reasons why I blog:

10.  It's my author promotion site, a way to let potential fans readers know what books I've written and what I'm working on.

9.   I like to write in every way, shape and form, so this provides one more venue for my obsessive writing behavior.

8.   Blogger makes it so easy and fun to set up that I went from one,  two and now three separate blogs.. Really, I'm addicted. It has become my favorite way to procrastinate.

7.   For a writer who went half a century unpublished it just feels so good to write something even if it is drivel, then click a button that says "PUBLISH".

6.   My giraffe welcomes me, my followers welcome me, this is my happy place. I love to come here, just to look around if nothing else.

5.   After nearly two years of building an audience, I'm not about to quit now.

4.   I'm excited about setting up a blog tour for the release of House of Diamonds, and see if it makes a difference in sales because when my other books came out, I wasn't active on social media.

3.  It's fun and motivational to go around and see what others are working on, where everyone is in their writing journey-- to share in the joy and the misery of this amazing craft.

2.  Blogging feels comfortable to me. I've worked hard to fit it into my schedule. Quitting would be like disciplining oneself to walk an hour a day for two years and then giving it up just because. (And yes, I have done that with exercise & it makes me feel like a loser and a quitter.) 

But of course the Number One reason I must keep blogging is

YOU! My friends and fellow writers, thank you for accompanying me along this online journey. I had no idea how much people I've never met could come to mean to me. You are my writing network and support group. Thanks for being here!!

This award given to me from Michelle at Beautiful Chaos is for all of you, for being my friends along the journey.Unfortunately it will not download on my computer for some strange reason, but you can go here to see how lovely it is, and maybe you'll have better luck saving the image and passing it on :)

Speeding up the Blog Process

I'm thinking ahead to the A to Z Challenge in April and how I intend to visit as many new blogs as I possibly can and leave comments. But something concerns me-- word verification. When I only visit a few blogs and leave comments, word verif isn't a big deal.

But when you're trying to get to a hundred different posts a day? Come on people, word verif is the pits. It is the biggest waste of time on Bloggerland. Take those extra ninety seconds it takes to type in the captcha word, make sure you get it right so that your comment posts, and sometimes redo it-- multiply this by a hundred and you see why I hate word verification on blogs. Really, I don't see the point of it. It's easy to get rid of and I have never had a problem with spam. I require blog owner approval on comments that appear on posts older than 10 days, this avoids any nasty stuff appearing where I won't notice.

Sometimes I fear that blogs will become the dinosaurs of social media as Twitter and Facebook which are way faster and more efficient take over. Well, I don't know what killed the dinosaurs but I'll bet you anything it will be word verification that kills blogging. 

More on Reader Reviews and the Kindle Top 100

So this weekend I was busy doing "research" on my new Kindle, still trying to crack that code on big ebook sales.

There's a lot of well-known books and authors on the Top 100 (James Patterson, Tom Clancy, Water for Elephants, The Book Thief) selling for what I think is too much for an ebook. Why am I going to pay $14.99 and not even get a "real book"? But then I'm still kind of old-fashioned that way. And frugal. After paying so much for an e-reader, I don't want to pay $10 for each book I download.

So this led me to the Top 100 that are $.99. Checking summaries and reviews, many of these looked like they might be good reads, at least some value for the money. And there's self-published author Amanda Hocking, with at least 6 titles on the Top 100. That means she's good, right?

So I downloaded a few of these titles and started reading. I did enjoy Hocking's Blood Flavor-- the first one was .99 and I liked it. I liked her voice, her style of writing and didn't find too many editing errors. Overall, a pretty fun read, so I downloaded the first one in her next series (also $.99) about the trolls.

Then I read the reviews and had to laugh. They were either 5 star "I LOVED this book!" or 1 and 2 star "What are you people thinking???!! This book is CRAP." I'll still read it, but I won't order any of the others in either series because I didn't like it that much, and the rest are $2 and $3.

I'm still downloading a few .99 authors who seem popular but I'm finding that reading these books is like reading a manuscript that needs editing. There's potential, but definitely in need of an editor's touch.

So what have the rest of you found as you've been searching the Top 100 on your e-readers? Any great $.99 values? Or have you found a lot of rough stuff that somehow (not sure quite how) found an audience?

Why I Like Bad Reviews

I didn't used to like them. A bad review would upset me for days, back when UNCUT DIAMONDS first came out. FARM GIRL was one of those books that most everyone loved, so I got spoiled. Then when my novel came out I figured it would be more of the same-- a huge lovefest of joy with readers thinking I was awesome and loving all my books and soon I'd be on Oprah, well you know the story. What writer hasn't followed the same train of thought as you complete your amazing work that you just know the world is waiting for?

Hey, I'm no different, I'll admit to my flights of fancy. But now I'm all grown up as a writer-- I have two books out after all LOL *pathetic, I know, I blame the procrastinating*-- and as I check Amazon and Goodreads reviews, I realize how glad I am for those horrible one-star reviews on UNCUT. Now that there's enough really good ones to balance them out, of course. If it was all 1 or 2-star reviews, I'd be in trouble.

But the bad ones give my work legitimacy. Someone checking out the reader reviews will see that I didn't stack the deck with friends and family writing fake reviews just to make me look good.

In fact, here's what I ask. If you read Farm Girl or Uncut Diamonds and didn't like it so much, will you please please please go to the Amazon site (link included) or Goodreads and give it an honest, not-so-much review?

Of course, a good review is much appreciated as well. UNCUT DIAMONDS is beginning to pick up on Kindle sales, and reviews can only help! If you go to the FARM GIRL Amazon site, however, don't buy it there, as WiDo is now running a special sale, available for $5.95 on the website.

So there you have it people. My take on why bad reviews can be good. If you give me a poor review, we can still be friends! Serious, really, I'm not just saying that. Ask Jessica Bell, she gave UNCUT an honest 3-star review which I think is just so cool.

Don't you get kind of suspicious when you go to a site and every review is a gusher? That's as bad as them all being 1 or 2-stars, imho. Because you're not sure that they are real. *Omigosh and I had planned on this being a short post. Aargh!*

Just in Case you Might Want to Plan a Book Tour

I know this is the era of ebooks, social media marketing and forget- about- the -book- tour- unless- you're- a- celebrity, but some newly published authors might still want to plan a tax-exempt vacation
a working, fun vacation
a trip to someplace interesting
er-- a book tour.

If that sounds like you, I'm currently doing a series over at the Celery Tree blog on marketing and promotion. This first series will be focusing on planning a book tour *does anyone even do that anymore?* Well, my mum and I did and I want to share what we did and what we learned.

The first part of the series was on Identifying and Finding your Demographic. The second on Planning and Communication. Third will be on the Media, Getting Reviews and Articles. Fourth will be Playing to Your Strengths. And Fifth on Failures (because we learn more from our failures than from our successes).

So check it out yo. Come hang out with me and Liesel under the Celery Tree!

A to Z Challenge Woo hoo!

This year I'm taking part in the A to Z Challenge and am honored to be one of the hosts. The others are Arlee Bird, Alex Cavanaugh, Candace Ganger, Jen Daiker, Jeffrey Beesler, Stephen Tremp, and Talli Roland. Have you signed up yet? You can do it here or on one of the other hosting blogs.

When April comes you blog each day about any topic, from A to Z, consecutively. And you blog hop to see what everyone else is saying on each new alphabet day. I'm doing it to get some new focus and discipline for my blogging routine. Plus make some new friends!

Borders Bankrupt and...what else?

I am saddened but not surprised to hear about Borders declaring Chap 11 Bankruptcy. Last year I wrote a post about Borders here, about how they support local authors. The Borders in my area willingly hosted signings for myself and other WiDo authors, then bought copies of our books to stock on their shelves. They purchased them from the publisher rather than expecting the author to cut them a deal as some small bookstores are now doing.

When Barnes & Noble was in trouble awhile back, I cheered. I had always shopped there as a consumer but as an author, they didn't give me the time of day. So I stopped buying books there and instead drove 30 miles to Borders.

When I went on tour for Farm Girl one of the bookstore owners at a local shop in Hastings, Nebraska said that Amazon had really hurt his business. That was 4 years ago. I'm not sure his store is even still in business. Again, it's Amazon. Think Kindle. Think ebooks. Think free enterprise system. Think video rental stores-- Redbox, Netflicks. Anyone been to Hollywood Video lately?

Yes it's sad when your favorite bookstore closes. (I'm hoping our Borders is one that stays.) But is anyone really that surprised? It's been happening to the little guys for some time, and apparently the big box bookstores are not immune either.

So this makes me wonder what other huge changes are in the works for the publishing industry in the very near future? Agents quitting? Publishers closing their doors? The Big Six going POD? What do you think-- predictions anyone?

Brilliant Writers are not always Brilliant

Following is my Goodreads review on South of Broad by Pat Conroy, which I gave 2 stars. Just so you know, I don't make a habit of advertising when I read a disappointing book, and never when it's a debut author or a friend. But sometimes we all need to be reminded that the bestsellers out there aren't necessarily the best books. And that rich and famous authors like Pat Conroy can put out a stinker same as the rest of us nameless newbies toiling away in our back bedrooms, wondering if we will ever get good enough for publication.

"After reading The Prince of Tides, my first and only Conroy novel, I had great hopes for this one. It disappointed me. There were some serious problems-- shallow character development, contrived scenes, many things alluded to but never explored like the brother's suicide and the evil stalker guy's drowning. How do you take a villain and solve the problem by having him drown off scene in a hurricane? So much better in The Prince of Tides where the heroic brother lets the tiger into the house and thus destroys the stalker/villain. My recommendation is to read the prologue and forget the rest. The prologue is pure brilliance, the rest of the book is a weak follow up."

 An interesting note about Goodreads reviews: Many of the reviews on this book had similar complaints as mine (and much more thorough and cleverly written)-- written by ordinary readers, not professional reviewers. In fact, the professionals gave South of Broad glowing reviews. Sometimes you wonder if these media people even read the books they review? Or do they just look at the author and say, "Oh yeah, he's good, here's my canned bit of praise for the back of the book"?

Have you ever read an acclaimed, bestselling book that got stellar reviews only to say "HUH?"

I Love Books

I am in love. With books. It's true. They are my passion, my life, my compass. I have other things I love, too, of course, like husband, family, God-- you know, the usual. But books!! Without them, I can't imagine who or what or where I would be in this life.

The fact that I can be one small part of the grand and glorious process of reading, writing, publishing, buying and selling books makes my skin tingle.