How to torture your favorite writer

THIS IS OLD – BUT THE PRINCIPLE STANDS

I haven’t advertised in ages, because I haven’t figured out exactly how to do it when you write in a 1) smaller niche (mainstream love story), that is 2) usually NOT indie (and you write indie), and are 3) slow (so there won’t be another book for readers for a while longer).

As an expected result, sales are slow (but someone bought a paperback this month – Yay!).

And, under certain conditions, you can SEE a reader take your book out of KU and read a few pages (first yellow bar – around 10, maybe 11 if the next bar was right after midnight).

And then read a few pages every once in a while.

From a later graph and adding all the page reads (PC is just under 400 pages), I think the reader finished by May 19th.

Slow writers take our encouragement where we can get it

But it is amusing to watch a graph like this one (and the speeding up at the end) go by when you are doing your daily check.

And to decide what you’re going to assume about the reader (since you have no data but the few points on the graph, which you assume come from the same borrow) based on NO OTHER INFORMATION.

In this case, I assumed a busy life, and a few pages read at bedtime by someone who KNEW they had to get up in the morning to work. Fair enough?

READERS owe writers NOTHING

I will say that as many times as necessary.

Once the book is on the open market, buying – or borrowing from KU – is more than enough for a reader to give the writer.

At that point, we hope they will enjoy it.

Anything else, a rating, a review, a recommendation – is above and beyond, and a gift.

If a reader buys the paper book, we usually don’t even find out if they read it unless a review shows up (these can really make your day; the absence is just normal reader behavior, because few review).

Between the reader and the writer

This has been the contract (a one-way contract) almost forever: I will read.

Going to the next level of writing a fan letter was very rare, even in the olden days.

Doing anything else other than having a warm feeling for the experience (if that happens) nowadays is as rare.

When you see a book with many reviews, it is usually because the book sold many copies – and the usual percentage (tiny) of readers left their impression.

Occasionally, a very good (or very bad) book may solicit a higher percentage – meaning it hit readers in the gut.

Torture away

Writers don’t expect much feedback

Our readers are mostly not writers – they are the people we hope to serve entertainment to.

But it is possible (probably unconsciously) to torture your writer – by proving you can put the book down, over and over.

If you need to do that, please go ahead. It does require you borrow the book from Kindle Unlimited first – and then read it a tiny bit at a time.

Know that the torture is even better because Amazon pays authors not when the book is borrowed, but as the pages are read.

You’re welcome.

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PS: I’m going through my files of draft posts I never finished to see if any still tickle my fancy. This one did.

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The tiny start of each new day

WE HAVE IT EVERY DAY

I realize it’s become a little routine, getting going in the mornings as efficiently as possible, so I’m recording it to laugh at in the future.

Mind, this is me ALWAYS – and has little or nothing to do with the coronavirus.

It might amuse you.

There are many steps (beyond the obvious first one):

1. Find brain – it’s in there somewhere
2. Do anything that absolutely must be done before you even turn the computer on.
3. Turn on the lamp in the corner from the switch by the door.
4. Say my morning prayers – even though I rarely remember the promises I made.
5. Turn the overhead light on from the control on desk I can reach from the bed.
6. Move to the desk chair.
7. Turn the big monitor on – and make sure the switch goes to blue (behind PostIt so it doesn’t affect my sleep by being too bright).
8. Lift the lid to the Macbook. While waiting for the screens to come back,
9. Reach for phone, and plug it into the charger (I don’t charge overnight because I need it for a clock in the middle of the night, and a flashlight)
10. Critical: reach down and turn the power strip with the two bright green lights ON
11. Now it’s okay to turn the desk lamp on (with a touch).
12. Open the venetian blinds and the shade to let the light in.
13. Pills: take morning ones, set the later ones out.
14. Check the email.

The reason for waiting to do 11. until 10. is done is that I keep forgetting to do it – until my Macbook suddenly shuts itself off and goes blank.

And when I look, and the two green lights are NOT on, I realize I forgot – and the battery went to as close to zero as the Mac allows, and I DID IT AGAIN!

So I’ve linked them deliberately.

After that come the optionals:

• Diet Coke #1.
• Breakfast (but that can wait for hours if the brain is on and I want to try using it first).
• Water and ice for the HydroFlask tumbler I sip from all day long. Cold!
• Facebook, quick answers to anyone who seems to want one.
• The Washington Post, and The New York Times – quick scan.
• Load up a page of sudokus – hard – for when I block the internet.
• Check the calendar.
• Check the To Do list – maybe – not good with that; stuff gets done, but not in an organized manner. Occasionally, clean the list, remove stuff already done.
• Extra Vitamin C? Extra painkillers? Extra liquid B12?
• Checking if any books have sold on Amazon overnight, or the nice person who took it out of KU has read any more pages.
• Check The Passive Voice and Writer Unboxed; comment if I feel like it.
• Think whether it’s been long enough that I should consider watering the twin coffee plants and the flowery thing.
• Open the living room blinds that let me see out from my office past the living room, somewhere into the distance.

And finally, if I have any energy left at this point,

think about what I might need to accomplish today.

Think about adding an energy-draining shower to the list for today.

Including whether I both need and can afford to take a short trike ride for mental health and a tiny bit of exercise, like today – if so, try to remember the ritual associated with that now – from taking the cellphone and the locator bracelet for emergencies, and the keys, and the backpack, and water…

There you have it – boring as all get out, so I try to do it quickly, so I can go on to procrastinating from writing by thinking about writing.

Oh, and worry about the coronavirus, COVID-19,

and whether we’re still going to be safe, here in our total lockdown at the CCRC.

But that one goes without saying.

All this is so I can get to the real reason for getting out of bed:

• Working on the current/next scene in Pride’s Children NETHERWORLD.

Which is coming along very nicely.

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Do you find yourself doing the same list of heuristics every morning in the same order and playing a game with yourself to see how fast you can get past it?

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Fourth floor shenanigans at our new home

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

We haven’t been here a year, so everything is still new.

Today it has been beeping since 7 am, which is almost three hours, and the beeping is associated with not only the cherry-picker backing up, but with the arm being lowered and raised to bring today’s newest – our window washers.

The cherry-picker brought this nice man up to the fourth floor balcony, and then he clambered over the edge, and was left here cleaning the balcony window and the door

to the balcony – from the outside.

I don’t know if housekeeping cleans the windows from the inside – must find out.

Meanwhile, his partner cleaned the other big windows (they believe in lots of light here) in the living room and the other bedroom.

Of such is my day – and I’ve even started blocking out the beeping.

Another reason to get to bed on time – stuff happens that wakes me much earlier than I’d like otherwise. Especially since I couldn’t get to sleep until after 3 am.

My thanks to the working people of our nation – we so often take them for granted.

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What wakes you up too early?

My funny 2017 Thanksgiving Day story

THE CLUELESS WRITER STORIES

The only excuse for this is that I’m pretty isolated, the kids are too far away for travel and for various reasons we two just don’t ‘do’ Thanksgiving any more (except that husband has opted to have me make his traditional pizza – I get the crust ready, he piles on everything he loves).

Out of the blue

My dear friend Sandy called this morning, to invite me out for lunch for my birthday. It’s a tradition we’ve had for a long time. As she has moved from New Jersey to Vermont (though her youngest is still here), it is an unexpected pleasure because she is here to celebrate the day at her old home.

I was delighted, and we quickly agreed on a time and place. We eschewed our old ‘writing partners’ traditional restaurant because, the last couple of times we’d been there, we both agreed quality had dropped.

I enthusiastically agreed to The Cheesecake Factory. They’re a bit noisy, more at dinnertime though lunch should be okay, but their food is good and has a great variety, and they have low carb cheesecake!

Write it down, Alicia!

I write the information on a Post It!, being as I am getting forgetful and don’t want to make her wait tomorrow, even changing the refill on the gel pen to make sure the note was nice and dark. I stick the note where I can’t possibly not see it several times today, which is what I need for it to penetrate.

I’m sitting here at the computer wasting time, as I do in the mornings, thinking about the posts I’ve read this morning, and the general concept of being thankful for what you have, and grateful in general. I turn to erase the message on the answering machine which is blinking in my peripheral vision’s range.

Suddenly, the slow-moving cogs in my brain finally do something. I stare at the note. I start laughing.

I call Sandy, startling her (I’m sure she’s probably up to her ears in cooking or something), and say, “Do you realize what day tomorrow is?”

She said no, and I pointed out it will be Black Friday. She still doesn’t get it. I said The Cheesecake Factory is in QUAKERBRIDGE MALL.

We agree neither of us do Black Friday – and I said, “But other people do.”

Disaster averted

We had a good laugh, picked a different place far from any shopping venues tomorrow, and will have a great lunch catching up.

I can only imagine what it would have been like if clueless me had gotten into the car and tried to drive to the Mall tomorrow for lunch, late as I usually am at that point.

I hope ONE of us would have noticed by then.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.

Me, I’m just grateful I’ve received so many things today to make me laugh.

Pride’s Children: PURGATORY now collector’s item

FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF MY READERS IN PRINT

You have to love Amazon, and the people who sell there (caveat emptor), but treat them with care.

I keep track of things (okay, I look too often at the sales pages), and notice the oddities.

Which today included MY book, USED, for sale at $319.93 (plus $3.99 shipping and handling – sheesh! You’d think that at that price they’d throw in the shipping and handling for free).

So if you bought the paper copy, you can amuse yourself with the thought that it is now ‘worth’ (here defined as ‘being offered for sale at that price’) almost 15 times what you paid for it.

And I’m not even famous yet!

And if it’s one of the few paper copies I sent to reviewers, and the offer were real (which I highly doubt, being of a skeptical nature), someone just made some real dollars off me as a writer. I wish them the best of luck!

I’m sure if I pursued this ‘sale’ past the cart at Amazon (which I got to), something would go wrong, or someone at the other end would quickly buy a paper copy and have it sent to me, and there would be laughing all the way to the bank if it actually went through.

But it’s a funny little bit in a world which has turned funny, too, lately, so I got my five cents worth of chuckle out of it – and pass it on to the loyal fans.

I’m sure you writers out there have had this happened – it’s just the first time for me.

BTW, NETHERWORLD is coming along nicely – maybe it will be worth even more!

In what universe is it funny to push a woman in a wheelchair off a stage?

“Now that the Britannia Awards are televised, viewers can see Sacha Baron Cohen knock an 87-year-old woman out of her wheelchair”.

Comedy depends on surprise; that’s not a problem.

Crossing the line.

Making fun of people in wheelchairs is a disturbing continuation of making fun of people who are in any way different.

It is acceptable for a comic to make fun of himself, or a comedienne to use her personal life as a basis of her act.