RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//My very productive week, the problem with writing dialect, and the first part of an intensive breakdown of the language “coaches” use to entice you to spend your money and simultaneously erode your self-confidence.
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Okay, I haven’t written a bestseller (yet!), but I’m over at the RMFW blog talking about the desire to write one and how wanting everyone to love our books can get in the way of writing the stories we need to.
And I haven’t won an award (yet!), but THE TALON OF THE HAWK has been nominated for Best Fantasy Romance of 2015 in RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Awards. I’m in there with good friend Grace Draven, which is wonderful. She came up with a solid plan: if she wins, we’ll drink wine; if I win, we’ll drink wine; if we both lose, we’ll drink wine!! Love her to death. I have to tell you folks, seeing my name listed with all of these other writers is a thrill right there. Really doesn’t get better than that!
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I took this picture in a roadside stand in Hatch, New Mexico on our way from Santa Fe to Tucson. My mom needed a new ristra – the name for these bundles of dried chile peppers – and I texted this to see if she liked this variation with the dried corn husk pieces. It ended up being such a cool image, I thought I’d use it here. One of the things I love about living in New Mexico is the variations on what have been traditional Christmas themes for me. I’ll try to keep posting local color holiday photos throughout the month.
Every once in a while, an author will succumb to the temptation to write a post about how readers can help their careers.
If you’ve been around the internet communities of readers and writers, you’ve seen them before. Or heard about them. The latter occurs because word tends to travel among people annoyed by such things. Which a lot of people are.
Now, let me go on record here as saying I’m a big believer in asking for help.
Every one of us needs help at some time or another and it’s usually a big mistake not to ask for it. Pride can get in the way, with people not wanting others to know their weaknesses and need for help. Many of us were also raised with the idea that asking for something from other people is akin to begging and not working for what you want.
Amanda Palmer addresses this idea beautifully in her Ted talk on The Art of Asking. If you haven’t listened to it, I highly recommend you do.
There’s a fine balance in the commerce among human beings between giving and receiving vs. selling and buying. The transactions are the same in essence, yes? In both cases, we exchange something, usually of value. The sticking point is whether we exchange something back again, to compensate the other. Arguably, there is always a “price” on a gift – whether it’s the expectation of gratitude, or later recompense or a trade of some other kind.
Only an anonymous gift is truly free of all strings.
But that’s a side argument because we’re talking about selling and buying. Between writers and readers, there is an expectation that readers will buy our books. (Yes, I’m leaving out fan fiction, free stories, etc. – for a person who earns their living as a writer, selling books is how it happens.) In that sense, we’ve already made the request. I might be standing on the street corner, with my cup full of matches and a stranger gives me a penny for one. Presumably that person wanted the match enough to pay a penny for it, but I asked first. I stood out there and made the proposition.
Just as I do with my stories.
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How people bill themselves and their products fascinates me.
You know what I mean, right? The “best,” “tallest,” “newest,” “most.” Advertisers have been after this method for years, trying to convince consumers that this particular thing is special, unique, superlative and Must Be Purchased. Of course, there are laws that require Truth in Advertising.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main federal agency that enforces advertising laws and regulations. Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:
Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive
Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims
Advertisements cannot be unfair
However, it’s fairly easy to get around this sort of thing. “Truthful” is a relative thing. My “healthy” granola bars might be low-fat and through the roof on sugar and sodium. Depends on the definition.
Writers, of course, are faced with selling themselves to the world. Yes, yes – I know we’re really selling our stories, but the almighty BRAND is the author herself. Do you want to read a book by Crappy Author or Bestselling Author? Knowing nothing else, you’ll probably pick Bestselling, because at least that means a bunch of other readers liked the author’s work enough to buy it.
Theoretically.
See, it’s really great for an author to have a book make it to the New York Times Bestseller list. Or the USA Today Bestseller list. And now the Amazon Bestseller list. The best part is, a writer gets one book on one of those lists – even in the very bottom spot – and ever after you get to pimp yourself as Bestselling Author. Fair enough, really. However, now that there are so many digital presses and online bookstores, there are ever so many more lists to be on. And I see authors glomming onto the “Bestseller” title if they’ve made it on any list anywhere.
For example, when Sapphire came out, it was number one on the Carina bestsellers list for about a week. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t love this. I may have clicked on the link and looked at it approximately every ten minutes. I might have even made little gleeful noises while I looked. Okay, I have screenshots saved. And someone said to me “Now you can call yourself a #1 Bestseller.”
Erm.
Obviously, I haven’t done that. It just feels wrong. I know a bunch of you will snicker at this, but I’m a fairly modest person. Not that I don’t have a very healthy ego and strong self-confidence. But I really don’t like talking myself up. I run into this at the day job, too. Those people in the company who make sure everyone knows how wonderful they are? I’m not one of them. I’m wary. Wary of jealous gods and obese egos.
So today I noticed a writer described as “World Renowned Author” and I tripped over it. What the hell does that mean? I recognized the author’s name, even read one of his books, but I would never have described him as world-famous. And then I thought, well, hell – Carien who often comments here, lives in The Netherlands and she likes my books. And @arzai lives in Malaysia and she likes my books. I figure, this makes ME world-renowned, right?
I’m low-fat, all-natural and healthy, too.