talk about backfiring

so yesterday my book came out. The one based on Daddy Long Legs and so far it's gotten one response. A two out of five star rating and this comment:

I love the book "Daddy Long Legs." It's one of my favorites. It's a charming and delightful read. The description of this book sounds as if the author has ruined everything I love about DLL. I will not be purchasing it.


I don't rag on readers but in this case I can make an exception because honestly, she's not a reader. Naw, I won't rag on her because opinions really are fine. My opinion? I wish she'd read it before doing The Big Hate thing.

I get the idea that some books are sacred and now I wonder if I've done a disservice to my book and DDL by mentioning DDL.

I loved that story too, a lot, and hoped that would come through if you read my book. But only if you read it. Granted Ben is no Judy** But I did try to emulate Judy's spirit of persevering though rotten times, her thirst for knowledge and finally a sort of coming to a new sense of self. Plus there's the whole who's the benefactor thing.

Elizabeth, if you're out there, I'll send you a copy of it and if you still hate it, then I invite you to write a long screed here and anywhere else. Heck, I've already published your criticism! You can just make it more detailed next time.

______
** I like these footnote things better and I'm on hold with Virgin Mobile.
So.
Judy is a wonderful character but yes, indeedy, my hero is different. I figured it would be extremely icky if I made them alike. It's an homage not a rewrite. No one should attempt a rewrite of that story.

* * * *
UPDATE because I'm still on FREAKING HOLD.

and what is the language of this stuff? I've looked but not seen any definitive answers. here's what I think:
rewrite: telling the exact same story but with different words.
retelling: sort of telling the same basic story, but with twists.
inspired by (or an homage to) : can be hard to recognize unless you're looking for similarities
plagiarism: we're talking just exactly the same....you can't do it legitimately...well. Okay, you can if you're making movies and you trumpet it to the world and pay someone the big money. (See "Sabrina")

selling sort of

the part about me (this is a blog after all):
I've spent years trying to be honest and disdaining bullshit about myself. Other people, if they have a myth built up about themselves, that's their business and I'll support them. As long as their tales aren't destructive to others, I figure they are the kind of people who'll make life more interesting-whether their lies are successful or not. More power to them, actually, if they can build and live up to an image that is a little better and cleaner than most actual humans can manage. Or if they're not very good at it or just tell random lies, too--I don't resent them. Their not-so-great lies make them more interesting characters, and make their personalities a little muddy, which is always a good thing in my world. Another reason I don't condemn or point fingers, there's the matter of glass houses.

I was a liar for years and years and I wasn't particularly good at it because I didn't buy into my own lies and because early on, my mom, whom I respected to nth degree, called me on it ("we all know your teacher didn't really get married, dear") and said it was a bad idea. She did such a good job, by my late teens I got physical symptoms when I'd lie about myself. Exaggerate? Hell, yes. Every day in every way. But that's different.

Anyway.

the more interesting bit about an odd promo campaign:

I occasionally see instances where maybe a good lie would work. Or maybe I just mean staying silent is the best plan.

I'm talking about career, of course. Sometimes getting the truth out on the table is not such a good plan if selling books is your goal. Here's what promo people say and I'm beginning to believe: you want to let people think that everyone loves your books. You want to look successful because success sells itself. I don't mean all those people on twitter who say "I make 2000000 a day! You can too!" They're obnoxious. I mean just wearing success quietly, whether or not it's real.

I tend not to think in these terms, obviously.** But if I owned a marketing hat and I managed to put it on, I would think that using a lack of a new contract would be something to keep quiet, not make part of a marketing campaign. I could be wrong about it. I know from twitter that some people are buying her books out of pity. I know that editors and agents don't care about a writer's hopes and dreams so it's not a way to sell to them. But the direct public? Maybe they're more interested.As long as they actually get the books, then what's the problem? Why should I care?

I don't much. Or rather I don't feel indignant and I'm not rolling my eyes. I wish Marvelle luck. BTDT as have most of the writers I know, actually.

I'm just not sure I'd use a lack of contract as a way to push books into people's hands.

The real reason it gives me pause: You risk sort of badmouthing a publisher or making yourself look pathetic which isn't really an image you want to promote, unless you're Philip Roth or someone whose books fit that "I iz loser" mold. I don't think branding is as real as the experts do, but I must believe it to a degree because I'm thinking. Hmm. This is branding in a bad way.

I can see doing this campaign playfully, because that might be sort of funny line to take.....like that guy who did the "even my grandmother hates my book" video. Where's the link to that damn video? I loved that thing

The giving away fifty dollars? That's a standard sort of promo lure. Interesting combo of the usual and unusual promo procedure. I hope she lets us know how it goes.

________
** this is very useful. I can say to myself "that book didn't hit the bestseller list because I stink at the promo" and not blame the actual book. Which means I can keep on writing. Otherwise I'd just wilt.

stuff

Click here to check out
The Hartford Area Writers!

This is mostly just Wendy and me sitting and writing at the Borders. But I'm messing around with the meet up page and found some widgetty things. This part isn't a whine because that meeting thing at Borders WORKS. Not so great today, but usually, it makes me work. BICHOK.

* * * *

I thought I had a book out today but it's actually out in TWO days. July 9th. And such fanfare we're having here! Yessireee! Contests and alerts and interviews and chats and. . . all sorts of things that I'm supposed to be doing to prove I'm good at my trade! Yes indeed! My ebook will rise through the ranks to become a surprise best-seller, just you wait and see.

Speaking of professionalism, I'm going to DC next week. Did I mention that about 30000000000000 times? Dee Cee.

My brother said I'm welcome to stay at his house. It's a nice house, too, but oy.

I think the last time I stayed there might have been the night my father died. I'd come in a separate car and spent way too much time alone in the room with my dad's corpse, waiting for the moment when I felt easy around him it, which never came. I'd read too many stories of strong women who washed the bodies of their dead--I did manage to kiss his forehead. After that long evening, I couldn't drive home. So Mike took the kids home to Frederick and left me there. I spent the night at my brothers throwing up and watching movies. I watched Dave about three times and Kevin Kline still gives me flashbacks.

The throwing up is SOP for me, not disgust. Some people to sorrow with tears, some produce great art. I barf. I'm the guy from the Sot-Weed Factor.

Naw, that can't have been the last time I spent the night at my brother's. Have I also mentioned that I'd rather get a root canal than leave my rat-maze? I hate to travel. Hate. Hate. Hate.

Also, I think my dog has fleas and now that musical phrase is stuck in my head.

also my new cover

is over at erotic muses. Mike wants to know why the guy doesn't have his glistening chest on display (it's not that sort of book) and why his pants are on backwards (are they?). And what's with the motorcycle (it's in the book, but yeah.)

I like the title font--I don't think I've seen it before.

waaah don't make me go home again

Do you really want to go back to the scene of your childhood? I seriously don't. I'm going to in a couple of weeks. The RWA DC conference is across the street from my aunt's house (well, the place she founded, Woodley House, and where I used to hang out all the time) and it's about 2 miles from the house where I grew up.

I'm fully expecting the anti-George Bailey experience. I'll see places and houses that meant the entire world to me back when I was a spring chicken. Those places and houses will have changed--or not--but none of the changes or non-changes will have anything to do with me or my influence. No one I know will be there. I will have left no footprints in the place I lived for 18 years.

Who wants to be reminded how little they matter in the world?

I plan on staying in that comforting atmosphere of anonymous hotel-dom.

Happy Birthday Aya!

and to celebrate, a link to one of her little movie things.

and then there's Mark and the Aliens which mentions cousins and us.

Click on the cover to read more.

It does seem like we're supposed to give her gifts when it's her birthday instead of the other way around. Too bad.

tempting fate and sbd, but not really about either

Have I ever mentioned how lucky I am when it comes to family? I mean my immediate family of course boys, mike. They're the business---and the lights of my life. But I also mean the extended version--siblings, in-laws. It's impossible to do better than the group I lucked into. I love them, like them and even respect them.

Have I mentioned this good luck for me? Now I have. Thanks, Fates. I'd say thumbs up and good job for me. And now I will go touch and knock and kick wood to stop those Fates from changing their minds.

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TWITTER EFFEX

Okay. Monday and it's SBD and I have a book coming out fairly soon, like in a couple of weeks. I'd put up a cover but there still isn't one. I'd put up an excerpt, but I'll wait on that. I think about all the things I'm supposed to do about books coming out, make as much noise as possible (hey, a Billy Mays shout out here! That's what we did yesterday instead of a moment of silence. We had moment of noisy babble and since there were about 9 teenagers in the house, it was quite a moment.)

I have done none of it. I'm not sure why.

Perhaps because this book doesn't fit the others? Or because I'm burned out on promo? Hard to imagine the second. I haven't had any books to promo lately. I think I'm not burned out on MY promo, just the whole noise of it in the world. I don't watch the videos or join the facebook groups, even of the writers I like.

Reading is such a private event and all that promo is so out there nothing but babble, the opposite of reading.

Almost all the twitters I watch and enjoy are basically what semi-famous people are up to and they're promoing each other and I get enough promo from that. I'm talking funny, interesting people like Sarah from SBTB and Ron Hogan and Sarah Frantz and that lot.

But the world really is not much more than pushing oneself or one's friends forward. It's almost as if watching each other and keeping track of trends has replaced everything else including reading, which is what they're supposed to be watching and tracking. I realize that it's just the cumulative noise. Each of them on his or her own is off quietly leading a life and each article is fine, but when the whole group gets together (and I follow hundreds) it's as noisy as a hen yard or a conference of any sort. squawk squawk. I'm not being superior here even if it sounds like I'm raising myself above the squawking. I'm delighted when someone so much as peeps in my direction. But it puts me off trying to wedge stuff in there. My own books, for instance. And it puts me off promo because so much of that noise is look at this! look at this! LOOK AT THIS!

Okay, okay. The other main reason I'm not promoing? I'm not sure about this book. I wish someone I don't know would read it and pat me on the back. There, there, Kate. It isn't a trivial time-waster. Wait, no. I like trivial wastes of time. I aspire to writing good ones. What I mean is I want someone to pat me on the back and say there, there, Kate it's a FUN trivial time-waster.

It would be particularly good if that someone I didn't really know read it and better if that someone was a reviewer. Who twittered about it. Look at this!

this again?

Didn't we just do this last winter? This isn't a bad one that's stopping me from writing for long. But this time I'm writing down the recipe because you never know when you could use a good portion of useless work-stopping attitude.


Mix together
ONE bulky book with a tough unwieldy plot (possible substition of a thin book with no plot to speak of. Or both.)
SEVERAL Characters who suddenly seem familiar because Omigod you just write the same people over and over? Omigod! Why didn't you see that?
Sprinkle
a full serving of ICWSWS (I can't write sentences worth shit)
Mix
with a healthy dose of
work issues or sheer laziness .... or for more serious cases, actual illness.

Add optional family factors and VOILA!
A good portion of neurotowriter Mmmmm. Enjoy!

Fatima at her loom

Now you know why it takes so long for her to make a rug. Every few rows she pushes everything down with a little wooden fork thing. Otherwise, it's all done by hand.

did this work?

I went to Fatima's to pick up a few sox and a rug. I took along a boy's camera to use and maybe it even worked. We shall see. I really want the video of her weaving.

Fatima just got back from a trip to Bosnia a couple of weeks ago. Her brother's bones were finally ID'd in a mass grave and she went over for his burial. She and her family paid for the trip. I thought it was one of those things international agencies paid for?

SBD sad addiction version

I've only just managed to drag myself out of Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy only to discover THERE ARE THREE MORE. Aw, man.

And now I've read the first of those. Honestly, what is it with these authors that think we don't have lives? I have better things to do than get stuck reading their books. Unfortunately, I can't recall what those better things are at the moment.

Work. Yes, okay, I'm on it, BD! I promise.

I'm not even that fond of Fitz the main character. Okay, maybe I am.

and today's short post at erotic muses

is about Seduction Music.

Kind of sad: I have hours of "music to write by" carefully compiled and labeled. (lots of varieties of music, nothing with lyrics) and not a minute of seduction music even mentally labeled. That's what I was attempting when I wrote that. Nope, not coming up with answers.

I think I'll give it a miss, turn on some of my regular music and go to work.

my favorite antiromance video. Although really, enough with the gnarls barkley.