Sandy Nathan's Blog, page 2

Should You Set up a eStore to Sell Stuff to Promote your Book?

In Love by Christmas (Bloodsong 3) This is actually 20" X 30", a poster mounted on a board by Costco.

After having mugs made with images of my covers on them for Christmas gifts (an adventure), and designing a calendar for my own use yesterday (arm still aches from too much computer time), and completely giving up on ordering T-shirts from one manufacturer, I got the probably masochistic idea of  starting a store on my site. I’ve been researching that possibility and wanted to ask my readers who’ve tried it if it was worth it in terms of financial reward or anything else. Satisfaction? Also,  which services are best–I’ve got some experiences to share on this.  Well, if anyone has anything to share, please do.

My experience working with some of the main “swag”–stuff used to market books or anything–providers is below. My words aren’t a comprehensive review. I’ve included links to a few sites that thoroughly evaluate more of the various POD “printing stuff”  services, including those I mention below.  All are worth studying.

Tested: Best Sources for Company Schwag Evaluates 5 of the biggies.

Printaholic.com 2015 T-shirt rankings. Interesting. T-shirts only here. The “usual suspects” are reviewed, but they don’t end up in the order you’d expect.

Printaholic.com’s overall best 2015 rankings. They review all print-related stuff: business cards, photos, brochures, T-shirts. Definitely something to look at.

Listio’s 2008 comparison of printing and merchandising Very thorough ranking of 4 top services with comparison table and screenshots of what the sites look like and how easy they are to use. It’s from 2008; don’t seem to have done one since. They rank the sites overall and talk about site useability and the market the site seems pitched at. I.e.; kids (young people) vs. adults.  Interesting rankings.

 PRINT PERFECTION: “Our platform handles the purchasing, management, and fulfillment your company’s branded swag.” Interesting to know about if you decide to go into the swag game with a vengeance. They handle merchandising and giveaways of “A wide variety of tools to help you easily run swag marketing campaigns:”

Bulk Orders
Giveaways
Social Giveaways
Address Import

And now I hear from Valerie Douglas that YOLA.COM will set up a whole website store for you, for free, it looks like. Whoa.

You can explore these and do your own searches. I searched Google for “ZAZZLE, VISTA PRINT OTHER WHICH IS BETTER FOR MERCHANDISE STORE”

Here’s my experience with these places:

This is a handout for our "Holiday Potpourri at the Grange" I made the post on Photoshop and had reproduced as an 8" X 12" one-sheet and a big 20" by 30" image mounted on board for the sandwich board out front. CLICK THIS IMAGE: IT'S PRETTY FULL SIZE.

COSTCO PHOTO CENTER: I use this service on-line. The Photo section is separate from the rest of Costco. To get to it, sign in on your Costco account (which means you set up a password and give them your email),  and hit Costco Photo on the menu bar at top. You’ll be presented with a bewildering array of choices of stuff they make with photos.

I use them for BIG poster boards using my book covers. I display these at events and speaking engagements. (These are posters of my covers mounted to a stiff board. You can put them on easels or tripods or lean them against walls.) When I’m done speaking, I leave the big blow ups around my family room where I work. Seeing my covers writ large subconsciously reinforces that SOMETHING will come from my efforts.  We had a “literary salon”, an authors’, musicians’, and artist’s event, locally before Christmas. I made 2 of the 20 X 30″ versions of our announcement for sandwich boards outside the building. One is in my family room now. Again, makes it real.

If you want to make a poster, ask your book designer for a 16 X 20 @300 dpi version of the cover, or 20″ X 30″ if you’re feeling expansive. Some designers charge for this, others don’t. What you upload to COSTCO is what you get, so if upload a 16″ X 20″ image at 72 dpi or save a 72 dpi image at 300 thinking it will work, your image will look lousy printed, no matter who prints it.

CALENDARS AT COSTCO: They do really big, high quality calendars. I’ve ordered them for years, using the book de jour for the images. I use covers, photos of the characters and locations I’ve downloaded, new author photos, etc. This is more “Make it real”, but I love to look at my covers. A new image every month is great. Costco also allows you to customize individual days with photos and text. You can put hearts or your book’s heart-throb hero in on Valentines.  Or your real-life sweetie’s photo! Pictures of family members on their birthdays. For instance, I used a photo of my dad in uniform for Veteran’s Day. This type of customization is not particularly hard to do, just requires attention to detail.

If you do videos for your books, this is a terrific use of the images you produce for the videos. Make ‘em the photo of the month!

EASE OF USE of Costco’s photo system? Horrible. Drives me crazy. The size the COSTCO calendar I like has 14″ W X 11″ H images. What I upload has to be that size at 300 dpi to fill the calendar page. Books are typically 6″ X 9″ high, which means I have to use the high resolution poster size image and cut it down or do some fancy Photoshopping with the 6″ X 9″. Assembling the images takes forever, as does loading and arranging them on the calendar’s pages.

The way the Costco calendar system works, you create an album for each project. To upload, you click the album title and select the images. Then you have to select the album again when you upload the image(s), or it makes a new album. I forgot that second click every other time and ended up with about 8 or 9 albums, all with one or two pics in them. Took a while to figure out where my photos were, but I did. You can move the photos to the right album and delete the superfluous albums later, after you’ve found them.

So, steep learning curve. Products can be delivered to your local Costco warehouse in a week to ten days. No shipping with this option, and you don’t have to pay until you see and approve the calendar if you do this.

With all the hassle, I love my calendars and the pain of creating them fades quickly. The one I chose ended up costing $20 and change, including tax, picked up at my local Costco.

COSTCO ENLARGEMENTS: Easiest and cheapest I’ve seen. Upload at photos at home, order on line, pickup in the warehouse an HOUR later. I now use Costco enlargements of my cover images as the front of my press packets. Slick and NICE. I did an 8″ X 12″ One Sheet on Photoshop and printed it at Costco. It looks way better than one printed at a print shop: it’s a photo. Clear and distinct as clear can be.

With all it’s foibles, I love Costco, but haven’t used the other services as much. VISTAPRINT, ZAZZLE and the others also do calendars and enlargements. Maybe not big poster banners, but …

A BIG BUT–if you want to have a gallery or store from which you can sell the stuff you make, Costco doesn’t offer it. I use the calendars, etc. for my own use. Bears searching elsewhere.

ZAZZLE IS A TOP-RANKED CUSTOMIZABLE/CUSTOMIZED SUPPLIER OF ALMOST EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE PRINTED. They have lots of calendars, both to buy as is and to do up yourself. One pretty similar to the one I ordered from Costco (14″ X 11″ and customizable month image as well as special images for holidays) for $18.95 plus tax was $20.95 at ZAZZLE. It was shaped a bit differently, 11″ W X 17″ H, which is better for working with rectangular book covers. And you can mark them for sale when you design them.  And have your own store. Find out how on the site: search My Own Store. I think I’ll look into this, after plowing through all those evaluations on the sites way above. I don’t think you make much money with ZAZZLE, but set up is free and they DO handle merchandise well. How do I know?

Uh, my initial, well, my first two orders of my own stuff from ZAZZLE were a bust. Which is why I did my calendars with COSTCO rather than ZAZZLE. I ordered T-shirts for my family with my book covers on them for Christmas, having barely enough time before Christmas to get them for the holiday, my typical ordering style. ZAZZLE took the order, then contacted me a week or so later, saying they’d canceled it because I’d used copyrighted material.

Yeah, I had used copyrighted material. COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THAT I OWNED. I hold the copyrights to the books, their covers, and everything about them.  So, what’s the problem?

“Oh,” replied ZAZZLE, “no problem, now that you explained it. Order again and we’ll make and ship your shirts.” By this time, they couldn’t produce and ship the T-shirts by Christmas. Also, when I ordered the first time, the shirts were on 40 or 50% off. The sale was over when the snafu got cleared up. They offered me 15% off the second time around. Sorry, not good enough. Got my dander up.

DOING T-SHIRTS ON ZAZZLE: I would make sure I had plenty of time to get my images together, and carefully read Zazzle’s guidelines for image quality. I couldn’t find any more than “Use 300 dpi.” Maybe there’s more. Remember: they run sales all the time, so get 40 or 50% off when you order. If you miss a sale, you can get the next one.

With my next order, I will include a statement that I own the copyrights to my book covers.  I wrote a note to ZAZZLE after they cancelled my order, proving that I had the copyrights.  I put links to my Amazon page, my websites, my blogs and offered to send them screen shots of the books’ copyright pages and documentation from my designers that I held the copyrights. ZAZZLE said that was fine and agreed to do the T-shirts. Too late. If I order a T-shirt from them again, I will include all this at the start.

You can do the same, telling them what happened to me and that you don’t want our order delayed the same way. (You do own the the copyrights, don’t you? Different designers work in different ways. Note that this order was not for sale, just for gifts. I don’t have the right to make swag with the Mogollon cover. My contract with the model/actor on the cover precludes sale of the image on secondary products.)

QUALITY OF T-SHIRTS ON ZAZZLE: I knew about the quality of custom T-shirts from ZAZZLE, having ordered a T-shirt for my husband from them. Wendy Potocki had some wonderful shirts designed her Halloweenpaloosa promotion in October.   I ordered a shirt from that promotion from ZAZZLE, and put the cover of my Vanessa Schierman PhD, WITCH, on the back. Vanessa Schierman PhD, WITCH was my long short-story contribution to Wendy’s promo. If you click Vanessa, you’ll be taken to my website, where you can download the short story I wrote for Wendy’s promo for free. It’s cool. I’m going to augment it with more short stories over the year, hopefully generating a book.

ZAZZLE did a high quality T-shirt with a great printing job.

These are the first mugs that arrived from Zazzle. Print is so bad you can't read it. Images are blurred and the wrong colors.

MUGS FROM ZAZZLE: Another painful story. Also for Christmas gifts, I ordered porcelain mugs with images from my book covers on them.

I LOVE PORCELAIN MUGS! So much lighter and more elegant than those honkin’ earthenware ones that break your arm to lift and chip if you look at them. ZAZZLE has some really pretty porcelain mugs that you can customize with your own images. If you order during a 50% off sale, they’re a great buy.

I put together an order for my family and uploaded it, Photoshopping up some images of the right size and resolution. Very quickly, THE THINGS arrived. They were my mugs, but with distorted colors, illegible print, smears in the design. The physical porcelain mugs were GREAT, but the artwork was mangled.

I complained and asked for a refund. Didn’t want to go through another round of the above, so I asked for my money back. This takes way longer than a store credit, but I didn’t want to try again.

By pure happenstance, my description of what was wrong with the mugs and why I wanted my money back specifically outlined their problems. I waited for my refund, arms crossed, toes tapping.

They sent me a whole new order and they were perfect! And in time for Christmas, too! Which made me think, “Why didn’t you do this the first time?”

If I were to order porcelain (also known as fine bone China) mugs again or ANY mugs, which I would, I’d put a note in my order: Please make sure the print is legible and colors and the design are not distorted. I’d tell the story of my first order right off. And also tell them that I had the copyrights.

I learned about design from this. My first few mugs I designed with the specified 3.25″ high X 3.25″ W image and applied it one on one side of the design area. Since book covers are 6″ X 9″, the 3.25″ corresponded to the 9″ high dimension, the reduced size graphic was narrower than 3.25″– about 2.2″ wide by the 3.25″ high.

After doing a few pieces with single images, I discovered somewhere on the ZAZZLE site that I could use a 7.25″ W X 3.25″ H image on the mug I was using. After that, I Photoshopped a 7.25″ W X 3.25″ H canvas  and put TWO images on it, pushing them to the outside of the 7.25″ canvas. Loaded, that gives you an image on the mug’s front and back, very slick. You can use the same image, different ones, or two colorways of one cover. Ultra cool.

I’d definitely use ZAZZLE for T-shirts and mugs, with the caveats noted.

VISTAPRINT is another highly rated purveyor of customized print materials. I’ve used Vistaprint for One Sheets (single one-page sell sheets) for my books and for post cards. Both were adequate. I’ve also used Tu-Vets (they’ve since retired) and SIMPLY BROCHURES. They were AMAZING… HEAVY PAPER, GLOSSY BOTH SIDES, killer color. Way better quality cost way way more than Vistaprint. Unfortunately, you had to order A LOT. Vistaprint was fine for the small jobs and I didn’t end up with 500 extra copies.

I tried to used VISTAPRINT for T-shirts after my fiasco with ZAZZLE. I found that they had LOTS of information about the graphics that should be supplied for the T-shits and templates for the images. I didn’t find these on ZAZZLE and thought that I might not have had the problem with the mugs had ZAZZLE included stuff about CMYK color instead of RGB.

Whatever. I found VISTAPRINT specified the image for the T-shirt had to be 12″ X 12″ CMYK color, and 300 dpi. OK. Book covers are 6″ X 9″. You may have a poster size you can cut down, but you’re going to have to do some major surgery, including butchering its design, to get your cover to 12 X 12. I designed one T-shirt out of about 10 that I wanted to order and gave up. It sat in my shopping cart until Vistaprint removed it. (Checking, it’s STILL there.)

Well,  having created another monster blog post which doesn’t fully cover the subject, I’m going to wind down. What was the subject?

What does having a store on one’s website or anywhere do for an author’s career? Does such a store even make sense? My interest in my book covers is likely to be higher than anyone else in the universe’s. Does a demand for T-shirts with Leroy Watches’ image on it, or Will Duane’s, or Elizabeth Bright Eagle’s exist?

Did my relatives even appreciate the mugs I gave them? Would they order calendars or mouse pads or mugs or anything else I might turn out if they didn’t know me? If they did?

That is the question, as is: Does the investment in time to get all this stuff set up pay off in monetary reward? Don’t have the answers, but if you have more experience, I look forward to hearing for you.

Ciao,

Sandy Nathan my website

my interactive website

my FB author page

my Amazon Author page

In Love by Christmas is a #1 Amazon Bestseller in Metaphysical Fantasy! What a day!

Authors don’t have many days like I’ve had today. I’ve read about the joy of being a bestselling author and having a #1 bestselling book, but today I’ve experienced having them. Being a bestselling author and having the book is MUCH MORE FUN than reading about the experience. The really top-selling independent authors have shared their selling techniques–Cheryl Kaye Tardif, Joanna Penn, David Gaughram, and John Locke, to name a few. They talk about using the days you’re allowed to give your Kindle books away free on Amazon as springboards to huge sales afterward.

I’ve done the giveaway part very successfully before, but it’s never carried over into the paid part, the way the marketing books say it should. This time it did. So I can post what follows.

But first, let’s give credit where credit is due. Thank you, my readers and buyers, for your support of me and my work and for buying In Love by Christmas. Without you, none of the below would have happened. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope that In Love by Christmas knocks off your socks, rattles your brain, and shakes up everything in between. I consider that the least I can do in performing my job as an author.

These are the happy notices I’ve been looking at today:

In Love by Christmas is a #1 Bestseller in Metaphysical Fantasy

Note that cute little orange tag to the right of the book’s name. It will carry that with it forever. It’s a #1 Bestseller. On Amazon, in the Metaphysical Fantasy category.

More good things happened. It was like winning the Holiday grab-bag at Weight Watchers–I did that yesterday, too. What a haul! Woo-hoo!

Amazon Movers & Shakers are the books that have shown the greatest jumps in sales.

So there we were, Leroy, Cass, and I tottering on top of the book cover, Number 1 Mover and Shaker on all of Amazon. For a while. These things change every hour, but I can say that I got more than 15 minutes of fame. It was almost twenty-four hours in this spot.

Amazon has a new program of ranking authors. In Love by Christmas's stellar performance got me a ranking.

Here I am: It's not number 1, but it's better than I've been able to do writing and publishing since 2006.

Just like the Bestselling title goes with the book, so does the rank go with me.

More and more goodies, just like that Weight Watcher’s gift box. Truly, I can’t say which was more fun, though that’s probably because I haven’t gotten the dinero in my paws yet.

This was a good day: In Love by Christmas hit Number 219 in THE WHOLE KINDLE STORE and …

I’m tickled about the categories where In Love by Christmas shows up. First, my heart and soul are in Metaphysical and Visionary fiction. I started writing to change the world. Save it, if I could. I haven’t succeeded too well, if you follow the news, but my goal hasn’t changed in the eight or nine books I’ve written. I write more flamboyant stories, perhaps, but their roots are in my visionary experiences and spiritual life.

Long ago, when the Bloodsong Series was forming within me, I had an explosive spiritual experience which put several of the books in my brain in an instant. Native Americans were an integral part of that experience. Writing the books of the Bloodsong Series, all of which feature Native Americans, has changed my life. Leroy Watches Jr. has also changed my life. He is what used to be called a black Indian: his roots are Native American, African American, and Caucasian. His experience is different than that of many of my characters. He talks about it in In Love by Christmas. Or lives it, more.

In Love by Christmas is a multicultural and interracial romance. It’s a beautiful love story that transcends race, but doesn’t ignore it. Leroy will tell you about it in the book.

You’ll see them all below. At one point, In Love by Christmas was top rated or close to it in eleven categories. I’m mind-boggled. And now, In Love by Christmas is ranked in all those categories. Thank you, buyers and readers!

In Love by Christmas was ranked in a total of eleven categories.

How about a present for those of you who have read this far? A MOVIE! Here’s a video of our hero, Leroy Watches Jr. as he begins his search for his soul mate.

IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS: A PARANORMAL ROMANCE – Noel – Montreal Version + from Sandy Nathan on Vimeo.

Leroy Watches Jr. is a shaman whose Power sometimes makes things worse. Despite his flaw, he must save his soul mate from her addictions, her father, and Evil Incarnate, or she’ll be damned forever.

Trying to unite with his true love, Leroy embarks on a pilgrimage that takes him to the highest levels of European society. As he travels, his shamanic Power grows. So does the Dark Lord’s hatred of him.

His prospective father-in-law demands that Leroy and Cass be in love by Christmas. Can they be?

All my best! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support. Happy Holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate in this season, which includes no holiday at all …

Sandy Nathan

Sandy Nathan–My Interactive Website

Your Shelf Life, my blog for authors and readers. Oh, that’s where you are!

 

Old People, Computers and Technology–It’s Simply Cruel

All I wanted to do was make a lousy video …

I’ve been grappling with Animoto.com all day, trying to produce a really good video for my new Christmas paranormal romance In Love by Christmas, also known as ILBC. I did create such a video. I produced about twelve, all sightly different. Different music, theme, words. I also fixed typos on the videos I’d just made and the ones I produced yesterday. As you know, typos multiply any time you take your eyes off your text. God knows what goes on on my hard-drive or in the cloud at night. Typo frolics of a reproductive kind.

Yesterday, I made some other videos of ILBC and posted them. Actually, I didn’t post them. Unbeknownst to me, my Animoto account has tentacles more invasive than an octopus’s, so that any little thing I finish is promulgated all over my cyber/social universe. All the “toss this stinkeroo in the trash” versions seem to end up on my FB wall. Other places, too, most likely. But, to continue …

Despite this, I really like Animoto.com as a way to make book videos. I can use their technology and produce stunning results. But PLAYING videos from their site … I don’t like so much. Those files hit so many snags they might have been using some of my old pantyhose as a power source. Takes so long to play a vid that even my MOM wouldn’t hang in there.

My web guy, Don Herion, suggested hosting my videos on Vimeo or Smugmug, as faster, higher quality places to mount my results. I tried Vimeo and found that it had superior play back to Animoto.com’s , but NOT superior enough. My MOM would lose interest after the second stall, plus all that jiggling made me dizzy. So I got on Smugmug and signed up for their free trial. Yesterday. If you hit that link in two weeks, it may not exist, as will be explained below.

Smugmug gives you this amazing website, all yours, if you can figure out how to use it. It’s very chic and stylish, design-wise, which means that if there are any controls for the site, I can’t find them. So, I won’t sign on for more than the free two weeks unless I make amazing progress in the cyber dimension. If a 69-year-old woman with two advanced degrees can’t find the friggin’ controls in two weeks, it’s not worth paying for.

Although I seem to be rambling, I’m writing about the elderly and technology. Did I mention that my husband got not only a brand new iPhone 6 , but a new Apple laptop to go with it? GO BARRY! After a week, he can competently answer the phone, without dropping the device from his belt holster. Today, he was working on ANSWERING EMAIL with his new laptop.

This afternoon, we practiced the New Intimacy: he sat at one end of our family room with his new toys while I sat on the other end with my sturdy 27″ iMac, attempting to produce the perfect video for In Love by Christmas, or ILBC, as I may have said, perhaps several times. I did make several, if I could remember which ones were the good ones. Also, I somehow erased the vids I’d previously sent to Vimeo and to Don Herion, my web guy, to post on my website. So those are all screwed up, as is the video embeds and locations I sent my publicist. This is really important, because THE BIG PUSH starts soon and he needs to get the visuals out there.

This is how the front image of "winning vid" for ILBC looks on my Animoto page.

This afternoon, I sat in my ergonomically designed chair, swearing softly at the short, computerized films bursting from the screen, listening to my husband swear at his new computer and phone. I did help him once or twice, “Push this arrow to return an email.”

This is how people relate in this new age. Sort of like sitting on opposite banks of a river, throwing electronic tomatoes at each other.

Basically, technology for those over sixty is dicey. Even for younger people, sometimes. I believe the cyber age responsible for the degeneration of our social order, which isn’t saying much. You’ve been out to dinner and looked at the next table, to find everyone on his or her smart phone. You’ve shaken your head and tskked sadly, until you got a text you had to answer.

The the problem is not technology, it’s learning how to use it. Every family should be assigned a 12-year-old from the local elementary school to teach the elders how to at least get to the gaming apps. That’s only right.

Meanwhile, here’s the vid I made on Animoto, transposed to Vimeo. You should be able to watch it easily by clicking appropriately, though it may stutter a bit the first run through. The Smugmug version will take me longer to post. I have to find the controls.

So, I did produce the #@^!! video. I’m not saying that the elderly can’t do tech stuff. We can. We may simply use unseemly vocabulary for long periods while doing it. This is not a sin. Old folks have feelings, too, and need to express them. Sometimes, %&*%#!! isn’t enough. But it was today. Enjoy the video.

Next time I’ll tell you about making Christmas presents for your loved ones using the graphics of your book covers. This is not as easy as it sounds, even given the plethora of companies promising the mouse pad of your dreams, or your hubby’s dreams. (Or porcelain mugs, my particular weakness.) That’s another story.

Sandy Nathan

And here’s the beast itself:

IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS – NOEL VERSION 12/12/14 from Sandy Nathan on Vimeo.

Leroy Watches Jr. is a shaman whose Power sometimes makes things worse. Despite his flaw, he must save his soul mate from her addictions, her father, and Evil Incarnate, or she’ll be damned forever.

Leroy embarks on a pilgrimage that takes him to the highest levels of European society. As he travels, his shamanic Power grows. So does the Dark Lord’s hatred of him.

His prospective father-in-law demands that Leroy and Cass be in love by Christmas. Can they be?

If that doesn’t work, this link to the video on Vimeo will.

My Thanksgiving Gift to You – Let’s Go to the Movies!

Hello all! It’s been a huge year for me, publication-wise. I’ve completed all the writing I’m going to do in 2014 and can now tackle what I really love: making movies. People have asked me, “Who does your videos? They’re really good.”

Lil ol’ me, myself, and I, on Animoto. I learned to use Animoto years ago. They deliver incredible quality and I can DO them. I load my images on the Animoto site, select the video style I want from Animoto’s menu, pick music from their library, add text, and push a button. Animoto’s clever computers do the rest. If I don’t like what I get, I push the button again. Voila! Instant genius that even an almost-seventy-year-old grandmother can master.

My Thanksgiving gift to you is a recap of my writing of 2014. You may not know about everything I published this year. The books are interconnected. Free-standing, so you can read just one and get the story, but they are a family. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! For your support and patronage in 2014. I appreciate it with all my heart. Much more is in the pipeline for you in 2015 and future years.

Lots of hugs,

Sandy Nathan

The only problem with Animoto on my computer is that sometimes it’s balky replaying videos. You probably have to play it through once to buffer. We may have the problem because we live out in the country, where ground squirrels carry the images across the fields in their mouths. They are a little slow, especially after large meals. My Computer Guy said to counter this by using Vimeo. (This is my Vimeo account. See ALL my vids!) I’ll attach the Vimeo version,  in addition to the Animoto . Thing is, sometimes it’s balky, too, and it stutters. It’s right below, followed by the Animoto version. The combined show is probably enough to make the ordinary computer explode with excitement. You, too, I hope.

I LOVE TO SEE YOU SMILE – A THANKSGIVING GIFT FOR MY READERS from Sandy Nathan on Vimeo.

From Sandy Nathan on Animoto .

Happy Thanksgiving! This is a day and season for gratitude–and for telling people how much they mean to you. Readers, you mean a very great deal to me.

I love to see you smile and I’ll do my darndest to keep you smilin’.

 

LEROY WATCHES JR. & THE BADASS BULL WAS FREE YESTERDAY ––

LEROY WATCHES JR. & THE BADASS BULL

I tried to tell you about it beforehand on my trusty blog, Your Shelf Life, right here. Yep, Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull, the award-winning, almost 5 star rated, Western bit of craziness was free. And I didn’t tell you about it here. I tried.

I don’t know if you’ve put on an Amazon KTP Promotion. Amazon makes it easy to give your book away free for a few days, but the hard part is letting the bazillion potential readers know about it. That requires contacting an infinite number of sites that will tell people about your freebie. When I say INFINITE, I mean it.

Lord have mercy. I have a  wonderful person who helps me, but even so. I mean, other wonderful people and I were cranking out the free eBook download––in addition to the free LEROY download––until minutes before the free day started. Cranking, loading, writing, Photoshopping.

I finally got a moment to whack out a Your Shelf Life (YSL) article. I opened the Dashboard on WordPress … and discovered I didn’t have a blog. YSL was gone. $#@$%&!! WHAT!!??

Turned out that my URL address had expired. How could that happen? Uh. Well, we had some fraud on our credit card and had to get a new number. I contacted everyone I could think of and used often and changed the number with them. But not PowerHoster.com where I buy my URLs. They had YSL on auto-renew, so what’s the problem?

Big problem. YSL’s auto-renew had not been renewed because they didn’t have the right card number. AAAAHAAHHHH! Not only was I freaking out over the promo, I have so many really good articles on YSL. Articles to make a great book for self-pubbers and writers. Articles that weren’t backed up anywhere. Gone. This was HUGE.

I paid the delinquent fee, changed my credit card number to the good one, and checked the net. NOTHING. NO YSL. GONE, ALL GONE.

CUT TO THE CHASE:

I opened the Dashboard this AM and YSL was back. At least enough for me to write this. I’m writing fast.

The promo was a great success. Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull hit #1 in free Westerns, #2 in Metaphysical & Visionary and topped out at #125 in the free store (I was asleep at that time: my friend told me.) About 9,000 books were free that day; hitting 125 out of the pack was not bad. Not only that, a bunch of people got their Leroy and went over to my website, Sandy’s Website, and downloaded the eBook I created for the occasion–for FREE. Yep, made it just to give away, for a limited time. More on this below.

LEROY HITS # 1. ALSO #2.

Not only was the Leroy giveaway fabulous, a dear friend of mine, Vallibus Apache Sherwood, started a fan site for me: author sandy nathan  So hop over there and say howdy! Please join my little group. It may be small, but I’ve got some great friends and fans! And appreciate Vallibus so much.

What did I say about the free eBook, in addition to the FREE LEROY? Oh. I was a participant in a very fun and awesome event my friend Wendy Potocki throws for the month of October: Halloweenpalooza II. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, for the sheer wackiness of it and lack of any serious purpose. Also, I like the concept of getting dressed up and wandering around town. I don’t actually do that, because it’s a lot of bother. I don’t like the part about kiddies going into sugar comas over the potentially poisoned candy they score, but the rest of it is great fun.

Especially the graphics. Check out Wendy’s Halloweenpalooza II FB page above. You’re lucky enough to get this post so you can still read the guest posts and scary thing Wendy has planned.

Wendy has various guest authors write stories, tales, and descriptions of real paranormal events they’ve experienced and adds her own magic. I wrote “The Richest Person in the World”, posted right here on Wendy’s blog, HALLOWEENPALOOZA: 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN. We featured my visionary fiction/romance/horror combo, Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem. I gave away some eBook copies and then Wendy presented “The Richest Person in the World”, the short story I wrote for the event.

Long short story. All I need to do is add three more and I’ll have a full length book. Which is what I intend do do. That’s how Vanessa Schierman PhD, Witch came into being. I had “The Richest Person in the World” formatted nicely and got Clarissa Yeo, my brilliant cover designer,to do up a cover. Voila! Something to give away for more than a day.

VANESSA SCHIERMAN PhD, WITCH

I wasn’t able to get news of Leroy Watches Jr. Free Day to you in time, but I can tell you about this. For a limited time, I’m going to give this brand new, never launched, never seen by anyone but those involved in producing it eBook–and it’s as big as some eBooks you see–away free. Yes, FREE! It’s more important than that. Grab your copy and I’ll explain why. Go to my website and punch the button right in the middle. It looks like this:

HIT THIS BUTTON TO GO TO SANDY'S WEBSITE AND THE DOWNLOAD PAGE

Why should you care about Vanessa Schierman Phd? What has she done for you? Well, turns out she’s a major character in my upcoming novels, starting with In Love by Christmas, which should be debuting the last week of October. Halloween? Never heard of In Love by Christmas?

You will. It’s the sequel to Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem. It’s also the sequel to Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull! Yes, the series really is a series. If you read Mogollon and then read Leroy Watches Jr. and Vanessa Schierman PhD, Witch, you’ll be in the know. You’ll be ready for In Love by Christmas:

In Love by Christmas (Bloodsong 3)

In Love by Christmas will be out before Halloween! I promise–I ain’t jokin’. This is the story that completes the others. This is the novel that will break your heart and rend your soul. You’ll fall in love, and be scared to death.  You’ll be glad you read Mogollon and Leroy and went to my website and downloaded Vanessa.

Happy trails!

Sandy Nathan

MOGOLLON: A TALE OF MYSTICISM & MAYHEM IS FREE ONE DAY ONLY: THURSDAY 9/18/2014!!!

Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem (Bloodsong 2)

MOGOLLON: A TALE OF MYSTICISM & MAYHEM is free on Amazon Thursday, 9/18/2014, ONLY.  That’s the US link. In the UK, Mogollon is found here.  

MOGOLLON: A TALE OF MYSTICISM & MAYHEM has not been free on Amazon before and I have no plans to put it up free again. Is it time for you to GET MOGO’D? Mogollon is one amazing trip. Follow the link and download away.

I’ve got another reason for you to download Mogollon tomorrow: It’s sequel is coming up in weeks. That’s right. IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS, the Bloodsong Series 3, should be out in early October. You’ll be able to flow right into it after reading Mogollon. More info on IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS follows the reviews of Mogollon.

IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS is an offshoot of the action in Mogollon. Grandfather’s grandson, Leroy Watches Jr. arrives at the Meeting late, as usual. He arrives a couple of days after Mogollon ends, but the retreat is still going. He’s given the assignment of finding his soul mate, who’s in desperate trouble. Cass Duane is super-capitalist Will Duane’s bad-girl (very bad-girl) daughter. Cass is so bad, you don’t even want to know how bad she is.

Leroy has to find and heal Cass Duane by Christmas. Or what? Read IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS and find out. But first read Mogollon––

Mogollon is the story of the meeting of a great Native American shaman with the richest man in the world. They come together a retreat the shaman, known only as Grandfather, gives in the New Mexico desert. Sound sort of cutesy and woo-woo? Think again. This ain’t your ordinary shaman, nor is it your ordinary retreat. As the shaman seeks to move the very corroded capitalist’s soul, all the powers of evil in the universe focus on the retreat. The result is big, big mayhem.

 

WINNER OF VISIONARY FICTION CATEGORY

MOGOLLON WON THE VISIONARY FICTION CATEGORY, 2014 NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS!

What are readers and reviewers saying about Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem? They’ll give you the straight scoop:

Mysticism, Western, and action thriller all rolled into one! June 14, 2014

By Jeff B
Take one part modern fantasy, one part Western, and mix in a couple parts mysticism and romance, and you have Sandy Nathan’s “Mogollon.” The book weaves together the story of Will Duane and his staff as they attend a spiritual retreat at the mystical Mogollon Bowl, a place where anyone can gain psychic powers. The world is that of 1997 America, but the book adds in the supernatural and mystical through the Native American spiritual retreat where corporate bigshots can achieve psychic ability and a connection with their inner souls.
♥ Epic Tale ♥,July 11, 2014


Caroline – See all my reviews


Sandy Nathans’ wild creative imagination spawns an intriguing tale of mysticism and money, good versus evil.

She devised an unpredictable plot which revolves around a Native American spiritual retreat bringing the so called “Grandfather” a powerful character mentioned in the first novel I read in this series come into focus. The characters are well developed and the scenes were so powerful that I could clearly envision them.

The events were well devised and were presented in an unpredictable manner that was thought-provoking and highly entertaining leaving me eagerly wanting more.

This is an Epic Tale with twist and turns that will leave you breathless. It is absolutely perfect for any fantasy enthusiast looking for a wild modern ride of mayhem infused with characters on different sides of the coin.

A captivating, mystical read,June 6, 2014


Cat Jones – See all my reviews

(TOP 500 REVIEWER)


Mogollon is a compelling mix of mysticism, romance, and action that I found impossible to set down once I started reading. I didn’t realize there was a book prior to this and so picked up Mogollon with no clue where it was heading, but the book stands on its own beautifully and I wasn’t left scratching my head due to lack of prior references. Nathan did a great job of blending the back story I needed to know.

The story centers on Will Duane and his staff’s experiences at a spiritual retreat at the Mogollon Bowl, a place where anyone could become psychic and all your problems could disappear. As a tech industry hot shot, Duane is out of his element among the rez cars, rocks and dirt. Accustomed to five star hotels, he wouldn’t even be here if he didn’t have business to complete. But this is a place where he isn’t in control, and as events unfold he finds himself at the mercy of something larger than himself.

Excellent writing and well fleshed out characters make this a captivating read. I will have to pick up a copy of Numenon to get all of the back story now.


Defies Genre,February 2, 2014


Colleen M. Albert – See all my reviews


This is the first book I read by Sandy Nathan, and though it’s a second book in the series, I had no problem enjoying the book as a stand alone as well. That’s how well it’s written.

Mogollon is a very intense story that follows Will Duane and his employees on a spiritual retreat, unlike any other. This book is equal parts horror, spiritual, romance, and action. From page one, it is non-stop, a page turner that leaves you on the edge of your seat, seeing where it’s going next. It follows not just Will on his journey, but many connections develop as Will and his team begin becoming inseparably linked with several of the Native American warriors and attendees. Nathan does an amazing job depicting the cultural and spiritual aspects of the story in a very respectful way, which as a reader, I really respected. I also just loved her turn of phrase, and many times I just said, “YES!” out loud at the great way she chose to describe something that otherwise could be mundane, or has been described the same way for centuries. Nathan has a voice all her own and it’s powerful.

Nathan also did an amazing job with character development; there are several who still stick with me today, some in a good way, and some in a revolting way. Nathan does a masterful job of making you FEEL while reading this novel. I guarantee you, you will be changed and spiritually moved after reading this book.

Mogollon seriously defies genre, in the absolute best way. I cannot wait to read the next one!

The brillliant and captivating cover of In Love by Christmas. Thank you, Clarissa Yeo!

IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS. When I was writing Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull, a novella I wrote to give readers something to munch on after Mogollon––which you might consider reading yourself ––I fell in love with Leroy Watches Jr., Grandfather’s grandson, a shaman born and bred, and also considered a dufus by almost everyone. He’d not a joke; he’s beset by Coyote, his People’s meddling, interfering, and Trickster.
I’ve always wanted to write a Christmas book. Why not combine it with something about Leroy Watches? How about something with a sweet cover and lots of holiday joy?

Holiday joy is in IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS, but also holiday terror. And romance. And Leroy. This is a long, tall dose of Leroy (he’s 6′ 8.5″ tall) as he travels the world on a mission of love. You won’t believe what happens in this story. I didn’t believe it when I was writing it.

A feast awaits you. All you have to do is take a little bite …

Happy days!
Sandy Nathan
Award winning author (Winner of 26 national awards.  This is my website.)
My Facebook Author Page
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Two steps forward, fifteen back today, but you should know about … NEW APPS THAT WERE ON MY FB PAGE ALL ALONG!

Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem (Bloodsong 2)

Boy, there’s a title for a blog article that will SEO like like last month’s pablum! I’ve been doing all these itty-bitty crazy making things today. For instance, we’re planning a sales campaign for Mogollon: A

2014 NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS

Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem for … oh, maybe next Thursday? We’re talkin’ about it. Plans are  heating up.

I’ll let you know if they actually get hot. It would be a free day Thursday September 18th, with increased savings available for the weekend through Amazon’s “dribble it out” program. Why do they make it so hard to find the NAME of something?

So, think about free to lowered prices on Mogollon, the ebook with the fabulous cover featuring Native American actor, model & philanthropist Rick Mora. While the cover of this book is amazing, I’d say that the interior of the book––it’s content––is just as stellar.  If you want the maximal immersion, get the paperback version. The cover is KILLER. Front and back.  Mogollon won the Visionary Fiction Category of the 2014 National Indie Excellence Awards. All that beauty and a prizewinner, too.

 

My Lady Grace was a Freebooksy Featured Book

While planning this possible promotion, I thought, “I should do some advertising!” Good idea. Which led to a survey of advertising possibilities. I’ve always liked Freebooksy. They do lots of nice things for readers and authors.  If you look at the right column of this blog, you’ll see a cute red sign that says “Featured Author Freebooksy.” My book Lady Grace & the War for a New World was an editorial feature on Freebooksy. (That means I didn’t have to pay for the ad.)

How about submitting to them for Mogollon‘s free day? Good idea, but while I was on the site, I noticed that they have a new free app that you can install on your Facebook Page, that converts it into a mini-version of your Amazon sale page. Whoo-hoo! “You can install it in thirty seconds.” Or two hours, if you were born before 1974. People in my age group should take two or three years to install that puppy.

I got it up in in one day! The only problem is that while loading my books, I assumed that the app used the first loaded is the bottom position on the stack method, which made sense to me. I loaded my books, thinking I was ordering them so that the most recent ones that I wanted everyone to see would be the top of the list, and the older ones on the bottom. That isn’t what the app did, so … I’ve got the books that I want you to see most on the bottom. That’s why people go crazy and run screaming through … fill in your own place for running amuck.

 

YOU FIND THE NEWLY DISCOVERED, ENTICING APPS UNDER THE "ABOUT" ON MY FB PAGE AND ABOVE THE PHOTOS. CLICK THE BUTTONS TO EXPLORE.

I was filled with joy, having successfully installed that Freebooksy App on my Facebook Fan page. That’s THIS FACEBOOK PAGE, MY FAN PAGE, a opposed to THIS OTHER FACEBOOK PAGE, MY PERSONAL PAGE. In doing the installation, I looked at my page for the first time and discovered the already existing apps on it that should bring me much closer to … heaven? I dunno. You, I hope. This is what they look like. (To the left) You find them on the left side of MY FAN PAGE under the ABOUT bit and above the PHOTOS.

I love having people join my mailing list, going to extraordinary lengths to write funny, informative newsletters with special offers in them. In the process of installing Freebooksy app, I discovered that I had a previously semi-installed thing where people could sign up for my newsletter from my Facebook page. This is marked Join My List on my page. All I had to do was complete the installation process I’d started in prehistory. All I needed to do was sign in with  Constant Contact, which involved  CC accepting the password and username that it has been accepting for the last ten years. How many tries did it take? Let me count the stars in the sky. But I got it working. You can sign up for my newsletter and be first to know my news and get special deals available only there. 

Does anyone hate the Constant Contact mailing service like I do? That intensely? I find it horrendously hard to use. Expensive.  They do have great templates and lots of them, but learning them? There’s the on-going thing about it not accepting my passwords.

Mail Chimp – The Mail Service Everyone but Me Uses Now

 

I’d hop over to the free Mail-chimp in in a minute, but it took all of my cyber-muscles to figure out how  to use Constant Contact’s templates to send out the lousy three newsletters I do a year. Having to learn a new system from scratch would kill me. Having said that, I expect the Thought Police from Constant Contact to bust me any minute.

 The Goodreads App was the final app already existing on my FB Fan page. It was hooked up, too. It takes you to my Goodreads author page, or a facsimile.

How does everyone feel about Goodreads? It has about fifty bazillion members, all rabid readers. No, avid readers. Authors are told that they absolutely must get out there and interact with Goodreads reader community. “It’s a marketing gold mine.”

I had my only scary on-line experience on Goodreads. Imagining that I’d find marketing nirvana, I hopped in and joined my genre, Really Nice Fantasies about Fun Things. I had read about Goodreads members being a little bit prickly about rules, so I studied everything about the group and its functioning before posting anything. My group had a bunch of subgroups: Fun Fantasies Involving Torture, Nice Fantasies about Clouds, Fantasies about What You’d like to Do to your Mother-in-law.  They were all my area, so I signed up for all of them. The voluminous instructions to participating in the group said, “Post… somewhere. I forget where… a bit about yourself by way of introduction.” I did this. And then I wrote pretty much the same message in all the subgroups, “Hi, I’m Sandy Nathan, I write fluffy fiction about clouds and I have this book …”

Before I could say “roll me over with a steam roller and keep the change,” some guy got on my case about spamming. I hadn’t spammed. I followed all the rules. Then the group got in on my alleged spam. It escalated. Had I advocated barbecuing children, it couldn’t’ have gotten much hotter. Right when they had my head on the guillotine’s block, the moderator intervened saying, “She didn’t spam. You all belong to the same groups. That’s why you got multiple messages.”

I never went  back to Goodreads. Then there was all the uproar about the young first-time author who got a bunch of low ratings on a book that wasn’t out and no one had any information about. She complained on her own blog, to find her book listed on really nasty lists. So much for the authors’ marketing bonanza.

Any Goodreads experiences to share, readers?

 

 NEXT TIME, WHICH WILL BE VERY SOON, I’LL LET YOU KNOW IF WE’RE HAVING THAT PROMOTION NEXT THURSDAY! YES!

SANDY NATHAN 

 

SORTA-HAPPY PROGRESS REPORT #1

The brilliant and captivating cover of In Love by Christmas. Thank you, Clarissa Yeo!

THE HAPPY STATUS REPORT: Oops. Never check the facts. The MODERATELY HAPPY, BUT NOT TOO ECSTATIC, STATUS REPORT on IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS, my in-development Christmas book.

Last Sunday, I got my complete response to my editor’s first content/developmental edit back to her. [That means: I rewrote the whole friggin' thing and shipped it off.] The first editorial pass is the one done with the golden machete. You send your manuscript in, thinking, “I’m *** ****. Boy is this good.” It comes back shredded, with little red and blue comments all over and half the text deleted. The other half says, “Show me, don’t tell me.”

Every time I send a manuscript in, I expect it to come back with, “YIPPEE! THIS IS THE BEST BOOK I’VE EVER READ. YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO A THING,” on it. This never happens. When the second go-round comes back, it always looks machete-ed again. How she can find more things to put those “little notes” by, I do not understand. After taking a few days to stop being hysterical, again, I get to work rewriting. Because, ****, although I hate to admit it, my editor is mostly always right.

I originally started to write this progress report, saying, “YAHOO! I finished redoing the first chapter. I’M 1/37th of the way done with the rewrite of the SECOND EDITORIAL PASS ON IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS.” I thought it had 37 chapters. 1/37th is pretty good, huh? In not more than a month, working at a pace a normal person might work, I could have the the manuscript really tight.

It has 53 CHAPTERS. I’m 1/53rd of the way through the rewrite. Not so good.

That’s OK. Don’t worry. I’m petitioning the Universe to move Christmas to March 31st this year. Plenty of time to get my Christmas book done. [Responding to the content edit is not all that has to happen to the book. There copy-editing and proofreading and then formatting, wherein it's turned from a Word document like all your letters to your mom and such into a real book and eBook. If you've ever wanted to be an author, you should read this and decide to be an accountant.]

Writing gives you faith. Also takes it away, sometimes. Prayers accept that this sucka gets off the ground before Groundhog Day.

Ciao, everyone!

Sandy Nathan

Sandy’s Other Website, the Interactive One

Sandy’s Amazon Author Page

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Sandy’s Pinterest Page-I’m having fun with this!

Sandy’s Vimeo Page–even more fun. Check out the Chessadors!

Sandy on Twitter-I strongly dislike Twitter. I don’t answer messages or tweets or nuthin’. Try Facebook.

The Final Type of Review in our Survey: the Stupid Review – plus – A Your Shelf Life Extra on How Reviewers can Keep Authors as Friends

IN THE PREVIOUS POSTING, I COVERED THE  GOOD, BAD, AND VICIOUS TYPES OF BOOK REVIEW. HERE WE MOVE TO THE STUPID REVIEW, OR TO BE MORE COMPASSIONATE, THE DUMB OR MISTAKEN REVIEW Phew! It’s good to get out of the province of trolls and witches into the land of idiocy. HOWEVER, this type of review really bothers me. It’s the type of negative review I’ve received most.

Tecolote and I. I thought I'd have him for ten more years.

Before giving you examples of Dumb Reviews, I’m going to reveal a treasure trove of information readers can use to select books, in addition to the reviews of other writers. It’s called the book’s Sale Page. You find it on Amazon or wherever the book is sold. You already know about it: it’s the page you went to to buy the book!  All sorts of info is on this page to help you buy a book you’ll like.

Here’s a screen shot of part of the sale page of one of my books, Tecolote: The Little Horse That Could. This is a heartwarming story of a baby horse born prematurely on our ranch. Baby horses don’t do prematurity well. A foal born two weeks premature dies. Teco was born 10 days early during below freezing weather conditions. This little horse had no chance of living when he was born. But he did, and grew up to be a wonderful riding horse. My personal riding horse.

TECOLOTE: THE LITTLE HORSE THAT COULD

What this screenshot shows you, in addition to my sub-basement level of sales, is a bunch of useful information. Right up top, Amazon tells you how big the file is. It’s 36 pages. That’s short. That’s because it’s a kids’ book. Tecolote’s reviews, the handful of them, for which I am very grateful, are very good. Amazon pulled common comments in the reviews and placed them front and center. The top one says the “story is perfect for children.”

Way down at the bottom of the sale page, Amazon lists their rendition of the book’s category. Amazon’s categories are NOT the same as the official “BISAC” versions. Amazon does the reader a disservice, when its categories are different  than what the author officially specified when publishing the book. In the case of  Tecolote, the official BISAC code was Juvenile Nonfiction. Nothing for adults at all. Amazon also places its category information almost off the page, where almost no one will know to look for it.

Maybe that’s why this poor reader was so confused and gave Tecolote this review:

Of course, it’s short like a child’s book. It IS a child’s book.

This is what frosts me as an author. Of course, it’s short like a child’s book. That’s what it IS. But three stars isn’t that bad a review and the author was disappointed.

How can an author make sure a reader sees what’s in front of his/her face?

I’m very sensitive about this book because Tecolote ended up being my riding horse. You need to know how tight that bond is. To horse people, asking to borrow another person’s horse is like asking to borrow her husband for the night. Tecolote was MY horse. While his book was coming out and winning awards, Tecolote contracted pneumonia. I’d never had a horse with pneumonia. He didn’t get better.

Turned out, he was in heart failure and the pneumonia tipped the scales of life or death for him. As the book awards rolled in, Tecolote went downhill.  My beautiful, sweet, kind horse died. What I’ve got left of him is this book and a hunk of his mane. I ended up in the hospital with chest pains induced by a broken heart.

So when I see stuff like what follows, I want to bite anything within reach.

What? This doesn't make sense. Apparently the reviewer thought the same: I noticed that this isn't the original review that blew my mind so thoroughly. The "Also a great story of survival." on the title has been added. The review after "But also …" is new. The star rating hasn't moved. Wha …?

 

While not as bad as a 1 star review, two stars is considered a bad review. The above review of Tecolote that makes no sense. The review itself is very good, but it isn’t the review that originally went up–that I remember. The original headline was: Young kids or weird teenagers are qualified. The rest was added later, presumably when the writer’s mother found it or its writer had a fit of conscience. The original review read: Good for little kids or strange teenagers who are weird. The rest is an add-on.

A review can be modified by the writer, as it was here, but the star rating wasn’t changed. Can it be? Or is that momentary click of a button the same as casting a moment’s pique in bronze?

I had so many feelings about this book that I added the following message to the book description. It’s the first thing a prospective buyer sees:

This is the first thing a potential buyer of Tecolote sees. Sorry about the quality of a screen shot. This message gives the book's official category, its page count, and the fact that it was written for children.

Did this work? Maybe. No more reviews like that on Tecolote. I did get a two-star review on the older version of my Stepping off the Edge saying it didn’t give instructions on how to do different spiritual practices and wasn’t particularly spiritual. The first review of the book, located right under the book’s title says, “Not a How-to Book.” All the other reviewers raved about it’s spiritual impacts. Its awards were for spirituality, among other things. What’s a writer to do? I put this in the book description:

This sits top, front, and center on Stepping's sale page. "It isn't a 'how to' book …"

Stepping off the Edge originally was published as a modern spiritual companion in 2006. Know what? Nuthin's changed since 2006.

I’m announcing this right here: the text of the new edition of Stepping off the Edge: A Roadmap for the Soul is virtually identical to the old version.  If you read the old version, you may want to skip the new one. Or not. Why? Because the condition I write about, the human condition, hasn’t improved since the first book. On-line addiction, infatuation with celebrities, effects of drug and alcohol abuse, general abuse, evil so bad that the devil itself could have done it: all the big nasties we have to deal with are the same. So are my remedies. So’s the book. A refresher is often good. I’m pulling the old version of Stepping Off the Edge off the market today.

THE PAINFULLY DUMB REVIEW. I’m sure it’s clear to everyone by now that authors read the reviews readers write. I try to ignore mine as much as possible because 1) I’m always working on something new and I don’t have time, 2) a one or two star review can not only ruin my day, it can throw off my current writing. Bad reviews can have such extreme effects on me (if I deem them warranted), that I’ve removed one book from sale A book that cost me nine years of my life to write. Even if the review is based on missed or erroneous information and I don’t agree with it, it will gall me, as I’ve shown here.

Either way, bad review = bad day.

Life is rough, but you could have contacted me first …

HOW TO KEEP AUTHORS YOUR FRIENDS [Special Your Shelf Life Extra!] Say you’re “friends” with an author, as much as anyone can be friends with someone they’ve met only through electronic impulses. You didn’t like the author/friend’s last book and want to let them know it. So you write a review saying that. Freedom speech and all that. This is not a wise course of action if you want to keep things copacetic with your on-line buddy.

Remedies exist for the problems I outline above, problems of “missed information.” These are remedies that reviewers can apply before dropping their bombs. One is thoroughly checking the info on the book’s sale page before initiating Star Wars. Asking questions. Amazon now lets potential buyers ask questions of past ones. They probably do it for books. You can contact other reviewers, if they put contact info on their pages.

More than that––Did you know that you can contact me and other authors and communicate about your considerations about their books? This may be harder with the big name authors, but you can get through if you’re persistent. Try Googling this name: Sandy Nathan. Bingo! One click and you can see my new author picture, get my website and every social media I’m on and all my contacts. I have a contact page on my website that sends messages right here. To my desk. You could email me in seconds if you wanted to. If you’re clever enough, you could probably march up my driveway in an hour and a half.

Contacting me is not hard. If you have a beef about something I’ve written or are planning a bad review, talk to me. Yes, I know, it’s harder than slamming around low stars. It does require some courage and integrity. But you never know what might happen. I’ve heard of authors giving back the cost of a book a reader doesn’t like. I’m not saying that I’d do that, but I might. You might also learn things that might be pretty embarrassing to you if you had delved deeper. Like the author is in the middle of writing exactly what you wanted or has just had a heart attack.

Say you don’t realize this and just want to drop your load. We live in the age of diffused blame and hostility looking for a target. Shoot first, aim later.

Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull - An Award-winning Contemporary Western. This is the original cover.

For instance, my new book Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull  has won one national award (in Western) and had all five star reviews until recently. It is a novella, a short novel. Rules exist in the industry defining the lengths of various forms of fiction.

Standard Numbers of Words by Type of Fiction

Searching through my files yielded the most recent Word version Leroy, which allows me to see the number of words. Leroy Watches Jr. has just under 37,000 words, placing it on the high side of the novella word range. Amazon clearly states its length on its sale page: 132 pages. That indicates a short book. When I uploaded the book, I added a note to the sale page about it being a Novella. This is the first text the reviewer sees, just below the book description. It’s also cheaper than any of my other books, which should be a clue.

Leroy's novella length is reflected in the number of pages reported on its Amazon sale page. Leroy is actually a ittle long for a novella; they range around one hundred pages.

I was so excited about the novella concept and the fact that writing a 130 page book is easier than writing a 454 page book, that I wrote this little note, shown at the very top of the text in the Amazon sale page.

I think the concept that Leroy Watches Jr. is a novella, which is shorter than a regular book, should be clear. Novellas are all the rage now, by the way. See this great blog article from Anne R. Allen, “Why Novellas Are Hot and How to Write One.”

All this defining material is not enough to prevent a review like this:

With all the information that should have told the buyer what s/he was buying, this happened.

I’ve beaten this to death, but I want to let my readers know that they can contact me, though any of the easily available ways. I would love it if they did before posting something like this. (Not that it’s a one-star review. Three stars is considered OK, neither good nor bad. And its tone is polite.)

If this reader had contacted me, s/he could have been among the first to know that I’m writing another book about Leroy Watches Jr., In Love by Christmas. It is full length–it’s 60,000 words right now and I haven’t even gotten to the bits about polo and fox-hunting.

Reviewers should realize a few things: writing a book is hard. Everything about the process is hard, taxing, and will make the author and all concerned want to scream and throw things, often at each other.

It takes much longer to write a long book than a short one. I wrote Leroy Watches Jr. because I wanted to give my readers a little tasty morsel to gobble down after reading the “big book,” Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem while they were waiting for the next biggie. I can’t turn out 492 page whoppers three times a year–they take time.

My writing plans for the rest of the year are ambitious. I plan on getting In Love by Christmas out in time for Christmas buying. AND I’m planning on getting another book, the sequel to Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem, at about the same time.

The brilliant and captivating cover of In Love by Christmas. Thank you, Clarissa Yeo!

In Love by Christmas is the “most badass Christmas story ever written.” Leroy Watches Jr. takes the most dangerous ride of his life as he rescues his soul mate, Cass Duane. Cass is the daughter of Will Duane, the richest man in the world and the hero (after a fashion) of Mogollon.

Phenomenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Miracles,  Mogollon’s sequel, takes the crew at Mogollon’s retreat through the week; Mogollon ends on Wednesday night. The retreat is over on Saturday. That’s plenty of time for everything that didn’t happen in Mogollon to happen. And it does.

If I succeed in finishing these to books and getting the two new books published before Christmas, I may be dead, but I’m giving it my best shot.

In other words, I’m going to be working my buns off through the summer and fall for you. For me, too, but for you, my readers.

You may say, “Well, Sandy, you’re taking this review thing pretty hard.”

You bet I am. Writers and artists are among the most sensitive creatures on the planet. That’s why we can write. I would like the people who review my work to exhibit the courtesy and commitment to excellence I try to show them in my writing.

For instance, after receiving the above review, I instructed my cover artist to change Leroy’s cover so that The Bloodsong Novellas appears on the front and rear cover of Leroy so that no one else is disappointed.  This is a good idea. Wish I’d thought of it earlier. We’ll do that for the up-coming novellas, too.

See: There it is, right on the cover: A Bloodsong Novella.

So there we have it: the most benign of the bad reviews, the Oops-missed-something review. Most people drop them and never look back. Is there a cure? Instant “check your info and get things right”? No. But talking about it feels marvelous.

Ciao, everyone!

Sandy Nathan

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A Primer on Reviews – the Good Review – the Bad Review in its Two Forms – the Regular Bad Review and the Bad Bad Review – and the Good Bad Review

This article deserves appropriate illustration. I wanted to present a sampling of truly awful book covers. I found many, some totally hysterical, but they were in use on books currently for sale and as such were very copyrighted. I had to settle for what was in the public domain.

I am treading on dangerous territory. Authors are cautioned everywhere: IF YOU GET A BAD REVIEW, SUCK IT UP. DO NOT COMMENT, EVER, NO MATTER WHAT. NEVER RETALIATE OR EXPLAIN ON-LINE OR ANYWHERE ELSE.

Why? This is the viral age. At times, authors have been so hurt, provoked, or rendered insane by bad reviews that they unleash on-line diatribes against the review’s writer(s). These diatribes show the authors as groveling, sniveling, rolling-on-the-floor crybabies with snot and tears all over their faces. Either that or they come across as fruitcakes. These reactions provide terrific fodder for those who love to see their fellow human beings quivering like the Jello-O molds your aunties used to make in the 1950s. (The green kind, with cottage cheese.) The author may explain, “I don’t do this very often, but what he/she said flipped me out.” Doesn’t matter: in the cyber age, an author’s worst moments can become the defining statements of her career, thus tanking it.

I feel pretty safe writing this, as NOTHING I’ve written has gone viral, including an important blog post about water allocation in California which should interest everyone in the state who drinks water. (Now, had it been about wine, that post would have covered the globe.)

Therefore, I feel at ease writing about reviews from an author’s point of view. I would like to do a bit of teaching, enlightening readers about writing reviews and some pitfalls they may leap into, only to feel silly/stupid later. I’m not going to teach readers how to band together in semi-feral groups, organize and attack authors with the intent of sinking books and destroying careers. Those of you prone to do that already know how to do it.

LET’S DO A LITTLE REVIEW OF REVIEWS. (DUE THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION TO BE IMPARTED, THIS TOPIC CONTINUES IN THE NEXT POST, WHICH COVERS THE STUPID REVIEW, THE EMBARRASSING-TO-ITS-WRITER FORM OF THE BAD REVIEW.)

THE GOOD REVIEW: (Spoiler alert: This is an example of a good review, but it packs a spoiler.) “This brilliant novel illustrates what can be achieved devoting one’s life to studying invertebrates living in Iceland’s volcanic hot pools. Character development was superb, especially that of the heroine, a  Naegleria fowleri amoeba, who spent her entire life in the hot water of one pond. The way she infects the villain with  meningitis was amazing, killing him by entering his brain through the nasal passages.  This marvelous tale doesn’t bode well for Icelandic tourism, but man, it sure was a relief from those lousy vampire stories. Great plotting, pacing, use of language. An A+. I will read everything this writer produces.” (signed) A. ARTIFACT, #1 Amazon Reviewer in the Universe.

Authors scream in ecstasy when they receive reviews like this. I have only one question when I read such a review: How do I get a hold of A. ARTIFACT?

Hansi. What a gal!

BAD REVIEWS: Three types of bad review exist, the Regular Bad Review, which can be the basis of the Good Bad Review, and the Bad Bad Review:

“Stupid from it’s opening sentence to its final phrase, Fillydelphi Dreams, a period romance set in the late 1700s, is a loser. The heroine and hero are a rich plantation owner and her hot Jamaican slave. The historical research behind this book is horrendous. No rich, upper class woman would be seen traipsing around the barnyard clad in her “stays” at 2 AM, while trying to find her beloved Yorkshire terrier. Yorkshire terriers didn’t exist until the nineteenth century. That’s dumb. Dumber is the fact that the author mentions Victoria’s Secret as the provenance of the stays. Also, in an earlier dinner scene in her mansion, Her Ladyship is shown lacking in skills that would be possessed by any upper class woman in that day: she does not know an oyster fork from a pickle fork. She has nothing else to do but memorize silver pieces; she should know her forks. Back to traipsing around in the barnyard. She finds more than her dog, of course. The sex in this book is its high point, as the man Her Ladyship would have as her lover runs screaming, saying he ‘ll be flogged to death if he does what she wants. Besides, he has a wife and family and doesn’t want her. She says she’ll have him flogged to death if he doesn’t do what she wants. His whimpering cries as Her Ladyship has her way with him are the best part of this book. It’s horrible, one human being using an other so, but also realistic. Still, I’d rather read a vampire novel than this s***.”

This is a true Bad Review. The reviewer has read the book, formed articulate opinions about it’s various elements, and states them in the review. He does not personally attack the the author, only what she’s written.  Authors don’t like to receive reviews like this, but they can be a learning experience. (Victoria’s Secret incorporated in 1977 BTW.)

THE GOOD BAD REVIEW: This is a bad review, but it turns into having a good impact on the literary universe because of the author’s response to it. My first novel, Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money, was greeted with wild, over the top positive reviews. It also won six national awards, including a Silver in the IPPYs and Silver Nautilus and four more, was #1 in Mysticism on Amazon for over a year and cruised at about 1,500 in the overall Amazon ratings. Yowser, wowser! The book had some problems, but many reviewers loved its spiritual authenticity.

Years later, the other reviewers found the book. Stating their comments more emphatically than I am here, these reviewers said it was too slow and had too much back story, plus the bad guy was underdeveloped, and the book ended too quickly, making it half a book. There were reasons for all this: it was my first novel and I didn’t know what I was doing, I had the sequel written and thought it would be out right away, not knowing that I would be paralyzed by writer’s block for years. That didn’t stop the other reviewers from ripping it to shreds.

What did I do? I pulled Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money off the market. The folks who gave it bad reviews should rejoice at this. I began rewriting the novel, addressing the issues brought up by the reviewers. The part I rewrote was killer; far superior to the tortured prose and characters of the initial (now dead) version. But, when I started the rewrite of Numenon,  I the clouds of writer’s block that had prevented me from finishing Numenon’s sequel Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem for six years thinned and disappeared. The right words appeared in my brain.

When that happens, you gotta write, because those words do not hang around. And then the novella Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull and the reissue of Stepping off the Edge burst into my consciousness. I had to work on them. But, if I ever finish rewriting  Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money, it will rock. I show Will being a womanizer, instead of having his secretary tell you about it. Will is a major a slime bucket before he meets the shaman, Grandfather.  I’ve grown as a writer: earlier, I was too embarrassed to show Will’s nasty bits.

This is a case a bad review having a good outcome by provoking appropriate action in an author.

This isn't so bad a cover, but as I said, all the really bad ones were on books currently for sale. Some I checked out were ABSOLUTELY HYSTERICAL, and inappropriate for Your Shelf Life. "Games to Play with your ********," for one. Google "really bad book covers."

THE BAD BAD REVIEW: “Susan Wallawallawhoopsie is an idiot. She is so stupid that she wrote about a woman having a Yorkshire terrier in the 1,700s. Everyone knows they weren’t invented yet. And getting her stays at Victoria’s Secret? VS didn’t exist, either. Anyone who’s stupid enough to think she just went to VS to get undies is dumb. This author is so dumb, I’m surprised she didn’t say she got them at Costco, but that shows more brains than Susan’s got.” And on and on.

This is a rant. Often, like-minded souls (called trolls by everyone but themselves) will band together and attack a book/author heaping one star reviews of this ilk on a book or books. I’ve read reviews of type. Some don’t sound like the above “Bad Bad Review.” Some sound reasonable, until you read the book, which is pretty darn good and bears little resemblance to the one-star wonder described by the reviewer.

We live in review wars,  Star Wars’ ugly cousin. Typically, reviews posted on sellers’ sites are permanent, smelling up the site on which they are written forever. Some review platforms, Amazon, I understand, allow authors to get such defamation down, if they work hard enough. Other review sites are bloody free-for-alls with no author recourse.

What triggers attacks by trolls? Success. If your head sticks up above the cyber-crowd in any way, swarms of virtual vipers may be attracted to your work and attempt to destroy your career. The situation is on-going and is so bad that I’m not going to say any more about it. I have a number of instances (that most writers know about) that I could cite, but the authors involved asked me not talk about them. What do these examples involve? Death threats. Professional destruction. Really nasty verbiage flung hard. Books sunk by coordinated attacks of one star reviews. Do you feel fear?  If you don’t, you’re not on the writer side of the aisle.

Those wishing to understand the behavior I’ve described can visit the Center for Internet Addiction, founded by Kimberly Young, PhD, the clinical psychologist who identified ‘net addiction in 1996. The Internet has created new forms of psychopathology: the attacks on authors are manifestations of the rage states that overtake some people on the ‘net. Flaming-–an individual or a group group exploding and heaping vitriol on a member–is one manifestation of these new mental illnesses. Dr. Young describes more. Internet addiction isn’t just piddling your life and money away on auctions. When I was writing the first edition of my book Stepping off the Edge around 2003 to 2006, I stumbled into internet addiction–my own, in the form of an eBay addiction. Dr. Young’s writings. particularly Caught in the ‘Net, really helped.

The anonymity of the ‘net fosters all sorts of behaviors that people would never indulge in person.

But if no one can see them … There’s no sanction of what they do … If they have a bunch of friends and egg each other on … A culture that says what they’re doing is  OK?

Let’s get to something more pleasant: The STUPID REVIEW, the topic of my next post.

Sandy Nathan

Sandy’s Other Website, the Interactive One

Sandy’s Amazon Author Page

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