George Weinstein's Blog, page 3

What’s in a Name?

I’ve been sitting on a manuscript since 2010, a satirical science fiction novel with the working title of Offlining about a video gamer who even sleeps while online but ventures into the real world to stop his childhood friend from becoming a suicide bomber. He succeeds but gets swept into the secret world of the ultra-rich, whose tech and morals are outlandish, and discovers that life offline is more bizarre than any game he’s ever played.

There is much more humor and sex in this book than in anything else I’ve written. Tweaking the manuscript has been a sort of relief valve for me over the years. When my other writing—or my life—became too intense, I’d make Offlining even wackier.

Some publishers considered it but ultimately passed, and I let an agent go for not being able to sell it anywhere, so I’ll self-publish it. But here’s the thing: fans of my Hardscrabble Road series or any of my other books might not like it. And this will probably be a one-off, just something I enjoyed dabbling with for more than a decade and finally want to put out in the world. Thus, I’m thinking of releasing the book under a pen name. I’ll let my newsletter readers know about its publication, but the book will be otherwise unconnected to me, lest I offend or disappoint someone who then won’t try any of my other books.

There’s of authors much more famous than I am who adopted pen names, from Charles Dickens and Stephen King to Agatha Christie and JK Rowling. Their reasons varied but most often had to do with either fearing that they’d create a bad reputation early on if their initial publications weren’t well-received or not wanting to confuse readers of their popular works (and thus ruin a good reputation) with something completely different.

Authors endlessly debate among themselves the pros and cons of using an alias. Pros include the reputation protection mentioned above and the freedom to explore new genres or topics without being burdened by expectations. Cons include not being able to market to an established fanbase to help generate sales and reviews and the dilemma of book signings: does the author sell the pen-named book alongside their established titles but use two different autographs, and if they do this, what was the point of creating the secret identity? Or do they only appear as their secret alter-ego and sell and sign just that book and forego opportunities to sell more popular titles?

What authors seldom do, though, is ask readers what they think of pen names. After all, we create these alter egos mostly because we’re worried about your reaction, Dear Reader, to something we’ve written that is far outside the bounds of our usual genres and themes. But do you even care? Are you willing to take a chance on a beyond-the-norm book written by an author whose other work you liked? Or do you prefer to read books in one specific genre, such that you won’t hold it against me that I’ve written a funny, sexy sci-fi novel but you’re waiting for me to write another historical fiction or mystery/thriller?

I’d love to get your thoughts about this. Please contact me to let me know.

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Writers, What Is Your Why?

Me and a reader actually named Carlos Moreno!

Leadership expert, inspirational speaker, and author Simon Sinek’s seminal book Start with Why explains that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. With online bookstores, authors must convey their “why” in their author profile. If readers don’t take the time to look at that, then the “what”—the book jacket teaser, blurbs from other authors, and reviews from readers—bears the full burden of convincing would-be purchasers to take a chance on our work. Social media outlets give us a better opportunity to talk about why we write and specifically wrote the book(s) we did. However, there’s a tenuous link between engaging viewers on social media platforms or via email newsletters and prompting them to take the next step on their own to purchase one’s book.

Doing in-person book sales gives the author much more of an opportunity to engage potential buyers and allow them to get to know us as people who are passionate about the books we’ve written and can explain exactly why we did so. When readers talk to us in a shop or market, they want to make a personal connection. If they don’t like the author, there’s little chance they’ll spend money on the book.

How do you present yourself in the best possible way, so readers will get to know—and like—the real you? Start with why. Why did you spend hundreds or perhaps thousands of hours on that brick of paper, ink, and glue we call a book? What compelled you to sit or stand in place for all that time while you connected one word after another like a seemingly endless string of pearls? Why did you put yourself through rewrites, edits, the whole publishing process with cover reviews and final proofs—knowing there are mistakes you won’t spot but others will sometimes gleefully tell you about—and then marketing this creation to a culture that is already swimming in books from authors all better-known than you? Why didn’t you spend that time watching TV or playing videogames or gardening or engaging in any of the other myriad activities most people do every day instead of completing a book, something relatively few ever do?

Don’t be flippant with your answer. Take care to spell it out for yourself before you explain it to others. The more sincere and vulnerable you are, the more likely you will connect with readers on an emotional level. If you hide behind humorous deflection or guarded evasiveness, people will sense your unwillingness to open up and be less likely to open up their wallets in kind.

This is not something you can fake your way through. Most people engage in shopping experiences in actual stores and at markets because they want to interact with others. Yes, there will be some who are just killing time or distracting themselves with browsing, and they’ll make it clear they don’t care about your why. Don’t take it personally—they’re not going to buy anyone’s book that day. The people who are willing to talk to you, though, are seeking contact and connections with others; they’re the ones you want to engage with. They might become your fans or even your friends. They certainly will remember you and your story—your why—when they start your book and after they finish it. They might recommend it to others and pass along your why as a means of persuasion so that person will also take a chance on your work.

What’s my why? That depends on the book. I wrote Hardscrabble Road and Return to Hardscrabble Road to honor my first wife’s father and his brothers, all of whom I loved and admired. They survived a childhood that would’ve killed most of us, and they got through it with hope, heart, and humor, along with a huge helping of grit. The Five Destinies of Carlos Moreno was inspired by my love of history—especially untold or forgotten history—and my desire to inspire readers with a story of survival against injustice. The photo accompanying this blogpost shows me with a customer named, of all things, Carlos Moreno! I hope he enjoyed his namesake’s adventures trying to avoid the Great Repatriation of 1928 to 1941. Aftermath and Watch What You Say were inspired by my love of mysteries and thrillers and the depiction of strong female protagonists overcoming long odds. Similarly, I wrote The Caretaker because I enjoy stories about reinvention in the face of big challenges.

Connecting with readers and creating a fanbase requires you to first write a good book—all the reasons for doing so won’t mean a thing if you don’t accomplish this task. After that, though, when you want people to give your creation a try, remember to tell them why you went to all that effort. Get to the heart of it!

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Reading Outside Your Comfort Zone

For most people, December means shopping and buying for the holidays. For me, my wife Kim Conrey, and other authors, December is all about selling—precisely because most people are buying gifts for family, friends, and, sometimes, themselves. Other than social media posts and emails that remind potential purchasers we have deals on books for sale, there’s little we can do to influence online purchases. Rather, my December focus for the past decade—and now Kim’s focus—has been on in-person sales at markets and bookstores. If you encountered us at one of the Posman Books stores or the Marietta Artisan Market with our dear friend Ben Meeks, you likely heard us ask some variation of “Are you shopping for a book lover?”

Quite often people were doing just that, and hopefully we were able to help these shoppers check a gift or two off their list. Sometimes, though, the shoppers were the book lover and shopping for themselves. And then the conversation became about what they liked to read. Here’s the interesting part: occasionally, the shopper said they normally read one type of novel or nonfiction book, but they recently tried something outside their reading comfort zone and really liked it.

Comments such as those reminded me of a blogpost I wrote previously about why readers should join book clubs: quite often, they end up reading and loving books they initially would’ve insisted were not genres of interest. It’s kind of like the old commercial with Mikey as the kid who “hates everything” discovering that he likes Life cereal.

But I get it: reading outside your comfort zone is a gamble. Unless you have time on your hands, your minutes or hours dedicated to reading are precious, and you don’t want to waste them by embarking on a book you might not enjoy. It’s why we gravitate to our favorite authors—we’re confident they will give us an engaging reading experience, even if it’s very much like previous ones (e.g., has Lee Child’s Jack Reacher done much that’s surprised anyone over the last ten books?). There’s almost no risk in those decisions. Many readers focus on a specific genre for the same reason: they know what they’re going to get in a romance/mystery/fantasy/etc., and that provides an assurance of a satisfying read even across a variety of authors. Again, low risk.

However, there’s an opportunity cost too—what are you missing because you tend to gravitate toward a subset of authors or just one genre? I recommend getting out of your comfort zone once in a while. Haven’t ever read a memoir or biography? Start with a well-reviewed one and try it, but give yourself permission to stop if you get 30 pages in and still don’t like it. You don’t owe the author anything, and they’ll never know regardless. Like romance but have never tried sci-fi romance? There are an infinite number of new worlds to discover with love in the air and the entire gamut of heat levels.

Joining a book club will force you out of your comfort zone and provides some new friends-for-life, but you can do this on your own too. Your local librarian or independent bookstore owner and their staff can recommend plenty of books outside your usual reading habits. Search functions on Amazon, Goodreads, and countless other websites can reveal a plethora of choices.

Space is the final frontier—well worth a visit—and there are also countless other borderlands in fiction genres and nonfiction topics you didn’t even know existed, let alone spent any time exploring. Who knows, you might discover a new favorite you can explore until deciding you’re due for another change, and then off you’ll go again, expanding your tastes and developing an even broader range as a reader. Enjoy the journey!

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The Devil’s Bargain for Writers: Being Thankful for—and Reconciling Yourself to—Reviews

The most difficult thing for an author to deal with after releasing their book is the public, highly visible critique of their book online. Return to Hardscrabble Road was published in October, and some reviews are starting to come in. The good news is that there are generous reviews for which I’m so very grateful—and from more than just my friends. The bad news is that not every reader loves me and my work as much as I want them to.

This is the central paradox of what I think a successful writing career looks like: an author must sell books to strangers in order to succeed, but strangers care far less about the authors’ feelings and are much more likely to leave a scathing review than a friend who might rate something well just to preserve the friendship.

“Success” in my case is measured in book sales. Are there other measures of success? Of course. An author could aim for perfection in the ratings they receive and as a result they only want to sell books to “safe” prospects. These reviewers, all friends of the author, will give five stars guaranteed. The author can then boast about their perfect record of impeccable reviews—all the while hoping that some cranky, anonymous book buyer doesn’t purchase their work and post an unfavorable opinion. Success for other authors might be achieving their goal of getting their book on the market or sharing a specific viewpoint with the world. That’s fine for them, but I’m trying to make money from my work—I have a family to support—and the only way to do that is to sell books to strangers.

In September, I wrote blogposts about why readers should give reviews and why writers should seek them. It’s hard on the ego, though, when readers cooperate but then you don’t like some of the reviews you’ve actively solicited. Return to Hardscrabble Road had a rocky start review-wise. Within an hour of my publisher posting the book on Amazon, two people gave it three stars. There’s no way they could’ve read the book; apparently, they were unmoved by the cover and were expressing their unhelpful opinions. Then someone posted a one-star review, which was terrible in many respects—the worst being that they weren’t reviewing Return—they were actually reviewing the first book in the series, Hardscrabble Road! So, now my book had two questionable three-stars and an incorrectly placed, nasty one-star review. A bunch of five- and four-star reviews since then have helped to pull up the average, but it’s possible that some fans of the first book chose not to take a chance on the sequel because of those initial critiques.

Unfair? I think so, but this is what we sign up for as authors selling our work in a public forum where anyone can express their opinion, no matter how mean-spirited, ill-conceived, or fatuous. We don’t fight back or call for a retraction (or we shouldn’t, though some authors do) because to stifle those opinions, regardless of what we think of them, would be to suppress freedom of speech. Would we want to give those reviewers the power to take down our books for sale because they didn’t like them? Certainly not. So, why would it be okay for us to cancel their critiques? As Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch often says, “Everybody counts, or nobody counts.”

It’s important for writers to acknowledge the devil’s bargain we make when we sell our work in the public marketplace. We can’t have the exposure without exposing ourselves to hostility, misinterpretation, and/or scorn. All we can do is write the best book possible and hope many more people love it than don’t and post their reviews online so those positive opinions sway more book-buyers than the words of the naysayers do. And then we write another one and start the process again….

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Reader Prompt: How Do You Create Your Characters?

My wife and fellow author, Kim Conrey, and I interviewed each other recently for an event at the Milton Branch Library. During Q&A with the audience, a friend asked us, “How do you create your characters?” Typically, I respond to this question by talking about how I imagine a character’s needs vs. their wants and a secret need they’re not aware of until the story gets going. The secret need is usually something they’re actively behaving in opposition to at the start of the story (e.g., in my amateur-sleuth murder mystery Aftermath, Janet Wright has a secret need to become independent but is engaging in dependent or codependent behaviors until she has an epiphany during the novel that she doesn’t require anyone else in order to feel good about herself). A million writers have said this sort of thing before—it’s a boring answer, but that’s how I’ve always thought about developing my characters.

Kim, with her usual brilliance, rocked me back with her reply: she thinks about the major obstacle her character is trying to overcome and how they go about doing that. The character is defined by their reaction to the obstacle rather than the hurdle itself.

For example, her heroine of Stealing Ares, Harlow Hanson, was born with a neurological speech and language processing disorder that means she grew up having a hard time understanding others or expressing herself. She compensated for this by making her other senses sharper, her powers of observation keener, and her drive to achieve her goals even more determined. When thinking about Harlow, those are the qualities the reader thinks about, not the obstacle that spurred her to strive harder. When you consider a diamond, you think about its remarkable attributes, not the intense pressure and heat that transformed it from lowly carbon.

This was a revelation to me. I realized that, as a reader, I think of the characters I’m reading about using Kim’s approach. How do they respond to the initial threat or call to action that launches the story? How do they handle adversity and setbacks along the way? How do they respond when all seems to be lost and failure or even death is at hand?

If someone asks me to describe the characters I’m reading about, I talk about the protagonist’s resiliency, moxie, and intrepidness. I speak about the antagonist’s ingenuity, determination, and cunning.

So why don’t I think about these traits immediately when I create the characters for my latest novel? Why instead do these attributes bubble to the surface as I’m getting to know the characters while writing their story?

I dunno. I’ve just never thought of the process that way while forming my Adams and Eves from the mud and ribs of my imagination.

To me, this sort of revelation is the miracle at the center of the creative process. I’ve been writing novels for nearly 25 years, and I can still be surprised by something as basic as how I can change the way I create my characters. It’s an epiphany I want to share with readers because I want to know how you think of the characters you enjoy reading about.

Do you first think of their intelligence, appearance, skills, and other such traits? Do you first think of their response to difficulties or danger? Is it a mix of these attributes and behaviors? Or something else entirely?

Inquiring minds want to know!

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Writer’s Guide to Book Launches

The first thing to understand about book launches is that, even if you’re an author under contract with a Big Five publisher (i.e., Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette), your publication date or “Pub Day” is just a blip in the long lifespan of your book. There are bitter jokes about books being unceremoniously dumped into the Barnes & Noble remainder bin after only a few weeks of disappointing sales, but even Big Five books that don’t perform well at their start are part of the publisher’s backlist forever and will always be available for order or download.

Books have a seemingly eternal lifespan, and many have a slow ramp-up of building sales over numerous years or even decades, as more readers discover those titles and recommend them to each other. Hardscrabble Road had very modest sales during its first few years, but it has built up some impetus over the last decade and now outsells all my other books combined. I am sure it will always outperform Return to Hardscrabble Road—the first book in a series always does—but hopefully the sequel will benefit from riding the first book’s metaphorical coattails.

The point of all this is not to be so focused on your book launch that you think the book’s best day for sales will be on your Pub Day and the months and years that follow will be a steep decline until it never sells another copy. If you keep doing signings, soliciting book clubs and podcasts to request consideration, getting reviews, entering it in contests, and making yourself known to book festival organizers, then word-of-mouth advertising will continue to raise the awareness of your book among readers. At book signings, buyers regularly tell me they’ve heard of one book or another of mine even though I’ve done no print or online advertising—someone recommended it to them at some point.

Still, you deserve to have a Pub Day book launch event with lots of friends and family buying your book. Hopefully, they’ll start the word-of-mouth that will create momentum for your future book sales.

Start this process by creating a budget. It’s easy to become wildly ambitious with your plans and end up renting a venue and locking in catering that ensures your launch party will lose money. Instead, begin by realistically estimating how many books you hope to sell and at what price. That revenue estimate becomes your not-to-exceed price for your total book launch expenditures. Of course, you want to come in below that mark—it would be nice to make a little money from your efforts!

When do you hold your event? Weekends and evenings are the obvious choices, but don’t get too hung up on finding the perfect date and time. Inevitably, individuals’ travel plans, kids’/grandkids’ events, illness/injury, and other things beyond your control will prevent some people from attending who you thought would be there for sure to support you. Instead, pick a day and time that work for you—it’s your party. If some people can’t make it, inform them about the next book signing event you’ve scheduled or how they can purchase the book online.

Once you have the date, time, and venue determined, use your mailing list to create an invitation on Evite or another online service so people have an easy way to RSVP and you won’t have to keep track of their responses manually. Ditto with your social media channels—Facebook makes creating an event and sending and tracking invitations easy as well. You no doubt have friends made through social media who will not appear on your mailing list, so be sure not to neglect them.

You’ll want to focus on expressing your thanks to friends and family on your Pub Day, not on the technicalities of processing credit card payments, etc. Therefore, enlist help among trusted friends to assist you with book sales, launch party set up, and collecting attendee names and emails so you can send a message of gratitude after your launch party.

You’ll want to plan a speech about your writing journey and the book you’re launching. Be sure to publicly thank those who helped you along the way and everyone for their attendance and support. I prefer to talk about the story-behind-the-story because, as Simon Sinek reminds us, people don’t buy what you do—they buy why you do it. However, if you must do a reading, then keep it brief (5-10 minutes, tops) to give your audience a flavor of your writing and what kind of story experience they’re in for.

After your big day, remember to thank the attendees by email. For those who indicated they would attend but couldn’t, let them know when your next event will be or at least where they can purchase your book.

And take a moment to celebrate your achievement. Writing a book is hard enough—launching it and spending the subsequent weeks/years promoting it while writing more books is where the real work comes in. Hang in there and keep moving forward!

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Chapter 1 for Free: Return to Hardscrabble Road

To celebrate my Return to Hardscrabble Road book launch on October 16—and to honor readers for their patience as I dithered and dillydallied for a decade about writing this sequel—here is the first chapter in its entirety:

Chapter 1

I found Mama waiting for me in the kitchen. Her blonde, shoulder-length hair, always a little wild, seemed neglected instead of carefree, with more silver woven through it than I remembered. Her slim face looked gaunt, dark eyes flinty. The blue-checked gingham apron she always wore while doing chores showed reddish-brown splotches of food, but so did the sleeves of her housedress, which had been stitched from daisy-patterned flour sacks, as if she’d stopped giving a damn about her clothes.

On closer inspection, the stains looked a lot like blood spatter, such as someone might get firing .38 caliber bullets from a Colt revolver into Papa at close range. Six times. And the apron pocket in front sagged as if it might contain that murder weapon, which he used to keep snug in his waistband during my childhood.

“Hey,” I said. I draped my greatcoat on the kitchen table and set the Army Air Forces cap atop it. They matched the olive drabs I’d hitchhiked in from the Colquitt, Georgia, bus station. Dropping onto the bench on one side of the splintery table, I realized I’d automatically chosen the spot Papa had assigned me when I was a kid.

Mama sat across from me. “Only two letters since you left?” Her voice hadn’t softened a lick.

“You didn’t write back after either of them.”

“I been busy.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the kitchen, which looked and smelled the same, yet different, from almost a year ago.

Everything seemed smaller, but thick cobwebs still coated the rafters, where the latest generation of spiders said grace and devoured whatever flew their way. A bare electric bulb dangled above us now instead of the kerosene lantern that had seemed to create more shadows than light. The same old stove put out welcomed heat on this New Year’s Day of 1947, but all I smelled was burning wood without the usual accompanying aroma of cornbread baking in Mama’s cast-iron skillet.

My finger traced familiar patterns in the scarred and pitted table with gaps between the slats. As a boy, I once knocked over a glass and sent well water streaming between those spaces and onto Papa’s creased slacks. My jaw tightened as I recalled the crack of his backhand that had knocked me to the plank floor. After I had staggered back to the bench, he’d done it again, even harder. Now Papa was dead, shot to pieces, and everybody knew Mama had ended him.

Though desperate to ask her about that—I’d thought of little else during my journey home—her haggard appearance made me hesitate. I didn’t want to kick her while she was down.

In one respect, I felt grateful for his murder, because if anyone deserved killing, he did. But I was also horrified by the brutal violence that apparently ran in both sides of the family. I blurted, “How’d it feel, pulling that trigger over and over again?”

“What’re you going on about, Bud?”

“I prefer my real namenow. Shooting Papa—how’d it make you feel?”

“Well, Roger, who said I shot that sonofabitch?”

I snorted. “Everybody.”

“You been in San Antone the better part of a year at that Lack of Land place—”

“It’s called Lackland.”

“That don’t make no never mind to me. How can you know what anybody round these parts is saying, let alone everybody?”

I indicated the port-wine stain that colored the upper quarter of my face like a clock shaded crimson from nine to noon. “With this birthmark, folks recognize me straight off, and they seem to like talking about the MacLeod…history.”

“Meaning what?”

“Papa shooting you at the Cottontail Café. Him marrying the Ramsey widow and overseeing her sawmill operations.”

She grunted. “Not that he’d bothered to tell me he got a judge to divorce us.”

And not that Mama had bothered to let their marriage get in the way of her own countless affairs. Just like him. I’d had it out with her a few years before over her promiscuity—which, among other results, had produced me—and I couldn’t stomach another go-round. Instead I said, “They also like talking about his murder in that same sawmill. And your name comes up a lot.”

“Aye God, they don’t know pea turkey.”

Her hands closed into fists on the worn tabletop. Like her face, they also looked thinner. I asked about the other thing heavy on my mind. “Mama, how are you making ends meet?”

“I got my ways. Don’t you worry about me none.”

The laughter of my two brothers echoed down the hall from the front porch. We had telegrammed each other after my oldest brother, Jay, received news of Papa’s death. It provided the perfect excuse for emergency leave so we could reunite here, with the military paying for our travel to the Colquitt bus station and back to our duty stations. I swallowed my reply, swung my legs over the bench, and hurried to greet them.

Twenty-year-old Jay pushed the door open and held out his hand to usher in Chet, eighteen—a year older than me. I hadn’t seen either in a long time. Both wore their Army uniforms, military regulations be damned. They must’ve deduced, as I had, that people were happy to pick up hitchhiking soldiers. With World War II still fresh in everybody’s mind, it helped folks show their patriotism.

Jay had made sergeant, while Chet remained a private first class, same as I was in the Army Air Forces. I’d lied about my age to enlist in 1946, and now, for once, he didn’t outrank me. We had all traveled light; their green duffels joined my knapsack on the wood plank floor of the front room. It was the same spot where the three of us had been forced to share the one lumpy feather mattress growing up, with them along the edges and me lying in the middle in the opposite direction, keeping their feet company.

They’d put on some much-needed weight in the service. No more having to divide a few wormy tomatoes, a round of fly-specked cornbread, and a handful of butter beans among six people, with Papa getting the lion’s share.

Jay had grown tall and become a man after two years in the military, during and after the war. Like many soldiers, he smelled of cigarette smoke; it made him seem even older and more worldly. Chet was a gnat’s eyebrow shorter and as handsome as ever, boasting even thicker muscles, as if the Army had decided to make a weapon of him.

Compared with either of them, I still looked like a kid.

Chet gave my uniform a once-over. “I thought you were too good for us Army dogfaces and decided to be a flyboy instead.”

“We’ve got the same outfit as you for just a while longer. Rumor is, they’ll create a whole new branch this year called the Air Force and give us nicer duds.”

Ever the peacemaker, Jay said, “I wouldn’t care if you became a swabbie or a jarhead neither. We’re all battling on the same side—”

“Us against the world,” Chet and I finished for him.

Jay put his long arms around our shoulders. “Fellas, I wish we’d been born sooner. With all three of us in the fight, we could’ve ended the war before it really got going. If that ain’t the God’s honest truth, then grits ain’t groceries.”

Chet reached behind him and pounded a granite fist between my shoulder blades. “Speaking of the war, we went by the Kraut POW camp, Roger. Looks like you didn’t manage to free the entire Afrika Korps.”

“Just Hermann. He and Cecilia sent me a sweet Christmas card. She’s expecting.”

Jay released us and looked at his high-gloss shoes, which he’d somehow managed to keep clean despite the dusty roads. “Um, any word about her big sister?”

“Nothing but sad news. Geneva lost her husband and kids to polio over a year ago. Her parents have been trying to set her up with someone new, but nobody appeals to her.”

He nodded. “Maybe she’ll give me a shot. What’s the latest with you and Rienzi?”

From my breast pocket, I removed the monochrome photo of us arm in arm, posing in front of the Alamo.

Chet glanced at the snapshot before passing it to Jay. “Don’t you and Tokyo Rose know we lost that battle?”

“But we won the war. And she’s only half-Japanese, on her mother’s side.”

Jay returned the photo to me. He winked and asked, “Which side is the better smoocher?”

Blushing, I slid the picture back in my pocket while savoring the memory of her goodbye kiss.

Chet said, “I reckon she can still throw you across a room if you get too fresh.”

He was right, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Mindful of how quickly I’d lapsed into their slow drawl, the speech patterns of home, I said with my best schoolhouse diction, “Sir, I was raised to be a perfect gentleman.”

“By who?” Chet set off down the hall. “Ain’t no gentleman or lady did the raising in this hellhole. Hey, Mama!”

“Don’t you hey me, boy,” she said from the kitchen. “You and Roger couldn’t be bothered to give me a proper goodbye and don’t have the manners for a decent hello.”

Jay and I followed him, my oldest brother saying, “That’s right, Mama. If the Army catches wind, they might be put in the stockade as a lesson to the other ingrates.” He kissed her cheek and hugged her.

She rose onto her shoe tips and glared at me and Chet over his shoulder. “Now this is the way a son’s supposed to reunite with his poor old mother.”

I couldn’t meet the challenge in her eyes. As ever, I envied Jay’s ability to always be kind to someone who’d made our lives even worse. If Papa was the tornado that tore through every day of our childhood, Mama had chosen, as often as not, to push us into the path of that twister instead of pulling us to safety. Maybe just to see what would happen.

Still, a boy coming home after so many months away should’ve greeted his mother properly rather than cross swords with her, as I’d done.

Chet pursed his lips like he wanted to spit. “Now that Papa’s out of the way,” he said to her, “who’s next on your hit list? More important, when’s supper?”

She let go of Jay and sidestepped him to face Chet. “I was hoping we’d go to town, seeing as how all y’all is on Uncle Sam’s payroll.”

“Just like the old days,” Chet snapped, giving voice to my thoughts. “Wanting to wring every last cent outta us.”

“Aye God, why’d you bother coming back here?”

Outside, somebody stumbled up the back porch steps. The door opened. Our twenty-two-year-old sister, Darlene, back from Atlanta and remarried yet again, shuffled in. The left side of her face was swollen and purplish, the eye there blackened, her blonde hair matted with dirt. Her arms crossed and hovered above her sides as if shielding her ribs while being afraid to touch them.

Jay approached her. She flinched and said through split lips, “No hugs. Please.”

She had a gap on the left side of her mouth where two teeth should’ve been.

To read the rest, please order it online here.

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Fishing for Compliments: How Authors Get Book Reviews—and Why

Goals outside your control are always harder to achieve than those that are solely dependent upon you. Thus, writing a book—as hard a project as that is to complete—is easier than successfully selling that book. Sales rely not only on the marketing efforts you put forth but also intentional actions by consumers. You can alert people you know that your book is for sale and remind them repeatedly about this, but whether they make the purchase is up to them. If you’re doing a book signing in public, you can sway potential buyers’ decision making to some degree by presenting a great-looking cover and making a compelling pitch for your work, but their choices are also beyond your control. A tough slog, right? And that’s the best possible scenario, with friends and family and people you encounter face-to-face in a situation where you have the most influence.

You can imagine, then, how hard it is to affect strangers’ buying decisions online. First, how do they even become aware of your book? Second, why would they take a chance on your work when there are numerous authors they’ve heard of whose books are also for sale (and even maybe price-discounted)?

Every new author faces the same hurdle: they lack credibility. The only way to gain this is for readers to recommend your work to others. Word-of-mouth endorsements about your book are the gifts that keep on giving for authors. This is how bestsellers are born, and it is what keeps generating sales for years or even decades for those books.

The online equivalent of word-of-mouth is book reviews. When a stranger does a search on the genre/subgenre in which your book is listed and happens to see your title and the cover among all the other options on their screen, they also see the average number of stars the book has received and how many people have reviewed it. Four or more stars and numerous reviews (twenty, fifty, or more depending on how much convincing a given individual needs) are usually enough to create credibility in readers’ minds. Hopefully they will be interested enough to click the link and read about your book and others’ comments about it. If this persuades them, they’ll make the purchase, and you’re all set to satisfy another reader. The process started, though, with the instant credibility brought about by having a compelling title, an enticing cover, and enough high ratings to keep the consumer from moving on to other candidates. It’s a three-legged stool, if you will—without the endorsements, it won’t stand. This is why you need book reviews: these online testimonials are as close as we can get to a friend telling the consumer they vouch for your work: “Try it, you’ll like it.” The more reviews you get, the more visible your book will be on those websites.

How do you get reviews? Ask for them nicely, without bullying tactics or guilt trips. When friends and family buy your book, ask them to please put a review on Amazon or at least Goodreads regardless of where they bought it. Millions of people make their buying decisions relying on the reviews found on those websites, so those are the places to go to post their endorsement. If they didn’t buy it on Amazon they can still post a review there—all it’ll lack is the “verified purchase” tag Amazon uses to indicate a book bought through them (only Amazon stockholders care about that tag and maybe not even them). If friends or family confirm they posted a review for you, be generous in expressing your gratitude.

This strategy will only get you so far, though. The secret to ongoing book sales is for strangers online to discover your work, give it a try, and share their recommendation of it. Some of those who buy your book will post a review because they want to help other people discover a great reading experience. I’m forever grateful to them for making this effort! Other readers are shy about expressing their opinions online but will respond to an incentive. This is why many of my books include an offer set forth in my Author’s Note: in return for an honest review on Amazon (it’s against their policy to require a four- or five-star review as a quid pro quo), Goodreads, or another online outlet, I provide them with an original short story that includes the characters they love. This is a bonus they cannot obtain any other way except by posting a review. If they email me a screenshot of their review or a link to it, per the instructions I lay out in my Author’s Note, I respond with profuse thanks and the exclusive short story, which I make sure is as well-written as the book itself, so they get something of real value in return for their efforts. Don’t worry—no one will ask for the bonus unless they loved the original book, so mostly five-star reviews are guaranteed. The additional high ratings this strategy garners boosts the credibility of the book. More sales and reviews follow, which helps to perpetuate the cycle.

What do you give away if you’re writing nonfiction? Offer something practical if you’ve written informational or inspirational nonfiction—a guide to further help or educate readers, a one-on-one consultation activity they will benefit from, or the like. If you’re a memoirist, provide a chapter that goes into more detail about an incident glossed over in your book or something that didn’t make the final cut due to a maximum page count you were abiding by or another limitation.

I have discovered that my books with this offer have many more reviews and far better sales than the ones where I was too lazy or uninspired to create a bonus short story. Coincidence? I don’t think so. And as a bonus to me, I now have additional fans I can add to my mailing list, with whom I share my Readers and Writers newsletters and details about upcoming books and signing events. This encourages more sales and more word-of-mouth endorsements. And the beat goes on.

Marketing your book and drumming up reviews are difficult, sometimes uncomfortable activities. They’re necessary, though, if you want readers to discover your work and tell people about it. Ultimately, our sales are driven by the whims of others and subject to the kindness of strangers. Reconcile yourself to this fact and do everything you can to start the ball rolling. May it continue forever.

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How to Give Book Reviews—and Why

Readers have told me they’d love to give reviews of books online so they can encourage others to take a chance on an author’s work, but they’re intimidated by what and how much to write, especially when they see the way some others do theirs.

Remember having to write book reports in school? You might’ve been required to summarize The Scarlet Letter or Lord of the Flies or whatever, and you’d hit all the plot points—”and then this happened and then this, etc.”—filling up the required number of pages and ending with a few lines about what it all meant. Somehow, the book review has become the book report for those who enjoy taking notes while they read. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it complicates an otherwise simple activity, and it’s not the only way to do this.

When I’m reading reviews to decide which books I’ll buy next, I don’t want plot points spelled out for me. The summary on the book’s cover provides enough of those details along with who the main characters are and what’s at stake. No, what I’m looking for is the audience’s emotional reaction to what they’ve read, especially for novels. I want to know the feelings the book evoked. In nonfiction, I want the same, and I also want readers to tell me the insights they gleaned, what they learned, their epiphanies.

I read for the same reason I write: to feel. Naming the obvious genres, thrillers should thrill me, romances should make me swoon, and mysteries and suspense novels should create tension and anticipation. If readers feel these kinds of things when reading such books—or the books fail to deliver those emotions—I want to know.

I also want to know how readers responded to the main characters (“I love the heroine! I want to take her out for coffee!”) and their reaction to the overall story and reading experience—“couldn’t put it down,” “didn’t want it to end”—so I’ll get an idea about how much I’m likely to enjoy the book too. As a bonus, if the language is well crafted, such that the reader went back and reread or underlined passages they particularly appreciated, I’m looking for a mention of that in the reviews as well.

The common denominator, of course, is emotion: how the book made you feel. I think this is all that’s needed in a book review. You don’t have to write a book report if you don’t want to—just write a few sentences about how to the book made you feel.

Amazon.com remains the best place to do this because that’s where the vast majority of people go to discover their next great read. We can wring our hands about how Amazon has destroyed independent bookstores and even taken down brick-and-mortar juggernauts such as Borders and put Barnes and Noble on life support, but the fact is that hundreds of millions of people buy their books through Amazon, and nothing will change that short of a successful anti-trust suit that breaks their monopolistic hold. And here’s a fun fact: you can buy your books exclusively through your neighborhood bookstore and still post reviews on Amazon. Such reviews won’t receive their “verified purchase” tag, but they will include your review nonetheless. Goodreads is an alternative to Amazon—which is why they bought Goodreads back in 2013—because its focus is on people sharing reviews and reading lists rather than commerce.

And why bother to go to this effort?

First, it’s likely you’ve benefitted from others who’ve shared their opinions about the books they read. Posting your feelings about a book is the best way to pay that forward to help other readers find the next book they’ll love. Think of it as a public service.

Secondly, and selfishly, recommendations from trusted friends and family along with online reviews are the most influential things that drive sales. When was the last time you bought something unfamiliar online where you didn’t at least glance at the average number of stars the item received from reviewers? Do you pause before purchasing something you haven’t tried before because it only has a couple reviews? How often have you looked for an alternative when the item you were considering had an average of three stars or less and lots of disparaging comments in the reviews? Books in this regard are no different than any other products: sales are often determined by the number and kinds of reviews they receive.

One of the reasons Hardscrabble Road continues to outsell all my other books combined is that more than 1,200 people have reviewed it on Amazon alone and over 85% have given it four or five stars there. Even the one-star reviews are helpful: I sometimes receive those from readers who were offended by Papa’s swearing. Yup—he’s all manner of offensive, and if you’re affronted by swearing, this book is not for you. It’s good to have that warning there to avoid upsetting others bothered by cussing. Parenthetically, I’ve noted that those disturbed by Papa’s language seldom mention in their reviews how violent and cruel the SOB is, as if terrorizing a family is forgivable as long as one avoids bad words. Just sayin’.

So, if you have favorite authors, and you want to encourage others to discover the books you love, the best thing you can do is to tell your friends and family about it and recommend it to strangers through online reviews. Keep it simple: tell them how the books make you feel. You’ll be doing your fellow readers and the authors who depend on them a huge favor.

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What to Do before Publishing, Part 2

Last month, I gave advice to writers about preparing their book for publication. This month, I address the difficult issue of marketing. I don’t know any writers who enjoy marketing their books more than writing them. Most of us cringe at the thought of self-promotion. Yet, if we publish but then never tell anyone we did so, what was the point of that effort?

The thing to remember about book marketing is that it’s something you should do before the book comes out, when it’s finally available for purchase, and long after. Forget the Big Five traditional publishing model of a book’s lifespan being 45-60 days after launch. A book is eternal; it can earn money for a very long time—even after you’re gone, so make provisions for that.

Here is what I’m working on during the leadup to the publication of Return to Hardscrabble Road and what I recommend all writers do to promote their work:

Do a monthly email newsletter and build your mailing list – if you think email is passé, think again. Email open rates and link-click rates can be 100 times greater or more than on social media (see the resources provided at the end of this post for many more details). Most of us using social channels have friends/followers we don’t know. They might be people with similar interests or have friends in common, but they’re strangers to us. Their intellectual or emotional investment in us is close to nil, and the chance of them purchasing our book simply because we post a cover photo or video with a link is also likely nil. By contrast, we don’t put strangers on our newsletter mailing list—we include people who know us and want to be on it. People who are indeed strangers can opt-in to receive our newsletter because they learned about us and are interested in our work. Sending newsletters to people you know can be much more fruitful than shotgunning social media posts to a bunch of people you don’t.

Building the platform you need to get the word out is the work of a lifetime, ultimately. To get started, though, think about who you know through family interactions, your neighborhood, work, the activities and hobbies you enjoy, religious affiliations, etc. Those people are the base of your platform. As you make connections among readers/buyers, your platform grows. One way to build your platform quickly is to volunteer in organizations related to your interests. Doing things for others is its own reward, of course, but allow yourself a little enlightened self-interest—your fellow volunteers could be interested in your newsletter and books too.

How often should you send a newsletter? I recommend doing this monthly. It’s not so often that you’ll annoy people and not so infrequent that you’ll fall off their radar entirely. What to include? News about your currently available and upcoming books, of course, but also something that can help people. That’s why I do these blogposts: they offer insights to readers, enabling them to better appreciate the creative process and the care that goes into the making of a book, and to writers in hopes of helping them along their own creative journey. The more you help people, the more they’ll want to read your newsletter—and hopefully your books.

Another purpose your mailing list serves is to ask these individuals to review your book online (Amazon is the preferred site, followed by Goodreads). It’s much more effective to ask these people to review your book than to post such a plea on Facebook or other social media, where it’s less likely to be seen by someone who bought your book.

Build connections on social media – despite the poor click rates for book-purchase links posted on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on, you still need to be on these sites for more frequent engagement than your monthly newsletter will allow. Pick the social media channel where you’ll focus your energy based on where your audience is. Facebook skews older, for example, so use that channel if your book will appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, but don’t be afraid to try the BookTok segment of TikTok—you’ll find a plethora of your readers there as well.

Don’t just promote your book—that gets old fast—but instead share creative insights, humor, glimpses into your personality and your life, and so on. Be sure to respond to questions or compliments you receive; honoring the sender will help you build rapport. Your posts won’t do you much good, though, if you aren’t regularly adding to your contacts. Look for authors in your genre who have a bigger fanbase than you but also connect with a similar number of people (the ones who follow lots of others are more likely to follow you too). Also, look at who these authors are connecting with and who their friends/followers are: these are leads for who else to pursue. If numerous readers of your genre are linked to them, reach out especially to those individuals; they could become future fans of yours. The more followers you have, the more likely you are to engage with people about your books and upcoming events.

Outreach to influencers – these are podcasters, interviewers, bloggers, and others with large audiences; they are in constant need of content. Offer to post a guest blog, do an interview, or otherwise help them fill that content void with something entertaining and informative. A great way to get them on your side is to share/repost things they put online and tag them, so they know you’re helping to promote them and their work. If you help them sell more books or garner more viewers/listeners, they’ll be much more amenable to help you. Ultimately, your goal is to turn some of their audience into fans of yours too, but start by introducing them to your group of family and friends.

Influencers include book reviewers. Unless you’re published by one of the Big Five, it’s difficult to get reviewed by a major newspaper. A local paper, though, might do a story on you and your book, which is better than a review because you’ll have more control over the message. You or your publisher can submit to various periodicals that do reviews in your genre as well as catch-all reviewers such as the Midwest Book Review and Kirkus Reviews.

Genre-specific and general literary awards are another means of influencing public opinion and creating awareness for your book through their announcement of winners and your self-promotion. There has been a proliferation of awards and contests during the past decade, so it’s not hard to find applicable venues where your book can be considered for a prize, and sometimes it’s not hard to win recognition. Most readers have only heard of the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, and maybe National Book Award, but having any award sticker on your cover creates credibility in the minds of many book buyers. It’s a bit of a game and purists might scoff, but this can be another way to create notice for your book.

Tread delicately into online advertising – this is an area where different authors experience wildly different returns on their investment. Some swear by Amazon ads; others get more traction from Facebook or Google ads. Still others have spent a lot everywhere but have little to show for any of it. My advice is to set a modest budget for a defined time, try some different messages on different channels, and see if anything resonates with viewers (measured by increased book sales, not just clicks). Then focus your spending on whatever is working for you and drop everything that isn’t.Book launch – if your book is coming out, throw a party for yourself and your labor of love. A book launch event, with family and friends, is probably when you’ll sell the most copies of your book on any single day. As with advertising, set a budget. Be sure to bring a sign-up sheet for your newsletter in case there are friends/family of friends who tag along and might become your next superfans.Post-launch in-person events – talk to the managers of bookstores, gift shops, and other places with shoppers who match the typical reader profile for your book. Usually, the store will keep 40% of your book sales (the cost to you for renting their space and having access to their customers). Of course, bring that newsletter sign-up sheet to stay in touch with those who buy your book. Beware of markets, festivals, and other events where the cost to rent table/booth space far exceeds your profit for the books you’re likely to sell. I know writers who’ve spent $400 or more for the chance to sell less than $100 worth of books. That’s a good way to go bankrupt.

Some authors shy away from in-person events, figuring they’re a waste of time, but this is your only opportunity to interact with actual book buyers. These people might become lifelong fans of your work, purchasing everything you produce and telling friends and family about you. In-person events are also the surest way to meet readers who are in book clubs. Like influencers needing to fill the content void, book clubs are always searching for upcoming reads. Some of them pick a year’s worth of books in advance, while others do this monthly or quarterly. Be ready at your event with a business card and a pitch about what special incentive you have for book clubs. I always discount copies of my books they purchase directly from me, I sign and personalize each copy, and I never charge for book club talks, which I’m happy to attend in-person within a two-hour drive from my home or online if the club is located farther away or normally meets that way. Book clubs keep the publishing industry from imploding, and they can help you spread the word about your books because they know readers in other such clubs.

I hope these ideas are useful as you embark or continue on your book-selling journey!

For details and stats on email and social media open rates:

https://www.mailmunch.com/blog/email-marketing-vs-social-media

https://agencyanalytics.com/blog/social-media-vs-email-marketing

Knowledge Base

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