Anne Calcagno's Blog, page 2

Meeting "My" Readers

One of the magnificent aspects of self-publishing is actually encountering your readers. When I read at a bookstore and signed books, I hardly ever got to speak more than three sentences to any book-buyer. Earlier today I was preparing a mailing of two copies of LOVE LIKE A DOG, from an order placed on my webpage. As I scotch taped, and folded, and addressed, I loved and coveted the reader named "Alicia" in California. Who is this wonderful person who has found my book?

Readers have written back to me. I'm sharing a couple of comments because this is what happens in self-publishing. What will happen to you.

Hi Anne,

> I received your book and loved it!! I couldn't put it down. I stayed up

> until 3am the first night reading it, then finally made myself go to sleep

> since I had to work in the morning. As soon as I woke up I started reading it again and ended up being an hour late for work!

>

> Thank you so much for sending copies to give to adopters. I look forward to passing it out.

>

> I write an online column for Examiner and would love to write an article

> about your book. A short interview, perhaps? Would that be ok? I can email you the questions if you agree. Here's the link to my page there.

> Thank you so much for writing Love Like a Dog.

>

> Rebecca Novak

> Shelter Angels Pit Bull Rescue

Here is the link to the article she wrote:

Online article about LLAD:

Okay, I'm Polyanna. This feels darn good. As if a) writers and b) readers are all this big world needs to create the fullest cycle of literature. Meanwhile, the whole publishing empire is collapsing. I think they have forgotten, really, about a) writers and b) readers.

My favorite, favorite reader comment shared by Toni Phillips, the founder of the amazing shelter http://www.mariahspromise.com/, is:

> You'll love this, almost as much as I do … while I was here in the barn checking email etc. Mike (her husband) was in the camper READING YOUR BOOK!!!! That may not seem a big deal, BUT I've only seen Mike read one book in TWENTY YEARS and that's his Bible!! He was really enjoying it …

Back to Permissions

Were I asked, I would tell any aspiring writer: "Never use song lyrics in your fiction."   This is a real pity as it means populating literature with characters who will never listen to, nor replay in their minds, the riffs of jazz, the heart-break of  ballads or hard hits of heavy metal.  Symphonies might do, but no opera.  Permissions rights people are slow, difficult, expensive, and even incomprehensible.

This is a recent exchange of emails, through my permissions person, four months after first requesting permission to use two lines from a Smokey Robinson classic.

Thank you for your email dated August 2, 2010.
  
As your deadline has approached (we had offered a tentative publication date of June), the author will need to remove the lyrics from "Tears Of A Clown" from the publication as approval has not been granted.

But the question remains; will permission be granted later?   Should we wait and hope, or was this a permanent clear-cut denial?  The reply to this question was:

Thank you for your email dated August 3, 2010.

 The request has not been denied regardless, however I can not guarantee any sort of a time for a response to arrive.

Sincerely…

This is the lyrical world of permissions we live in.   Did you know that when you write a book, you must program half a year's delay to your publication, if you need permissions?  Let this be a warning.

Other Opinions on Self-publishing:

David Carnoy's article: Self-Publishing a book – 25 things you need to know & a recent article in Newsweek titled:

Self-Publishing: Who Needs a Publisher Anymore? It reports: "According to a recent Bowker report, the market for 'nontraditional books' in the United States grew by more than 750,000 in 2009 – a 181 increase over 2008.  Five of the 100 top bestsellers n the Kindle store – which now produces more sales than Amazon's hardcover list – are currently self-published."

www.newsweek.com/2010/07/30

The Real Argument Against Self-Publishing (sort of)

Why you really shouldn't self-publish:

It is a full-time job.

CreateSpace produces the book  (…  Love Like a Dog), but I have to build a marketing plan.  Sure, I've pruchased the press-release packet they provide.   But no book comes into the world kicking and crowing because of a press release.

Marketing starts with: what is your "target goal?"  Mine is to get my book read by pit bull owners and rescue shelters.  It's a novel about a pit bull rescue that changes a family.

Know your motive:  I came to write it because, years ago, I started volunteering at talented film maker are going to film the stories of people who have rescued dogs, especially pit bulls.  If Love Like a Dog's rescue story has relevance it is because it is shared by the greater world.  Yes!  Unite!  Join!   This way, the chorus of voices will grow a bigger song, better, broader, and more complex and shared and fun.

Just that getting this organized involves:

Finding the film-maker

Setting up a "call for rescue stories " email address

Creating flyers for vets offices and pet supply stores

Lining up interviews (an average or 3-6 calls/emails per story, a bunch of which fall through when the person finds out they have to go somewhere to be filmed)

Selecting a date & site (and an alternate date/site

Reminder calls

Objects to bring to the event: (which we hold outside the entrance to Montrose Beach Harbor)

List:

(Ugly old) folding Table

Tablecloth (elegant disguise)

Large scotch tape dispenser to attach flyers of the book & story sharing to the tablecloth

(Promotion! Visibility!)

Books (one donated to each rescue story-teller)

Easel; (to display a book upright)

Plexiglass Flyer holder: (why do they cost so much– $8 minimum!!!)

Rope Tugs with little tag: (to give away; note it took hours to prep these)

(the tag says: Let a Dog Tug @ your heart

Nothing says Love like a dog.

Share your story at:

Lovelikeadog.net

Dog treats (to entice stray dog owners & help dogs stay still 7 concentrated)

Icebox & ice: (it's July in the Midwest; water & root beer & some goodies)

People food & blanket to sit on:

(Chips & salsa & more, because it's my student's birthday)

Raffle Box: (for dog owners with a spirit-of- gambling

Folding Chairs: (so the interview subject can sit down & help their dog sit, too)

Film-Equipment: (provided by the film-maker)

What Happens:

On the day of filming, none one of the ten people scheduled shows up.  It's well, almost exactly like the publication ratio of  to non-fiction (one book of fiction is published for every ten books of non-fiction, if you remember).  One person calls to re-schedule.

Another lonely moment.

What You can't Plan On: But, but, but because Thomas Wolfe is right and magic is always ready to happen, we start talking to any stranger with a dog, asking for their stories, and these people leaving the beach with their wet, tired, happy dogs, say, "Sure I'll talk!  And we get seven interviews in the next couple of hours.    Carpe Diem!  Oh we seized the day.

Favorite Create Space Feature

CreateSpace has a menu bar with the link: Contact Support.

Hit it and you get: Request for Member Support.

Then this text:

Talk to us!

We'll call you.  Right now.  Really.

Below which is a button:

Call me.

You type in your phone number and they call you right away.

Because I have lived a long life with its attendant struggles I am not used to such expediency and politeness.  I don't have to press "1" or "3" or give a secret code number and wait 10 minutes before speaking to someone.  I can hardly believe it each time.

I have phoned about my proofs, how to navigate their site and understand their stages of production, how royalties work, the time frame for the press releases, the process of expanded distribution to bookstores. Usually, I'm given a pleasant but firm prognosis of a certain number of weeks a particular task completion.   And every single time, they have not only met, but anticipated their deadline.  Maybe I'm lucky.

CreateSpace

Guess what? I'm in love. With CreateSpace.

I can't swear to this but I think the CreateSpace big-wigs studied the Apple store model. Have you ever noticed how many people crowd each and every Apple store? It's like a festival in there. But what is the big turn-on? Incredible staff support. Personalized staff support. When things go all monolithic, the deep-seated hunger we have to feel loved and cared for comes raging into full focus. Monolithic = alientation. But if a big organization hires a large service staff, and someone approaches you the minute you enter the door or the portal or whatever, you forget the size of the enterprise. You, the individual, are being listened to one on-one by someone whose entire mission is to grant your wish. Disneyland! Cinderella's fairy-godmother is alive! This is great! One-on-one connection is big niche self-publishing is filling. They say: have a can-do attitude.

How To Degrade Any Writer

Publishers and authors know how many writers suffer deep-seated fears and insecurity in regards to their work. I, like many others before me, invent a place peopled with characters I must grow to trust more than life itself as I write. Steering them on the crazy ship of imagination. But for all humans, much of what we trust is invisible, trust is a wing and a prayer, a faith that you will walk and talk for at least this day; that your soul's instinct is a voice to listen to; that the love of another for you actually exists. Life is a huge guessing game. Frail tottering.

When any publisher says; "Without me you won't know who you are," it is easy to believe this. Because it's hard to know anything for certain. Many, many, many of us want to be told what to do and how to do it. We want to be wanted a lot. We want to be saved from pain or trouble. But the truth is, if I can't begin to save myself who can possibly help? I trust that I should write because without that trust I can't write very well for very long at all. It doesn't help when outsiders start swinging their wands around like nun-chucks. Let's say publishers reject one thousand books for each book they accept is that proof-positive that 999 writers suck?

An Argument Against Self-Publishing: the Authors Guild Bulletin, Spring 2010)

Meanwhile writers cluster together to henpeck any changes in publishing.  My instinct is to blame the slothful permissions people, the terrified publishers, the gated bookstores, but writers are turning stingier, instant by instant, scrabbling over loose straws.   The inarguable fact is: the music, TV, radio and film industries have completely revolutionized in the last decade.  So why do writers believe publishing houses should remain unchanging verities, even as there are fewer and fewer publishing houses, all of them with shrinking staffs and budgets.  Keep that make-up on, baby, and no one will notice you're getting older!  What???

I am a proud member The Authors Guild.  But recent viewpoints of publishers, agents & writers, at an Self-Directed home birth. Going your own way is neither bad morally nor an inferior choice.

Read the history of stupid publishing choices and outrageous rejections to know that publishers are not saviors.   Like everyone else, they are good sometimes.

The RH editor who tried to buy my book, but was denied by higher-ups, is the same editor who tried to buy what became a favorite best-selling novel Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen.  Chiefs at RH said "no" not because their magic wand was better; it was just bigger.

I say beware of false prophets.   And the writers who believe them like cult followers.