Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 49

Website – you need one!

Late last year, I took on writing about arts and entertainment in Key West for a weekly newspaper. It is more time consuming than I imagined and has slowed the writing on my mystery series. The journalism is still interesting to me, after all these years, and while it is only part time, I am amazed at the talent of people on this small island.

However (ain’t there always a however?), part of my amazement is that there are artists and entertainers out there that either don’t have a website or have a poorly designed and/or written website.

The web has no borders. I check my website stats about once a week and it surprises me where some of the hits come from. I realize that many of those hits are people wanting to know more about Key West than me, but they found me. If only a small percentage take time to read the home page and maybe even another small percentage continue on, I may have made a sale or got someone interested in my books. Maybe interested enough to come back and spend more time searching through my site.

I have books to sell, artists have their art and singer/songwriters have their music. Why miss web sales by not having a website? Or maybe worse, a website that is too difficult to traverse or presented poorly? Today, with so many people out there with the ability to help with creating websites (I think they teach it in first grade), the cost can be minimal and the benefits priceless.

Add, for a writer, that eBooks are the new sellers, why wouldn’t a writer have a website that shows off his or her work? Mine offers sample chapters, a lot of photos of me at readings, book signing and events in Key West. Readers like to get to know writers and what better way than to offer photos. At events, I take photos of the people there and tell them their picture will be on my website within the week. Do you think they check that out? Do you think they’ll tell their friends to check out the photo?

Bookstores that I’ve signed in have mentioned that people came in looking for my book because they saw a photo of a signing. Think I’ll be invited back when the new book arrives?

If you are in the arts, get a website. If you have one, ask someone that will be honest with you to go through it and tell you what he/she thinks. Make the needed adjustments, if the person suggests them. Ask for more than one opinion.

If, for some unknown reason, you cannot find anyone to help you, contact me and I’ll pass along the info on who does my website. Obviously, I like the people that do it and they’re hundreds of miles away. Do it, do it right and reap the rewards!

www.michaelhaskins.net

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Things happen

By Mike Jastrzebski

When you live on a sailboat there’s one constant that you live with, things are going to happen. Some of those things will be enjoyable, some not so much.

We left Harbortown Marina in Cape Canaveral on Thursday heading to Ft. Lauderdale for a couple of weeks before heading back to the Bahamas. About a half dozen friends we’ve made since we arrived last July stopped by to see us off. It was a very pleasant experience.

But things didn’t quite go as planned. The prop was encrusted with barnacles and Mary had to go into the water and scrape the prop. Why Mary? She has a wet suit and I don’t. Even though we live in Florida the water does get cold at this time of the year.

Finally, two hours later we were on our way. Sunny, a little breezy, and calm water. We did have a little trouble with the transmission slipping but I handled that and then sat back and enjoyed the first two and a half days of our trip before the problems started.

Just past Jupiter, Florida our engine began to overheat and I knew from past experience that the repair job was going to take a few days and parts I didn’t have on hand. So what’s a boater to do? Why, we called BoatUS, gave them our towing insurance info, and sat back to wait.

A short time later the tow boat arrived and towed us to us to an anchorage where we spent the night. Sunday morning they were back for us and took us the rest of the way to Ft. Lauderdale. The silver lining in this part of our journey was that we got to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The conclusion I’ve arrived at after these last few days is that if you own a boat you’re crazy if you don’t carry towing insurance, and as far as I’m concerned, that means TowBoatUS insurance.

I can’t help but wonder if any of our readers would like to share their own experiences with TowBoatUS or its competitors. If so, please tell your story in the comments section. I for one would like to hear about them.

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Help!

by Christine Kling

Like the Beatles said:

Help, I need somebody,

Help, not just anybody,

Help, you know I need someone, help!

Back in May, feeling desperately sad over the loss of my dear geriatric partner, Chip, the Intrepid Seadog, I began searching the doggie rescue sites, and I found that little face in the photo above. Doesn’t he look cute? Yeah, he is adorable, and he works his way into your heart with his warm sleepy puppy act in the morning. You decide that he is absolutely the sweetest little guy in the world. Then, guess what? The next thing you know he is chewing up the boat’s woodwork and foam cushions, and he is walking across the galley countertops headed for the dinner on the stove. There are days when I think of the movie The Exorcist and I expect his little puppy head to spin on his neck. I have adopted Barney, the Yorkshire Terror!

Where is Cesar Milan when you need him?

This little guy is 11 pounds of alpha, bow-legged, leader-of-the-pack machismo one minute, and the next minute he’s rolling over on his back playing like the most submissive little doggie in the world.

I can’t figure him out.

When I found out the rescue foster mom had given him the name Barney, I thought it fit. I thought of Barney Rubble from the Flintstones. Now I know his name should be Barney Trouble.

Yeah, I know, I’ve left him several times in the first 8 months we’ve been together. But my son and I have this deal we call “shared custody.” Tim often texts me and askes if Barney can sleep over. He is a family dog. Granted, Tim is not the least bit interested in discipline, and when I returned from my trip to SE Asia, I found that “my boys” had been living the “No Rules” life.

Silly me, I figured I could whip my little guy back into shape in no time.

Last spring when I took Barney to a vet in Marsh Harbor in the Abacos, the vet there remarked that the little guy, then only 9 months old, was very stubborn. I said something like, “Yeah, but hopefully he will grow out of that.” The Bahamian vet laughed, then said something that continues to haunt me. He said if he is this stubborn at this age, it will probably be his character for the rest of his life. At the time, I was skeptical, but I’m becoming a believer.

Lately, at night, as soon as I turn out all the lights and climb into the V-berth, Barney goes nuts. There are lots of outside lights here from the dock lights to the neighboring boats to the moon. As the boat moves around in the slip, the lights move. Barney goes on full alert and starts digging at the woodwork trying to get at what is moving. For the last week, the only way I  could get him to go to sleep was by leaving the overhead lights on in the main salon to drown out the outside lights.

I know I should be taking Barney to some kind of puppy obedience school, but I have a book to write! I have a deadline, and boat work, and I need to do a hundred other things with my money and my time. And besides, I am a DIY kind of gal. Surely there must be something I can do on my own?

So, right now, I am taking him on a super long walk in the mornings down to the beach. I am trying to establish, à la Cesar, that I am the pack leader. And I find that as a writer, I do some of my best daydreaming and plot scheming while staring at the west end of an east-bound dog. But these are particularly breezy days here in Fort Lauderdale and I am walking a barely one-year-old terrier puppy who has not yet figured out that all things that move are not alive. He leaps in avid pursuit of every blowing leaf, paper and twig. I often imagine that some of the older labs and golden retrievers we pass on the street must be shaking their heads at his silliness. And worse yet, he is just as likely to chase a leaf as a garbage truck. He has no clue that one of the two might hurt him. I’m terrified that one day his leash or harness might break as he lunges toward a fast-moving vehicle.

And then, every time we meet a jogger or a mom pushing a stroller, Barney either strains at his leash to intercept that person or he stops, hunkers down belly to the pavement and eyes them trying to calculate their petting potential. It’s funny how the people always say, “Look, the little puppy’s tired!”  Boy, has he got them fooled. He’s not tired – it’s just part of his act to get them to stop and pay attention to him! If they don’t, he barks at them as if he’s yelling at them!

But the thing that makes me craziest right now is the fact that he barks at everyone, human or canine, if they don’t pay attention to him in a way that pleases him.  I worry that he is going to incite some bigger dog to react like a normal dog – and tear his head off. Around here, there are way more big dogs than little dogs. So, the last few days, I’ve been taking him to the local dog park to try to socialize him. In the little dog area, he is fine and he just rolls over like a submissive sweetie and tries to make friends, letting everyone smell him. Okay, so then I took him into the big dog area and he wound up in the center of about six giant dogs, all of them barking, and I was afraid he was about to become a snack for them.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down

And I do appreciate you being round.

Help me, get my feet back on the ground,

Won’t you please, please help me. 

I know there are lots of you out there who have dogs and can offer me some advice. What should I be doing to turn Barney, the Yorkshire Terror, into the good little boat dog I want him to be?

 

Fair winds!

Christine

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There’s a tide HERE?

C.E. Grundler

The marina where I work is 33 nautical miles north of Manhattan’s Battery Point. For new visitors, I suppose there’s not much evidence that Sandy had passed through the sixty acre facility. Numerous boats still remain in the water for the winter, though most are hauled, blocked, and covered, and the majority of slips sit vacant. With over 1,000 slips, the few missing docks aren’t immediately obvious. And if visitors arrive along the south approach, they reach the marina without passing by gutted, collapsing homes, boarded up buildings, and the neighboring marinas, all of which were devastated by the storm.

These days we’re seeing an influx of refugees, so to speak. New customers arrive almost daily. They come from the surrounding region; the Jersey shore. Staten Island, Long Island. In most cases the marinas where they kept their boats were destroyed, occasionally their boats as well. They’re seeking somewhere to tie up, and safe haven from the next storm. And one of the questions I hear from many of these visitors, “There’s a tide up here?” surprises me as much as my answer does to them.

Yes. There is a tide. In fact, the ocean’s daily ebbs and flows affect over 150 of the river’s 315 miles, reaching as far as the Troy Federal Lock. Along the Hudson, tides are part of the rhythm of what was once called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, the river that flows two ways. Through the day the waters rise and fall, and the current switches back and forth. In the days of commerce by sail, northbound traffic moved with the incoming tide, then dropped anchor while the southbound vessels traveled with the outgoing current. That’s one reason most of the major towns that rose along the shores all fall roughly one tide’s sail apart. And why Sleepy Hollow, one tide’s sail north of Manhattan, was a popular stop-over. It’s said there were numerous taverns and many friendly ladies who would happily pass the evening with recently paid sailors. As a result, many vessels were known to tarry for more than one tide in what came to be known as Tarrytown.

So for the millions of people passing over the bridges and through the tunnels that cross the Hudson, who never pause to consider, there is a tide. And it is a tide that has shaped the history of the region, and still does to this day.

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The best laid plans

By Mike Jastrzebski

We have been shooting to leave Cape Canaveral this Wednesday the 9th and head for Ft. Lauderdale. We plan to stay there for a week or so before heading over to the Bahamas.

So what’s the problem with that scenario? Our dinghy outboard locked up on us. I did a tune up on the motor last week and when I went to start it the motor was locked tight. We had this problem while we were in the Bahamas but after playing with the engine for a while I got it to start and we finished the last two weeks of our trip without any further outboard problems.

The engine is still under warranty so I hope there will be no unexpected expenses, unless of course I did something wrong. I should find that out today, but until I know what’s going on we can’t make any further plans to leave. Hopefully we can be out of here by Thursday, but now it could be another week or even the end of the month before we leave.

I’m sure glad we’re in no hurry to get over to the Bahamas–but then again if you’re in a hurry, a sailboat is not the best mode of transportation.

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Hybrid author 2013

by Christine Kling

My post last week generated lots of great comments many of which contained thought-provoking questions. I’d like to tackle some of those issues today, hence my forward looking title above.

Joe Moore wrote and asked: “I had one question for you. You said: ‘I got the rights to my four Seychelle books back from Ballantine (even though the ebooks were still in print).’ Does that mean that the publisher will stop making the e-book versions available? Or will there be e-book versions, yours and theirs, competing online?

I answered Joe that when I got my rights reversion letter from Ballantine, they then took down all their books on all the sites so only my self-pubbed versions are now available. Then I went on to make a point that I believe really bears repeating. That is that most of the big publishers don’t yet understand the value of a digital backlist. They are still in the old print mindset that a book has a given shelf life and that after a few months in bookstores, sales will slow to nothing. Books used to get about 3 months on the shelf. That was based on the fact that bookstores had limited shelf space along with a small regular clientele who always wanted to see what was new. That meant that most bookstores had the same new books front and center and those 20-50 titles were being pushed out to all fiction readers across the country whether they liked them or not.

In the new digital book paradigm, shelf space is unlimited and books can continue to sell to the ever-growing huge clientele of ereader owners that number in the millions. It turns out that this concept of wanting “new” books was mostly foisted on readers by publishers and bookstores. What readers want are good books that are new to them. That makes it a wonderful world for authors of good books who are willing to work at making their books gain visibility.

Nancy Cohen asked: “What did you learn about marketing that was successful?” I’ve learned so much, it’s difficult to focus on one or two items, but let me try. First off, buyers have to be able to discover your books. They must get onto lists of offered books. The first way to do this is with categories and keywords. M. Louisa Locke wrote a terrific blog on this here. All my books are in the sea adventures category on Amazon. Unfortunately, that category doesn’t exist on Nook, Kobo or the iBookstore. Because that is a relatively small category, my books are almost always visible there. So my first lesson was to make sure that one of the two categories was a relatively small one and one in which my books can make the top 100. Second, I have been very successful with using the KDP Select program. I learned not to be afraid of giving away thousands of copies of my books. There is great power in getting all those books out there because it moves your books up the best seller lists when it comes off free and because it makes your name more familiar to thousands of people. The second way to get your books onto lists offered to readers is by buying advertising on the many sites like those I listed in last week’s blog.

On this subject of bestseller lists, let me step onto my soapbox for a moment. One of these days I’m going to write a piece that does a feature by feature comparison between the search engines and features of the various online bookstores. Amazon’s shopping experience is far superior at the moment, in my view. I really wish that the other ebook stores like Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Sony, etc. would – instead of damning Amazon and trying to damage the monster by refusing to carry their imprints – instead just try to best them through being better than them at selling books.  Unfortunately, they don’t offer the categories or the good browsing experience or the best seller lists or the sales tools for us independent, self-publishing authors. I would love to get out of the exclusive Select program, but I cannot figure out how to get traction and sell books on the other sites.

Marcy Kennedy wrote: “Who did you hire for your developmental edit and for your cover designs?” I am very happy to recommend the people I used in both these areas. My developmental editor was Ramona DeFelice Long who is also a member of Sisters in Crime. She knows the genre and she wasn’t afraid to be tough, yet she did it in a kind way. When my book was re-edited for the re-issue at Thomas & Mercer, my developmental editor there told me that it was going to be easy because the book was already in such great shape. I have Ramona (and my critique group) to thank for that. Tom Tripp asked about do’s and don’t’s of working with a developmental editor. After getting an MFA in creative writing over 5 years (and being in all those workshops), I learned that the best way to benefit from criticism is to read it all through first. Allow yourself to get mad or hurt or defensive if you are going to, and then go do something else. When you come back to it a day or two later, just ask yourself how you can use what’s there. If you don’t like a suggestion, ask yourself if there is something different you could do that might improve the situation the editor pointed out. Allow yourself to completely disregard some things because not everyone reads a book the same way. But if you give every comment and suggestion (from a good editor like Ramona) time to percolate and careful consideration, you will wind up with a better book.

My cover artist was Robin Ludwig. She is very talented and I liked the fact that she works by the hour, not by the cover. If you know what you want, you can get a very reasonable cover from her. If you expect to ask for lots of design tweaks, it could get expensive very quickly.

Cindy Sample wrote: “ Is it time to start a sailing book club?” I think that’s a great idea! I’ve tucked that concept away in the back of my mind and I might figure out a way to do something along those lines one of these days.

I’m so pleased that so many writer friends found my post worth their comments and questions, and thank you to all the readers who suggested ways for me to deal with my ARCs. You guys are the best.

 

Fair winds!

Christine

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Boat Show Time!

C.E. Grundler

It’s been an interesting year, boating wise, here along the east coast, especially around New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Many of the people I’ve known for years have lost their boats and are now holding insurance checks, considering the next step. So many area marinas were devastated, and the rebuilding is moving ahead, full force. And with the New York Boat Show opening today, everyone is anxiously watching to see how things will play out. And today, I’ll be on the front lines.

The marina where I’ve been working these days, Haverstraw Marina, is one of the few to make it through the storm relatively intact. A few boats sustained damage and the fuel dock had vanished without a trace, but aside from that, the majority of the marina and boats within survived, due to a mix of geography, well-built docks, tall pilings, and well-prepared boat owners. And since then, there’s been a surge of new customers seeking slips for the coming season. And we’ll be there, at the NY Boat Show, answering questions and offering information. So if you’re visiting the boat show, stop by our booth and say Hi!

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2013 – Day 2

(In the words of Peter Frampton, “Whose wine, what wine, where the hell did I dine?”)

The day after New Years. For all practical purposes the holiday season has now come to a close. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Feast of the Epiphany. January 6th. We’re talking the observance of Commercial Christmas, not that other one.) So, with the 2012 season behind us, a few reflections:

Yes, it’s official. Thanks to the combination of terrestrial and satellite radio stations that saturated the airwaves with Christmas Carols between Thanksgiving and New Years, it has now been proven unequvically that you can have too much of a good thing. Way too much.

Speaking of Christmas music, leave it to Amazon to dig way back to 1960 and unearth that wonderful jewel of a song: Dominick the Donkey. The lesson here is to hang onto your intellectual property – regardless of its intellectual quotient.

Yet, the Holiday Season was a period of inspiration. At a time when cynicism runs high, we should be uplifted by the work ethic of Harry Reid, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and so many other members of Congress who took breaks from their vacations to exercise personal Profiles in Courage that attempt to save us from fiscal calamity, if for only a month or two. And this government, the best of all other alternatives. Yikes.

Things aren’t so bad though. Industry analysts report that the South Florida real estate market is recovering from its bottom. At the same time, the hottest gifts of Christmas 2012 were smartphones, tablets, and e-readers. Sounds like the perfect time to become a Write On The Water author.

And as for the mention of authors, this past year was especially celebratory for a writer named Charles Dickens who was born 200 years ago. Imagine the sales figures if Amazon had been around when Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Scrooge first appeared. That old sentimental scribe might have even outsold J.K. Rowling.

But as we enter 2013 I hope you join me in the looking forward – even more so in the spirit of living in the moment. While I am increasingly prone to the pull of southern weather and the lure of a dip in warm winter water, today I’ll depart from the daily mayhem and draw my joy from a short trek in nearby woods. Who knows, with any luck I might be inspired to write a catchy Christmas Carol.

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Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013! This won’t be much of a blog since I have company in town and they are taking up much of my time and whatever free time I have is dedicated to my work in progress that was also expected for publication in Dec. 2012.

One worthy note about the new book. As a working title I’ve called it Key West Latitude but my critique group hates the title but haven’t convinced me to look for a new title. However, I told my writer friend Leighton Gage about the book and he too says the title does tell enough about the book. He suggested I go through some of WB Yeats poems and look for a title there. FYI, Yeats is an Irish poet and my character is a Boston Irishman.

Somewhere I have two or three collections of Yeat’s poems, but do you think I can find even one? Nope! I ordered a collected poems of Yeats and it should be here Wednesday. Just as well, with company and writing on my plate, I’m not sure when I’d have the time to look through the poems.

As Brendan Behan said to the Nun, “Bless you sister and may all your children be bishops.” Ah, the Irish, disrespectful to all!

Happy New Year!

No disrespect meant!

www.michaelhaskins.net

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Resolutions

By Mike Jastrzebski

It’s that time of the year and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the New Year. Since my blog day fell on the 31st I thought I’d offer up my writing and boating resolutions.

1) I will write a new Wes Darling Mystery (#3) and will finish an outline for the fourth book in the series.

2) I will write the best book I can, which means I will do at least two rewrites before making the book available to the public.

3) I will research the book completely. True, this means I will have to spend several months in the Bahamas writing every morning before I go snorkling or exploring the islands, but no one said life would be easy.

Which brings me to my boating resolutions.

4) I will get the hell away from the dock.

5) I will not get angry or swear (much) when things go wrong on the boat, because things always go wrong when you’re living on a boat.

6) And finally, I will do my best to enjoy every sunrise and every sunset because at 63 I realize that I’ve missed more sunrises and sunsets than I have left in my lifetime.

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