Jon Say's Blog, page 7

Business Planning – More Exciting Than You Imagine!

Before I get started, the photo at the left is of this morning's sunrise.  Nice, isn't it? 

One advantage of the experience I gained during my 20+ years as a bank executive is that it helped me hone my planning skills.  As I sat down to piece together the new PR strategy for Flesh Wound, I decided to create a formal business plan to guide me through the next few months.  Business planning is something that happens annually to some degree at most successful businesses.  I participated in Strategic Business Planning all the time, and even attended a week-long immersion course in the subject at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.  So hey, I should have some idea of how to do it.

The plan consists of essentially five major tactics in support of the business objective of raising awareness of Flesh Wound among college aged adults.  They are: create a poster showcasing Flesh Wound that can be posted on campus; create a website dedicated to Flesh Wound; create merchandise with the Flesh Wound brand; contact college campus book clubs and pitch Flesh Wound as a compelling selection; and contact college radio stations to do a story on Flesh Wound.  Each tactic is then broken down into steps that are measurable, actionable, have due dates attached, and in whole result in the tactic being accomplished.  Contingencies are taken into account as well, such as the finalization of the FW website being contingent on the FW poster being done, so the same images can be branded into both.  These help plan the sequence of steps.

The way things stand, by this time next month many more college aged adults should be aware of Flesh Wound than are today, and many more will have read it.  Sales of FW should also be significantly greater.

I brainstormed poster ideas with my wife today, and the draft that has come together so far is compelling.  I'll post it here as soon as I'm certain I've got all the rights to the images I'm using on it.  The great thing about brainstorming is that ideas are revealed that would not come to light if only a single mind were working on the question at hand.  As a result, the PR push is going to be more robust than originally planned – yes!  For instance, wouldn't it be fun if any reader anywhere could talk directly to Faye or Max?  I think it would be.

So stay tuned.  As the poster is completed, I'll post it here, and I will also post major milestones in the business plan as they are reached.  Have a spectacular day, and read something that makes you forget where you are!  -Jon

977 Entered to Win "Flesh Wound", and a New PR Strategy

I got back last night from an extended weekend in the northwoods of Wisconsin with my family.  The Fall color is long gone, but the weather was gorgeous.  Highs around 60, lots of sun, and lows in the 30s.  Snow could come any day there now, and you can feel it in the air.  Completely invigorating!

The Goodreads.com member giveaway for Flesh Wound drew to a close on Friday.  Over two weeks, 977 people read the short synopsis of FW and decided they wanted to enter the drawing for one of ten autographed copies.  That total exceeded my wildest expectations!  Thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to all who were selected as winners!  Those books will be going out today.  Interestingly, three of the winners reside in the US, five in Canada, and two in Great Britain.  More copies of FW will be leaving the country!

One of the reasons going on vacation is so great is that it lets you get away from the distraction of the endless mundane tasks that must be finished just to live, and lets your mind focus instead on bigger issues and questions.  I've been happy with the reception that FW has received in the world so far, but I know it has been way too limited in scope.  So in an effort to broaden the number of people who know about FW, I'm going to spend the next few weeks and months targeting a specific demographic of reader that I think will respond to the themes in FW: those attending college.

How?  I am going to research campus book clubs on the many colleges and universities in the area, find out how to contact them, and pitch FW to them as a selection that would be a compelling read.  I think the issues raised in FW are relevant to the questions college students are figuring out, and the discussions in their book clubs will cause them to consciously consider how they are making some very important decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.

I am going to create a separate website for FW as well, and create promotional materials for the book such as posters, t-shirts, mugs, etc.  My goal is to make FW a brand that college students everywhere will recognize and become curious about.  Wish me luck! 

Have a terrific week!  It's great to be back pursuing the Writing Life!  Read something today that brings you joy!  -Jon

Goodreads "Flesh Wound" Giveaway Ending – Time For A Break!

This will be a quick post today, as I'm preparing for a long weekend in the northwoods of Wisconsin with my family!

The member giveaway for "Flesh Wound" on Goodreads.com is ending this Friday.  I am absolutely thrilled that as of now, 828 people have entered to win one of 10 copies of Flesh Wound!  Currently, Goodreads has over 400 books with active giveaways, and Flesh Wound is 76th most requested out of that group.  That is awesome!!!  Thanks to everyone who has entered to win!  I wish you the best of luck.

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to be cranking up the PR engine for Flesh Wound.  I am planning on hosting an author Q&A on Goodreads.com in November, creating a website dedicated solely to Flesh Wound, and getting the word out to book clubs around town that Flesh Wound would make a compelling selection.  So stay tuned!

For now, though, I am going to take a few days off to spend some time with my family, rejuvenate the brain cells, breathe some fresh air, and come back more energized and excited about writing than ever!  Have a terrific weekend!  I'll post again on Monday, October 18 with the final count for the Goodreads giveaway and the latest news about the writing life.  Until then, read something that transports you to another world!!!  -Jon

Mondays Rock! Chapter 4 of Rubbed Out is Done!

Monday mornings are fantastic!  No, that is not a typo.  I have to admit, when I was working at my traditional career I didn't often feel that way.  The amount of energy it took to get up so early it was still dark (at least for half of the year), make myself presentable, put on the suit or at least the khakis and long-sleeved oxford, battle the commute and then work on solving the problems of retail banking didn't cause me to leap out of bed in joyful anticipation.

Now, however, even though it is still dark when I open my eyes in the morning, the prospects of jumping into an exciting alternate reality to see what happens next always makes it easy to get up and get going.  And there are four more days just like it that will follow!  This is a pretty good gig, I must say.

This morning I wrote the first draft of Chapter 4 of Rubbed Out.  In this chapter, the main character Ae-Cha, who has just spent four days in a lousy motel in Tijuana and survived a harrowing midnight illegal border crossing into the U.S., continues her journey north from the border to Los Angeles.  On the way, she has to deal with an unexpected threat, and in doing so reveals something of her character to us.

A word about the plot structure at this point; I am alternating Ae-Cha's story with Max' journey to find her at Ethan's request, never spending more than two chapters on one plot line before switching to the other.  The timeline of Ae-Cha's storyline is three month's prior to Max', so I'm going to have to reconcile those at some later point in the book if Max and Ae-Cha are to appear in the same scene.  Which of course, they must.  I'm not exactly certain when those two will merge yet, which is part of the fun of writing.  Chapter 5 will return to Max' storyline, with the beginning of his journey west to find Ae-Cha.

It was a great week for the website last week, with 1,439 hits.  That is the third biggest week ever, following the second biggest week ever.  I think Goodreads and Twitter are helping with that volume.  I tweeted late last night that I needed another 9 people to register for the Flesh Wound giveaway on Goodreads and I'd hit 600 total, and as of Noon today I'm up to 663!  So over 70 more people registered for the giveaway since my tweet.  The pace had been moving at about 25-30 per day before that, so I'm thinking Twitter played a role!  I've also noticed my website volume has picked up ever since I registered on Goodreads.  So I think being active in multiple social media sites is paying off.  It's all good!  That's more people who are introduced to Flesh Wound!

I hope your week is out of this world!  Take ten minutes today and read something that makes you wonder.  Thanks for reading!  -Jon

My First Bad Review – What's A Writer To Do?

The first negative review of Flesh Wound was posted on Amazon.com this week.  Bad reviews are part of being a published writer; regardless of your field of endeavor, you're not going to please everyone all of the time.  If you are part of a corporation or other business and receive a bad performance review, it won't make your day but it must be fairly easy to rationalize – chances are overwhelming that working there isn't your life's passion, and you're not crazy about the boss that is giving you the bad news in the first place.  In the creative field, it is a bit different.  You stand alone with your work.  There is no one to turn and point a finger at if it doesn't live up to someone's expectations.  This possibility alone can be daunting enough to keep a lot of creative people from putting their work out into the world in the first place.

I'm being a little dramatic here but this is a good chance to talk about reviews from the writer's perspective and how best to handle them.  When I was still working in the banking industry, it was common to run customer satisfaction surveys to find out what customers did and didn't like about the bank.  What we found over and over again was that the people who take the time to respond to satisfaction surveys fall into two categories: those who are very satisfied, and those who are very UNsatisfied.  Those two groups comprise anywhere from 10%-20% of everyone who is sent the survey.  The remaining 80%-90% who don't respond don't feel strongly enough about what they are being asked to go to the effort of responding.  The next episode of "The Bachelor" or "Survivor" seems like a better use of time.

A review of a book, movie, CD, or other piece of artwork follows the same pattern.  If someone really likes it or really doesn't like it, you're most likely to see those reviews.

The negative review posted for Flesh Wound is classic.  It is not a "Flesh Wound bored me so I am certain it will bore you, too" type of review.  It was a "Jon Say should never write another word as long as the Earth turns on its axis, and anyone who says anything good about Flesh Wound is lying to spare the author's feelings" type of review.

This is fine with me.  Here's why.

The worst reaction a writer can get to something they've written is someone who just doesn't care.  The work doesn't connect with them.  Inspires no reaction.  Is utterly irrelevant.  In fact, is less relevant than "The Bachelor" or "Survivor".

The negative review of Flesh Wound revealed several interesting things.  First, the reviewer read the entire book.  That tells me the material affected them in a profound way.  When I start reading a book that I don't care for, I stop reading it.  It always seems like a better idea to find one that I like.  Second, after finishing Flesh Wound the reviewer went to my website and at least read the bio.  (They misspelled the URL in their review, but no one is perfect.)  Again, that suggests that they felt passionately about what they'd just read.  Good or bad, they were moved enough to spend more time on the material.  Third, they stated that they read Flesh Wound because they knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who sort of knew who I was or might have seen me once or something.  So the obligation they felt to read the book wasn't that great going in.  Yet they read the entire book.  Finally, they logged onto Amazon.com and wrote their review.  Again, more time spent on the material.

Such a strong negative reaction to creative material is generally caused either by a feeling that injustice has been done or the material threatens the reader, or both.  Perhaps the reader has written a novel that never got published, and can't believe Flesh Wound did.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps the themes in Flesh Wound threaten some deeply held beliefs the reader has.  Perhaps not.  But something in Flesh Wound provoked the reader enough to suggest that all the other reviews Flesh Wound has received so far (12 five-star reviews, 11 more five-star ratings on four different websites) were posted by people who know me, ostensibly because they felt obligated out of friendship to do so and had they posted what they really thought, they would have agreed with this reader.

The fact is that some of the five-star ratings and reviews were posted by people that know me, and some were not.  Publishers send review copies of just-published books out to whoever will read them in an effort to get reviews of the material.  I conducted one reader giveaway on LibraryThing and gave away 15 copies of Flesh Wound to people who read the back cover and found the plot interesting enough to request a copy, and some of the posted reviews came from that effort.  [Note: Around 165 people requested a copy; I only had 15 to give out which were awarded randomly to people chosen from that group by LibraryThing moderators.]  Currently, Flesh Wound has received 23 five-star ratings and 1 one-star rating.  I can live with that.

So the bottom line is this, as I see it.  Flesh Wound is causing strong reactions in some of the people who read it.  I feel the material is doing its job if it affects people enough to take the time to post a review of it.  The worst thing, I think, is for the material to generate no reaction whatsoever; i.e., to get a bunch of middle-of-the-road ratings where people say the book didn't interest them, or that they read a chapter or two and put it down out of boredom.

The fun part of writing novels for me is writing novels.  The reviews that readers write are important because it gives you an idea of whether the material you are writing is striking any chords with them.  But it's unrealistic to expect everyone to love what you write, or to hold beliefs that are the same as yours.  This contrast can be terrific for a book.  (Question:  How many people read Salman Rushdie before he wrote The Satanic Verses and had a contract put on his head by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini?  Answer:  Not as many as after.)  So I hope that readers continue to discover my books and they continue to inspire strong reactions.

Now onward!  Rubbed Out is now three chapters long, 4,000 words.  Writing Max again has been just fantastic.  Like greeting an old friend.  The challenge of weaving the plot is exciting.  I still don't know exactly how the book is going to turn out.  That is part of the fun of writing for me – discovering the decisions my characters make that I didn't anticipate when I began writing the book.

Lastly, Goodreads giveaway update:  546 people requesting one of 10 copies of Flesh Wound to be awarded at the end of next week. 

Have a terrific weekend!  Take some time to read something that moves you to passion!   -Jon

Two Chapters in the Books, and a Goodreads Giveaway Update

Yesterday was great, because I got back into full-on writing mode with Rubbed Out.  I took all of my research materials, headed to the San Laurio Coffeehouse (great atmosphere, great views, great coffee, and great prices – support local!), and over the next three hours I wrote the first two chapters of Rubbed Out.

Because I have not yet splurged on a MacBook, my most coveted next possession, I wrote the pages longhand.  I wrote Flesh Wound that way, and afterwards swore I would never write another book longhand.  Well, here I am doing it with Rubbed Out, so I guess as long as I've got the right pen it's okay.  Interestingly, Jackie Collins writes all of her books longhand, and she's sold over 400,000,000 copies.  So maybe writing longhand isn't a bad thing.

Anyway, I came home, typed up the pages, and handed them to my best and most crucial reader, my wife.  Her verdict:  "Great!  Keep going!"  My biggest question for her is always, "Do you want to know what happens next?  Do you want to keep reading?"  If those answers are "Yes", then the work has passed it's biggest test.

Chapters 1 and 2 of Rubbed Out focus on the main protagonist, Ae-Cha Kam, a 22 year old South Korean woman who has accepted a job as a "hostess" in a nightclub in Koreatown in Los Angeles based on a newspaper ad in a local Korean newspaper back in Seoul.  She has her reasons for taking such a dramatic chance, and her employers have assured her there will be no "touching or sex" involved in the position.  There are establishments in Korea where "hostesses" are required to move to that second round of activity if they do not sell enough drinks.  Things are different in California, Ae-Cha is assured, so she boards her first airplane and flies 24 hours from Incheon, South Korea to Tijuana, Mexico.  In Chapters 1 and 2, she crosses the border into the United States.  Illegally.  And she finds out about the 'illegal' part just hours before having to do it.

Chapters 1 and 2 total about 2,100 words for those of you keeping score at home.  Today, I'm going to write Chapter 3.  This chapter will be about Max, and involve a character from Flesh Wound, Ethan, who is Ae-Cha's cousin.  Ethan finds out Ae-Cha is in the United States, and he immediately suspects she has fallen prey to the human trafficking that is so prevalent between Korea and the U.S.  Ethan hires Max to find Ae-Cha in Chapter 3.

In other news, I continue to be amazed at Goodreads.com!   The Giveaway for 10 copies of Flesh Wound is now in its fifth day, and 467 people have entered thus far!  I think that is great!  That is almost 500 people who didn't know Flesh Wound existed less than one week ago.  The Giveaway closes on October 15, so there are still 9 days left.  I hope this pace of entries continues, that would be awesome!  Maybe those who don't win a copy will decide to buy one.  :)

Have a terrific Wednesday!  Thanks for reading my blog!  I'm off to write — Jon

Crazy Website Activity, and the Opening Paragraph of "Rubbed Out"!

Something remarkable and unexpected happened with the website traffic on JonSay.com this weekend.  As of Friday morning, 652 people had visited the site for the week.  That is a lower than average total, but not by a lot.  Since Flesh Wound was released in July, about 800 people have visited the site each week.

When I checked the traffic on Monday, the weekly total had jumped to 1,512.  That means almost 900 people visited JonSay.com from Friday morning to Saturday night!  Not just that, the weekly total of 1,512 was the second highest ever, trailing only the week Flesh Wound was released when 1,584 people visited.

The obvious question is why?  What happened on Friday that led nearly 1,000 people to check out JonSay.com over two days?

I suspect that Goodreads.com had something to do with it, and here's why.  I began a member giveaway for Flesh Wound on Goodreads.com after joining the site on Friday morning of last week.  I offered 10 copies and specified a two week timeframe for members to sign up for the giveaway.  You'll recall that the giveaway I did on LibraryThing site generated 165 or so members for 15 copies over two weeks.

As of this morning, 330 people have signed up for the giveaway on Goodreads. 330!

That tells me there are a lot more people active on Goodreads, and as my website is listed there along with my blog and other author information, I'm guessing the website traffic on JonSay.com came primarily from Goodreads members.  This week's web activity will be telling.  Will the traffic continue?  Or was last week a newest-author-on-the-site-with-a-giveaway blip?  We will see.

Also, I sat down this morning and wrote the first four paragraphs of Chapter 1 of "Rubbed Out", the sequel to Flesh Wound!  I drove to the grocery store late Saturday afternoon by myself, which is always an opportunity to think about plotting and characters.  The opening line just popped into my head.  That's how that part of the process seems to work for me.  With Flesh Wound, the opening line popped into my head as I was walking down a crowded street at lunch one day (this was while I was still working at the bank that eventually eliminated my position due to the economic crisis).  Anyway, after a day of looking it over like it was a shiny new car in a showroom that I really wanted to buy, I sat down first thing this morning and gave it a test-write.  I liked it well enough to keep it, and I present it to you now, along with the rest of the first paragraph:

"She was awake before she heard the knock on the motel room door.  The bedside clock glowed 12:04 AM.  She rolled over and looked at the twin bed next to hers.  Her roommate was asleep.  She envied her briefly, then remembered this was the third time she'd done this.  Maybe it got easier.  She didn't think it would ever get easier for her."  - Rubbed Out by Jon Say

So there you have it.  I'll be writing more this week and frankly, I can't wait.  Have a terrific Monday!  Read something today that makes you want to know what happens next!  -Jon

Social Networking: It's not just Facebook

Isn't it interesting how the seemingly random threads of fate twist themselves through our lives and lead us to the next event, experience, lesson that impacts us?  Follow me on this thread that has drawn me through the last two months:  A fellow author from Black Rose Writing contacts me by commenting on my blog, and I email her with a question.  She replies to the question, and then mentions she is doing a Member Giveaway on a site called sswww.LibraryThing.com.  I've never heard of the site, so I go there and poke around and find out it is a social networking site for people who read, authors, and people who love books in general.  I sign up, am granted author status there due to Flesh Wound, and conduct a Member Giveaway of my own.  Flesh Wound is now available for viewing to over 1,000,000 members of LibraryThing, and in the hands of 15 people I never would have met otherwise, two of them in the UK.

Next, one of the winners on the Member Giveaway on LibraryThing emails me after reading her copy of Flesh Wound and tells me how much she likes it.  (See previous blog entry).  She mentions she is going to post a 5-star review on the site http://www.Goodreads.com.  I'd never heard of this site either, so I go there today and discover it is another social networking site for readers, authors, and people who love books in general.  I sign up, am granted authors status there due to Flesh Wound (is any of this sounding familiar?), and lo and behold discover they also host Member Giveaways.  So, starting in a day or two, I will be giving away 10 more copies of Flesh Wound to interested members of Goodreads.com, in return for (hopefully) more reviews of the book.  And Flesh Wound is now available for viewing to over 3,000,000 members of Goodreads.

Both of these sites now include links to JonSay.com, and both include links to purchase Flesh Wound.  They also include reviews and summaries of the book.

Goodreads seems to be a bit more robust from an author's point of view.  I will be able to start discussion groups about my novels (LibraryThing also allows this), upload videos from my personal YouTube channel (currently in development), provide excerpts from any of my writings, and add friends (fellow users of the site, a feature also available on LibraryThing).  Essentially, these are social networking sites a la Facebook and Twitter, but focused more on people who love to read.  Millions of them, in fact.

So from one comment on my blog, this thread of fate has drawn me into contact with over 4,000,000 potential readers of Flesh Wound within two months.  How many of those readers actually notice Flesh Wound will depend in large part on the reviews it receives and how involved I get as an author on the two sites.   I plan on becoming as involved as I can to maximize that exposure.

All of this also leads me to understand a bit more why the traditional publishing industry is quaking a bit in its traditional infrastructure boots.  Sites like LibraryThing and Goodreads (and there are more of them, I'm sure, I just haven't discovered them yet) serve as great marketing channels for the traditional publishers, but they do not have sole domain over the books marketed there.  So a book like Flesh Wound, published by a small independent publisher in Texas, has the same possibility of reaching readers on these sites as any of the titles published by Viking, Random House, Penguin, and all the others.  I am able to compete head-to-head, therefore, with all of the publishing houses who passed on Flesh Wound, and I have spent $0 for the privilege.  Granted, the titles produced by the big houses wind up in the big bookstores – Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. – but how many people walk into a bookstore each day compared with the millions that log in to these social networking sites?  These sites even the playing field a bit for small authors and publishers.

The real winners are the readers, of course.  They have a far greater selection of books to choose from, more reviews to read, and more recommendations from friends to follow when choosing what they are going to read next.  All of which increases the chance that a book like Flesh Wound, and the others that follow it, will get to be enjoyed by many more people than if I had to wait for a big publishing house to accept it.  (Another outcome of all of this is that the publishing houses become highly reluctant to agree to publish anything that won't be an automatic bestseller, for the very real fear that they will not recapture their up front publishing costs, much less make a profit.  The existence of sites like LibraryThing and Goodreads work in favor of smaller publishers who have lower fixed costs, i.e., can produce a physical book in much lower quantities at a lower cost than the big boys.)

But I digress.  If you get the chance to check out Goodreads, my author link is to the right.  It's a cool site!  I'll be posting more content to it over the next month or so.  Happy October!  I hope you have a terrific weekend and read something that transports you to a new world for a while!  Thanks for reading!  -Jon

A Fresh Review – From Someone I Don't Know!

Today my intention was to dive right back into the research for Rubbed Out, but when I checked my email, much to my delight I found a message from one of the LibraryThing Member Giveaway winners of Flesh Wound.  Here is the text of the email:

Hi Jon,

I just finished reading your book (in less than 24 hours after it arrived at my doorstep I must add) and thought I would save you some of the trouble of hunting all over the internet looking for the most recent reviews.  I must say, I absolutely loved this book.  I'll be cross-posting the same review to LibraryThing, Goodreads, Amazon, and Paperbackswap.com (I figure most people who read books belong to at least one of the four sites…and the more places a review exists the better the odds that more people will pick up your book).  So here's the review and thanks for giving me the chance to read it!

There are so many things one could say about this book…it is engaging, edgy, romantic, sweet, a complete change from the expected formula.  I will simply say that this is not something I would have picked up and read on my own and I am now a convert.  The story grabs hold of the reader in the first paragraph and won't let go until the final sentence.  The actual concept is one that hasn't been done often and (to the best of my knowledge) hasn't been done well until now.  However, this book is not for the squeamish as it is full of what is considered to be non-mainstream scenes that are sexual in nature.  However, if non-traditional lifestyles and sex aren't something that completely turns you off of a story you should most certainly give this one a try; you won't be disappointed.

Needless to say, I was thrilled and told this reader so in my reply email to them.  There is something especially rewarding about getting positive feedback from someone you don't know.  This sort of review makes me want to redouble my efforts to get Flesh Wound and Creatures in front of people, and to make Rubbed Out better than both of them.  True to their word, this review does in fact appear on the sites mentioned.  I didn't know about Goodreads.com and Paperbackswap.com, but I checked them out and they look to be full of great readers!  I have applied for author status at Goodreads.com, which will allow me to link this blog to the page showing my book there.  Fantastic!

I noticed on the LibraryThing site that two other Member Giveaway winners, one in Cambridge, UK, and one in the States, have received Flesh Wound.  No word from them yet on reviews, but I know now that the book has made it across the pond.  Which is sort of fun. 

I spent more time than usual answering emails and talking on the phone today as it is my birthday, and all I have to say is that I am the luckiest man on earth to have such phenomenal family and friends.  There isn't anything life can conjure that can't be handled with the support system I have.  Love to all of you!

So I spent less time than usual on Rubbed Out today, but it's all good.  One thing I did do is email the author of the series of SF Chronicle articles that I am using in my research.  The series was written in 2006, and one concern I had was that the writer may no longer be at the paper, but the email did not bounce back so I'm assuming she is.  I hope to hear from her and learn even more about the topic of human trafficking.

A word about my process at this point: I have summarized much of my research, and what I do next is plot out what happens by chapter in the book.  I set up a grid with chapter down the left hand side, and major plotlines across the top.  I then populate each chapter row with the events that happen in each plotline.  This helps me structure the timeline of the plot events, as well as see the holes that exist right off the bat.

Next, I will create a comprehensive list of characters, both primary and secondary, and map their relationships to each other.  I will fill out backstories where they need it, and get a fuller sense of the plot.  This is a fun stage, because invariably plot twists will suggest themselves.  I personally don't think those twists would occur to me any other way.

More on Friday!  I hope your week is going well!  Read something tonight that excites you too much to fall asleep right away!  -Jon

Research for "Rubbed Out" – Compelling and Shocking

Today I got the chance to sit down and really dig in to the research for Rubbed Out, the sequel to Flesh Wound.  My first task was to review a series of articles on human sex trafficking published in the San Francisco Chronicle a few years ago.  The articles focused on the true story journey of one woman from her home in South Korea to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and how she was forced into working in Korean-owned massage parlors and escort services.

This is fascinating research for a lot of reasons.  First, there are some very distinct cultural similarities and differences between South Korea and the United States that are highlighted by this woman's experience.  Essentially, she was motivated to seek a high paying "hostess" job in the United States to pay off credit card debt she had run up while at college in Busan, South Korea.  She answered an ad in a newspaper, met with a few contacts, and agreed to their proposal – pay $7,000 to be flown to Tijuana from Incheon, then smuggled through the San Ysidro checkpoint into the United States.  Like so many in this country, the lure of easy credit at an age when the consequences of using that credit are not fully understood got her into a deep hole.  Unlike this country, the options to earn enough money for a woman in her early 20s are so strictly limited that unless she can rely on funds from her family or some other benefactor, she is never going to repay that debt.  And declaring bankruptcy in South Korea carries much more dire consequences than in the US.

Having refinanced her credit card debt with local moneylenders (aka local loan sharks), she owed a total of $40,000.  The $7,000 travel costs to the US would be added to that total.  Feeling her options for finding work in South Korea that would pay enough to eliminate her debt just weren't available, she agreed to the trip to the United States.  She was assured at the time that her job would consist of serving drinks to men in a nightclub, and no sex would be involved.

The series of articles went on to detail what happened once she got to Tijuana, and finally to Koreatown in Los Angeles.  It is fascinating, and there is a compelling story in it.

While reading the articles, the formulation of a plot took shape in my head.  I am going to run parallel plot lines.  One main protagonist will be a Korean girl who travels a similar journey to the woman in this series of articles.  Having lived in Los Angeles and visited San Francisco a lot myself, I know what these locations look like well enough to write about them.  This character will be a cousin of a minor character in Flesh Wound, whose name is Ethan.  Ethan is going to come to Max to ask him to find his cousin, whom he has learned left South Korea for a job in the US.  Ethan strongly suspects this job will be as a sex worker, but that she doesn't know what she's getting into.  He is concerned for her safety so he hires Max.

I'm going to make Chapter 1 the story of her border crossing.  Chapter 2 will be Ethan's visit to Max' new P.I. office, opened after returning from the California vacation he took with Faye and Nikki at the end of Flesh Wound.  Chapter 3 will be the Korean woman's trip from the US border to Koreatown in L.A.  I will then alternate between what is happening to her and Max' journey to find her.

I will complicate the plot some more as I go, because I want Faye involved as well.  If you've read Flesh Wound you know that one of the themes involved is that some people seek meaningful emotional experiences through acting out unusual sexual fantasies with Faye, according to strictly observed guidelines.  All of the activity, although unusual and not condoned by the laws of society, is consensual.  Faye is paid a great deal and everyone is better for the experience.  That is the basis of determining right and wrong.  In Rubbed Out, the main character is going to be providing meaningful emotional experiences to her customers, but the activity is NOT consensual on her part.  She too is paid to do this, and in reality makes a somewhat shocking amount of money.  But the lack of consent, her inability to fight back against those who have forced her into a job she did not want, and the brutal working conditions she faces are critical differences and the reason that Max' task will be not only to find her, but when he does, to liberate her from those circumstances and do his best to bring those who have forced her into them to justice.

I have the contact info for the reporter who wrote the series of articles for the Chronicle, and I'm going to email her this week.  I hope she is still at the paper.  I want to talk to her about the idea of my novel and ask a few questions that came up as I read the articles.

Then, more research about South Korea and the cultural customs that would lead a woman in her young 20s to pursue a job that takes her halfway around the world, away from her family, and become an unwitting victim of human sex trafficking.

It was a refreshing change to put down the research and go pick up my own daughter from school.  I hugged her even tighter and thanked God that she is not in the same situation that the subject of my research found herself in.  I can't protect my daughter from everything that is bad in life, but I can appreciate every moment I have with her and her good health and thus far, good fortune.

Call someone you love today and tell them that you love them.  In whatever way that works for you.  But make sure they realize it.  It will make both of you feel like a million dollars.  Talk to you later in the week with another update on the research.  -Jon