Kate Baggott's Blog: Cornfields of the Sea, page 6

How 40 year-old Writers Spend Friday Nights

It's Saturday morning, my youngest has just awoken and is busy greeting the dog with good morning pats on the head. I have been awake for hours thinking, thinking and thinking. This is a completely different activity from tweeting, Facebooking and other ways that I waste time.

Last night, in celebration of Friday night, I googled myself and found an archive of articles from a site I used to write for in the UK almost a decade ago. TrAce was a university-run forum for the discussion of issues in arts, education and Interactive Media. I wrote an article about blogs and won a writing contest they ran. Over the next few years their editor, Randy Adams commissioned me to write a pair of articles about spam and eBooks.

When I released Love from Planet Wine Cooler in January 2012, I didn't even think of the article I'd written or consider the lessons I'd learned about writing for a living or media income streams.

In May 1996, right after I finished my MFA in Creative Writing, I paid my rent with a cheque I'd earned writing. The article was about how the advice well-meaning people give young women about how to find a man, is always a bust...unless you apply that advice to finding the right shampoo. The article appeared in a free beauty magazine drug stores used to give to customers who spent $10 or more on make up. Since I lived in a run-down house in China town with 5 other graduate students, rent was more easily paid than it would be today. Still, earning rent money as a new writer, will never be as easy as it was then and that has nothing to do with slum standards or rising real estate prices.

Shortly after that article appeared, I got a got a job conducting research into how children and teens use the Internet and other Interactive technologies. I've made most of my income as a result of my ability to understand and explain new technologies ever since. But, and this important, I also teach and consult and those income streams buy my children their meals, summer camps and Christmas presents, not writing.

My eBook experiments have not lined my pockets. In fact, more than a year after its release, I expect to get my first royalty payments for Love from Planet Wine Cooler in July.

In fact, when I wrote the eBook article for trAce in 2005, I was probably just beginning to consider my first eBook experience.

My first eBook was a little guide to Internet dating called "The Practical Romantic" and it was a 2500-word extension of a 600-word piece I'd written for the Globe and Mail in 2002. I worked with a published called VidaVille about which I remember nothing and can no longer find anything about. The book sold 11 copies, was mentioned on several friends' blogs and I earned $25. Later, I released a collection of technology Columns called Singing the Digital Blues. Since I released it without telling anyone more than five years ago, it has sold 2 downloads. But, and this is key, I have never released an eBook without having been paid something for the contents in another form.

I even took all the risk out of Love From Planet Wine Cooler. Most of the stories in the collection were published in journals and on web sites long before the collection as an eBook was thought of. Some, like Mr. January and First Names Only, earned just $10 each when they appeared on Fiction365 while others, like The Love Detox won me quite a bit of prize money. In publishing the stories separately, I also got to work with editors whose comments helped me improve each piece individually and my short story writing in general. And, being chosen by editors from the slush pile also gave me a sense of success as a writer.

Since a Canadian author working with a small press can only expect an advance of about $1500, I figured I was ahead of the game when I self-published Love From Planet Wine Cooler.

Would I recommend the same strategy to new writers hoping to earn their living as writers? That might be irresponsible. Everything I wrote about the difficulties of making money as a writer in 2005 are still true. I think writers need to take risks and to experiment with opportunities emerging technologies offer. I also think we need to be very careful with our work and be certain to get paid for it. Anything else and we just write as a hobby, not a profession.

Life Takes Time Too

When I had my first professional blog, I was instructed to write 2 updates per day in order to keep my audience engaged.

That advice / instruction was nonsense then and it is nonsense now.

What matters is telling people you engage with, when you both find the time, the very big stuff. Some experts would tell you that bragging is never good. Luckily, the big stuff that happens to me is seldom good enough to be considered bragging.

It's just big.

Since the last time I wrote you, my children and I have moved from Germany to Canada. I'm Canadian and the kids are Canadian citizens, but this is the first time they have lived here. The transition from school class to class is difficult for young people. Imagine what it is like moving from country to county. But, just because we're going through difficult stuff, does not mean it isn't ultimately good.

Helping my kids through this big change has only been possible because I do the kind of work I do. Obviously, we are not living off the proceeds of Love From Planet Wine Cooler.

No. My dirty little secret is that I am a ghost writer. I write everything from newsletters to blog entries and advertisements to books for other people. In fact, I recently finished working on a book about new discoveries in skin health. My favourite work comes from helping scientific, medical and technological experts who can't write to translate their work, ideas and plans into books everyone can read. I stick to hard topics so I have less competition. Business and general ghost writing is more cut throat because more people can do it.

I work hard, most of the time, but I can leave my desk at 3 o'clock and take the dog to pick up my very own children. I don't have the flexibility to give into other distractions, but being there for the kids right now is important.

When I am not on project, I have to do things like update my web site, build my twitter following (I'm @baggyk by the way), manage my accounts and get my resumé into decent shape. These are the things all business people have to do and I have to get better at integrating them into my daily life.

That does mean I'm a bit slack about posting recent publications.

One of my Finnegan Stories was recently Published in Suddenly Lost in Words Volume 3.

And, one of my Dry Stories has been published onWild Violet.

Being able to come to this blog, when I can, is a huge relief. My life might be chaotic to live, but when I can sum it all up into a monthly blog post? It really doesn't seem that difficult.

Finally, Something to Post About

I have been a bad blogger, but there really has been nothing to say. The only productive thing I have done is initiate a new cover for Love From Planet Wine Cooler

Then, I made a mistake and uploaded it to Amazon incorrectly. I don't know how to fix it.

You can check out the correctly-sized cover on my Live Journal.

Now that the new cover is done, I can move on to creating a print edition to sell at events.

One Chapter Closes, Another Cover Opens

I've been a mess.

I've been worried about my debts and my responsibilities toward others. And, unlike many other people with financial problems, I had a bit of a reprieve in the wings. I did win the America's Next Author contest. I was due to recieve $5000 in prize money.


And, it was delayed and delayed and delayed.

Today, though, all the delays were resolved. Martin Leenders, Managing Director of eBookMall and America's Next Author, came over for lunch. He also gave me my prize money in cash. With flowers!

I still can't post images directly into this blog, so here is a link to the photographic evidence.

Right after lunch, I paid off my overdraft and my credit card debt. While I still owe lots of people lots of money, I can actually feel like I'm on my way to getting my life back.

Finally, I can also get back to my other obsessions. Like creating a new cover for Love From Planet Wine Cooler with my friends Sandy and Suzanne. Lots of you commented on my my Live Journal and this is what Sandy has created after 21 iterations. I have to say, I hope you LOVE this one.

So, it's time to wind up all the worries and celebrations associated with winning and move back to the work of being a writer. That is something I can be comfortable about.

Yet More Cover Ideas

I haven't been posting because I have been in turmoil yet again. That said, not everything has been going badly. My talented friends Sandy Feldman and Suzanne Roberts have been working together on another idea for the new cover for Love from Planet Wine Cooler.

If there is a way to upload images to GoodReads blogs, I haven't been able to figure it out, so here are the new ideas posted to my my Live Journal.

Please let me know what you think.

I Do Write About Topics Other Than Writing

OK, this blog has been neglected before I've really gotten it started. So, let me tell you I'm a bit burnt out from all the contest stuff, all the payment controversy from America's Next Author, all the career-building stuff.

Mostly, I'm probably burnt out because I haven't been writing.

So here is something of innappropriate style and substance that I wrote because I love.

How to Get Over a Broken Heart

Human beings are callous creatures. We pursue our own agendas, desires and happiness at the expense of those who would love us. We have all done it. We have all disputed the purity of another’s love. We have all had our hearts broken in turn. We all know this state; of mourning, of guarded weakness, of despair when the substances of joy are suddenly withdrawn; heartbreak leaves its initials carved on all of our souls.

Empathy trains us to see the signs. You have seen the pale despair of a would-be mother who reveals a miscarriage by being silent about what she has survived. We see it under the words of old widowers who ask each other what they are going to eat for dinner as if they are only lost in the kitchens of the world. You see it in the tight jaws and tired eyes of humiliated spouses who are embarrassed by the traditions they have disappointed, by the poor choices, by the confused children who no longer have what their friends may have. You don’t see it in teenage boys who hide in their rooms and listen to music on ear buds so their parents cannot hear an endless loop of sad songs. You may see among groups of teenage girls seeking comfort and attention from their friends. In these ways heartbreak is public. In these ways, heartbreak becomes even more private.

Recovery, though, knows instruction. For those afflicted by heartbreak are students of hope’s persistence. For them – for you – these quiet wishes are offerings. They are made to acknowledge your disappointed expectations, your lost emotional investment, and your spent energies.

It is not the time, not yet, to remember all the lessons you have been taught about the flawed humanity we share. No. Instead you must remember yourself. Your own boundaries of skin, your own circuitry of vessels were designed to sustain you independently of others. Nurture that system. Drink clean water, eat healthy food, sleep dreamlessly and move on foot through the neighbourhood in search of something beautiful.

These nourishments will repair your shocked physical system. Emotional balance might be more difficult. Try not to cry, try not to brood, try not to wallow. Every tear that you do not shed helps you to resist the temptations of cynicism. Every ray of light you allow to break up a dark mood warms your mind to the idea that this experience, too, is full of some grand and important learning. When you refuse to treat misery as a plaything you learn to respect the power of emotion itself. With this respect, you teach yourself to control your feelings.

Practise this self care and nourishment. Continue to search for beauty. Learn to respect and control your emotions. Do these things gently and with great love for who you are and who you are becoming. That’s how you get over a broken heart.

Covers are not Among my Core Competencies

"Book covers are hard," Harlen Bayha told me. "I'm probably working harder on my next cover than on the story right now."

Harlen is ahead of me. At least he's working on the cover for his new book. I'm just thinking about a new cover from my last book and it's preventing me from working on my next book!

Love From Planet Wine Cooler is an ebook that needs to become a printed product too. Too many of the people I love (Hi Mummy!), are just uncomfortable with the eBook / eReader combination and, really, the most effective way to market an eBook is to create awareness via traditional readings and signings.

The current cover was designed by a friend, working for free, who followed my creative brief to the letter. I should have given her free reign to use all her creativity and expertise instead of getting involved. In fact, I might still ask her to do that.

There are other alternatives too. After her review, editorial blogging whirlwind Jo Michaels Jo Michaels did three mock ups for new covers for me. I think they are very sweet, but I worry that they are too traditionally "chick lit" while my book is more "alternative" chick lit. My book is a collection of short stories, not a novel and I use some literary techniques to tell popular-topic stories.

As I have said many, many times, images are not my thing. I need your feedback, as potential readers, to do the right thing.

Here are some links to a few short stories from the collection where they were first published. Here is the award-winning story, The Love Detox and here is Mr. January.

I couldn't figure out how to upload Jo's images directly to this blog, so I uploaded them to my Live Journal. Do you think Jo's covers go with the theme of the book?

The Old Cover & Judgement Issue

For the past few weeks I've been concerned about my image and how I come across to the broader public. As Jo Michael's review of my book made clear, maybe I should have been thinking about the image of my book. The cover image was done by a good friend of mine according to my own creative brief and clearly, I was the mistake in that production. I don't think in images, I think in words and symbols expressed through words. I probably have gotten this essential part of book marketing wrong. People do judge books by their cover. I do it too and that does not change when the cover is an icon on a web site.

Self-image and product image aside, I've also been considering producing an actual paper copy of the book. I think it's possible that the best way to promote an eBook is to sell a "Dead Tree Edition."

Public readings and other events remain the easiest way to create awareness of any product.

On Thursday night, I attended a reading by Wendy Williams, a Canadian living in Vienna who has authored a book called The Globalisation of Love. The event was at The British Bookshop here in Frankfurt and there were about 20 people there. Since the shop is small, 20 people is a full house. After the reading, I suspect Wendy sold about 10 books at 18 EURO each (a special sale from the usual price of 19,99). Right after the reading, she had to get into her car and drive to the next stop. The sales from the Frankfurt stop might have covered the cost of gas to her next stop.

But, and this is more important, the reading was a real community event for expats in Frankfurt. I spoke to people in my own language who live in the same circumstances I do. And really, I do not think any of us will ever forget the warm and lovely Wendy Williams. If I want to build a career as a writer at a higher level than where I have been since I left grad school, would it not benefit me to work on creating that kind of feeling among various English-speaking communities in Central Europe?

I'm not saying that I will have enough money to go on a book tour of Paris, Amsterdam and Munich, but my family and I travel and there is no reason why I can't set up events in the cities we visit for other reasons.

There is a lot for me to reconsider here. Obviously, if I am not going to stay hidden in my house writing blog posts, I am going to have to make a lot of changes. Changes to my book, changes to how I think about digital/actual products and changes to myself.

So Glad to Be a Woman

I wrote my last post Thinking About Image before my holiday free time was in force. My husband gifted me a Samsung Galaxy II, so I've been reading my favourite magazines that I neglect the rest of the year.

Two Salon articles I read made me relax a little on the appearances department. I might have some typically female neurosis about not being beautiful, but there is one saving grace in the whole issue: at least I am not a man. Those poor creatures have it bad. In particular, I'm thinking of the article in which Rachel Kramer Bussel has to ask the question Is My Vibrator Ruining my Relationship? due to her boyfriend's insecurity. And, another, in which Mychal Denzel Smith declares the Measure of My (his) Manhood at 7.5 inches, that's 19cm in case you were wondering.

That said, I am going to do the photographic experiment in February to see if a hotter author photo leads to increased book sales. I just have to figure out how to upload new photographs and actually take a few. After, of course, I figure out the whole hair and make up thing.

In the meantime, I've been taking some time off writing and the constant quest for publication/ public approval. I have noticed that one of my favourite writing sites Places for Writers was updated on New Year's Eve. There are opportunities for writers out there, but I am building a mental inventory of them to relax my fears about the coming year. Over the past ten years, the amount of money I earn through writing has not increased or decreased, but I am working harder to earn every single cent and I don't have the "secure" gigs like the monthy technology column I used to write or the regular corporate newsletters I used to ghost. I know other freelance writers are feeling the stress too. That's why we take risks on efforts like America's Next Author even though encouraging the model encourages writers to put their rights on the line.

In the face of economic peril, I chose to risk control over one short story. A story I might, one day, have been paid between $10 and $100 for first publication rights. Obviously, taking the risk paid off for me, but I knew I had a lot of friends going into the "social networking" portion of the contest. Feeling secure or insecure, whether it is about your work as a writer, the quality of your friendships, your appearance as a woman, or the "measure of your manhood" is largely something you have to ignore to get on with any aspect of life. I'm going to just get on with the rest of my holiday now.

Thinking about Image

Like many parents, I spent my Christmas in the kitchen. I do not mind being the chef in my house. It may have taken me ten years to learn how to roast the perfect turkey (the answer, as it is so often, is more butter), but watching my family devour a good feast is one of my greatest pleasures in life.

I also, as you might guess, enjoy eating even more than I enjoy cooking. I have a tendency to be on the heavy side. Sometimes, I am ten pounds overweight, sometimes I am thirty pounds overweight. It depends where I am moderately active or extremely active I am at a given time in my life.

The thing is, I am generally healthy and fit and a little extra weight does not bother me for one reason. I seldom think about what I look like.

I don't know how much I am about to confess is typical of girlhood/womanhood and how much is just me being neurotic, but I learned very early in life that I was not blessed with that most important female attribute, beauty.

Writing that sentence triggered a lot of bad and bitter feelings the moment I wrote it. Obviously, I am not completely healed or accepting of the life I lead with the face I've been given.

Still, I have cultivated some other attractive qualities. I'm funny, I'm smart, I'm a good cook and I'm a very, very good friend. Expertise with make up is not something I've ever mastered, so I generally don't bother. When there is an ocassion though, I do dress very well. I'm tall, I have big boobs, great hair and a disarming smile, so I can work with what I've got when I need to.

I'm just not always certain when I need to.

I stay home and write in my pajamas a lot. I teach in jeans and running shoes because I have to move from teaching assignment to teaching assignment.

This morning, though, I had to face reality. I had to ask myself this question: Would I sell more books if I were more attractive?

What provoked this question? A blog post about my America's Next Author win. You can see it here.

They've used a video I shot as an acceptance speech for another writing award a few years ago. I was so excited about making a video with my kids and sending it off, that I did not think about slapping on some make up or testing which camera angle suits me best. As a result, I am even plainer and paler in the movie than I am in real life.

I may have messed up "my professional image" because I did not show enough care in creating a media product.

Should I try to counteract it? Do readers really care what writers look like? All of us build our impressions almost instantly, regardless of how intellectual or bookish we might be.

I'm thinking of an experiment.

Right now, I need to sell 11 more eBooks on Amazon.com to get a $100 royalty cheque and another 15 downloads on Kobo to get them to pay me. I just started on Ebook Mall, but I can get paid $50 after just 21 sales there.

I think I should get a really hot author photo taken. You know, the kind where the writer (OK, me) is hair straightened and made up until she cannot recognise herself. Then, I'll take one of myself with my tablet camera as soon as I get out of bed in the morning. I'll use the photo I have posted now as a control. I'll post one photo at each venue to see which version of Kate sells more books during the month of February.

What do you think? Should I try it?