Destiny Allison's Blog, page 18
February 24, 2013
Review of Deconstructing Infatuation by Merce Cardus
Before beginning down this path, I think it only fair I post a disclaimer to readers and authors. I do not have a degree in literature or related field. My qualification is my passion for books. I read everything. As I child, I literally ate the pages I devoured. My goal with reviews is to help writers as others have helped help me. We need each other, and we need honesty. Without it, none of us will grow.
Deconstructing Infatuation
By Merce Cardus
Fiction/Novella
Synopsis: When her roommate leaves for a month, Helen sublets her bedroom to a handsome stranger. Tiziano Conti is insolent, passionate, and mysterious. Irritated by his lack of respect, Helen wrestles with how to handle him. In the process, she loses her usual control and succumbs to infatuation, putting her job, relationship, and emotional stability at risk. Using Dante’s Divine Comedy as a metaphor for her own experience, Helen has to plumb the depths of hell to discover herself, beauty, and truth.
Review: Rating: 3 stars
Deconstructing Infatuation is an intelligent examination of how infatuation propels us out of our comfort zones and into vulnerability. In that moment, we are forced to face truths we had shirked and allow alternative life constructs to appear.
The author’s voice is educated and thoughtful. Her characters are interesting and her exploration of idea sophisticated. At times, however, the idea is difficult to discern. Though the story is compelling, the writing is often flawed. I found it challenging to follow idea and plot consistently.
Excess dialog and poor character development at the book’s onset deterred my ability to engage. As the book unfolded, I became engrossed. Cardus’ writing requires polish, but I think she has some good things to say. I would encourage her to develop her writing skills and look forward to future works.
For more information about Merce Cardus, visit her blog at http://www.mercecardus.blogspot.com
** I received this book in exchange for an honest review and was in no way compensated for my effort.
Amazon is not a Four Letter Word
This morning, since it’s Sunday, I’m going to stir some controversy and talk about Amazon, that **!!*** !** behemoth everyone loves to hate.
Except I don’t hate Amazon. Instead, I have a great deal of respect for the company. You see, they did something radical and made themselves relevant to their buying community. In the process, they created the indie revolution and made it possible for authors to be independent. Without Amazon, I wouldn’t be selling many books.
To most bookstores, and even many authors, Amazon is a four letter word. I get it. For all the same reasons Best Buy is going under, small bookstores are having a hard time surviving when people browse them, identify what they wish to read, and then purchase said item on Amazon. It is a problem.
The thing is, businesses only survive when they stay relevant to their existing customers while attracting new ones. Whether you are a bookstore or a coffee shop, this is true. Authors, bemoaning the shuttering of so many small bookstores, are also getting creamed by them. Most won’t stock an indie author.
From my perspective, they are shooting themselves in the foot. Stuck in a model that has lost its relevance, they can’t see the forest for the trees. The truth, traditional publishers aren’t marketing most books anyway. Titles are lucky if they have a three month shelf life. Then, they die a lonely death and kill the author’s career (or slow it down considerably).
Bookstores, indie authors, and distributors should be looking at new models. I have never owned a bookstore, so I may be way off base, but what if, for example, bookstores focused on genres and stocked the best books, regardless of publishing platform. Can you imagine stores that focused on Romance? Just the decorating possibilities are endless. Those stores could host a variety of events relevant to their customers: The Victorian reading group, the gossip circle, girls night out, etc. In short, instead of trying to compete with Amazon, bookstores might consider a different model. Rather than carry all the hot, new releases, it might do better to become experts on one genre and build a platform of loyal customers who are avid fans of that kind of book. Smaller stores would have less overhead and potentially be more profitable.
By buying books directly from Indie authors, bookstores would cut out the middle man and everyone would make money. The only trick, the bookstores would have to do the work. They couldn’t rely on a distributor to tell them which books to buy and they would have to be creative with readings and events. If they were, then they would maintain and grow customers by being relevant to their community.
What keeps small business going?
Whether you are a bookstore, an author, or a coffee shop, the only things keeping your business going are excellent product, excellent customer service, and product expertise/passion. Without these ingredients, you simply cannot compete. You also have to rekindle your entrepreneurial spirit. How many businesses (big and small) have folded because they refused to innovate?
As long as bookstores refuse to carry Indies, and traditional publishers continue to foist marketing responsibilities on the author, the book industry is in gridlock. Recently, a bookstore owner made a public statement that she would never carry a book published by Amazon in her store (this includes CreateSpace). This makes no sense. It just means her anger is preventing her from taking advantage of new opportunities. Much like congress, the sides are so busy warring with each other, they’re not moving forward.
What about the digital platform?
Ebooks are a separate conundrum and we are seeing greater innovation here. Smashwords and Kobo are thinking outside the box, creating new models, and opening doors. It will be interesting to see how this model develops, especially in light of the lawsuit recently filed against Amazon by independent bookstores.
Revolution breeds chaos. It also sparks innovation. Every war breeds new giants. By servicing need, and providing the right products, the small business of today may be the Amazon of tomorrow.
As Indies (authors and bookstores), we need to be part of the solution. We can’t do that as long as we’re pointing fingers and whining about life not being fair. It isn’t. Nor is it easy. If you want to make it, in any industry, you have to be smart, tenacious, in touch, and relevant. If you’re not, you’ll fold. It’s that simple. That’s why Amazon is the giant it is.
What do you think? Do you have innovative ideas that can help the publishing industry to stabilize even as it embraces a new norm? I would love to hear them. Leave a comment and start a discussion. This one matters to all of us.
February 23, 2013
Random Things
Some mornings, I wake up with little to say. That may be a good thing. Instead of flowing and coherent, my thoughts flit about like the Golden Snitch in Harry Potter. Fluttering wildly, they buzz past my inner eye and leave me hungry. Unfortunately, I am easily distracted by simple things and having a hard time seizing them.
Fleeting thoughts
Jeff Goins is giving up coffee. Hmmm. Wish him luck and hats off to his noble cause. Perhaps I should give up my evening whiskey.
Some people are like puppies. They piss you off completely, but when enough time elapses, they inch toward you, whining and wagging their tail, and you can’t stay mad — even though you know they are going to chew your couch again. Somehow, though pathetic, they are just too cute.
I should go for a walk and savor the burn of wind on my cheeks. Aching for spring, I am a flower bulb, my office dark earth. Soon, I will finish the final edits on the novel and shoot my green tendrils into the sun.
Yesterday, a blogger, Craig McBreen, made me smile. In his heartfelt post, I experienced a kindred spirit. His words shed some light through my cluttered mind. Being overwhelmed, discouraged, and frustrated is normal.
Nat Russo posted his satirical, bad writing tip on twitter this morning. He said, “Write no more than one sentence per day. This isn’t a race.” I laughed. My response, “I don’t know Nat, it could be a Zen thing. Life, encapsulated, a seed. 
Good morning.”
Still laughing. Some days, I think one sentence may be enough. Good morning, blog world. Thanks for being you. Ok, 2 sentences.
What’s your sentence for the day? Share with us in the comments section below. If you’re not following the conversation, click the follow button to the right of this page. Talk to you soon.
February 22, 2013
Recipe for Success
On Twitter, a follower complained about fees for art contests. Upset, he believed the contests guilty of extortion. They aren’t (mostly). Fees support overhead and occasionally help the institution make a small profit. This in turn allows the institution to continue operating, which enables them to continue promoting art and artists. The same is true in any industry. When I tried to explain this, the artist became antagonistic. ”How many contests do you enter each year?” he asked.
The answer, not many. Usually, they are a waste of both time and energy. My job as an artist is to ensure my work sells so I can keep on making it. Regardless of media, in my case steel and words, I evaluate ROI (return on investment). If I don’t think the competition can engender present or future sales, I don’t bother.
Though I don’t pretend to know it all, and we’ll see if the recipe holds true for my books, here it is.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS AS AN ARTIST IN ANY MEDIA
1. Set a budget and stick to it. How much can you afford to invest in your work? This includes marketing (contests, advertising, etc.) Don’t forget to include the cost of insurance, work space, internet, phone, etc.
2. Including the budget for your art, know how much money you need each month. If you can’t keep the lights on, it’s hard to make work.
3. Divide that total by the price of each piece (artwork, book, cd, etc.) and understand how many pieces you need to sell each month to survive. If you can’t sell that many works right now, make a plan for how you will grow your audience and sell more. In the meantime, hold onto your job. Your plan should include short and long term goals. Short term goals should be attainable, as in “I will spend 1 hour a week marketing my work.” Long term goals are broad statements like, “In five years, I plan to be making enough money to support myself from my work.”
4. Celebrate your accomplishments. As in “Yes! I spent an hour marketing this week. I deserve a kiss (a dinner out, a or puppy),” but stay dedicated. I use email and google calendar to remind myself to complete tasks. For a long time, until it became habit, I got an email notice to complete a blog post every Tuesday.
5. Be positive and understand that everyone in the business, from the galleries and agents to the publishing houses and museums also needs to make money from their efforts. Supporting their endeavors to support you and other artists is not only the right thing to do, it is good business. Complaining doesn’t get you anywhere.
6. Work. Hard. Often. This is the most important. We all think our early works are fabulous. Most of the time, they’re not. They might have a spark of life, but there is not an artist out there that didn’t improve drastically over time. Doing the work is essential. Set a realistic goal for yourself to work a minimum amount of dedicated time each day. Yes, every day. It might be five minutes, or an hour, but working is essential. You can’t achieve flow if you work in fits and starts. Also, stay true to who you are and make work from the heart. Classes are fine, but eventually, if you want to make it, you must develop your own, independent voice.
7. Don’t sweat work you don’t like. If you can make it, someone will resonate with it at some point. Keep going. Not every piece, book, poem, song will be perfect. That’s ok. The things that frustrate you with one work will inform the next.
8. Pay attention to your customers and respect them. If they are not buying your work, it is likely that it doesn’t work for them. It is up to you to make it easy for them. Having a quality product includes paying attention to details. Is your manuscript full of typos? Is there a hanging mechanism on the back of your painting? Does your sculpture need a base or pedestal? If not, it is your fault the work isn’t selling. Also, if you are not marketing to the right audience, your efforts are wasted. As an abstract sculptor, it would be ridiculous to market my work to people who collect figurative works. Don’t waste the time.
9. Believe in yourself, be passionate about your work, and share your enthusiasm. Ultimately, your work is an expression of you. Your collectors are buying you as much as they are buying your product. Again, complaining, jealousy, or justifying your lack of sales by saying people are too dumb to get it won’t get you anywhere.
10. Stay the course. Revisit your goals and adjust them as necessary. Remember, there are no excuses, only justifications. Positive thinking and visualization are great, but only when backed by action.
Hope this helps. One other piece of advice, if you are not familiar with business, take a business class. Understanding business is as important as making great work. Learn everything you can about your industry — including social media, SEO, and all the other things scaring you. It’s not rocket science and it will make a difference.
What do you think? What’s your recipe? Leave a comment and share your story. I would love to hear from you.
The Ups and Downs of Success
A long time ago (as in last year when I sold my first books) I floated on an incredible high. What a sense of accomplishment! I’d done it. People responded to my efforts and posted great reviews! Indomitable, nothing could stop my inevitable, meteoric rise. Then, I received a bad review, sales fell off for a time, and I plummeted to the depths of despair. The emotional rollercoaster continued for months. Ultimately, it leveled out as I became consumed with other projects. Now, sometimes I’m in the Amazon best seller list and sometimes I not. Like most things, book sales go up and down.
So why am I writing this?
Obsessed with my new endeavor, I find myself struggling to resist the same kind of emotional response, even though I know better. As a young sculptor, I took the same ride. Every time a gallery rejected me, I took it personally. When accepted, euphoria exhausted me. Over time, as my confidence and knowledge grew, I understood the business and didn’t respond to every tidal shift. Instead, I focused on my long-term goals and appreciated both failure and success, learning from each. The business, separate from the creative process, requires levelheaded optimism and practicality.
As a creative, is this possible?
Artists, writers, and musicians often find themselves riding the emotional rollercoaster. For many of us, our creations are not a product. They are our children. We gestated, agonized, and suffered through birth. Our works are living things and have the potential to change, if not the world, at least a life or two. They are not Tupperware containers or tires. It is painful to envision them as mundane products for commercial consumption. In reality, once we’ve finished them, that is what they become.
Now comes the didactic voice and a short plug
In Shaping Destiny, I wrote this: “We need to think about placement. Is this an indoor work or outdoor work? Will it require a base or pedestal? Does our sculpture need space around it, or will it dialog well with other objects close by? We need to take it out of the context of its origin and examine it in other environments so that we get a sense of what it will become after it leaves our hands.” In other words, the work is a product, even while it is a living thing. It cannot grow, evolve, or impact its audience when our obsession causes us to lose sight of the long term goals.
Teacher becomes student
I knew this, then. Now I find myself struggling to embrace it again. In a recent blog post, I spoke of the similarities between good leaders and artists. We are entrepreneurs and our greatest strengths are also our weaknesses. The same tendencies that drive us to create can lead to our downfall. If we are to be successful, we must pay attention what drives our failures and our successes. Recently, I enjoyed an article in Inc. that examined the 5 reasons leaders fail. It described my current obsession with my new novel and reminded me to slow down, take a deep breath, and pay attention to the business while I hold my vision of what I want the novel to be. The awareness is calming.
How about you? What is your experience with rollercoaster? How do you manage the ups and downs of your passion? Use the comment section to share your voice.
February 20, 2013
Book Reviews for Indie Authors
Thx indie author for photo
I am seeking indie authors to review. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I want to know what’s out there and to provide a service to indie authors. The second is that my husband and I are contemplating a new business to distribute indie titles to brick and mortar locations. Consequently, I’m looking for the best books in most genres. I will accept anything except Christian and Erotica.
Please contact me at destinyallison (at) aol (dot) com if you would like to participate. I prefer paperbacks but will read pdf.s. Looking forward to your genius.
February 19, 2013
The Devil is in the Details
What does this link have to do with my blog? Everything. Besides being cool, it is a wonderful look at how we perceive. On the surface, zoomed all the way out, the picture is of a mountain. Zooming in, we began to see detail. Looking further, we find people, the texture of snow, and particles of light.
I’ve been thinking a great deal about detail lately. In a new sculpture and in the twenty something edit of the new novel, what works at first glance breaks down under scrutiny. Yes, I know the devil is in the details, but sometimes — especially when I am tired or discouraged — I need the reminder.
This photograph, taken with a 4 billion pixel camera, is a wonderful reminder that what I see is seldom all that is there. In love, friendships, art, and life, taking the time to search beyond the surface reveals details rich, intricate, and inspiring.
Have fun with the photo. Don’t forget to use the zoom buttons, and let me know your thoughts. Do you tend to rush past, looking at the surface? Or do you dig deep for what is hidden beyond?
February 12, 2013
Ditch the Advice
We drove through the rain, the yellow and black landscape muted in gray. Tall grasses leaned sideways, as if they carried a heavy weight, and boulders round and ancient were like the gnarled hands of giants. One thread followed another, our conversation winding like the road across the landscapes of our minds.
The first destination was a writers’ conference in Phoenix sponsored by Changing Hands Bookstore. The second should have been Mexico, but we forgot our passports and had to forego oysters and a deserted, estuary beach. As it turned out, this was a good thing. We needed time to process.
The conference promised help I desperately need. In a round about way, it delivered. Eventually, after hours in the rain, several drinks, and a long soak in a hot Jacuzzi I rediscovered an old truth. There are thousands of experts, many differing points of view, and no single way to do anything right. Why do I always forget this?
When I was pregnant for the first time, I read every book I could find on parenting and child development. One expert said the family should sleep together. Another said the baby should always sleep in its own bed in a different room. Yet another said it didn’t matter. Instead, the parents should always pick up a crying child. That one was countered by an expert who believed children should cry until they learned to comfort themselves. Yikes. In the end, my parenting was a combination of what worked for me, for my very different children, and for my sanity. I was not the perfect mother. Truly, I was lucky to manage a shower most days. Nevertheless, my children reached adulthood mostly intact, I survived three rambunctious boys, and they are wonderful people.
After the conference, I felt just like I did as a young mother. Terrified, confused, and very small, I sat in a full room and listened to experts share their knowledge and experience. Much of it was basic — build a platform, be a good social media friend, hire an editor. Some of it contradicted research I have done on the internet. Still more was irrelevant to my particular circumstances. There were, however, a few invaluable nuggets.
Not least of these was the realization that I will have to find my own path, be true to my voice, and risk being wrong. As in every endeavor, you only get to be right some of the time, but if you don’t trust yourself you’ll never get anywhere. I will continue to learn, seek the wisdom of those who have gone before me, and apply what I can. Then I will ditch most of it, because my journey is unique.
Hold on Tighter
We drove through the rain, the yellow and black landscape muted in gray. Tall grasses leaned sideways, as if they carried a heavy weight, and boulders round and ancient were like the gnarled hands of giants. One thread followed another, our conversation winding like the road across the landscapes of our minds.
The first destination was a writers’ conference in Phoenix sponsored by Changing Hands Bookstore. The second should have been Mexico, but we forgot our passports and had to forego oysters and a deserted, estuary beach. As it turned out, this was a good thing. We needed time to process.
The conference promised help I desperately need. In a round about way, it delivered. Eventually, after hours in the rain, several drinks, and a long soak in a hot Jacuzzi I rediscovered an old truth. There are thousands of experts, many differing points of view, and no single way to do anything right. Why do I always forget this?
When I was pregnant for the first time, I read every book I could find on parenting and child development. One expert said the family should sleep together. Another said the baby should always sleep in its own bed in a different room. Yet another said it didn’t matter. Instead, the parents should always pick up a crying child. That one was countered by an expert who believed children should cry until they learned to comfort themselves. Yikes. In the end, my parenting was a combination of what worked for me, for my very different children, and for my sanity. I was not the perfect mother. Truly, I was lucky to manage a shower most days. Nevertheless, my children reached adulthood mostly intact, I survived three rambunctious boys, and they are wonderful people.
After the conference, I felt just like I did as a young mother. Terrified, confused, and very small, I sat in a full room and listened to experts share their knowledge and experience. Much of it was basic — build a platform, be a good social media friend, hire an editor. Some of it contradicted research I have done on the internet. Still more was irrelevant to my particular circumstances. There were, however, a few invaluable nuggets.
Not least of these was the realization that I will have to find my own path, be true to my voice, and risk being wrong. As in every endeavor, you only get to be right some of the time, but if you don’t trust yourself you’ll never get anywhere. I will continue to learn, seek the wisdom of those who have gone before me, and apply what I can. Then I will ditch most of it, because my journey is unique.
Several years ago, my husband was in Mexico for a desert race. A group of racers were packed in the back of a pickup truck and one of them was clinging to the roof. As it happened, they were pulled over and ordered to the police station. Fully expecting to go to jail, they were relieved when they were only charged a small fine. Upon their release, the driver of the vehicle asked the officer how they were supposed to get back to the hotel without committing the same infraction. He looked at the tipsy group, at the bed of the pickup truck, and back at the station. Then he smiled, spread his arms and shrugged. “No problem,” he said. “Just hold on tighter.”
We’ve laughed about that for years. Today, it feels like the perfect expert advice. Okay, officer. Here I go.
February 7, 2013
GG Collins and a Parallel Universe
Check out a parallel universe. Author and artist GG Collins has created a new blog that focuses on just about everything. Recent articles include movie reviews, the water crisis in the US, and even deep vein thrombosis. The blog is different from the average musings on life (yes, I’m knocking myself a bit here) and seeks answers to a broad range of questions.
GG is a talented writer and a powerful mind. Today, she invited me to participate in an interview and I am honored to be her guest.
Check out the blog and interview here: http://paralleluniverseatlarge.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/destiny-allison-sculptor-turns-author/
I just followed her blog and I hope you do as well.
