Ann Benjamin's Blog, page 299

The (Sweet) Winchester cocktail!

I couldn’t sleep again.  Somehow, I came up with the idea last night that my [fictional] hotel deserved its own cocktail (served downstairs from Room 702 in the bar, Fringe)!  While the hotel might have seasonal specials, this would be the house drink.

To make your own Sweet Winchester, you’ll need the following:

1 rocks glass

Crushed ice (think pellet ice ala Mai Tai’s from Trader Vic’s for best results)

Bourbon (premium, but the house pours Rebel Yell, a nod to their ‘Wild West’ name)

Rose’s Lime Juice

Boylan’s Ginger Ale

Agave syrup

Mint leaves

Enjoy at the bar!

Measure 2 shots of Bourbon (3 oz.) and pour into glass.  Add ginger ale to fill glass to 3/4 full, then add ice nearly to brim.  Splash lime juice and agave syrup to fill to top.  Garnish with mint.  Yes, essentially it’s a fancy Bourbon and Ginger Ale, but like the Winchester, it’s a bit unique!

Borrowing someone else’s characters for awhile.

Hitting 25,000 words marked a good stopping point for my WIP, Lucky Penny.  Combined with a vacation, I’m still a few days from getting back to it.  In the meantime, it feels good to write someone else’s characters for awhile.  I’m a week out from a deadline (!) for a writing assignment of a different kind.  As mentioned previously, I got my start in fanfiction, a community that I still contribute to.  For the summer, the fandom I’m a part of has requested contributors for a ficathon.  Essentially, this is a time where all the writers and artists pick a topic and write something (anything!) and submit their work.  Later in the year, the collection will be sent out to all who contributed.

Will I ever be able to publish this work?  No.  Will I share it with other wonderful like minded authors?  Absolutely.

I’m enjoying the freedom of characters I’ve known for longer than any of my own.  10 pages in and not sure where this will end up!

Fun stuff.

Not only do my awesome friends support me by buying my book(s), they also let me know when my book shows up in interesting places.  As an author, especially one launching a new brand, this means the world and can easily make my day.  Recent bestsellers?  I’ll take it!

James, Eric never sent me the pic you captured from June!

Traveling soon!

Just assume at any given point that I would like to be traveling to somewhere I’ve never been.  I get my wish on Friday – Hubs and I are off to Sri Lanka.  Not sure how tomorrow will go (new post or not), so let’s plan on this being my sign off for a few days.

From the time I landed back in country until now, I am happy with my progress.  I am 25,000 words into my next project (which should be somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 complete given the length I usually write) and I got a promotion at work.  I’m hoping to keep up this pace and finish a rough draft of Lucky Penny by Novemberish and certainly by the end of the year.

Asking and receiving.

Whenever I happen across a potential outlet to promote my work, I still sending out queries.  Never knowing what will stick or when it will show up, I’m always happy when something does land.

Case in point.  I’m happy for anybody who’s got 16K followers to share this info free of charge – especially on a Sunday!

Feels necessary.

This is probably why I have insomnia.

Add in Pinterest and that’s a usual night.

Further thoughts on the iTunes experiment.

So, I was thinking a bit more last night (and also didn’t realize there was still another day of reporting, which pushes my numbers well over 3,500 copies) about iTunes.  The thing is this:  I did NO publicity.  I never once tweeted, mentioned, linked, promoted or made reference to Room 702 being free in any way on any blog, ad, website or social media.  This, of course, makes me wonder – what if I had?  Would there be 10,000 copies downloaded?  More?  Would a combination of these things have significantly increased awareness or interest in download the book for free?

 I didn’t set out with a specific goal of downloads because I honestly wasn’t sure how the book would be received.  I think I probably wouldn’t been equally happy if 500 people had downloaded it.  3,500+ seems fantastic.  

I’ve been debating the timing of listing the book for free or running a KDP select batch for Room 702 on Amazon, but haven’t been able to commit to anything yet.  Still trying to crack the code of listing the book for free as a means to get traction and / or without spending heaps of money on marketing.

Bad reviews as bullying?

I’ve been holding this one in for a few days, but I think the topic bears discussing.  To date, I’ve been relatively blessed with my published books and their (mostly) positive online presence.  Many could argue that’s because the total number of readers I have isn’t that many, but I think this topic is important for any author – no matter how many readers they have.

When I go onto Amazon to purchase a book for my Kindle app, if a book looks interesting, I, of course, read the reviews.  These reviews will often have a direct impact on whether or not I purchase the book – even if that book is for free. And, like a car crash, I find myself looking at both the 5 star reviews as well as the 1 star reviews.  The 1 star reviews are usually slightly fascinating and even if I mentally throw them out, they are still there, permanently marking the book for other potential readers.

While I could be seen as slightly hypocritical (obviously I have reviewed books on this blog and some of them were not positive), I follow the rule ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’  I would never leave my negative comments directly on Amazon, Goodreads or Shelfari.  I keep my opinions to this rarely visited blog.  If a potential reader somehow happened upon my thoughts, fair enough, but most likely my opinion is well buried and would not influence a potential reader.

So, when I saw on Tumblr that my book had been tagged, I instantly got excited.  Then I saw this comment went with the book.

[Name redacted]: WTF I LOOK COOL. I hate this girl.

I know I am not a special snowflake, however, comments like this directed towards me make me genuinely sad.  There are other equally disparaging remarks, which, if I am completely honest, made Monday a pretty bad day for me.  And a quick check of the young woman who left these notes shows she’s a teenager, so part of me wants to chalk up her note, dashed probably without a second thought, to immaturity.  But another part of me doesn’t want to let her off that easily.  Yes, she’s entitled to her opinion and no, it doesn’t have to agree with mine.  I guess I am still taken aback by the implied animosity in this statement.  I’m not quite sure a silly book about a boy crazy girl drummer deserves this.  Considering the book costs a whopping $.99, I just wish the commenter would return the book and take her money back.

Keep telling yourself that.

It’s a brave thing to write a book, to spend hours creating it and then place it in the public sphere for consumption.  Comments like above make me think twice about if I have what it takes.

What about you, fellow author, have you ever received something similar?

iTunes experiment, a success?

So, at the end of its free listing, 2,931 total people downloaded Room 702 and the book now shows 5 x 5 star ratings, 3 x 4 star ratings and 2 x 2 star ratings (dicks).  I’ve also picked up an additional 5 star review on Goodreads plus an another person who marked the book ‘to read.’ I was also very happy to see that while the bulk of downloads came from the US, there were a fair number of books downloaded in other countries as well.

Given just how many books are out there, I’m not sure what happens next.  I would really like a review which, y’know, says certain things about the book, but for now I’ll take what I can get.

Would I do this again?  Probably.  For a book that I thought wasn’t going anywhere, I think I needed the ego boost.  I am surprised that Amazon did not match the price as they did with Confessions of a Teenage Band Geek, but maybe their algorithms are different than a year ago.

(Some of) you like me, you really like me!