Susan Thatcher's Blog, page 5
May 4, 2017
Reasons Why
It was suggested to me that I should make a list of all the reasons why I write stories, make bracelets, and some other things I’d like to get going (graphic t shirts). I’m going to do that here (and has anyone heard of a magazine called Pyramid? or The Pyramid?)
Books: I like to create stories.
Books: I get inspired by all kinds of things that can play out into multiple acts with beginning, middle, end.
Books: I’d like to make enough money from writing to support myself.
Books: It’s cook to get to the point where the characters stop “listening” to you and have been fueled enough with detail to start acting and talking on their own.
Books: I like to explore ideas.
Books: I wrote These Foolish Things because I thought older lovers are interesting.
Books: I’m writing short stories because I’m used to writing essays, briefs, and papers.
Books: I’m writing erotica because it’s legal (for now) and I can give it my own twist.
Books: I want to create characters that people care about, want to have as their friends.
Books: This is a lasting legacy.
Books: I’m good at this.
Books/writing: I like to entertain people. My words get a better response than me as myself.
Books/writing: I want to write things that inspire people to think differently about a subject, to see themselves in, to learn something
Books/writing: I have something to say
Books/writing: my great-grandmother, Daisy Washburn Lovell, wrote two books, “Glad Tidings” and “Glimpses of Early Wareham.”
Books/writing: If Grandma Lovell is going to be in the Library of Congress, so am I
Books/writing: I think if I get these stories out of my head and onto paper, I may be able to sleep better.
Books/writing: I get a kick out of autographing copies.
Books/writing: Reviews: so far, they’re positive
Books/writing: I have an excuse to attend group signing events
Books/bracelets/T shirts: the American standard for judging the quality of your talent is whether someone is willing to pay for it.
Bracelets: I have friends with issues that certain stones can treat.
Bracelets: I love handling the stones.
Bracelets: Researching which stones do what is fun.
Bracelets: The bracelets are beautiful
Bracelets: I enjoy earning money from something that I create.
T shirts: It’s fashion, in a fashion
T shirts: It’s fun to come up with messages
T shirts: colors, glittery print = FUN
All of it: I am more than my day job and goddammit, I aim to prove that.
April 30, 2017
Let Me Entertain You
This blog, this here blog, which got its most hits for a post titled “I Am an Idiot, I Admit It Freely” is supposed to be a marketing tool. “Content, content, Content!” (With the accent on the first syllable to indicate that there is something in the post v. accent on the second syllable to indicate being happy and serene. Given what I see you guys spell and post, – INCLUDING PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS. JEEBUS! WHERE ARE YOUR EDITORS??? – I may have to start posting the basics of composition, spelling, and grammar. You just give up one hour of reality TV per week and I’ll have you whipped into shape. I will). Not always easy to come up with something. I have products to promote. Do you bastards ever buy my books? No. 99 freakin’ cents! For good stuff! Seriously! I’m throwing links in here.
I have two books currently available on Amazon under my own name: ” These Foolish Things” and At Last.” As Kindle e-books, they are $1.99 and $.99 respectively.
https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Thatcher/e/B00DPX0S7E/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
And, coming May 13, a short, sassy, sexy NC17 story under a new pen name, Monique Desoto:
I am reluctant to plaster my social media accounts with promotions and ads. I can tune out ads I find annoying and tune them out quickly. I don’t want to be one of those promotions. It’s a fine line between getting noticed and getting ignored because you overdid it. A friend who is in advertising tells me it takes five times for someone to see something (an ad) before it registers and the percentage of conversion narrows down in a swift, steep funnel. Not encouraging. I know authors who will hit all of the Facebook author/reader groups they belong to and hit them all daily for a period of time. I don’t know if it works or not; I haven’t felt compelled to buy a lot of books from that method. Kind of like reusing a tea bag. The Law of Diminishing ReturnsI confess: I am not diligent about tweeting (except to respond to the current President’s Twitter feed) or Instagram or Tumblr, Google +, etc. I don’t have a reader group or a street team. Yet.
I get good advice. Do I follow up on it? Eh, not so much. See previous post about being an idiot.
I have great dreams for these books, that they’ll find their audience, word of mouth will take over and I’ll have sleeper hits beloved by millions. I don’t know if that’s appropriate self-confidence, self-delusion, or the inner six-year-old playing in the backyard and saying, “I’m the greatest batter/dancer/actor/singer ever!”
Greatest? No. I couldn’t dream up a tenth of the scenarios Margaret Atwood can or O.Henry did (Monique DeSoto writes short stories). I do have an imagination. I like to think I write terrific dialogue and while I don’t think I have an entire Universe in my like J.K. Rowling, I do down roads less traveled, like first real love at forty or humorous erotica.
Look: Click the links, buy the books. Get your friends to click the links and buy the books. All 3 are less than one of those Unicorn Frappucinos they had at Starbucks.
Let me entertain you.
April 27, 2017
Books and Bracelets
(This is an attempt to re-create the post that I wrote yesterday and it…disappeared. It was fucking LYRICAL and it vanished. Poof. Time to un-poof it. Remember how I told you I learn things the hard way? This, Campers, is how I learned to SAVE blog posts as I write them)
Yes, I write books and stories and blog posts (that sometimes get read). I also make and sell (hint hint) bracelets. I have a day job, but the side gigs keep me from going postal.
“Books and bracelets?’ you may ask. ” Storytelling and stone. Those are worlds apart. Do you have ADD or something? Can’t focus?”
Not really. And they’re not as far removed from each other as you may think.
We think of storytelling as words related orally or symbolically through alphabets, pictures, or gestures.
Stones can tell a story.
Stone is millions, billions of years old. They have survived intense heat, unbearable pressure. Exposure to one element will make the stone blue, a trace of a different one and it becomes yellow. Or green.
Crystals line up in precise formations, reproducing the pattern as they grow, making great structures, but the molecules all line up in the same order as the first.
Some were moved by landslides, by glaciers. They’ve been blow thousands of feet in the air by volcanoes or waiting millennia in the dark until someone decided they had enough value to dig up.
It didn’t end there.
The stone was cut, polished, treated with heat or chemicals to enhance its color or luster, carved or drilled before it came to me.
Matter.
It’s a word with multiple meanings. Something of importance or significance. “What’s the matter?” “Mind over matter.”
Or
The physical aspect of the Universe.
Stone is matter.
We are matter. Us. Humans.
But, if you ask a meta-physicist, when you get down to the subatomic level, it’s just energy. Vibration.
We are vibration. We respond to vibration. A cat’s purr vibrates at the same frequency that heals bones. It’s not just a pleasant, soothing sound. It’s healing.
Stones vibrate as we do. They vibrate at different frequencies. Healing frequencies.
A friend suffers from anxiety attacks. I wish to help her avoid them. Sodalite. Or lepidolite. Quartz crystal to amplify their vibration. Black onyx to absorb negativity. A Buddha head-shaped bead to represent serenity, tranquility.
That’s the story: “I am with you. Be calm.”
As I make the bracelet, I lose myself in the making. I hear the soft click of beads against each other on the wire. I feel the coo firmness of stone.I think about their purpose in assembling them.
Dragon’s blood jasper. It inspires courage. The creamy green with a slight blueness to it. I also have metal beads shaped like a dragon’s head. Who wouldn’t feel courageous with a dragon coiled around one’s wrist?
What’s the vibration of the stone that attracts? The seduction of color? The feel: solid, unbreakable? The promise of healing? It’s magick, the art of utilizing nature to bring about change. Wearable magick.
Using magick to change the vibration, to change life. That’s the story.
Hangin’ With Web Show
So, here’s the link to the Hangin’ With Web Show I did. Even though I hear my mother criticizing my appearance the whole way through. Yeah, I look like Jabba the Hutt. I admit it freely.
It’s really a good interview.
April 25, 2017
So What Else is New?
Yeah, I owe you two posts. NOT THAT ANYBODY COMPLAINED!!!!
Post #1: Things Promotional
I did an interview with the Hangin’ With Web Show and it will be up on Youtube tomorrow!
And Wednesday, April 25, 2017 (aka TOMORROW) I will be LIVE on Facebook, you can come hassle me at BookRhythm’s Night of Romance live event:
Plus, Affaire de Coeur magazine has been tweeting me up all over the place and… Monique DeSoto. Monique. Yeah. We’ll talk about her later.
Post #2: So What the Hell Have I Been Doing?
I have been doing some non-book stuff. I make bracelets for healing. They look like this:
Both are anti-anxiety. The left is made with lepidolite, which is more of a mood stabilizer. The right is sodalite to fend off anxiety attacks.
These guys are for prosperity. Both are made with green aventurine, which attracts prosperity.
Anti-migraine: Amethyst, Lapis lazuli
And
Courage: dragons blood jasper and dragon head bead. This stone is new to me. I love it.
All for sale. Inquire within.
Besides that, I rewrote a friend’s resume and edited a couple of stories.
And baked a ham.
Yes, I’ve been busy.
April 17, 2017
A Corollary to “I Am An Idiot. I Admit It Freely”
I just learned another lesson the hard way:
If you are ordering chocolates as swag, pay the extra for express shipping. Especially if you live in Florida.
It’s sideways, but those are melted chocolate lips. Even Mick Jagger can’t match that.
They’re part of promoting my new pen name and short story, “Patti Goes to the Dungeon” by Monique DeSoto. Monique needs swag.
And this is a great metaphor for the story: you may think you have your ducks in a row, but they are, in fact, doing spring break in Cancun. Doing Red Bull and Jello shots.
Pre-Order Link. Patti Goes to the Dungeon
And I can now highly recommend the customer service at Oriental Trading Company.
April 16, 2017
I’ll Be Honest Here
I got nuthin’.
Did you see the “Sex and the City” movie? (Not the Dubai one that was so crappy, my friend threatened to beat me and have me committed if I even thought about adding it to the permanent collection. The somewhat less-heinous one. The first one with all the extremely expensive clothes, jewelry, and housing that was passeed off as within reach of upper middle class women) There is a scene where Carrie Bradshaw is sitting in front of a blank screen with a blinking cursor and…nothing. She’s supposed to be writing about love. Nothing.
That’s me writing this blog.
I have to get over the notion that I MUST share solid gold nuggets twice a week. I have to go with the more realistic “even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then.” Apparently, confessing to being an idiot (my last post) attracted a lot of attention (relatively pseaking). People were waiting for me to admit that, I suppose. Bastards.
Or maybe I said something of value…maybe?
April 13, 2017
I am an Idiot. I Admit it Freely.
So far, going to signing events has not been profitable. I don’t sell a lot of books. However, I learn things and I am the Founder, Dean, Provost, Sergeant At Arms, and Faculty Chair of the School of Learning Things the Hard Way.
For example, how to market one’s books. I screw up. I screw up a lot.
I figured, “Write a story. Get it edited. You’re done! You’ve created the book!”
Not so much.
I’m a solo act which means I am the one responsible for marketing aka convincing people to buy the book. I can persuade people to buy stuff, just get squeamish when selling MY stuff. That doesn’t work well when you are a solo act.
Authors create swag: small pieces of merchandise that reference you and your works. Things like bookmarks, cards, business cards, tiny versions of your book cover made into magnets, bookmarks, other chotchkes. The idea is that people will have your stuff and think of you, think of your books, maybe persuade someone to buy the books.
Go ahead, ask me if I had contact information on my stuff.
Nope.
Didn’t even have a good email address on my business cards (it used to work, but I forgot the password and Gmail wouldn’t let me get it going again. For all I know, it’s how the Russians hacked the election).
I’ve spent more than a couple hundred dollars on swag. My bookmarks didn’t have MY contact info, but they had the Twitter handle of the Etsy artisan who made them. Not smart.
I’ve come up with a couple of images for branding purposes. It’s a start. I’ve come up with a new Gmail address for the business stuff (and for my pen name). Another step forward.
I’ve invested in some actual advertising in “Affaire de Coeur” magazine. Will it lead to sales? Don’t know. Pam Ackerson, who knows her way around advertising, a) explained how exposure works and it’s essentially a funnel that narrows down the field of possible buyers faster than the NCAA tourney clears out teams, and b) she came up with some excellent taglines. It’s like dating: you have to get out there (and the Amazon Kindle One-Click is kind of a Tindr app for buying books. Far too many people not swiping right on my stuff).
So, I need to redesign, including contact info. I need eye-catching. I need an elevator pitch for all of my stuff. I can do these things.
I may be an idiot, but that can be overcome with education. It’s just expensive, annoying and time consuming doing it my way.
But, I’m learning.
April 9, 2017
And Onward…
Yes, I’m still here. This is the second week in a row I missed the Thursday post.
And the second week in a row none of your shnooks complained about it.
Book Obsessed Babes Jacksonville 2017 has come and gone. The above photo is me playing selfie. For that to happen, I need 1) fresh hair color and cut, 2) a good night’s sleep the night before, 3) preferably something blue, and 4) a face full of makeup. And voila, I took a picture. I will add photos to this post at a later date. Let me tell you what I did.
I have previously written erotica for Playgirl magazine. Year ago. I decided to wade in again, but do it in my own fashion: make it funny. Laughter is sexy. Sex is ridiculous. However, since this is a new direction for me. I chose a pen name (Monique DeSoto) and wrote “Patti Goes to the Dungeon.”
“What happens?” you ask.
“Spend 99 cents to find out, ” I reply.
So, I offer the following pre-order for your consideration:
See that? You can just shoot that code with your phone! And push a button, then wait for delivery! Cool, huh?
No, I’m not good at teasing. But Patti is…
April 2, 2017
Did You Miss Me?
I know, I know; I didn’t publish anything last Thursday, the 30th (what would have been my mother’s 81st birthday. Yes, I am estranged from my immediate family, but I keep track of the dates). What can I say? I flaked. And I didn’t hear any complaints from out there, so…
Book Obsessed Babes in Jacksonville, FL is ON this Saturday, April 8. Tickets still available (the freebies I had have gone). Here’s the link:
Tickets for Book Obsessed Babes 2017
Come on out. Sheer Bliss Events and the Omni put on a great event last year. Serioyusly, worth the price of admission. And there are usually great raffle baskets.
I have been working on other projects, writing projects that I can’t really talk about here. Yeah, I’m delving into writing erotica, I’m using a pen name for it, and I need to properly launch it. So…maybe later.
You would think the toughest part of creating a book is writing it. Wrong-O. Marketing is a cast-iron bitch from the darkest depths of Hell who wants you to die of embarrassment just because. And it’s not easy on a shoestring. With a day job. My day job.
I can attest to the difficulty mostly because of how blessedly ignorant I am. I figured “Write book. Get cover. Upload to Amazon. People find book. Sales go through the roof. Done.”
Not so much. You need a campaign. You need to launch it like the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta spacecraft to land the Philae probe on a comet 10 years (10 YEARS!) and 6.4 billion kilometers after it was launched. They started planning it in 1986. Rosetta was launched in 2004. Philae landed (wrong) in 2014. That’s 28 years.
This comet was probed by aliens.
I’m not that patient.
Confession: (and yes, another reference) I think highly of my writing skills. In “Amadeus,” Salieri looks over an assortment of Mozart’s sheet music and sees that there are no corrections to it. “As if he was taking dictation from God.”
I don’t actually work like this but…
Truthfully, I’m probably closer to Salieri.
I figure (wrongly, perhaps, but I have trouble admitting it) that I got it write the first time and additional drafts are for chickenshits. When I am done, I am DONE and don’t wish to get stuck in the after phases of writing. I could rationalize this by copping out, “I’m an artist,” but the truth is, I’d rather have someone else do that part. Publishers aren’t lining up, so guess who has to tote the load? Yup. Annoyed sigh.
So, here I am, having to go back over steps because my impatience caused an error, waiting on a reply to get a book launch party on Facebook, needing to get ISBN, ASIN, the alphabet soup of needed things to sell a book in the Information Age. It’s annoying as hell. But, I’m doing it.
I will try not to flake on the Thursday post. Next Monday, I’ll give you the wrap up from BOBASE
