And it's Wednesday again, so ya get a little Liz on Hump Day.
MY NEW RELEASE COMING DECEMBER 30---win an ARC Copy here
Today I just want to share a milestone thingie with you guys. We all remember those.
The first:
submission
rejection (times 10 or so)
acceptance
editing experience
Really Bad editing experience
cover art
cover art you luuuuv
cover art you hate but can't change
release day (woo hoo woo hoo woo hoo woo...hey, whaddaya mean nobody bought my book?)
blog tour (oh god not again)
blog interview (yay me! um....why are there no comments?)
review
stellar review
meh review
really awful review
blog notification of "copyrighted material usage"
smackdown from large National Organization about using Their Word on your cover (Realtor -- tm)
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Yeah.
So, I've gone through these stages about 15 times now in the last 20 months (well excepting the blog notification thing. I learned my lesson there, trust me). And have flown Under The Radar as they say for the first about 14 months or so, just continuing to write (you know, 'cause I love it so much), submit, edit, get cover art, promote, promote, promote and read (or not) various scattered reviews of my books.
However, I have to add a new first for me: My first moment that I say "I think I don't need to know about it every single time my author name is mentioned online."
You see, I'm a marketing professional first. The writing thing came late to me. My first short story was published in September of 2010. So one of the ways I track my "reach" as an author is to fire up one of the many search services you can use that scours the internet for your name or any number of sequences of words related to your books or your genre. I narrowed this even further by adding something called "Social Oomph" to my daily check in schedule. This service will track all sorts of words and phrases (and your name separate from your twitter handle) on Twitter. Useful, no?
Yes.
Well, until you reach a certain point, that I apparently have at least on a small scale relative to the New York Times famous authors out there.
The critical mass of people reading my various series and stand alone books has grown so much since June this year (when the 4th Stewart Realty book released and I attended my first "Rom Con") it's been a whirlwind of answering facebook messages, managing a new private Liz Facebook fan group, and the usual round of blogging, blog touring, blog interviewing and tweeting. Along the way, I have picked up a few folks who are not fond of my books, my characters or my style. No problem. I have authors I read once and think "Hmmm, no thanks" and don't pick them up again. I value opinions politely rendered and reviews well written and edited that tell me something useful about my books, or even teach me something I should learn about my craft.
But because of my efforts and the efforts of my publisher's publicist I am seriously Out There. I mean, it's good. I want it. But I'm learning a lesson that many others have before me. Not only will you NOT Please Everyone, you will downright infuriate and make some readers bloody well foam at the mouth. That's cool. I do the same in my beer life and it's no skin off my nose really. And I fully understand the bulk of it for what it is.
However, the lesson I am taking from it is NOT "now go back and write something that will please everybody" but more like "turn off the Twitter searches and even the Google alerts because sometimes, it's better not to know what people are saying about you."
Carry on writers! And Happy reading to you all
Liz
Today I just want to share a milestone thingie with you guys. We all remember those.
The first:
submission
rejection (times 10 or so)
acceptance
editing experience
Really Bad editing experience
cover art
cover art you luuuuv
cover art you hate but can't change
release day (woo hoo woo hoo woo hoo woo...hey, whaddaya mean nobody bought my book?)
blog tour (oh god not again)
blog interview (yay me! um....why are there no comments?)
review
stellar review
meh review
really awful review
blog notification of "copyrighted material usage"
smackdown from large National Organization about using Their Word on your cover (Realtor -- tm)
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Yeah.
So, I've gone through these stages about 15 times now in the last 20 months (well excepting the blog notification thing. I learned my lesson there, trust me). And have flown Under The Radar as they say for the first about 14 months or so, just continuing to write (you know, 'cause I love it so much), submit, edit, get cover art, promote, promote, promote and read (or not) various scattered reviews of my books.
However, I have to add a new first for me: My first moment that I say "I think I don't need to know about it every single time my author name is mentioned online."
You see, I'm a marketing professional first. The writing thing came late to me. My first short story was published in September of 2010. So one of the ways I track my "reach" as an author is to fire up one of the many search services you can use that scours the internet for your name or any number of sequences of words related to your books or your genre. I narrowed this even further by adding something called "Social Oomph" to my daily check in schedule. This service will track all sorts of words and phrases (and your name separate from your twitter handle) on Twitter. Useful, no?
Yes.
Well, until you reach a certain point, that I apparently have at least on a small scale relative to the New York Times famous authors out there.
The critical mass of people reading my various series and stand alone books has grown so much since June this year (when the 4th Stewart Realty book released and I attended my first "Rom Con") it's been a whirlwind of answering facebook messages, managing a new private Liz Facebook fan group, and the usual round of blogging, blog touring, blog interviewing and tweeting. Along the way, I have picked up a few folks who are not fond of my books, my characters or my style. No problem. I have authors I read once and think "Hmmm, no thanks" and don't pick them up again. I value opinions politely rendered and reviews well written and edited that tell me something useful about my books, or even teach me something I should learn about my craft.
But because of my efforts and the efforts of my publisher's publicist I am seriously Out There. I mean, it's good. I want it. But I'm learning a lesson that many others have before me. Not only will you NOT Please Everyone, you will downright infuriate and make some readers bloody well foam at the mouth. That's cool. I do the same in my beer life and it's no skin off my nose really. And I fully understand the bulk of it for what it is.
Carry on writers! And Happy reading to you all
Liz
I agree Liz. As a reviewer, not everyone likes my reviews. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteMarika
We all want readers to like our books, but it's just not possible.
ReplyDeleteThink about all the best selling authors out there. Think about your favorite author.
Now go and read the reviews they got on Amazon. They probably have a few 2 stars, maybe even 1 star. So, it's okay. If they can't please everyone, then why do we think we can?
Now if everyone says the books sucks, we might have a problem, Houston. :-)
Enjoyed your post.
Dawn Chartier
This is great advice, Liz. In my day job, I learned long ago that the best I can do is act with integrity and then trust myself when I disappoint someone or make them mad. But it's been hard to relearn that lesson as writer--that all I can do is follow my muse and write to the best of my ability. I can learn and improve, but whether people like what I write isn't really in my control. Maybe I should squeeze into lotus position in my desk chair and picture myself as a bald chubby Buddha before I start writing and social media-ing.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think we're on the same path of when we're putting things like this away. I still use Google Alerts, but my assistant clicks on the links because I really, really, don't need to feel bad about myself every day.
ReplyDeleteIf a great many people are talking about your books even in a negative manner, then at least they are reading your books.
ReplyDeleteSilence would be worse.
Janice~
this was a great article I needed to hear a lot of what you said today
ReplyDeleteOff to check out SocialOomph immediately. Thanks for the heads up. I went a different route than you - author then marketer - and am having difficulty but am getting there.
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing, sharing and reading,
Sarah Butland author of Arm Farm, Brain Tales - Volume One and Sending You Sammy