Category Archives: Writers Life

We’re All in This Together – Ask Alice Saturday

Kindle Bargain, Promo Tip, Writers Life, ,

mfrw-logoQuestion. I’ve shared a number of lunches with a highly known author over the years and will do so again soon. I’ve never told her I had a book published and I’m not sure I will be traveling to her area again. My husband said I should give her a book as a gift so I have one in my luggage but I seriously feel like I shouldn’t do this. That she will think I’m trying to get her to help me in this field and that’s so not what it’s about. Am I being foolish because she’s so far up the food chain or is there a kernel of truth to my concern? What would you do? Jennifer France.

Answers. Jennifer asked this in the amazing marketingforromancewriters@yahoogroups.com chat group. Several of us answered. Here’s a sampling of those comments.

“Why don’t you do it anyway instead of being concerned with what she will think? It would be better to regret having done it than not having done it, especially if you trust your reason.”

“In this day and age, it’s hard to believe that people don’t expect something when they give out a book. However, there are a few dinosaurs around who remember what it was like to just get a book from someone and them not expecting a thing. If it were me, I’d give her the book and I have an ethical streak a mile long. Believe me.”

“It’s taken me years to get past my modesty about being a writer, or about my hope that someone somewhere might want to buy a copy. I’m so over that. This is immodest me. I’m a writer. I write books. Some people actually buy copies and read them. I want to sell more. Authors deserve to be up front that we write, that we’ve actually got something out there for people to read, and that we are willing to network with other authors. If we’re still hesitant about that, why on earth are we on this list? This is about networking and marketing, and valuing what we create!”

“If I were your friend, I might be offended if you didn’t tell me you’d written a book.”

“I say give her the book, and if you feel the need, tell her you don’t expect a review or anything in return; you just wanted to share something you love with a friend.”

“Jennifer, I think anyone, no matter who they are, is appreciative to know when they’ve inspired someone, especially in writing a book.”

“Give her the book. Be up front about it. You are an author. How many times have you heard people tell you they wanted to write a book? Well, you did. Be proud of that. Tell her you hemmed and hawed over whether to tell her because you didn’t want her to think you were asking for anything in return. It’s ok to admit you are in awe of her and that your respect for her has caused you to write as well. It’s the utmost compliment.”

“Never miss a chance to show your love.”

I added my voice too. “I’ve been at several levels of the food chain of publishing and I can tell you this. There is no food chain. There’s just all of us doing our best to make our work the best it can be and get it out to as many readers as we can. One of the most effective ways we do that is by helping one another. It makes me feel good to share my knowledge with others and maybe help them along their way.

“Most definitely give her the book. If she reaches out to give you the leg up we can all use in our careers just say Thank You. There’ll be a time you can pay back the favor. Probably not to her but to some other struggling author who needs the same leg up. That’s how it works when it works well. We lift each other. Sometimes we even carry each other.

“So please give her the opportunity to be her best self. And give yourself the opportunity to be your best self too by welcoming generosity into your career. That’s the other side of this equation. We must let others reach out to us. For many of us this is a hard lesson. It took being on my back with cancer – absolutely unable to do for myself – before I learned to let others do for me. I learned simply to say thank you and carry the gratitude and memory of that generosity in my heart where it still resides. I hope we can all do the same in our lives and careers.”

P.S. Jennifer gave her book to her friend and the result has been happy all around.

RR

A WRONG WAY HOME – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – the eBook – is FREE at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T9RVGGC. It is also FREE at Barnes & Noble and iTunes and KOBO and other online platforms. A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – is available at those same platforms including http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZBOTH5O. These are my 12th and 13th novels and many other writers helped me get here. Thank you so much. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

 

Poking Around & Making Lists – Orr What? Wednesday

Indie Pub, Kindle Bargain, Writers Life,

Cliffhanger imageI’m a member of the generation just before the cusp of tech-everything. I was born into pages between hard covers. I’ve lived through soft covers and back into hard ones again. Only now they enclose computers and devices.

I’ve spent too much time hanging off the edge of that cusp. Barely keeping up. Certainly not abreast of the new thing. And there always is a new thing.

Still I’m feeling more in control where I am these days and not because my arm muscles are any more equal to hanging onto the edge of things. I simply have a better fix on where the new tech and the old non-tech fit into my hierarchy of needs.

Succinctly put – new tech for me is about poking around. While old non-tech is – as it always has been – about making lists.

A visitor to my office glanced at my laptop one day and made this remarkable statement. “Do you realize you have the Library of Congress on your desk?”

I did not realize that but it has stuck with me ever since as a pivotal piece of information. Because I know what I’d do if I were left on my own in the Library of Congress with nobody around to badger me with the rules. “Don’t touch that.” “Stay out of there.”

Without those guardians and gatekeepers admonishing me to behave I know exactly what I’d do. I would Poke Around.

The deluge of marketing I’ve created recently – in the preparation for and the wake of launching one book and taking another permafree – has taught me something crucial.

New tech is the seventh heaven of poking around. Not so much for finding answers as for ferreting out directions and discovering approaches.

Poke around over here and you are sent over there. Everywhere you go there’s information. Google a question. Get pages of possibilities. Each page an overstuffed attic of cubbyholes and corners – for poking around.

That’s where old non-tech and Making Lists come in. I cull the pieces of information I’ve poked loose from my new tech explorations. The ones most relevant to my projects. Then I write them down. You read that correctly. I write them down with a pen on paper. Remember them?

I’m personally best satisfied when collecting my cullings in notebooks. Maybe because as a writer I possess a primal urge to see my words in print on pages between covers.

Of course the pages within those covers are in turn covered with lists. I don’t know a multi-tasker worthy of her personal organizing system who doesn’t live by lists.

Thus the Library of Congress meets the moleskin-clad number I carry in my handbag and I am at ease. Perhaps not on the cutting edge but not stretching my poor arms into rubber strings either. I poke around and make my lists and am well served by both.

Now all I need is – well I guess – nothing. Except maybe world peace and a trust fund. We’ll chat about those another time.

RR

 A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – is available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZBOTH5O. The eBook version of Book #1 is FREE. A Wrong Way Home – at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T9RVGGC and other digital retailers. These are my 12th and 13th novels and I did a lot of poking around and making lists with both of them. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

 

Let’s All Be Free at Last – Ask Alice Saturday

Kindle Bargain, Romantic Suspense, Writers Life, ,

Celebration image 5Question: It’s Independence Day. What do you want to be free of as a writer?

Answer: I wish for myself and all of my writer friends to free ourselves from the tyranny of our expectations.

I launched a book several days ago. Yet my celebration of that accomplishment is shadowed by my disappointment with myself. What did I not do well enough? What did I do too much?

I’m not saying a thorough debrief isn’t called for at the end of any major undertaking. Of course we should evaluate. Of course we should learn from our mistakes.

What I am saying is this. I find myself and too many other writers failing to congratulate our achievements. Failing to say – “I did that just right.” Or even – “I did that just right enough.”

Someone else had to remind me. “Look how far you’ve come in the past year. Look how much you’ve learned.” Typically I responded with a litany of my sins of omission. The things I’d left undone.

I was altogether wrong in that. A backward glance was in order. As I have absolutely no doubt it is also in order for you. Where were you a year ago today? Where was your career twelve months in the past?

Stop a moment right now. Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Cast yourself back a year. Ask yourself this question. “A year ago what were the 3 things I most wanted to accomplish in my writing career?”

Don’t overthink it. Let your first 3 thoughts be your best 3 thoughts. Write each down and leave a generous space blank after it. Put the paper aside and come back here with me for a bit.

In my opinion the worst of our sins of omission is committed when we fail to relish our experience. Stop another moment now and consider what it is we do. We set down words in a configuration that is brand new. Entirely our own creation.

We invent stories. We articulate thoughts. We build pictures from syllables. And if we are doing these precious activities as we should – we enjoy most of it.

This is a gift we’ve been given. A gift worthy of recognition and reveling. When we fail to do so we’ve fallen victim to the tyranny of our own expectations. We have forgotten to honor what we did accomplish by wallowing in what we haven’t yet accomplished.

Return to the piece of paper and your 3 hopeful ambitions for the year just past. After each one record every step you’ve taken along the path to that goal. The short steps – the long strides – the hops and hobbles in between. I’ll do it with you.

Fill the blank spaces. Carry onto the back of the page and across the desk and up the wall. Crowding the room with a record of our writerly deeds. We’ll read them over. Recognize and revel. Then we will have triumphed over tyranny and be free at last. Happy Independence Day.

RR

My current novel is A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – available in eBook and paperback at amazon.com/author/aliceorr and other outlets online. A Wrong Way Home – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – the eBook – will be free for download soon at those same outlets. These are my 12th and 13th novels and I set myself free at last to honor them both. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.