Twitters is the new IRC

Back when I was young and the Internet was shiny to me I spent a lot of time on IRC chatrooms.

IRC is short for Internet Chat Relay. You connected to a network or “Net” via a client (program) and chatted in real-time and then you would join a channel (chatroom). It gets complicated from here with channel creators being operatives and having special powers and creating bots so no one could steal your channel away and all manner of crazy that would take me a whole post to explain.

I logged into Twitter this morning musing about hashtags and using Twitter to socialize and I realized Twitter is similar to IRC in some ways, it is the new IRC.

Ways Twitter is the same as IRC

1) People are using it for real time chat to connect with like minded people interested in the same thing.

There were chatrooms on IRC dedicated to any topic and if you couldn’t find a topic you connected with you could start your own. Friends of mine (from Sweden) started a pagan chatroom after discovering several of us were pagan from another channel and it brought others in and we expanded.

2) hashtags

When you joined a channel you used #pagan or #vampire.

On Twitter you label your posts with #amwriting or #mywana and you set up feeds to search for those hashtags. Fairly similar.

3) Clients

You can connect to Twitter on the website, but you don’t gain a lot of functionality. To really use Twitter, you need a client like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

4) World-wide connection

With Twitter you can find someone on the other side of the world who believes the same things you do.

I grew up in a town of 400 people. There were 16 graduates in my high school class. My parents were the first in town to get divorced in the history of the town. Really. I had to connect with people outside my town. I was at that time a pagan, I wanted to write, I wanted to connect with people who had BIG IDEAS. IRC and the internet were my dream come true.

Short story from a picture

I have to link to the picture

Morgan put his hand up to open the door just as his phone rang. “Please don’t be Greta,” he muttered as he fumbled his phone out of his pocket while pushing the door open.

He sighed at the call display. His wife, Haile. He hadn’t planned on working this late. Again. He promised he’d be home for supper this time. He’d make it this time as well, if she didn’t demand a last-minute errand.

“I’m on my way,” he said.

“You’re late.”

He cringed. “I’m not late. If I drive the speed limit I’ll make it in time for supper.”

“Parker’s play is tonight.”

“Tonight? No, I put a reminder on my phone. It would have reminded me earlier.”

As if on cue, his phone made the reminder sound. Seriously? Mother of frickin’ for the love of all that is good and holy. Couldn’t forget the holy.

He stopped just outside the building. Not quite under the archways. He sighed. “What time does it start?”

“Thirty-eight minutes.”

He tapped his toe and weighed his options. “I’ll speed a little. Swing by pick you up. We’ll eat after.”

“We’ll be late.”

“Mt brother is the lead character. We’ll miss the first bit of the play.”

Morgan started off at a run for his car. “I’m on my way.” His feet thumped as he ran down the brick path, past the arches toward the parking lot and freedom.

Evolution

I’m evolving today.

 

“Subjectivity is the only possible approach to reviewing. What is a review but an opinion? Those who call for you to be objective are revealing that they have not given the matter a moment’s serious thought. Most times, those calling for objectivity are essentially saying they wish you had written a review that reflected their subjective opinion.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

 

 

New blog

I am changing the focus of Coming Alive, but didn’t want to lose my writer’s blog.

I know Kirsten Lamb says more than one blog is unnecessary, but when I reveal the new focus of Coming Alive, it will make sense. But I have to get my house ready to put on the market so it will take me some time.

Meanwhile writing, bitching about writing and author promotion is now at, which is here.

Writing Asrai

https://writingasrai.wordpress.com/

It should have been asraidevin.wordpress.com but someone used and deleted it and wordpress has a stupid if you delete no one else can ever have it rule.

99 cents doesn't undervalue me

Image by goXunuReviews via Flickr

Since going free on the kindle Second Chance Romance has  been downloaded a lot. The other two are selling well.

I almost regret not being totally obscure anymore. I feel like people are watching me now. Whereas before I used it as a way to hone my craft.

I’m only making 35% on each sale via Amazon.

Some people would argue that I should raise my prices to 2.99 and get the 70%. But, I’m not going to.

Artists are not entitled to a certain amount of money. No one is. I am not in this for the money. No writer can start out that way. I write because I love it. I have to write. I may even submit to a publisher someday. My books may be the best example of indie work is sub-par.

At least I’m giving it a shot. I am evolving and growing.

If my had not gone Free, I would have been sitting at 50 sales a month give or take. After the initial blitz I still might fall back to that.

Any money I get from this is gravy. Most writers say they can’t make it as ONLY a writer. I’m reading Hugh MacLoed’s book “Ignore Everyone” and he says “artists” have 2 jobs: their creative, fun job and a job that pays the bills.

I’ve heard the argument that if you sell your book for .99 it’s undervaluing the work you did. Your work is worth more than 99 cents. There was hours and hours.

To one person my book might be worth $5 or $10 or $20. To someone who doesn’t like romance, it’s not worth the energy and bandwidth it would take to download my book to their e-reader. To me, no book is worth $20. I will never buy a hardcover.

When you buy a physical book, you aren’t paying the author for their time. The publishing house did that already, now they’ll get a kickback for letting a publishing house licence their words to someone else. (Publishing is a really messed up system if you really look at it). When you buy a hardcover the author’s portion is like 15%. Puh-leaze.

99 cents isn’t undervaluing myself. Readers don’t want to pay 2.99 for an unknown with three books out. When I have 10 releases, when I have an established platform, I can charge $5 if I want.

I don’t have an established platform. I’m not writing material that is really popular (paranormal). My heart is not there. My heart right now is in these hockey novels. After that, i have an idea that I’ve had for a long time (I got it while I was working on Summer Fling) for a paranormal type. I am in love with the idea, but I had to do the hockey first.

I am not saying all new self-published author’s should release their books at 99 cents. I’m not saying it’s bad to list your first book at 2.99 or 4.99. If it’s right for you, go for it. I have thought about this for a long time. Under 2.99 is what I think is a fair price.

As for free, the turn around in downloads and sales has explained to me that free really does work. My next plan is finish my last of three short stories I have for free and bundle them for the Kindle. Maybe four short stories, I have a Up in Flames short story regarding SPOILER. Can’t tell you yet.

Urgh growing as a writer

Someone emailed me some typo locations yesterday from Second Chance Romance. I cringed as I fixed them. I am so unhapy with it. I have grown so much since I wrote that book. It needs a total overhaul, but i don’t have the time or energy.

I had a long conversation with my husband about it. I wanted to delete Summer Fling, it’s my weakest book.

I’ve read author comments where they say they wish their first book would disappear or it was right to be rejected. I get that. I just don’t know what to do. I stand by the story, just not how it was told.

On the other hand:

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
— Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words)

Making mistakes means I’m doing what people are scared of. And so what if I don’t become rich, most authors do not. The only place I can go is up. I have to go write I had a terrific historical erotic idea. There are not enough of those.

Related articles

• Having Fun Instead (comingalive.wordpress.com)

Free Second Chance Romance

Since Second Chance Romance is distributed to the world minus Amazon via Smashwords for free, Amazon said it was doing a price match.

So, Second Chance is Free on Amazon.

And I have it categorized as Erotica. Therefore, I got 10,000+ downloads yesterday. Another thousand this morning. It was #1 in Erotica, and #17 on the Kindle list.

I can’t check what it is this morning because I’m refusing to look. I’m refusing to look because I don’t know if there are new reviews. I dont’ want to read reviews. I’m more or less happy with the book. I don’t know what others will think of it. I don’t what people will think of it being listed as erotic. There are three or four sex scenes and one of those is anal.

I think that reviews will hurt me, but they do. I take them personally. I am disappointed when people say they don’t like it. And I don’t want to be one of those authors that goes crazy and starts yelling about negative reviews. So I’m not going to look.

It’s been a weird day for me. Summer Fling and Complications over Coffee are up as well. Not huge, like 20 books each, but that’s more than I usually get in a month.

I haven’t seen an uptick on blog traffic either. We will see in the next few weeks what happens.

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Letting go of what isn't working

I wrote 6,000 words on a novel.

It wasn’t working. I re-thought my character and went back to work.

I wrote 13,000 more words.

And I forced the conflict.  My characters are not meshing. I didn’t give a damn about if they got together or not.They were damp carrots in a cold plot soup.

I decided to drop the whole thing.

It was difficult. I put a lot of time and energy into those words. A lot of lost sleep and cuddle time is in there.

I’m onto my next project. There will be four Flames novels. The four original guys in Second Chance Romance. Kip Turner, Kyle McLachlan, Corey Porter and Doug Black.

The best thing is now that I’ve stopped what wasn’t working, the inspiration and excitement is back.

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On getting better

Having fun and not being the best does not mean I am happy with my current level of profiency.

I recently put Colours of the Rain up for critique at Critique Circle.

I feared putting up something on Critique Circle. I didn’t want to hear “you suck, quit writing.” I feared that was the truth.

The feedback has been good. And helpful. Overwhelmingly helpful, I’m not sure where to start. Only one thing said I didn’t agree with. Which was that the starting scene shouldnt’ be there. But it’s the tie in to the title of the story, so I can’t cut it. But I have a better way to tie it in.

The good is that I don’t tell, I do show most of the time. What I’ve not shown was written when I was working out the characters etc. Good to know and something I couldn’t see. My characters are likeable. The plot is followable and enjoyable.

The bad is that a few typos. I tend to write “your welcome” instead of “you’re (you are) welcome”. I overuse WAS. It was, there was. Was, was was. I’ve been working on things so hard that when I write first drafts I worry about my use of WAS.

Does being imperfect mean I should have kept Colours of the Rain to myself?

No. I do have moments of panic when I worry that letting my imperfect writing will wreck my chances of being read as I get better.

Y’know what? The best authors in the world with legions of fans who support their every move and will claw your eyes out if you say something bad about them, these authors have readers who HATE them. A handful, a hundred.

Sure, it will deter some people.

Just as some people don’t shop at the Dollar store.

I don’t wholly want to infer that my writing is of bad quality. It doesn’t have the benefit of a $1,000/hr editor. But, some of those books aren’t worth the price you pay for them either. So …it’s not that bad of a metaphor. 99 cent book. Maybe you do get what you pay for.

I question the assumption that every written world there must be PERFECT. How much do computer companies get to charge for their software that crashes, freezes and is less than perfect? Why do we put up with the cost?

Publishing companies have taught us to expect it because they held the gate for many years. They said was good enough and what wasn’t. now the reader can decide. And I really don’t expect people to flock to my book and heap praise upon me because it’s the best thing ever written.

I know I limit my success due to the imperfection. I’m just refusing to stay in the shadows until I reach some goal. I’m putting my shit out there and a few people are reading it and liking it.

If in five years, I find that Colours of the Rain and Second Chance Romance and the rest of the imperfections are hurting my sales. I’ll dump the name. It’s not that hard to find another one. Especially when your entire premise is that you make shit up and people pay for your made up shit.

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Why cheap and free are okay

Image by pr1001 via Flickr

I’m sure people hoard 99 cent books because they are cheap to buy. Some people download free content and never around to looking at it. I have a ton of free pdfs that I’ve forgotten about. They sit in a folder entitled “books” or “downloads” and once in a while I find them, glance through the pages, realize it’s not for me and delete it.

It’s still a valid way to get your name out to people.

Especially when it comes to short stories. Colours of the Rain has been downloaded 1500 times. If a tenth of the people read it that’s 150 reads. If half of them read it, that’s 700. Cool!

Second Chance Romance has 748 downloads. If 5% read it and buy Summer Fling, that’s 40 sales.

It’s far better than no one buying it at 5.99 or even 2.99. I know I could get a higher royalty at 2.99 on Amazon. And I consider changing it and seeing how many copies get sold.

Part of why I don’t have it at 2.99 is I don’t feel like it’s a 2.99 book. I said before in my imperfection that my writing is 70%. I don’t have the 30% to get a professional set of eyes on it to push it past 100. I’m getting better at it.

I know 99 cents is equated with a less professional book. Maybe I’m reinforcing that attitude. Hey, become a beta reader and point out my flaws before I release the book. Email me asrai.rdATgmail.com. 🙂

The second reason I’m going with free and cheap is I just want to be read. At two  years into the writing. self publish journey, I don’t expect to be on the best seller’s list. Many of the author’s going around talking about self-publishing are established, they have a name, they are known, so their success doesn’t apply to me.

ALso, I don’t have a strong backlist yet. I have three novel length books on Amazon and Smashwords. I have two short stories for free. That’s not a lot. I’m building my platform, I’m building my readership. That is more important to me than 70% royalty.

Lots of people can write about why 2.99 is better than .99 cents. It’s not better. It’s different. It’s not a lack of pride.

If you go with 99 cents because it’s cheap and lots of people will buy, do your research. Make sure you are setting a price point that works for you.