Is there a United States of America?

I'm heading to Gettysburg today to play some good old fashioned old time base ball, with no mitts, no batting helmets, weird rules, and a cow pasture for a field.  Great times!

I've been to Gettysburg several times, and love being able to appreciate the battles fought there and the sacrifices made by so many to ensure the unity of these states.

I know the confederate flag is a hot topic right now, or at least will be for another week or so until something else comes along, so I thought I'd weigh in on my opinion as to why a piece of cloth with stars and lines and colors is such a big deal.

To me, it's not about racism, it's not about state's rights, it's about history.  So that's where I'm going to focus.

To sum up, this is such a big deal because in my humble opinion, the war isn't over.  Not by a generation.

Oh sure, treaties were signed and slaves were set free and we've continued the march towards equality (especially in light of the gay marriage ruling), but that doesn't mean the hearts and minds of the captured have been transformed.  Remember, the civil war ended just over 150 yeras ago.  That's two generations.  Someone who's alive today had a great-great grandfather fight in the civil war.  That's not a lot of time.

And why is it not over?  Because we won't let it be.  We're terrified to face the truth about the civil war, which is this:

1)  It wasn't about slavery.  Oh sure, there's slavery written into the constitutions of the states, and slavery was the main source of income generation in the south, and all signs point to it being about slavery.  But if it truly was, and the north one, and slavery was abolished, why does the divide continue to this day?  Why do four states still celebrate a separate confederate memorial day?  Is it because they're so proud of their ancestors fighting to keep slaves?   Are they proud of their bigotry?  Some are, perhaps, yes.  There are no shortages of white supremacists in the country.  But they're an aberration, statistically speaking.  A blip on the radar.  The states still continuing to fly the confederate flag, holding confederate day ceremonies, in my opinion, still desperately WANT to be the CSA.

Texas has mentioned it before, and has the option in its constitution.  Mississippi took 148 years to think about the thirteenth amendment before making it official.  South Carolina just took down the confederate flag flying over the capital as I'm sure you all know.

You see a pattern?  We're not done with this war thing.

The second big thing we're afraid to face?  We're letting another foreign country celebrate their killing of Americans on American soil with monuments and consecration of grounds that we would never allow another foreign country to do.

2)  The CSA was, in its mind, a foreign country.  We refuse to recognize that objective.

And that may be intentional.  We may never want to forget the fact that the CSA was before 1861 the United States.  But I question whether we should or whether that recognition is propagating the secessionist ideal.

Here's another way to look at it.  Many of us have relatives that fought in the civil war.  Many of us have relatives that fought in the Revolutionary War.  FOR THE BRITISH.  Why, then, aren't there Union Jacks flying around as part of our "heritage"?   Why, at Revolutionary War battle sites, are there no monuments to the Queen's Rangers or such?

Because we recognize them as the enemy, and the USA as the victors, and treat the battlefields as such.  But in civil war battle sites, while there is a victor or loser (or in the case of Antietam, neither) we don't recognize the CSA as a separate country.

Should we?  My position is that each soldier carrying a weapon against the Union Army was no longer an American.  They died Confederate Soldiers, not as Americans.  Now it is a logical argument to make that since the US government didn't recognize the CSA (as did no one else in the world except maybe Britain), that they never really left the USA.  But here's where my point comes in:  in their mind, they did.  They renounced their citizenship when they took up arms against the government.

At best that makes them traitors, at worst foreign invaders (in the case of Gettysburg).  So to keep monuments up to the Confederate soldiers is to say "This monument is in memorial to those soldiers who gave their lives in an attempt to break away from the US and create a new country, one founded on state's rights, etc. etc."  Sound familiar?  A little like our own revolutionary war?

Except the CSA lost.  The CSA is a ghost, relegated to history as should all of its warriors, battle flags and achievements.  Instead, we celebrate it.

To me, this is like letting Japan put up monuments to their fallen kamikaze pilots around Pearl Harbor.  If we did that, wouldn't we continue to brew hatred with the Japanese?  If some continued to fly the Union Jack and held beliefs that America should be part of the British Empire, wouldn't we continue to harbor hatred towards England?

So we continue to bring forth the CSA and keep it forefront of our mind, and thus we continue the civil war.  Will this ever change?  I don't think so.  And because it won't, we will continue to fight a vicious civil war.  Not with guns and ammo, but with words and laws and politics.  And that's even more dangerous.

My hope is that we forget the CSA.  Keep it in the history books where it belongs as a failed idea and a pointless endeavor.  My hope is that we focus on the future and unite the states once and for all, not through force or coercion, but because it's who we are.  As Americans.

Optimism is NOT Hope

I may have written this before, but so be it.  Apologies for repetition, but if I had, this bears repeating.

Optimism abounds in all of us, but don't confuse that with hope.  Hope is a good thing, but it is a wishful thing.  It is a thought that we have that things will fall in our favor.  It's not a bad thing, but it's not the very best of things.

Because it eliminates our role in the outcome.

Optimism, however, is the belief that we have the same chance as others.  That we can make things happen.  Andy Dufrane in The Shawshank Redemption said "...hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."  But Andy made his own escape, it didn't just happen.  When you "hope" for something you wait for it to happen.

I'm tired of "hoping" my book sells.  Starting today, I'm going to be optimistic that I can make it sell.

Are you optimistic about your ability to complete your story, publish it, have it sell?  Or are you just "hoping"?  

Twitter advertising - Results so far

...not good. 

Now, before I go into the results, understand that this isn't a scientific study by any stretch.  There are so many other variables to take into consideration as to whether social media marketing works, beginning with "is your book any damn good?"

Well, I like to think the nearly 4 star average review on Amazon is good, but maybe it's not enough to justify the cost of the paperback or kindle.  Then again, maybe one or two reviews turns people off and they don't buy the book.  Or the price is out of their range.  Who knows.

Regardless, here's the background.

I started a twitter campaign on March 4, with a $100 max spend, and a max bid of $3 (more on that in a minute) and a max spend per day of $5.  Right there I've listed three variables that may have an impact on both the visibility of the ad and the timing.

The objective was to get people to click over to the Amazon site listing my book.  Obviously twitter can only lead the horses to water, it's up to me to make sure the Amazon site (i.e. the book summary) gets them to drink.  Another variable.

The details of the campaign I'll leave out, suffice to say I chose to advertise people who follow or talk about post-apocalyptic topics, as well as younger demographic tv shows and writers like John Stewart or Stephen King.

A bid, by the way, is listed as "how much a visitor to your website is worth", with a higher bid increasing your chances of your ad being shown.  I chose three dollars, because one person buying a book is a $3.86 profit to me from CreateSpace, so subtracting $3.00 still yields a profit.  I know, a little business-y for a writer's taste, but if you're self-publishing, get used to it.  You need to know this stuff.

Overall results then, so far:  1 book sold in paperback (woo-hoo!), 1 kindle ebook purchased, and 9 books borrowed or bought through Kindle Prime (which netted me about $1 in profit).  So, if this all holds true, I'll spend about $100 to make roughly $15.

Hardly worth it.

HOWEVER, on the plus side, twitter does offer a lot of demographics about who is clicking on the link, meaning who is interested in your book enough to go check it out.

Right now I've got a click through rate of roughly .5%.   That means for every thousand people seeing my ad, maybe five will click on it.  That may sound really low, but that's the equivalent of spamming people, and .5% is actually pretty good, according to the stats you can find here.  

But of the 116 people who clicked to my site, only 11 of them bought a book, which means interest is at about 9%.  Not good.

I'm written too much here, so I'll carry on next with determining the best point for advertising and return on investment - finding the sweet spot so to speak.  But again, I have to stress I'm not a PR expert and this isn't a scientific study.  It's all specific to me and the variables of my work.  In other words, results may vary.

In the meantime, if you have questions you'd like to ask, feel free to comment here, or find me on Goodreads here and drop me a question there.  And most definitely, WRITE ON!

Read it outloud!!

Final phase of editing before releasing it to the public in book form, and this, my friends, is the single most important part.  Read your entire book out loud.  Pretend you're making an audio book.  Do voices if you want.  Mumble on the bus to work like I did for two weeks straight.  It's ok.  It's winter.  Throw on a tattered hoodie and forget to shower and people just think you're a crazy person.


Why is it so important?


Because our brilliant mind can auto-translate and buzz over misspelled words without us even knowing it.  Reading your book isn't good enough, because the mind works too well and efficiently:  you need to slow yourself down, and reading out loud does that.  It forces you to go line by line.


Take, for example, this little beauty I picked up in my own book after reading it to myself, oh, seven or eight times:
 

I pulled Bill back a bit.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Giving you a chance,” Bill said.

“Yeah, but this isn’t really a ‘giving you a chance’ kinda moment.  This is serious stuff.”

“Do you honestly think there’s anything out there you can’t handle?  Worse than the lake?  Worse than what you told me about in Pittsburgh?  You’ve seen the worst nature has to offer, and you’re still here.  Anyone who can cover the ground you’ve covered, keeping his team intact, is ok with me.”

I stood there, frozen and confused.  Me?   I looked around the room.  Ashley didn’t smile, she just put her two pistols into her jeans.  “He’s right,” she said.

Louie looked down at his shoes.  “I don’t want to go with anyone else.”

Tommy hoisted his sniper rifled on his shoulder and gave me a nod. 

The general shook his head.  “Not these three.  Bill - for chrissakes, they’re just kids.”

“Not anymore sir.  They stopped being kids a long time ago.”

No argument from anyone.  The room grew quiet.  “Fine.  Bill, you’re in charge, Dawson’s second in command.  Get those people organized and get ‘em ready.  Let’s move.”

Did you catch it?  Don't feel bad if you didn't, like I said I buzzed over it seven or eight times.  Spell check accepted it because it's a real word (although it doesn't make any sense in context), and my mind saw it and instantly dismissed it because it knew what it should've said.


If you read it out loud, you go line by line.  Slowly.  And then you catch it:


Tommy hoisted his sniper rifled on his shoulder and gave me a nod. 


RIfled.  A d.  One simple letter that doesn't belong. 


There were plenty of other examples that I caught by reading the book out loud.  It does take time, it slows you down to a crawl and burns inside your "get this thing out as quickly as you can" center, but it's well worth it.  Trust me.


So read it out loud, and WRITE ON!

3 Fears That Keep Writers from Writing

Ok, these are my three, and I'm no psycho-analytical genius, so take them for what they're worth.  But c'mon, every one of us that has either not been published or has self-published have stopped writing at some point, right?  We may call it writer's block, but there's something deeper than just trying to figure out another word for "like". 


We're afraid.


Of what, you may ask?  Why, if I love writing the way I do, would I possibly be so afraid as to STOP writing?  You can't be published if you stopped writing.  In fact, 100% of all unfinished novels that have never seen the light of day are UNPUBLISHED (that one's a fact.)


So why do we stop writing?

1.  FEAR OF SUCCESS.

This is a weird one, so I thought I'd throw it out first.  What does Fear of Success mean?  Who the heck would ever be afraid of success?  Money, fame, fortune, a beautiful model on each arm (depending on the tolerance level of your spouse).  Sounds great, right?


Wrong.  What does Success really entail?  CHANGE.  Imagine your book finally getting published.  Selling.  Through the proverbial roof, in fact.  What does that mean?  Changes to your lifestyle.  And I don't mean a brand new Porsche.  I mean possibly quitting your job.  Having to look for health insurance as a self-employed individual.  If you have kids, it might mean less time with them.  More time writing, but with greater, stricter deadlines.  Flights to weird places.  Book signings.  Marketing work, all while you still try to hang on to your crummy day job that you can't wait to quit but you have to keep because the royalties from last month just paid for a new printer and not much else.

How do you overcome this?  You face the fear, you imagine your life as a success, and you plan for it.  You organize your future life to understand what the change will mean, and make the change less of a scary "oh my God my life will be totally turned upside down" and more of a "man I can't wait."

Fear gone.  Until it's replaced by:

2.  FEAR OF FAILURE.

Yes, this is something that every author has so I won't bog you down with clichés and obvious points.  You know what this means.  You know how it feels.  You see the rejection letters, hear the "It was good" reviews from your closest friends, and you know you've just dropped your drawers in front of three agents at a writer's workshop and had each of them laugh at you.  You've failed.


So how do you overcome it?   EXPECT FAILURE.  Welcome it.  Relish the rejection letters, and never accept a critique of "it was pretty good".  Failure means progression, pure and simple.  Without it, you can't recognize what needs to change.  Without it, you only know you're NOT doing something.  Like Edison famously once said, "I didn't fail 1000 times, I found 1000 ways to NOT make a light bulb".  Find those ways.  Don't, of course, drive yourself to failure.  That'd be silly.  But realize each time you think you've failed, that you're a real writer.


And then, you'll only be left with:

3.  THE FEAR OF EXPOSING YOURSELF

This is an altogether different type of fear, based on the reason WHY you're writing.  We write because we love the act of creating worlds, characters, being charge, playing God, whatever.  But really, deep down inside, we write because we have something to say.  My author friends, the published ones, have written very personal narratives that touch on social issues they feel people need to be aware of.  K.M. Walton's CRACKED, about not just bullying but why someone might bully, is a very relevant social topic.   SPEAK, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a wonderful story about a very troubling social issue of rape.  Even if the story isn't that heavy, like my book The Timepiece Chronicles (link above), there still is a theme to our writing that we want others to come away with (in my book it's about the importance of not fighting what happened in the past).


But what if your theme causes controversy, or you're seen as an expert when really you just wanted to express your opinion?  Or what if people argue against you, or challenge you?  That can be scary.


So, again, how do you overcome it?  TRUST YOURSELF WITH THE STORY.  You've written about this for a reason.  You know it in your heart to be true, no matter how many people take offense, or challenge you, or want more from you.  Hopefully, in your research, you've become somewhat of an expert, and hopefully you are passionate about it that you won't stop learning more.  You can stand your ground, accept the challenges, or promote your idea from the highest mountaintop if you believe in yourself, and believe in your ability to deliver the message.


We're all messengers.  Every single one of us that writes has a message to send.  Trust yours, and trust yourself to deliver it.

Decisions, Decisions.

I got an offer from Permuted Publishing!  A three book deal for Under a Broken Sun, which is pretty exciting!

So why am I not bouncing off the walls?

Because I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING!

Is it a good offer?  A bad offer?  What do I look for when signing my rights away?

The challenge of being a self-published author.

I'm searching for agents, but if you go to an agent with a publisher in hand, they're less likely to work with you, especially if it's a smaller niche publisher like Permuted (they are strictly post-apocalytpic).  Plus an agent knows the big boys - Simon & Schuster, etc, which means bigger advances.

In other words, I don't want to jump at the first person expressing interest.

BUT, do I risk turning them down just to have them disappear?  And then maybe never get another offer again?

WHAT TO DO!?!?

Leave advice via the comments.  It's free, and will be taken as such.  :)

Oh well.  Book 2 calls.  WRITE ON!