Anonymity

Our debit card recently expired and we were issued a new one. Then, of course, we had to notify and update the various places our information is stored. Netflix, my website provider, places we regularly shop online, the online pharmacy...our banking info is in an appalling number of locations.

All my e-mail providers want my mobile phone number. I'm behind the times enough that I don't have one. Oooops. They don't know how to cope with that.

When I opened a PayPal account it was a big problem because they wanted copies of snail mail bills, etc. for identity proof. Except...our bills arrive via e-mail. Ditto the bank statements. Ditto everything.

I just wonder. What happens when everything crashes?

We had a small taste of that when our debit cards expired. Can't pay for anything. Can't get money from the ATM. In a plastic world, what happens when the plastic world shuts down?

We keep small amounts of cash on hand--enough to buy milk or bread if necessary. Certainly, we don't have enough to pay for medicine or gas or an 'emergency'.

In our 'modern' world, we rely on technology to an astonishing extent. Much of that technology leads directly back to the Internet. Our private information is shared on a daily basis--financial, medical, identity--as casually as we change clothes.

I recently finished re-reading Nora Robert's 'in Death' series. Part of the background premise for that series is the enormous amount of personal information available to the 'authorities'. Marriages, births, divorces, educational history, arrest history, finances... Back when I read the first book (when it was first published) all that was fantasy.

Think about that.

When she wrote that first book, the idea that our personal information would be so easily available was fantasy. It was off in some nebulous future.

The future is now. There is no anonymity. There is no privacy.

Laughter or Tears

Some authors can make you laugh--you know, that hysterical laughter where you nearly pee your pants and your ribs hurt? Some can write so poignantly you need a box of tissues. Occasionally, an author will come along who can make you both laugh and cry. They are more rare than diamonds.

Writing a truly funny scene is about more than timing. The author must 'see' the humor in everyday, whacked out life. Most of us don't. We laugh at slapstick comedy, but not the humor inherent in the simple process of living.

Once I was reading a book in a restaurant while waiting for a very slow waiter to deliver our food. The hunk was watching a game on their televisions. We were content. The story was about a widow with three small boys and the single man who was falling in love with her. He volunteered to babysit. He served spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. There was an awesome food fight. Need I say more?

I laughed so hard tears streamed down my face--while I was desperately struggling to be quiet. After all, I was in public. Evidently, I wasn't successful because three people from surrounding tables demanded to know what I was reading. All three wrote down the title and author. And since I was causing a stir, the manager showed up. She wrote down the title and author, too.

And our food miraculously showed up immediately.

The other night I was re-reading another of this same author's books. We were having a quiet evening at home, watching Antiques Roadshow. In between keeping an eye on the various items, I was reading one of the most touching and heart-wrenching scenes I've ever read. As I haphazardly mopped at the tears trickling down my face with a ragged tissue, the hunk asked me what I was reading. When I told him, he just nodded and said he'd cried, too, when he read that scene.

That ability to touch the heart of the reader is a fearsome gift. It can't be taught. It must be felt deep in the soul.

Yesterday was the author's birthday. May she live long and prosper.

anny

Overnight Success

 

I started writing when I was in my twenties. At the time I had four young children, a full-time job at McDonald's, and about two thousand paperbacks stashed on the bookshelves that lined my front hallway. There were several wonderful second hand bookstores in Houston and I utilized them all. I was a collector.

I owned every Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Elizabeth Lowell and Linda Howard--oh, so many others. I rarely could afford to buy a book new, but I did buy the very first Nora Roberts, a slim Silouette, in Target. I wrote to the authors I admired. Most took the time from their busy schedules to reply with handwritten letters. Imagine!

I couldn't afford the submission process back then, not the postage, nor the actual paper. Typewriter ribbons were expensive enough. I mostly wrote my stories out in longhand and when I finally had them like I wanted, then I typed them out page by page. I still have a few sheets of those early efforts. 

Then computers came along. They weren't powerful enough to have an actual hard drive capable of holding a story so everything was saved on cassettes (yep, exactly like a music cassette). And then there were the 5 1/2 inch floppy disks that were actually "floppy". 

Eventually, dot matrix printers came on the market, but the publishers still required actual typed pages for their submissions. Paper was more expensive. Postage was out of sight. And my home life changed drastically as we moved from Houston to upstate New York. 

There were no more second hand bookstores. And even if there had been, money was far too tight to afford them. I re-read the books I had, poring over the story lines, studying them as closely as though they'd been textbooks. Our Christmas money was picked from my pocket that first year so I found a job working at Waldenbooks warehouse, packing books. 

They had a wonderful program there...they allowed the employees to "borrow" any book in the place for three weeks. I was one of only two employees who took advantage of the program. But aside from that, I also saw a different side of publishing from the inside. And it wasn't all pretty.

I'll never forget the night I arrived at work and was assigned two pallets of brand new Nora Roberts books. The job? Rip off the front covers. New books. That was how returns were handled back then. I was so sick at heart.

Life moved on. The warehouse closed and operations were moved to Tennessee. Laid off, I went back to school and eventually found another job. Going to school and working full time kept me too busy to do much writing, but I did squeeze in a couple creative writing courses. Once again, the writing bug grabbed me. One of my short stories caught the attention of my professor--a hardbitten man who was impressed with nothing. He took me aside after class one evening and asked who was publishing my work. That was the first time I actually believed I had a chance.

The house hunk was transferred again so we moved from New York to Baltimore. Suddenly, I had no job, no extra family members, no obligations. My son begged me to go in my room and write. After all, it was something I'd always wanted to do. In my late fifties, retired and at loose ends, I sat down to write. 

Publishing had changed quite a bit. There were numerous e-publishers who accepted submission via e-mail. No postage or fancy paper was required. I sent off my first book--not really expecting much--and was shocked when I was offered a contract. And over the next three or four years I had moderate success.

It's highly unlikely I'll ever be a household name. Why? Because of one simple thing. Backlist. Think back to what I said at the beginning of this post. When I first read the books of Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Elizabeth Lowell, Linda Howard, I was in my twenties. Now I'm sixty-two. 

While I was slogging through life, they were producing books. Their backlists are staggering. For every writer out there who is just beginning--that's the secret. Write. Write. Write. These ladies (and oh, so many more) weren't overnight successes. They were persistent. And they wrote. That's the secret.

anny

Give me a sign...

Every human in the world reaches a point of no return. It's not so much giving up as finally reaching that place of diminishing returns where the results just don't support the effort.

I am quickly approaching that point. Oh, not this week or the next, but soon. The signs are all there. Sales are flat-lining. I give parties and no one shows up. Most visitors to my blog and webpage are accidental and according to my meter, they leave almost before they arrive. That can't be a good thing.

Lest you think this is a whine and cheese event, I will hasten to say none of the events listed in the paragraph above are NEW. No, that's been the situation for quite a while. So why would I suddenly 'fess up? Perhaps it's simply a matter of facing reality and economics.

What is my time worth?

At least five days a week (sometimes more) I sit at my computer and write. From eight to nine I take care of business--e-mail, blog, social networking. Then from nine until around five I write. There's a break until seven-thirty and then more writing until ten. Close down the computer. Start all over the next day. So I work a minimum of forty hours a week just writing.

My income last year was six thousand dollars.

Hmmmm. Forty hours a week multiplied by fifty two weeks = two thousand eighty hours. Divide six thousand dollars by two thousand eighty and you have...? Two dollars and eighty nine cents per hour. Not exactly a stellar income.

I never expected to sell my books like a Nora Roberts or J.K.Rowling. I understand the economics of erotic romance vs. all other genres. But there's a little factor known as piracy. I hate that word. It lessens the reality. The truth is there are book thieves out there stealing from me.

The publishing world is one of the few where bold-faced thievery is tacitly condoned.

John Smith has a little woodworking business and he produces Adirondack chairs. If I decide I want one of his chairs so I just take it...good ol' John would have me arrested.

If I decided I liked your necklace and took it, you would complain loudly (and possibly have me arrested).

If you bought a book and I tucked it in my bag and walked away, you would be incensed that I made off with something you bought.

All of those instances are clearly thievery. Yet, there is a school of thought that it's okay to steal a book if it's over the internet. Yes, I know all the creative ways people have come up with to justify their thievery.

Not one person has presented a valid argument to put the resulting missing income back in my pocket. No one has a creative way to provide restitution for the loss of book royalties. And NO, I can categorically say that free books do not increase my sales in any meaningful way.

Writers seldom receive feedback. The reality is we don't get bags filled with mail extolling our books. We count ourselves fortunate (and leap around with excitement) if we receive a two sentence note from a reader saying they enjoyed our book. Really. The occasional visit to our webpage is just that. Occasional. And blogs? They seem to be dwindling at an increasing rate except for those focused on dissemination of professional information--or the most controversial ones. As for chats, I suspect they will soon disappear entirely in favor of something new.

Our feedback is the number of books we sell.

Based on my current feedback, I need to find another job.

anny

Sunday Here, There, and Everywhere...

More interesting ways that people reached this blog... blonde bride dolls, onomatopoeia scrabble, hospital anny baby dolls, grandma sexual fantasies (from England), cake for a plumber, bread the best cd, grandma bondage (from India), picture bride doll (from France), ellora's dress up game. Hmmm. That "cake for a plumber" really has me intrigued.

The spammers have been relatively quiet so there's not much new to report on that front. All that means is that today, they'll fill my junk mail with tons of stuff. Perhaps there will be something new or interesting to report tomorrow.

In the last few days I've read several excellent e-books. Thought I would report on my findings. After all, I should share the wealth, right?

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris.

This is the third book in the Grave series. I have to admit that I really, really like this series. Since I've read all the books in the series Tolliver and Harper are wonderful characters that are my old friends by now. Harper's unique ability to find dead bodies is surely one of the more unusual hooks in the history of mysteries. If you've never read any of the Grave series, then start with the first one, of course! Charlaine also writes the Sookie Stackhouse Vampire series. Excellent books.

Sizzle and Burn by Jayne Ann Krentz

I can't remember a J.A.Krentz book that I haven't enjoyed. This one is in her Arcane series so of course it has some very interesting characters and wild paranormal activity. The story moved fast. I wasn't ready for the story to be over when I reached the end. Family secrets, dangerous formulas, really bad guys... everything combined for a true page turner.

Creation in Death by J.D.Robb

Ah, man, she just keeps getting better and better. In this outing, Eve Dallas is pitted against an old murderer who has returned after nine years. This time he's picking his victims from Roarke's employees. There are ties back to the Urban Wars and also to the time when Feeney was the primary investigator, still training Eve. Good stuff. Scary as hell stuff. And in the end she pulls it all together with a very satisfying round up.

Three books by three top of the line authors who write for New York publishers. All of them are new releases in the last two months. And I bought them and downloaded them directly to my e-reader. No paper. No hardback. Strictly electronic. This is the future. When mainline authors start selling their work in electronic format, then e-publishing isn't just for erotic romance, is it?

I also downloaded some out-of-print books from Elizabeth Lowell. And I noticed that the better part of the JD Robb's backlist are available as are most of her alter ego, Nora Roberts. Have a hankering to read the latest Jonathon Kellerman or J.A. Jance? How about John Grisham or Clive Cussler? They're all available. I've decided that there will be no more irritating trips to the bookstore for me. I have an endless array of books available to me at any time of day or night.

I have a few more waiting on the e-reader and then I'll have to visit some of my favorite publishers for a fresh selection of books. In the meantime, I currently have a varied library of eighty books on the reader to entertain myself with... including my own. On more than one occasion I've let a potential reader try out my e-reader by reading a snippet of one of my books.

Ummm. Yes, Jane. I found a nice tame paragraph or two.

Anny

Stop by Kelly's Blog for her Sunday Quote at http://www.kkirch.blogspot.com/ and then hop over to Amarinda's Place where she'll explain the fascinating process of consuming a salad and apple at http://www.amarindajones.blogspot.com/ Blessings on your day!