There’s a joke that goes like this: How do I know if someone exhibits wisdom and discernment? When they agree with me.
With that in mind, I would like to highlight a book blogger with exceptional wisdom and discernment. Shawn, whose book blog She’s Reading Now dates back to 2018, recently wrote a very positive review of my first two novels, Beautiful and Beautifully Made. I don’t know Shawn, except for exchanging a handful of brief emails. I don’t even agree with absolutely every word she wrote about my books, but on reflection, I like that. To me, it makes her review more real than if she had waxed too poetic about my writing prowess.
A while back, I spent a couple of hours reading many of her blog posts. She’s honest and not hesitant to call out poorly executed works. As best I can tell, Shawn is not a professional critic; she’s just an intelligent person who enjoys reading.
Anyway, it’s a darned good feeling when someone with such a clear love of books says nice things about my work.
People have asked me questions about my first two novels, Beautiful and its sequel Beautifully Made. One that comes up often is: What the heck was I thinking when I added a violent school bus hijacking to a Young Adult story?
We have to blame Frank Zappa for the school bus incident.
Why? How is it Zappa’s fault? First off, he’s dead. And second, he was a non-violent musician.
Ah, that’s the thing, you see. Zappa was a masterful guitarist and songwriter, and a gifted entertainer. So, back in the mid-1980’s, my college roommate Greg and I went to a Zappa concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The opening band was The Bobs. I had never heard an entirely a cappella singing group mimic instruments using only their voice (and occasionally, other body parts). Truly a life-changing moment for me. 😉
One song in their set was called Bus Plunge. It describes a bus driver on speed who is driving his bus too fast, in the rain, on a winding road. He loses control, and the bus falls off the cliff. Great song! Anyway, in their patter introducing Bus Plunge, they explained that people have written songs describing pretty much every aspect of human experience, but never about a bus going over a cliff. They felt this oversight needed to be corrected.
If you know me, you know Adam is pretty much me, except he’s taller. Unfortunately, I share part of Cara’s backstory as well, but this isn’t the time to discuss that topic. Even though the main characters are based, in part, on me, the plots of my first two novels are entirely fictional. Writing Beautiful, I needed to raise the stakes beyond the home invasion. I needed a reason for Cara and Adam to go to the local airport because I’d already written the plane crash. And The Bobs inspired me: I’m unaware of another YA novel that involves hijacking a school bus. It was clearly up to me to fill this void in Western literature.
Now you understand why, through this circuitous reasoning, it was Frank Zappa’s fault that Beautiful includes a school bus hijacking.
Photo by H. Armstrong Roberts/Retrofile/Getty Images
This is a description of my first—and perhaps last—experience with Facebook Ads. Had it worked well for me, that would have been great for getting the word out about my books, but I wouldn’t have had this tale to share with you. Epic failures always make the best stories.
Here’s the scene: my latest novel, just out. Relatively new Facebook author site. I made an ad announcing my new book. Facebook suggested an “investment” of $70 for one week of them “spreading the word.” According to my Facebook author page Professional Dashboard, I got for my money:
1,334 views (number of times my content was displayed)
921 “reach” (I don’t understand how this differs from views)
and 8 interactions (likes, shares, comments, etc.)
Let’s look at the eight interactions:
One was a content creator who offered to make a book trailer for me, which actually isn’t a bad idea. I’m seriously considering it. However, this person wanted me to pay them several hundred dollars per month for their book marketing services. They told me they highly value honesty and integrity (Run for the hills!) so I should understand it will probably take several months of my paying them several hundred dollars per month before I see any significant return on my “investment.” Considering that I earn ~$1.50 per paperback copy sold for $15.99 (yes, even self-published authors keep only a fraction of the book’s purchase price), I would need to sell hundreds of books per month just to break even. I don’t begrudge this person asking, but if I’m going to waste money, I should buy a boat and at least have some fun with it.
Three wanted to “chat” with me, wink, wink. And perhaps more … Teresa didn’t think this was a good idea to pursue, for some reason.
The rest were scammers who pretended to be from Facebook. They all claimed my Facebook author site violated some (unspecified) Facebook rules and that they would shut it down unless I clicked on a link to explain to them my “misdeeds.” Each one was subtly different, with a variety of names, Facebook departments, and threats. One that went to my email was from a Vietnamese email address. These were obvious phishing attempts, and I ignored them. And my author page is still up.
Number of people who asked anything about my books or expressed interest in buying one: ZERO!
Number of times Facebook has recommended I run another ad: MULTIPLE!
One of the great things about regularly engaging in any activity is that you improve with practice. Writing is certainly like that. Over the past few years, I couldn’t help but grow as a writer as I completed two novels and several shorter pieces. The downside of this phenomenon is that work which was “really pretty good” for my skill level at one time is no longer a good example of what I can do now.
Last fall, I began working with a new editor. Before I make it sound like there was something wrong with Julia, my original editor, I wish to say she is a talented and professional developmental editor. I would not hesitate to work with her again, and I would recommend her wholeheartedly. Julia added a lot to my first two novels, Beautiful and Beautifully Made. I followed almost all of her advice, even when I found it difficult. It turned out she was right!
So I polished Beautiful as best I could, and I self-published it in the spring of 2023 after not landing a literary agent. You know the story if you’ve been following my blog. Last fall, my new editor, LeeAnna, who is more of a copyeditor than a developmental editor, began work on Beautifully Made. LeeAnna had two advantages besides her natural talent:
Julia had already worked her developmental editing magic, and
my writing had improved.
I can’t tell you how excited I am for you to read Beautifully Made. However, you’re going to have to wait a bit because I’m making another attempt to find a literary agent. LeeAnna read Beautiful and said she could improve that novel as well. The advantage of doing this would be that if a literary agent was researching me and found Beautiful, they would see a more professional product. This made sense to me, so we did it. I confess the number of changes LeeAnna and I made disheartened me, though most were minor. But that’s why writers who take their craft seriously hire editors.
The second edition of Beautiful is now available as a paperback or e-book on Amazon or through IngramSpark if you wish to support your local bookstore.
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