Getting my hustle on

I’m getting my hustle on for my book and may be doing more readings.  I envision waddling up and down Broadway wearing a flappy sign with a picture of my book Mean-Spirited Tales on it, front and back.  Maybe I’ll hurl copies of my book from a tray to passengers on the A train.  Really — no.  I did read an article about a man who makes boo koo dinero selling candies on the train this way.  Hurrah for self-employment!  High falutin publishers, kiss my grits — no I totally take that back.  But the threat of the self-published author is on the rise.  Just saying.

I used to think it was cheesy.  But it’s not now — not since I’ve done it.  It is more reputable than it was in the past.  Though there is snobbery about it.  At this point I’m just glad to have sold enough to buy groceries, socks, candies, and Styrofoam skulls.

It’s brilliant that people have read something I’ve written, and that they’ve paid either ninety-nine cents for the Kindle version or nine ninety-five for the hardcopy.  I’ve always dreamed of making money writing.  You’ve all helped to make that come true.  Each and every last one of you out there in TV land.

I spoke to a woman who manages space for vendors.  She explained the system to me.  It wouldn’t be cost-effective for me to buy space to sell my book.  But I appreciated the feedback.  Much love to her.

I spoke to a gentleman at a bookstore today.  He said they were always concerned in getting numbers in for book signings.  He told me that he had been disappointed in the numbers of people that writers had brought in for their readings.  He asked if I thought I could bring in 20 people.  I told him I had 25 people for my last reading at the Indian Road Cafe.  I believe more people would have come if it weren’t at 10:30pm on a Halloween weekend.  I hope I didn’t exhaust my numbers in the last reading.  I so hope some of you come to my next one.  I’ll give out candies and promise not to read War & Peace.

Haha!  — Wouldn’t it be messed up if I invited everyone to my reading, and read a technical book on statistics instead – leaving everyone baffled? – Hey, wait a cotton picking minute! – I must back track to what I said up there about the Kindle version of my book – it’s only ninety-nine cents!  So why isn’t, like, everyone buying it?  That WSJ article about marketing my book is a liar – yes, an article can be a liar.

I thought titling my book Mean-Spirited Tales would be cheeky.  But maybe people don’t like “Mean.”  They take it literally.   Maybe I’ll change it to Saccharine Tales of Banality.  Haha!

A damned lie

Hey everybody wish me luck. Tonight I’m having an author reading from my home-made book, Mean-Spirited Tales.  I’ll read two regular “mean” stories and part of one horror story in honor of Halloween.  It’ll be at a local café.

My friend came by the other day.  He told me that he finished my book.  I asked him if he saw any errors in it and he said no.  I did catch two in the Kindle version, before the hard-copy was published. I fixed them though.  It would’ve sucked worse if there were errors in it after I had paid somebody two hundred and fifteen million dollars and ninety nine cents to edit it.  I’ve seen this before – books from “reputable” publishers with errors.  I saw a mistake in An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England.  I wonder if Brock Clarke saw it.  It made me not feel so bad about the errors in my home-made book.

Before I published my book I read this WSJ article about another home-made book that did really well.  So I did the same thing this author did as far as advertising, etc.  I might have missed something though, because hers sold a gazillion copies – ha!  She said she didn’t spend more than $1500 I think.  I spent less than that.  Let’s see, she bought a review from Kirkus – check – she bought an ad on Goodreads – check – but I swear I don’t remember her saying anything about an editor.  I did have friends look at some of my stories.  The one published in Calliope, Night Terrors, only needed a couple of edits for clarity so I thought I had a handle on editing, although ‘they’ say never edit your own stuff.   Ah but bunk it!   Maybe I’ll do it for my novel – hire a cute boy editor.

Of course I’m one in the legions who harbors a fantasy that my home-made book will be the next self-published success story.  Aghh!  At this point I’m just happy that people are reading the book that I wrote.  No that’s a damned lie.  I want to be the next self-published success story.

Mean-Spirited Tales

My book cover is complete.  ‘Mean-Spirited Tales’ is on there twice but I like it like that.  I just have to proof the interior. Create Space mailed it to me.  I hope it’s not  jacked up on the inside.  I had trouble formatting it on their site.  The people at Create Space tried to help.  A couple of the ‘specialists’ there had poor communication skills and talked over me, or cut me off before I could finish saying what my problem was.

I learned some communication skills from How to Win Friends and Influence People (I know it’s funny, right?), so I wouldn’t do that if I had that job.  Today I was sarcastic to a visitor at the gallery, so I don’t always practice what I learned in that book.  I was repentant, so that’s good.  I have tingling in my face after having my tooth pulled two weeks ago which makes me irritable.  I think I have nerve damage or worse.  I don’t want to be around people as much.  I’m going to the doctor today.  I was unhappy about having to go to the doctor, and I’m  upset because I might have to postpone a movie date with a friend because of it and I need my playtime.

I’m overwhelmed, but still taking care of my agenda.  I take the steps and look back to see that another task is complete.  I promised that I would put my short stories on Kindle during my hiatus from work.  I’ve been here for seven years.  It’s a great gig.  But with the economy tanking things shifted around, so I moved to the gallery which is closed between December and March.  I didn’t know if I would be called back, but didn’t look for work during this time.  I wanted to use the opportunity to publish my book.  I’ve been back since April.  My job is not stressful so I have energy for ‘marketing’ my book.  I had one story published but got tired of waiting for literary journals to publish my other work.  In the old days, self-publishing was considered cheesy, so I didn’t want to do it.  It is a lot of hard work to ‘do it yourself’.

Sometimes I feel like I’m doing all this for nothing.  But I need to get it out of my system.  I have a novel called “The Unavoidable” that I want to publish then I need to move on and write something else.  I’m spending more time blogging and wrapping up book issues.   At least I can say that I wrote a book.  After writing these stories I thought, these stories aren’t going to read themselves — I have to publish a book.

Misplaced modifier

I edited the hell out of my book of short stories, so I was surprised to spot a misplaced modifier a couple of days ago.  A few friends read some of the stories before they were published but they were just proud that their lovely friend Sandee had written pretty stories.  Grammatical errors and structural defects weren’t on their radar.  They read it and said, “Yay!  Sandee wrote a book!”

I’ve been a writer and editor at different jobs.  While I know it’s hard to spot grammatical and structural errors in your own work, I thought I was up to the task. The editor at Calliope made just a couple of changes to my short story for the sake of clarity, so I was confident in my editing ability.

I fixed the error for the hard copy version of the book.  If I hadn’t used all of my book budget money for advertising, I would have purchased an editor, a big, hunky 25 year old who wouldn’t mind working in my apartment sitting on my lap.   I’m looking into it for my other book.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

 

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had a steamy chemistry.  I read that Marvin Gaye says they didn’t have anything going on.  When I see their video — doesn’t look that way to me!  She was such a cutie, very flirty with him.  They’re sexy to watch.  She’s alive, so animated with personality.  This poor girl died when she was 24 of a brain tumor.  I watched a documentary about her.  Marvin Gaye was devastated by her death.  She experienced much in her short life.  She enrolled in medical school and dated James Brown!

Since it’s all about me — if I had achieved a modicum of her success at that age, I would be dead, too — no disrespect — much love!  Oh the gifts of drugs and liquor I would have happily imbibed as a brash young, conceited and self-centered writer.  I suppose that’s why I did not achieve that success as the sweet sweet universe was protecting its special little Sandee — pah.

So now at the age of 151, I’m transrolling (no, this word isn’t in the dictionary or Wikipedia — I made it up) my Kindle book into a hard copy book, going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with Amazon’s Create Space ‘specialists’ who hate my rotten guts as I’ve called them 25 times.  But nevertheless I get closer.  So, while we all wait for my monumental achievement, please, if you will, enjoy Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell:

CORRECTION:  Tammi Terrell took premed courses — oops!

Sandor

When I sell another book and I don’t know who the person is, I get excited.  My first 16 sales were people I knew.  A friend or family member would say, I’m going to buy your book.  I’d look at my records in Kindle and, voila, another sale, to John.  It was an, awre, kind of a thing.

The last few days amidst spasms of PTSD after dental surgery, I trudged through part of the process of turning my Kindle book into a hard copy book, using Amazon’s Create Space online publisher — following technical instructions — bleh.  I’m formatting the pages of Mean-Spirited Tales to fit into the Create Space template.  It’s tedious.  For anyone considering using Create Space, there’s a nice man there.  He walked me through the technical instructions.  I told him that he had great communication skills and that he was very suited for the job.  I hope he didn’t think that I meant that he should stay in a job like that all of his life, though I’m not a job snob.  How could I be, with the job I have?  But you know how some people are.

The key to life is knowing you, and being humble about what you can do — you can do it, you can do it, you can DO it Sandor!  Oh yes Sandor’s my other pseudonym — Sandor’s a superhero — anyway, I must remind myself of my capable me.  ‘Remember when you completed the Kindle book technical publishing process Sandor?  Sandor, remember when you rode the Nitro Roller Coaster at Great Adventure and survived, although the paramedics carried you off in a catatonic state?’   These accomplishments are very nice reminders of what Sandor is capable of doing.

Don’t Be Afraid to Look

Great news.  I can read my own book now!  I told everyone who had a Kindle that they should buy my book, but I didn’t have a Kindle my damn self!   I had planned on buying one but had to take care of some pesky financial obligations first.

But then my sister discovered that you could download Kindle for a PC and forwarded the link:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311 .

I downloaded it and now I have access to Kindle books, including my own!  Hooray!  Now I can read all of my brilliant tales on Kindle and you can too!   Just click the book cover on the sidebar and you’ll be half-way to the land of unbridled genius.

Read the tale of a sadist, a beheading, a foot fetish, and liver pate!  My God — this is a book for freaks!  But don’t worry, I think you non-freaks will find this book a refreshing catalogue of what really goes on in those normal little heads of yours.  Don’t be afraid to look…  I love you!

Yours truly,

SCB