Where do you meet authors? Where do you hear about their books? How do you discover your next read? And what actually makes you BUY a book versus just waiting around for that freebie? What is too high a cost for you? Do you even need to buy books anymore? You’re reading this, because, somehow, we’ve connected. What drew you to me? And how did you find me? Was it my erotic romances? My new adult fiction? Or my poetry? Or did you find me some other way and still not yet bought or read a book of mine? In a world that seems to create more and more technology that is supposed to make our lives easier, it becomes more and more difficult for an indie author to decide where to spend their time. Building a following is work. It’s another full-time job to not only our full-time day jobs but also our full-time writing jobs! When I first started, I was only on Twitter. I liked the quick banter. The immediate following. The ease with which to discover people with similar interests. And the people I met on Twitter are now some of my oldest friends in the Indie community to this date. And by oldest, I mean longest. 😊 Facebook had turned me off long before, when students of mine started to “friend request” me, and I didn’t have the heart to not accept. I saw my family in disputes over this cousin not liking this cousin’s post, and I just decided: This is a silly hassle. I don’t need social media to see my friends and family. Instagram was a novelty to me. And well, TikTok wasn’t even a thing!
But as time went on, I joined Facebook as RB, and well, I found myself really enjoying the medium of it. I liked that I could write as much as I wanted and wasn’t restricted to “character” constraints. I liked the groups. I liked the layout and the format. But Facebook has changed A LOT in just the few years I’ve been on it. It’s over saturated. They want you to pay for your posts or they don’t pop them into feeds. And groups seem to be a lot of the same. Silly memes. Mindless games. And places for people to be, well, social and flirty, often in the most inane and mundane ways. But is Facebook a place where people talk about books anymore? Or share their love of an author’s work? I find, more and more, people are looking to be entertained in ways that really have nothing to do with reading. And TikTok? Well, the jury is out on even how long it will last, given all the implications of privacy and the ownership in China. It’s also the biggest rabbit hole of dumb I’ve seen in a very long time. The more outrageous, the more it’s watched. It’s a strange thing, this societal shift of entertainment over truth or quality or depth. TikTok mentality is basically humankind mentality these days. But is an author making silly faces and putting on silly costumes really what it takes to sell books these days? Or does even that just lead to a laugh and an empty promise? And now Facebook is scrambling to keep up, begging people to post more reels, to compete with what exactly? More silly entertainment? Have I used the word silly yet? 😉 I don’t know these answers. I just know who I am and what I stand for. I know that I want to share my work with people, but I also don’t want to just give it all away to everyone for free, all the time. Actually publishing a book takes such work and energy, and every time I offer something FREE, I become a “best seller” (note the irony of the word seller there). I have often made it as an Amazon Best Seller with paid books too (who hasn’t really), but it’s usually only in the first month or two of a release or if I run a paid ad that even being an Amazon Best Seller doesn’t do more than help me break a little more than even. I guess the answer, if I were to offer one, is to simply do what brings us joy, share to social media places we enjoy being on. But then again, do we ever grow if we only stay in our comfort zones? If we don’t learn new things? Is selling books really just learning new tricks? If so, this young dog may already be too old for a new bag! 😊
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It’s the biggest question readers are asked: Ebooks or print? Which do you prefer? I'm a writer, yes, but I'm also a reader. And my answer to this question may surprise you.
You often get those traditionalists who talk about the smell of books, the tactile experience, the bindings and spine, the art, and sometimes the leather. We even romanticize the dust, those particles that look like glitter floating in one ray of sunlight, instead of the sneezes, a lazy day in bed, with a book in one hand, and a cup of tea in the other. If not tea, maybe a pen to mark up the margins with hearts and annotations, smiley faces and exclamation points. That one passage we underline several times and earmark, so we can come back to it like that kiss we’ll never forget. But I’m here to confess. I recently cleaned out all my bookshelves and gave them away to libraries, schools, and the swap shack in town. Oh! What a Philistine! I mustn’t be a “real” reader. I kept my favorites. All my Shakespeare. Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 and Brave New World. The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird. All the poetry books I have from Dickinson to Cummings to Plath to Poe (and yes Ted too—sorry) and so many more. I even kept the 50 Shades trilogy and Twilight. Stephen King classics. Lolita. Hemingway. But it’s one bookcase now, vs six. I love going to bookstores and libraries, leafing through bookshelves and sale racks, remembering where I was when I read, Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret and Anais Nin and The Story of O, a cappuccino in one hand, a book in the other. But when I want to read—on a beach, by my pool, in the quiet moments at night when I’m alone with only the moon and stars as my witness--my kindle is my companion, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I love late-night reads, with the font as big as I want it and the lights off. I love marking up the pages with my fingers and having a record of where I finished. I love bouncing from thrillers to romances to poetry to classics to smut, all at the swipe of my finger, depending on my mood. And I love that I can rest it on my lap and not lose my page. For me, ebooks let me read more. I don’t have to remember to carry eight books or worry if, while poolside, I’ll ruin the pages. Put simply, I love to read. And ebooks give me words. What else do I need? I want to taste and smell the words. Not the book. I want to transport myself to places in my mind. Meet new people without having to go anywhere. And I want to do them often and at the same time sometimes. I’ve kept the paper books that mattered to me, that show me where I was or what I was thinking when I lived with them. I like to reread them and see where I was then and where I’ve come now. Virginia Woolf when I was 16 is not the same as she is in my thirties. Kate Chopin makes sense to me now. I will never stop collecting books, I just do so differently. But I still collect them. I collect moments that are my moments, housed in a mind that will forever love to read. |
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I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
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