Of All The Luck

On May 11^th, 2011, I published my first novel Gasher Creek. This was a labour of love that took over three years to write and edit. It was a long, exhausting process. Nine previous attempts to write a novel resulted in nine “practice sessions” that fizzled into frustration. But Gasher Creek was different. It continued to evolve until, to my own amazement, a complete story had emerged.

Finally, I had a novel ready to be published, to take on the literary world!

Well, almost. As I neared completion of the book, I realized that one crucial element was missing: a book cover. This was a problem because a.) I am not a visual artist (even my stick men don't look like stick men), and b.) I didn't know where to find a visual artist. 

What a daunting task. I mean, it took me twelve years to finally finish a book. How long would it take to figure out all this new stuff?   

Luckily, my mother has a talent for drawing and agreed to create a cover. And although the cover was functional, it didn’t quite capture the essence of the book. Readers kept commenting on its “vagueness”, and vagueness is not the impression any author wants to make.

So I started looking. And looking. And looking. I scoured the Internet, asked my friends for leads, sent out e-mail queries which resulted in lukewarm promises of definite maybes. Every opportunity fell through.

A year passed…

And then I received a tweet from designer and poet Tracy McCusker. She'd read a blog post of mine and took a chance on my book. And she loved it! Of course, I was thrilled with her response—but then it got better. She liked it so much that she wanted to donate her time toward the creation of a permanent book cover.

I was floored. A cover designer wants to work with me? What luck! I spent the rest of the day feeling very thankful for Twitter and blogs and the Internet in general.

Over the next few weeks, she carefully laid out a series of ideas, each of them brilliant. I was amazed, not only with her visions for the book, but also with the methodical way she examined each idea. Her sketches were provocative and precise. She suggested various fonts, colours, and themes that might resonate with readers. Clearly, I was working with a professional. Finally, it felt as if a real book cover was on its way. 

And then it arrived yesterday—and it’s brilliant. Using a simple image, she’s captured the essence of the book in a way that I didn’t think was possible. It stunned me. I’m still stunned. That cover is now up on Amazon.com. 

As a writer, I should be able to conjure up the appropriate words to express my gratitude, but it’s difficult. I’ve already thanked her about a thousand times, but thanks doesn’t seem to do it justice. How do you properly acknowledge someone who suddenly appeared out of the Internet ether and delivered a solution to a year long problem? How do you show appreciation for a work of art that’s surpassed every expectation? Unfortunately, I'm not that good of a writer. All I can do is continue to thank her. Again. And again.  

Thanks, Tracy.

If you want to learn more about Tracy McCusker’s art and poetry (and you know you do), please visit her website: scienceofdeduction.org

Disconnect

BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! WANNA BUY MY BOOK? HEY, BUY MY BOOK! YOU! BOOK GOOD! BUY!

Does this look familiar? If you’re a writer on Twitter, this is probably what your timeline looks like on any given day. Hundreds of writers, trying desperately to convince you to BUY THEIR BOOK! And why not? It’s only 10 cents, and their cousin Bob gave it five stars, so it’s gotta be good! Wanna buy it? Not now? Don’t worry, the exact same tweet will appear again and again and again and again (and again and again) in case you change your mind. Come on, 10 cents. Buddy, spare a dime?

I don’t know about you, but I joined Twitter so that I could connect with other writers. After all, meeting a writer in real life is a rare occurrence. I think I’ve spotted Bigfoot more often.

(To clarify: by writer, I’m not talking about “writers”, those folks who fancy themselves literary because of one poem they wrote in high school. There are, at present, about 100 bazillion “writers” in the world. No, I’m talking about real writers, people who study and practice the craft of writing on a daily basis.)

When I first joined Twitter, I immediately found what I was looking for. Writers! Real, honest to goodness writers striving toward a similar dream. I connected, made new friends, and traded frustrations. And trading frustrations felt so good. I wasn't alone in my struggles any more. I wasn’t the only one who worried about fictional people. I wasn’t insane! It was quite a relief. I finally fit in somewhere. 

And then, gradually, everything started to change.

Writers who used to chat and discuss their careers suddenly became...well...spam bots. Gone were the tweets about first draft blues. Gone were the discussions about character and plot. Instead, BUY MY BOOK ads sprung up like weeds and crowded my timeline. It was as if all these bright, intelligent writers had been assimilated by some kind of marketing Borg. Resistance was futile.

So far, I’ve managed to resist assimilation, but that’s probably because of my innate loathing of advertising. Ads suck. Who likes an ad? They’re intrusive. You can’t watch a thirty minute TV show without sitting through 29 minutes of ads. Ads pop up on virtually every web page, and it’s always for the same crappy poker site. And now Twitter is no different, except it’s being perpetuated by writers.

Now, you may be thinking: “Dude, how else am I going to promote my book? I don’t have the money to hire a marketing team. I have to get the word out!” And you know what? I agree with you. You DO have to get the word out. But I think you’re forgetting one very important weapon in your arsenal:

You.

One of the greatest opportunities of the e-book revolution has been the ability to connect, one on one, with readers. Thanks to sites like Twitter, we can promote ourselves to readers by making an honest connection with them. Most of the copies of "Gasher Creek" I’ve sold have been to people who like talking to me. They didn’t buy my book because of some repetitive ad, or because they were attracted to its temporary cover design. They bought a copy because they discovered the person behind the book. I made a human connection, not a marketing one.

And you know what? It works both ways. I’ve purchased a few books from authors I’ve met on Twitter, and I plan on buying more. I want to support writers with as many nickels and dimes as I can scrape together because I know they need the support. And I know this because I’ve spent time talking to them. I’ve listened to both their dreams and their frustrations.

We as writers should support each other, not barrage each other with mindless spam. We’re all reaching for a prize with a 99% fail rate—that kind of struggle requires reassurance. What we do is hard—damn hard, and it takes years of study and patience and persistence to even make an attempt. That’s a tough road to walk alone.   

But if you want to continue being a Borg, that’s your business. Maybe telling a million people to BUY MY BOOK will result in a couple sales. But may I make a suggestion? Try stopping by every once in a while to say hi. It doesn’t take much to make a connection. I don’t need to become your best friend, I just need to know you’re a real person. Most writers (including myself) tend to be introverts, but we still have that human desire to share—after all, we are storytellers.

Web Absent

Hey everyone, thanks for the patience (and the steadfast twitter support) over the past 4.5 months. I’d love to say that my disappearing act was due to fighting evil in some faraway galaxy, or perhaps finally deciphering the appeal of Stephenie Meyer, but I’m afraid it was much more mundane than that. Basically, I moved from one side of Canada to the other and stayed for some time in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Once there, I had no access to the Internet (no stable access, anyway). But now that I’m in the city, I have regular access once again.

What have I been up to in my web absence? Mostly looking for cover art and editing. I finished the 3^rd draft of my latest novel and hope to have the rest finished by the summer. If I didn’t have to job hunt, I’d probably finish it much sooner, but the “man” says I need to work. Pfft…stupid bills and rent and food and clothing…like those are important. Imaginary people need my attention!

As for cover art—ugh—the search continues. Now that I’m living in a larger city, I hope to be able to find someone to take an interest in Gasher Creek (plus my new book).  

As for the rest of 2012, I’ll be working on a few projects: cover art, formatting for print versions of my novels, working on a new serial novel and also working on a weekly web series. Both the serial and web series are going to be experimental—they could either sink or swim. Hopefully people will like them. Then, in 2013, I’ll be working on another historical mystery. I thought I was finished with the 19^th century, but it doesn’t seem to be finished with me. I have three concepts which take place around the late 1880’s.

Onward and upward, friends!