Whimsilly

INSPIRATION: MY MUSIC PLAYLIST

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:24:00 +0000

I don’t listen to music when I write. It’s too distracting. Music inspires emotion, and I need to be in control of my emotions when I’m writing or else the scene may end up with a completely different feel than I’d intended. I also don’t listen to music when I’m driving, because that’s my thinking time. I do my best plotting when I’m driving or cleaning house or taking a shower.

So when DO I listen to music? When I’m walking the dog, or running for exercise. I have a little SanDisk music player that I loaded with the following songs - hand-picked to help get me in the writing mood.

Rolling in the Deep, by Adele

How it makes me feel: Strong
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “The scars of your love remind me of us, they keep me thinking that we almost had it all.”
Movie you’ve heard this song in: I am Number Four.
Note: Currently my favorite song.

The Adventure, by Angels and Airwaves

How it makes me feel: Hopeful
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “Here we go, life’s waiting to begin.”

The Diary of Jane, by Breaking Benjamin

How it makes me feel: Formidable
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “Do you like that? Do you like that? No!”

Firework, by Katy Perry

How it makes me feel: Inspired
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “Baby you’re a firework. Come on show ‘em what you’re worth.”

You’re the Reason, by Victoria Justice

How it makes me feel: Sentimental
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “You’re the only reason that I’m not afraid to fly.”

This Kiss, by Faith Hill

How it makes me feel: Satisfied
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “All I wanted was a white knight with a good heart, soft touch, fast horse.”
Movie you’ve heard this song in: Practical Magic.
Note: I’m not a big fan of country music unless it crosses over into pop, like this song does.

All Around Me, by Flyleaf

How it makes me feel: Spiritual
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “I can feel you all around me, thickening the air I’m breathing.”

Bodran, by Young Dubliners

How it makes me feel: Exhilarated
Favorite quote from the lyrics: No lyrics; instrumental

Here with Me, by Dido

How it makes me feel: Sexy
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “Oh, I am what I am, I do what I want, but I can’t hide.”
Television show you’ve heard this song in: Roswell

I’m Like a Bird, by Nelly Furtado

How it makes me feel: Fatalistic
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “I’m like a bird; I’ll only fly away.”

Rush, by Aly & AJ

How it makes me feel: Invincible
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “Don’t let nobody tell you your life is over, be every color that you are.”
Movie you’ve heard this song in: Twitches (A Disney flick which I’ve never seen).

Poker Face, by Lady Gaga

How it makes me feel: Pumped
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “Can’t read my, can’t read my, no he can’t read my poker face.”
Movie you’ve heard this song in: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.

Letters from the Sky, by Civil Twilight

How it makes me feel: Epic
Favorite quote from the lyrics: “That you and I were made for this, I was made to taste your kiss.”
Movie you’ve heard this song in: I am Number Four.

Indie Author - THE GAME

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:43:00 +0000

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Roll the dice. Move your token. Play the game everyone with a word processing program is playing! Learn as you go, because the rules change as fast as the publishing industry!

Land on the Goodreads square: Whoop! Whoop! Warning, Warning. Author approaching forum. Use extreme caution. Do not engage the indigenous readers in conversation about your book. Severe consequences will result! Move ahead one space.

Land on the Librarything square: Enter your ebook in the Member Giveaway program, where readers can get a free copy of your book in exchange for a review. Discover that ‘winners’ of Member Giveaway books are chosen at random, unlike the traditionally published books given away in the Early Reviewer program, where Librarything uses a complicated algorithm to ensure good placement. Give away fifty free ebooks, get two reviews and be thankful you got any!

Draw a Book Review card: Three Stars! A quick check on this person’s other reviews shows s/he is historically stingy with stars. You’re pathetically grateful s/he gave you the “It was okay” thumbs-unenthusiastically-up. Move ahead one space.

Land on the Publicity square: You’ve just been asked to appear on an unscripted podcast/internet radio talk show with an aggressive host, so polish your smile and prepare to field random questions LIVE on the internet in direct opposition to the introverted nature that made you a writer in the first place!

Draw an Expense card: You blow tons of money on video editing software that comes with a user’s manual written for a much earlier version. Then you spend weeks slaving to make a decent book trailer. After uploading to YouTube, you get seventeen views, two disgustingly profane comments (before you figure out how to change the settings to allow comments only with approval), and an anonymous thumbs-down. Go back three spaces.

Land on the Book Promotion square: Your endless marketing efforts have sucked every last drop of joy out of the thought of writing another book and your muse is actively trying to convince you to take up pottery. Go back three spaces.

Land on the Amazon Discussion square: Whoop! Whoop! Warning, Warning. You stumble into an Amazon Discussion titled ‘Badly Behaving Authors’ and are horrified at how much venom is directed your way. Leave with your tail tucked firmly between your legs and seriously consider changing your user name. Lose a turn.

Land on the ‘I Used to Enjoy Reading’ square: Your swaying TBR (To Be Read) pile is stacked a mile high with other indie authors’ books. You owe so many reads it will take you until the year 2525 to fulfill your obligation. Go back five spaces.

Land on the Facebook square: You are among friends of your own choosing, many of them indie authors like yourself. You may relax and spread the joy by clicking ‘like’ on other authors’ posts about their books. You may enjoy the steady stream of inspirational and funny pictures...until, that is, your former best friend begins tagging you in a series of embarrassing photos from your ‘wild’ days and your dad, who never learned that all-caps is shouting, posts a LOUD admonishment on your wall that you never call him. Bye-bye professionalism! Go back two spaces.

Land on the Twitter square: Welcome to the Land of Spam, where the one who dies with the most followers wins! Here, indie authors are free to spam each other to our hearts’ content. Make your followers happy and retweet their spam - they’ll return the favor and retweet yours! Spam it up! Nobody cares because with thousands of followers, we’d have to spend 24/7 reading tweets to keep up! Whee!

Land on the Family square: Of all your family members, the only one who bothers to read your book is ‘No-holds Barred’ Aunt Fanny, who promptly reviews it on Amazon and tells the world that funny story about how you lost your bikini bottoms while waterskiing on the Sacramento River. What a cute butt you had! Go back one space.

Land on the Kindle Forum square: Whoop! Whoop! Warning, Warning. You start a forum thread offering to swap reviews with other authors. Within 12.3 seconds, you have seven responses from the established forum cronies advising you that what you are proposing is sleazy and unethical. Leave with your tail tucked firmly between your legs and request from the forum administrator that your account be deleted. Lose a turn.

Draw an Expense card: You splurge for a portrait at the local J.C. Penny that makes you look like a refugee from an eighties Glamour Shot. In desperate need of an author headshot, you break out your ancient point-and-shoot and, ignoring the burning pain of holding your arm out straight for three hours, take exactly four hundred and twelve photos until you get one where both eyes are open the same width and your nose doesn’t look like it belongs on Mr. Ed.

Land on the Royalty square: You receive your first email from Amazon with your royalty statement. Take the family to McDonald’s in celebration, but restrict them to the dollar menu. Advance token to the Taxes square.

Land on the Taxes square: The IRS gleefully adds insult to injury by taxing your meager royalties. Enter the data into Turbotax and watch in horror as the extra income pushes you into a higher tax bracket. Attempt to conceal the information from your spouse, who always knew no good could come of this crazy author venture. Go back one space.

Draw a Book Review card: Two Stars! This reviewer got the book for free and admits to only reading the first chapter. S/he claims to not be in the habit of reviewing books s/he ‘couldn’t finish,’ but s/he immediately hated your flawed heroine and brilliantly deduced how the story would end anyway. S/he would have given it one star, but doesn’t like to be cruel. Go back three spaces.

Land on the Blog square: You’ve been blogging for years already, but have to go through and read all your old posts to clean out the ones in which you are ranting, raving, revealing TMI about yourself or your family, or otherwise coming across as unprofessional. From this point on your blog posts are strictly limited to discussion about books, writing, and the ‘author experience’ - just like all the other indie authors out there. Your followers, all six of them, don’t notice the changes.

Draw an Expense card: You purchase the cheapest drag-and-drop website design software on the market and begin the frustrating job of learning how to use it to create an author website. The user’s manual has been badly translated from some foreign language, but you eventually cobble together a somewhat professional-looking site. Advance token to the Domain square.

Land on the Domain square: Your dot com name is already taken, so you are forced to choose from an embarrassing dot net, dot org or dot biz. Once you own your spanking new domain, you begin to wade through the incomprehensible world of GoDaddy. You upload your site into the ether a dozen times before locating the problem on an obscure user’s forum thread. Yay, your site is finally live! Begin checking the site stats every day, several times a day. Be impressed at how many visitors you’ve gotten - until you find out what ‘spiders’ and ‘bots’ are. Move ahead one space.

Land on the Pirate square: Ahoy, Matey! You are happily Googling around to see where your ebook has been mentioned on the interwebs when you find that it is available, for free, on a site called Zippyshare. After you finish freaking out, you contact the site and accuse them of copyright violation. They quickly respond back that your book has been removed from their site, but you find it elsewhere, too - on sites that are using it as bait to get people to download it - but anyone who does will also be getting a nasty case of computer herpes! You struggle to reconcile your hatred for hackers who create viruses with your glee at the thought that there’s Karma out there for those who steal your book. You are at an impasse. Arrrr. Advance token one square anyway.

Land on the Formatting (alternate name: Author Hell) square: You spend three unwashed days in front of your monitor obsessed with figuring out how to format your manuscript to Smashwords and Kindle specifications. Several times you consider throwing the entire PC out the window. By the time you’ve uploaded and all seems right in the world, your family has taken to tip-toeing and whispering and you have several mounds of tear-stained tissues littering the floor around you. Move your token to the Upload square.

Land on the Upload square: Three days after uploading to Kindle, a writer friend contacts you with a long list of typos s/he spotted in your book. After suffering a debilitating anxiety attack, you fix the errors and reupload. You find yourself glad no one bought your book. Lose two turns.

Draw a Book Review card: One Star! Oh NOES! This reviewer did not read the book at all, but thinks since you are an indie author all your five-star reviews must be fake, so s/he wants to even the playing field by lowering your book’s overall stars.

Land on the Book Blurb space: A blood pressure spike sends you to the ER after several days spent attempting to write the perfect book blurb. Go back four spaces.

Draw an Expense card: You create an ad for your book and buy space on a popular reader’s site, among thousands of other so-tiny-you-can-barely-read-them authors’ ads. After two weeks, you’ve only received five accidental ‘clicks.’ Go back two spaces.

Draw a Book Review card: Four Stars! And from a stranger who paid actual money for your book without you having to beg them to buy it. Skip ahead two spaces.

Land on the Amazon square: You browse the Indie Book store looking for your book only to discover Amazon has limited the Indie Book store to only the first thirty best-selling (which does not mean ‘best’) self-published books. When you attempt to browse Amazon book categories, you give up after six hours of clicking through 7,000 pages. Your stomach begins to produce excess acid as the realization sinks in that the only way someone will find your book on Amazon is for them to use a direct link. Go back two spaces.

Land on the Author Interview square: Bloggers love author interviews because not only do you do all the work answering their list of questions, they don’t have to actually read your book. Plus, they get free content for their blog! Go ahead one space.

Land on the Book Blogger square: After three days of searching through blog after blog with big, bold “I DO NOT REVIEW SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS,” in the review policy, you finally find a blog that does! Too bad they only have three followers. Go back two spaces.

Draw a Book Review card: Five Stars! Too bad it’s from a coworker who admits to knowing you in the review. Here come the downvotes!

Draw an Expense card: Advance token to the Book Cover square.

Land on the Book Cover square: You’re no artist, but paying one to make your cover is out of the question, so you fire up the old photo editing software that came with your computer and begin the process of bringing your vision to life. You buy a cheap, royalty-free photo online and settle on a font that conveys the genre without being overbearing. Yay, your cover is complete and looks pretty good if you do say so yourself! The first book review you get calls it, “Hideously amateurish.” Go back two spaces.

Draw an Expense card: Your vision of the perfect book trailer includes music from your favorite band - but you can’t afford that and wouldn’t dream of using another artist’s work without permission, so you find a website that sells music from the public domain. Your choices range from scratchy old recordings of Amazing Grace to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. In the end, you find a royalty free music site and pay for a 15-second clip that you loop in the background and hope no one notices. Go ahead one space.

Draw a Book Review card: Five Stars! From a stranger who raved about it and posted their review on their blog as well as Amazon, Goodreads and Libarything! THIS is why you decided to self-publish. Skip ahead to the end of the game.

YOU SURVIVED - I MEAN WIN!
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Why I Hate April Fools Day

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:28:00 +0000

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In the fourth grade I was in love with all things horse. I had horse figurines, horse books, horse pictures, horse everything. I wanted a horse SO BAD.

One morning before school, my mother and older brother woke me up. “Lisa!” (That was my nickname) “Get up! You won the horse! You won the horse!”

I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, confused. “What?”

My mom said, “I entered you in a contest at McDonalds to win a horse and you WON! We just heard it announced on the radio!”

My eyes must have been as big as saucers as her words sank in. “Really?”

She urged me to get up. “We have to call them to claim your prize!”

Sleepy and dazed at the thought of my dream finally coming true, I followed her and my brother out into the living room. She picked up the phone and dialed, handing me the receiver.

“What do I say?” I asked.

“Say, ‘I’m the one that won the horse.’” She replied.

At the other end of the phone, a young male voice answered, “This is McDonalds. How may I help you?”

In a voice shaking with excitement, I said, “I’m the one that won the horse.”

“What?”

“I’m the one that won the horse!”

Click.

Surprised and confused that I’d been hung up on, I looked to my mother for answers. She was doubled over from laughter. My brother was actually on the floor rolling around.

“April fools!”

As a deeply heartbreaking sense of betrayal overtook me, I burst into tears and ran back to my room. It took my mom half an hour to calm me down.

I have disliked April Fools Day ever since.
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Official Booktrailer for the soon-to-be-released SelfSame

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:55:00 +0000

Imperfect Heroines

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:53:00 +0000

*The beautiful young woman is running as fast as her tight skirt and high heels will allow, but the monster is gaining. She trips, sprawls on the ground and screams just before the beast is upon her.

You roll your eyes and shake your head, saying, “If that was me, I would have kicked off my ridiculous shoes, ripped off that skirt and sprinted in my undies on bare feet across pointy rocks. No way would it catch me.”

Really? Because I’d be terrified. Monster victuals for sure, especially now that I’m older. Even if I dumped the shoes and went commando I’d start running and my hip would go out or I’d be so scared I’d run smack into a pole or something. Bong! Monster chow.

*The pretty teen is severely depressed after breaking up with her boyfriend. She stares out the window as the seasons go by, apathetic and pathetic.

You roll your eyes and shake your head, saying, “If that was me, I’d get right back in the saddle and find me a man who didn’t suck.”

Um, okay. Everyone handles grief in their own way. You go out and find yourself a rebound cowboy and ride into the sunset. I might need more time to bounce back. Others might benefit from a handful or two of Prozac.

*The bookish but attractive-behind-her-glasses girl is the constant butt of the local cheerleader’s jokes. It’s obvious the girl will get even by the end of the book, but you roll your eyes and shake your head, wondering why she waits so long to get her revenge.

“If that was me, I would have kicked that skank’s skinny behind the first time she dissed me.”

Alright, sure. Because some of us don’t cringe at the very thought of physical confrontation. Personally, I was forced into a fight or two in my youth and unless you have some kind of training, let me point out that you may be at a disadvantage to your opponent.

In the examples above, the first girl was overcome by terror, the second girl was overcome by sadness and the third girl was, well, smart. All normal reactions, right? So, why are you so uptight about it? The main female character isn’t perfect, isn’t flawless. So what? Prove me wrong here, but is anyone? Is it wrong for a character to fall short of being a role model for our daughters? Normal girls make mistakes, say stupid things on occasion and their motivation can be selfish.

I’ve seen one too many book reviews where the reviewer commits character assassination – giving low ratings because they didn’t like the main character’s attitude or the choices they made.

Don’t get me wrong, I like reading stories with a good, strong heroine just like the next person. But it’s not a requirement, and frankly, a few flaws tossed in here and there will make the character seem more believable to me. We all whine, we all rant, we all get pimples. Very few of us pee perfume and poop Hershey bars (and I don’t want to read about the character who does)! ;o)

Naked, Wet and Inspired

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:48:00 +0000

The title sounds like an erotic intro, but I assure you, it isn’t. What I’m referring to is a strange phenomenon that inevitably occurs when I’m in the shower—inspiration. I don’t even have to be suffering from writer’s block; I might think my plot and characters are just fine, thank you very much. But when I’m in the shower, minding to the business of getting clean for the day, some part of my brain that is presumably occupied when I’m doing most anything else, is finally free to produce some of my best ideas. Why is that?

Let’s examine some possibilities.

Scent – Aromatherapy researchers have shown that scent can temporarily relieve everything from stress to insomnia to PMS. All I know is: when I’m scanning the grocery store aisle for shampoo, I open the cap, sniff, and base my decision on what to buy on how good it smells. Maybe the process of lathering and rinsing combined with a flowery, fruity fragrance opens up more than just my nasal passages.

Heat – There are very few more pleasurable things in life than the first few moments after stepping under a hot shower spray. Unlike the unpleasant goosebumps that sprout when our husbands or male co-workers insist on keeping the air-conditioner at a frigid 72-degrees, warm water sets off an exquisite chain reaction in the skin. Minescule arectores pilorum muscles attached to each and every hair on the human body react to cold by pulling the hair upright. It is theorized that this functioned as a way to make early man look bigger and more formidable when threatened, by poofing him up (the idea of a poofy, hairy man certainly frightens me). Nowadays, goosebumps in the shower set the stage for what follows:

Relaxation – Breathe that steamy air in…and out. Upon each exhale feel your shoulders dropping as the tension loosens its hold on your neck. We don’t need a yoga instructor to call out instructions guiding us through this part—it’s fully instinctive.

White noise – Sitting in my writing chair, my ears are constantly assaulted by the noises of the household. The base boom of my husband’s computer speakers coming through the office wall as he plays a video game or watches a movie. The incessant chat-chat-chatter from my son as he whirrs around the house like a hummingbird. The click-click-click of the dog’s claws on the wood floor, and his urgent barking at the slightest noise from outside. People actually buy machines that produce constant, soothing sounds to drown out external noise and promote sleep and relaxation. Inside the shower stall, all that can be heard is the steady shush of falling water, a welcome, natural white noise.

Solitude – There are very few places one can go to escape from the world. Even in bed, most of us have to share our space (“Keep your crusty man-feet on your side!"). In the shower, once the glass door steams up, and I can no longer see my cat staring intently at me with his huge, round blue eyes, I’m all by myself. No one judging me; no expectations. Alllll alone.

Refreshment – Clean is good. Just the act of literally and symbolically washing away the day creates a feeling of accomplishment and sets the stage for a receptive mood. I’m clean, I’m relaxed, I’m alone. The shower is my meditation chamber. Let the ideas come!

Haircut Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Just for fun, I'm resurrecting some of my favorites posts that no one read.

January 2008

I took my four-year-old for a haircut yesterday.

What an ordeal.

This is a child who cannot hold still. I remember my mom talking about my little brother. She'd say, "If we ever get invaded by aliens and have to hide, we're dead for sure because Matt won't be able to hold still and shut up!" Apparently, my son takes after his unkie Matt.

So of course my son got a hideous haircut. Even worse than usual, but that may be my fault. I was rushed yesterday morning and didn't take the time to brush his hair (he was getting it cut, after all, I rationalized) and when we walked in to Fantastic Sam's we must have looked like some kind of dopey back-country folk who don't give two hoots about their appearance. The hairstylist probably thought he needed a cut that would keep his grown-out hair from getting caught in the pigsty gate or the rusted out Chevy.

She was young and it was obviously her first day - my son may have even been her very first haircut - poor thing, I hope she didn't have a career change of heart after surviving the chaos. So anyway, just about everyone in the store had to get involved in mowing the boy's mop. The other stylists took turns coming over and trying to bribe or distract him into holding still. He thought all the attention was grand fun and acted out even more. Then he got hair in his mouth and in his eyes and started whining and disturbing his apron, which made even more hair go flying. The harried hairstylist tried to remain calm, but I could see her hands shaking.

Not even the promise of a lollipop, a rare treat for him, could keep my little guy's shoulders from rising whenever the buzzy scissors hit his neck. When I say the haircut was bad, I do not exaggerate. I literally could do better - on a kid who held still, of course. So this poor hairstylist is going to extreme measures to fix it and it's getting shorter and shorter. Snip, snip, snippity-snip! I started rolling my eyes because he might as well have been bald by then.

Then he began a loud litany of, "When are you gonna be done? Are you done yet?" The fond smiles on the other patron's faces had long since worn thin by the time he was finally shorn.

Liberated from the chair, my boy went straight for the lollipop jar while I futilely brushed at my clothes, which were covered with a thick layer of short, blonde hairs after my useless attempts to pin his head down during the procedure.

As I walked out the door, I sheepishly handed the stylist a $10 tip for sheer effort, even though my son looks like a fuzzy, lopsided baby chick. Next time, I'm hoping to find a salon that, like many dentists' offices, offers sedation - for both my son and me!

Indie Author Discrimination

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:29:00 +0000

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I thought I'd write about some of the issues that led to the creation of my popular video The Indie-Author Lament. By "popular," I don't mean viral or anything, I just mean it hit a nerve with a lot of self-published authors like myself – you know that nerve in your elbow when you bonk it that hurts like hell but makes you laugh helplessly like a loon? Yeah, that one.

From the feedback I got on the video, it's pretty clear that just about every self-published author out there has a story similar to mine. I decided to write the song after two weeks of intensive marketing that left me feeling like a dog that couldn't quite catch its tail. The video was never overtly intended as a marketing tool, even though I did have it in the back of my mind that almost anything that gets me attention can be used to direct people to my product. So in that respect, I accidently stumbled upon a unique marketing tool in itself. People have asked whether the song is true; it mostly is, but I exaggerated some parts to make it funnier - and to make a point. The song is a composite of what the average indie-author goes through.

For those of you who aren't writers, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about.

There are two roads to getting a book published these days, the long road and the shortcut. A simplistic description of the long road is that it's the traditional route where your book has to pass muster with first an agent and then an editor at a publishing house. The shortcut, referred to by its detractors as "vanity publishing" is where writers self-publish their manuscripts. Usually they attempted to take the traditional route, but roadblocks and detours prevented them from reaching their destination. So they chose to self-publish, which on the surface might appear to be a smart move to shave off time in their journey, but more often, like many promising shortcuts, leads them through alligator-infested swamps.

I know I'm pushing the metaphors, but in the war against bad books, agents have traditionally held the front line. They function as the roadblocks; well-armed with opinions on what the reading public wants, and they only allow a chosen few books to get past them. Those that do, must detour on to another set of roadblocks set up by the editor. In this way, books that eventually reach the public are supposed to be error-free and high-quality.

The books that don't get past the agent are a mixed bag. Some are good, some are bad, some are very bad – but some are excellent, because agents aren't perfect and sometimes they reject based on what's hot in the market at the moment, etcetera. There're a lot of subjective reasons why an excellent novel wouldn't get traditionally published, but on the other hand, there's no vetting system in place to prevent the very bad self-published books from stinking up the shelves. Anyone who wants to publish a book can do so, but the bad books erode public perception of indies as a whole. If someone reads a traditionally published author's book and hates it, they aren't likely to give that author's next book a chance, but they probably won't boycott the publisher. If someone reads a badly written or poorly edited self-published book, there's a danger that they will lump all indie-authors into the same category and avoid them altogether.

The marketing advice most indie-authors are given is twofold: establish an internet presence in forums and on social networking sites, and solicit book bloggers to review their book. So whereas publishing houses can provide advertising and obtain reviews from professional book reviewers for their stable of authors, indie authors are on their own - and unfortunately, some do a piss poor job of promoting themselves.

In a certain subset of self-published authors, I'll refer to them as the Spammers (because that's what they are), there's a decided lack of professionalism as far as marketing is concerned. Spammers are not subtle. They are the ones who tweet the link to their book every hour on the hour. They are the ones with seventeen links in their signature line. They dive-bomb forum threads, comment off-topic on blog posts and generally make a nuisance of themselves – and a bad name for indie authors in general.

While the forum and book blogger advice has worked in some cases really well for authors who didn't abuse it in the past, there's been a recent backlash. Some forum administrators purportedly fielded so many complaints about spam that they were forced to create separate groups within the forums, effectively segregating self-published authors – who can now spam each other to their hearts' content – because you can bet readers won't venture to the back of the bus. Amazon UK, in a move they have yet to explain to their customers, has just banned indie promotion on their forums altogether.

Major book review publications like the New York Times actually have policies in place that exclude self-published books. Whether this is a result of pressure from publishing conglomerates who advertise with them or an unwillingness to dedicate the manpower necessary to sift through the chaff: they won't touch them. So indie-authors are forced to seek out alternative ways to get reviews, which are essential to sales. Indie-authors' family, friends and peers often volunteer, but what they need most in order to avoid the appearance of dishonesty is unbiased opinions, and that's where book bloggers come in.

The majority of book bloggers don't accept self-published books, but those that do have unwittingly taken on the road-blocking role of agent. They get the exact same kind of queries agents do and perform the same basic function of filtering out poorly written or badly edited books. This is ironic to the author given that taking the shortcut to publication was supposed to bypass these sorts of roadblocks in the first place. Book bloggers have popped up everywhere and some have become extremely popular: they weather a steady deluge of requests from indie-authors. Many are backlogged several months or even years, so even if they agree to read your book, it won't be any time soon. Many also have a policy of only posting reviews on books they liked. Some do that because they don't like negativism, but in others it's a defense mechanism to avoid confrontations with disgruntled authors. There have been cases of self-published authors engaging in very public and embarrassing flame-wars with reviewers.

So you can see how the aggressive, unrelenting actions of a few have severely curtailed the already limited marketing options of the many.

This anti-indie shift is understandable, but very very frustrating for most of us. My song was a spoof – it didn't offer advice on how avoid these minefields because even though in general indie-authors stick together and support each other, at the end of the day, marketing is a very personal commitment. Each of us has to budget our time and resources as best we can and something that works for one won't necessarily work for the other. But just because things look dire right now for indies doesn't mean it will always be that way. Public opinion swings back and forth, and indie-authors themselves are scrambling to think up unique ways to market themselves and their books. The majority of us keep tight rein on our marketing efforts so we don't humiliate ourselves or compromise our integrity. It's not hopeless, just another challenge. Until someone comes up with a viable solution to the lack of a cost-free, unbiased vetting system for self-published books, the best defense is to have a solid product and to maintain decorum. And it looks like the best offense in today's climate is to think up a unique, non-spam generating marketing platform to wow your potential audience.

The Warrior Princess Workout

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:11:00 +0000

.
Driving down the road, you fantasize about spending your lottery winnings. In the shower, you have a flirtatious conversation with a hot movie star. Of course, in your mind you're never a flabby middle-aged woman in desperate need of a grey touchup. You are a Warrior Princess with rock hard abs and not a dimple of cellulite. You'd like nothing more than to trade your mundane existence in for a more exciting life, a more exciting you. These days are usually prompted by

Hormones – it comes and goes every month: those periods of such intense yearning that nothing will fill the hole in your soul but watching back-to-back Jane Austen movies or locking yourself away to drool over steamy pirate novels. When that hormonal cocktail is at its peak, you rediscover your old nemesis

Motivation – that which gets you off your duff and makes you think, for a time at least, that you can do anything you set your mind to. You are now Determined (with a capital D!) to take on the world. And the first thing you need to do is wrest back control of your body. You can't be a Warrior Princess if you look like the Pillsbury Doughboy's main squeeze, so you break out the hand weights and pop in a workout DVD. Fueled by hormonal urges, you are on fire…until you're sidelined by

Physical limitations – the vicious circle of soreness that hits after every workout. That nagging reoccurring pain in your shoulder, Achilles tendon or hip. Pain sets in for the duration – you find it hard to sleep, leading to

Exhaustion – that horrible, headachy feeling, like some psychic vampire sucked out all your energy and left you a mere husk trying to live your life. Getting off the couch is restricted to daily living; the simplest chores feel like you're climbing Mount Everest and just the thought of working out makes you want to dig your own grave and take a nap in it. It's now up to

Mind over matter – an elusive force, slippery as a buttered eel. It takes a monumental effort to get moving, but you still recall how it felt last week when you were in the yearning phase. You remind yourself that phase will return - and you don't want to start all over again, do you? But real life is quite rudely intruding on the fantasy and you're having trouble imagining the

Payoff – will it be worth it that your husband (whose beer belly rivals the pregnant lady next door) will find you more attractive? Is it enough that family, friends and neighbors will notice the new you? Does the prospect of living longer with your newfound health make you happy – or do you cringe at the thought of your workouts being

Endless. My God, have I only been on this friggin' treadmill for ten minutes? Ow…ow…what now? Feels like my knee is about to pop out of the socket! Okay, I think it's time for

Excuses – the opposite of motivation. You worked out hard all week like a good girl, so you deserve a break. And a hot fudge sundae…yeah…calories be damned! During the intense chocolate buzz that follows, you are truly happy for the first time in weeks. But it's doomed to be short-lived. You recognize that this is the first of many upcoming excuses which will disrupt your Warrior Princess goal…but you can no longer be bothered to care because now you're dealing with

PMS – we all get it in one form or another, whether we admit it or not. It heavily influences your powers of concentration, and just acting like a normal human being feels like an accomplishment. Especially since all you want to do is devour the contents of the refrigerator and kill everyone and everything that vexes you, most notably anyone who actually resembles a Warrior Princess. You glance over at your hand weights with deep, heartfelt contempt, pleased when you muster enough self-control not to hurl them through the bedroom window. PMS sheds bright halogen lights on

Reality – that which is impossible to ignore on a consistent basis. These are the imagination's darkest days, when fantasy's influence is on the wane. Power through! – is your battle-cry. And you do, because you have to. Then one day while driving to the grocery store it suddenly occurs to you that if you did win the lottery, you'd be mingling with the rich and famous. Best to get a jump on the body you'll need to pull it off. Time to get cracking on that

Warrior Princess workout.

WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE...

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:14:00 +0000

On the cover of Cassandra Clare's popular young adult book The City of Bones, there's a prominent quote from the author of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer: "The Mortal Instruments series is a story world that I love to live in. Beautiful!"

Neil Gaiman raved, "Stephen King's Under the Dome was one of my favourite books of the year so far."

Taylor Stevens' debut novel, The Informationist, got labeled "One of the best thrillers of the year!" by Tess Gerritsen.

Let me ask you this: When you see a quote from one big-name author singing the praises of another author's book, does your bullshit radar begin pinging?

Why would a famous scribe like Meyer stir herself to offer up what amounts to a huge advertising coup to another author anyway? Let's examine her possible motivation:

The quote was given after Meyer found herself truly moved by a book she chose on her own to read.

The quote was heartfelt and unsolicited, but Meyer was given a copy of the book by the author/agent/editor.

The quote was solicited and Meyer felt she had to provide it, but she honestly enjoyed the book.

The quote was solicited and Meyer was under pressure to say good things about it.

The quote was provided as a tit-for-tat to benefit both authors. Meyer's name and the name of her book appears on the other author's cover, thus giving her extra exposure while the other author gets an endorsement that will potentially sway Meyer's fans to read his/her book.

Unless some industry insider starts blowing his or her whistle, we'll never know for sure, but the fact is: it's common practice in publishing for authors to review each other. When I've seen these quotes in the past, I've generally taken them at face-value, especially if I like the quoting author's work. It never occurred to me to wonder whether I've just been duped into buying a book I wouldn't have if it didn't have such ringing praise from someone I admired.

In the Meyer and Clare scenario, can the reader trust that Meyer really would like to leap between the pages of Clare's book and live there?

I ask because I've been accused of unethical conduct by the reigning opinion-makers at a popular reader's forum (that will go unnamed to hopefully prevent retaliation).

Let me start at the beginning: I created a website, a place where indie-authors could connect and exchange honest, unbiased read/reviews. This was born out of the frustration I experienced trying to promote my books. There exists a series of vicious concentric circles wherein an indie-author cannot sell their book without getting the word out, but can't get the word out without being accused of spamming. Everything we do to promote our work is either restricted (we can comment about it only in segregated sub-communities on forums) or suspect (we cannot ask our family, friends or peers to endorse it). Since we are shunned by major book review publications and ignored by most book bloggers, what are our options other than to pour money we don't have into paid advertising (which is arguably just as suspect)?

According to my detractors on this particular reader's forum, agreeing to swap reviews with another author isn't one of them. The response to my little post announcing the website I created was immediate and fierce:

"Just an FYI before the feeding frenzy starts on your thread. Most readers on XX don't look on authors exchanging reviews with affection. It seems dishonest and some of us feel that we can't really trust a review done by one author in exchange for another review."

"There've been numerous discussions about WHY review swapping is a bad (BAD!) idea."

"We get these posts a lot, Mel, and the overwhelming consensus is that these sort of things are unethical."

"I think that the only reviews that are worth having are professional reviewer sites (not the kind you pay for)."

"…around here, we've had this discussion many, many times. And the consensus is always that this sort of thing is a bad idea. Not only because it can look like gaming the system, but also because it can be bad for business. The appearance of swapping favorable reviews with other writers can cast doubt on all of your legitimate reviews."

Given the admitted number of times this issue has come up in that forum, it seems obvious to me that the concept is NOT distasteful to everyone, but as soon as the idea of swapping reviews is proposed by some hapless forum member, these "self-appointed desk-jockey lynching mobs," as a friend describes them, pounce. Notice the phrases such as "most readers" and "overwhelming consensus." I was given the choice to read the links to previous discussions—proving that the issue has been well-and-truly argued and won—or to take their word for it that It Has Been Decided that swapping reviews is downright wrong.

While my thread was combusting from the negative feedback, I began to get private messages from sympathetic folks unwilling to go against these forum bullies.

"The same thing that's happening to you just happened to me! …Everyone slammed me and called me unethical to the point that I was in TEARS!"

"I saw your book review post and was about to sign up when the comments scared me away."

So why is it that these bullies seemingly don't recognize a practice that already runs rampant in the traditional publishing world? Is Stephenie Meyer "dishonest?" Is she more legitimate than me because she's backed by a traditional publisher who can influence a "professional reviewer site" to read her book? If Stephenie Meyer can give Cassandra Clare a quote, why can't I give one of my fellow indies a quote?

The goose does it, why can't the gander?

My friend puts it this way, "These little lynching mobs don't have any real or meaningful power, and in the petty power they DO exert, they slavishly ape the actions of the people who are over THEM in the rest of the world."

Really, people? Way to go…way to beat down the little guy.

Perhaps my biggest sin in this sad story was that I went public and embraced the tit-for-tat concept instead of accomplishing it behind-the-scenes like the big boys and girls undeniably do. Instead, supposedly I've "cast doubt on all of [my] legitimate reviews." All one of them.

REDO of The Gossamer Sphere Book Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:44:00 +0000

The Indie-Author Lament

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:55:00 +0000

So I desperately needed to take a break from my book marketing efforts and do something fun, right? I love dinking around with animation software and I've had Crazytalk Animator for some time now with no specific project in mind. I decided to pour all my self-publishing frustrations into a song. It's a spoof, a little ditty poking fun at everything we indie-authors go through to get noticed.

Death by Book Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 23:35:00 +0000

Now that I'm trying to get word out about my books, I was happy to find sites like YA Book Blog Directory and The Indie Book Blog Database. They make it easier to find book bloggers—potential readers/reviewers for my self-published books. I've been trolling through them for the last long, torturous week…

Kill me…kill me now.

No, I haven't quite lost the will to live, but if the paper-thin walls of my ego weren't bolstered by stubbornness and a rather urgent need to prove myself, I'd have quit days ago.

There are two kinds of book blogger: the ones just starting out and the ones who've made a business of it. Right off I'll tell you not to bother with the pros unless a traditional publisher's name graces the spine of your book. They are easily recognized as the flashiest blogs with the most followers. They've been around long enough to have gotten the attention of best-selling authors (with ARCs and swag, no less!), so they will almost always have a version of the following sentence under their official review policy page: I do NOT accept self-published novels.

I read that sentence over and over again this week, usually after I spent precious minutes waiting for a site to load, searching for the policy tab and reading through a now-familiar set of rules. If I could beg one thing of book bloggers, it would be to put that "I've risen above slogging through indies" sentence first and foremost to let us down before we get excited that their favorite books to read are exactly what we wrote. Those who've reached pro status are the ones most likely to announce that their review turnaround is two or three months down the road and if they aren’t interested in your pitch, they won't even bother to respond to your email(!).

Which brings me to the book bloggers who DO accept self-published books. With some exceptions, they are the bright-eyed bushy-tailed ones; the dewy-fresh newbies with palpable enthusiasm (who are often very young). All book bloggers love to read, but these newbies haven't gotten overwhelmed with requests by desperate self-published authors…yet. But they are the ones with very few followers, so the word about your book might get out there, but it won't go far.

Here's my stats so far: One week of trolling the Internet for book bloggers, an average of three or four hours each day. Hundreds of sites visited. Sixteen review requests emailed. Five responses. Two were very nice, but said they were too busy. (This could be true or could be a gentle way to avoid saying they're not interested, I dunno.) One said maybe. Two said YES, but both told me it would be several weeks if not months before they would be able to find the time.

Yeesh.

Actually, I don't think there's anything more to be said...

Forum Spam-a-lam-a-ding-dong

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 04:07:00 +0000

You've got a self-published book or two to sell, so you begin your marketing efforts by seeking out online locations to hawk your wares. The most obvious places are where the elusive and legendary Readers are rumored to be found—book forums—places where Readers discuss their literary likes and dislikes. Nirvana to a new author! Or so we think, until we join the site and discover, well, we're not welcome. Despite the advice we've gotten to get busy promoting ourselves, there're new rules out there, folks, and forum administrators aren't very forgiving if we barge into their territory with an ulterior motive.

Although we writers are generally solitary creatures who have a hard time singing our own praises, there exists a sub-species of scribe hell-bent on spamming the living crap out of everyone and anyone who will allow it. Just like writers who self-publish before their manuscript is ready for prime-time, these spammers are making a bad name for all self-published authors. Forums everywhere are catching on, and they've been making it crystal clear what they'll do to us if we spam, blatantly or inadvertently.

Amazon customer discussions forbids "Any form of "spam," including advertisements, contests, or other solicitations for other websites or companies." At kindleboards, it says right in the user registration agreement, "Spam…(is) forbidden on this forum." And over at Goodreads, most of the groups I've checked out have their own rules against spam. There's a thread in the SciFi Fantasy Book Club group that spells out in no uncertain terms how some Readers, at least, feel about, among other sins of the author, spam.

I joined Goodreads earlier this year, before I decided to self-publish. I love it there, it's such a friendly place, as long as I participate as a Reader who follows the rules (and I have, meticulously). But unless I choose to join the groups set up specifically for others like me, it's been made painfully clear that even the faintest whiff of spam will get me a face full of slammed door. I did join some of those groups—I'm all for making contacts among my peers—but there's an atmosphere of segregation there, and the spam is rampant and even encouraged. Even if I posted my own tentative spam attempt to that mix, I doubt I'd garner many reads, because no matter how helpful and nice the members might be, they aren't there looking for reads. And since I also run a book review blog that doesn't turn its nose up at indies, I'd probably end up with a big red target painted on my virtual forehead. Because, yes! Just like the skittish Reader, I, too am leery of self-published books in general. I've read some truly good stuff, outstanding stuff, in fact, but the last thing I want is for someone with an ulterior motive to woo me and become my online pal only to wham-bam-spam me in the hope that I'll feel obligated to read and review them.

So I understand completely the defensive attitude of forums and applaud their anti-spam efforts—even though it leaves me with very little in the way of promotional options for my own books. Word of mouth is essential for indies; we don't have the luxury of marketing dollars provided by traditional publishers. I need reads, and can't rely on the one thing even more elusive than Readers: Luck.

Summer Fun Ebook Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:01:00 +0000

School's out! Time to take our reading devices out into the sun with us and read, read, read! In celebration of the start of summer, I'm giving away two FREE ebooks on Smashwords for one week only: The Gossamer Sphere (EA72G) and Xenofreak Nation (RU55M). Just enter the code in parenthesis following the titles prior to completing checkout at Smashwords!

My Reasons for Self-publishing (Again)

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sun, 15 May 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Back in 1999, after a decade of starts and stops, I finished my first novel, Uncommon Sense. To say I was naïve about what came next, about the way the publishing industry worked, would be a vast, echoing understatement. I began searching for information, and was appalled when I learned how long the process took. Months waiting on agent query responses, partial responses, full responses. Assuming you snag an agent, you wait several more months on editor submissions. Assuming the book is eventually accepted, you then wait up to two years for the publisher to release it. Yikes! I wasn’t getting any younger. How long was I willing to languish in pre-publication purgatory before I saw the fruits (recognition, if not outright acclaim) of my labor?

My search yielded an alternative: self-publishing. Because I was clueless to any repercussions, the concept appealed to me. I had no one to advise me against it. As a working mom, I didn’t have time to attend writer’s group meetings, and back then, if online groups existed, I didn’t know about them. The information I’d gotten on traditional publishing was highly discouraging. The odds alone gave me serious pause; there are millions of writers out there competing for a select few spots on the bookstore shelves. Getting published is akin to winning multiple lotteries—first you win an agent, then you win a publisher, then you win fans…or not.

So I hope it’s not too hard for you to understand how I was swayed by the promises of my first self-publisher, iUniverse. They had a (paid) program where one of their reviewers would read my manuscript and if it was good enough, it would get a ‘special’ designation as an Editor’s Choice novel. When Uncommon Sense passed muster, I was over the moon. They like me! They really like me! The reviewer had wonderful things to say about the novel.

It felt like a tremendous victory, but I realize now the thing that made me happiest was that someone other than my family and friends read it and approved. I gratefully bought a ticket and boarded the iUniverse train, despite the fact that I had to accept whatever lame cover their amateurish artists threw together. In no time my baby was in print – with a $12.95 cover price, a cost much higher than the average paperback. Marketing, as a basic concept, never occurred to me.

It was before ebooks hit the scene, so of course sales were less than dismal. I can only fall back on the excuse that I really do suffer from a pervasive naivete. This explains why I chose to self-publish my next two novels, The Dragon Diary and Dessert Island. I simply hadn’t learned my lesson. The truth is that I was still caught in the gravity pull of planet Instant Gratification. The gratification in my case had more to do with putting my manuscripts in motion, launching them as it were, rather than jumping through agent submission hoops before inevitably abandoning my books to languish on my hard drive. Certainly I wasn’t gratified by my royalties!

My rude awakening occurred at the first writer’s conference I attended. At the Southern California Writer’s Conference in San Diego in the early 2000’s, I went to lectures and workshops and generally enjoyed myself…until a small-press editor got behind the pulpit and smashed my confidence to smithereens. She had palpable contempt for those who self-published and even went so far as to say that anyone who did would ruin their chances of getting accepted by a “real” publisher because their debut status would be forever gone.

I slunk away, ashamed of myself and my three books. It didn’t take long for me to come up with a plan: I would start over using my married name and hope that no one discovered what I had done.

Thank goodness the stigma of self-publishing is fading! Well, okay, the field is divided on the subject: some sneer and call it "vanity publishing," and others think it's a smart move--authors taking control of their own work. But there will always be poorly written self-published books out there dragging everyone else down. Readers who encounter one of the stinkers will likely avoid taking a chance on another self-published book. Agents and editors won’t even glance at one unless it has proven its worth through impressive sales. And some have proven themselves, although the odds show it’s just another lottery we have to win. Neither quality of writing nor extensive marketing efforts guarantee sales. There is, however, a lot of advice out there now for those considering self-publishing. Indie activists like April Hamilton have helped level the playing field.

Fast-forward to the present. I had signed with an agent in May of 2009 and she’d shopped my latest manuscript unsuccessfully. I’d won the agent lottery, but that was to be the extent of my winning streak. She rejected my next manuscript as being too similar to the one she couldn’t sell and I dropped to the bottom of her client priority list. I wrote for the market after that; a young adult dystopian with a unique premise that I was sure would wow her. After two months, she still hadn’t read past the first five chapters. I was persona non grata with my own agent! Ouch. Reality just wouldn’t stop smacking me in the face. Two years gone, poof! The lure of instant gratification reared its tempting head. I was still not getting any younger; nor any healthier to be honest. The specter of failure began to haunt me. It slowly dawned on me that the lingering shame I felt for having self-published was preventing me from going after not just the small measure of success I might get from doing it again, but any measure of success.

My friend Peter (of MyWritingSpot fame) had been sending me a series of ever-more-insistent emails encouraging me to self-publish again. What follows is his latest attempt, which I initially rejected out of hand because I had yet to sever ties with my agent:

“Hey there,

It's Sunday, so it's time to nag you about self-publishing some more. I have been following this phenomenon for the last two years, and I really think that you are in a place to take full advantage of it. Why? A few reasons:

1. You write books that (are) in genres that are currently selling extremely well in this market (romance, teen paranormal/fantasy). This woman writes teen paranormal/fantasy and is currently selling 100K books A MONTH. A MONTH. At $2.99 a pop, she takes home $2.10 per book. Do the math. http://www.novelr.com/2011/02/27/rich-indie-writer

Oh yeah - and she was never published "traditionally." If a traditional publisher approached her with a book deal today, there is no way that they could offer as much as she's currently earning by publishing herself [insert: this author, Amanda Hocking, recently did accept a book deal from St. Martin’s press].

2. You have multiple books already written and waiting to be sold. One of the keys to being a successful eBook author is to have multiple books available. Especially with your books, you're hitting different markets and can therefore cast a wider net. Once you've hooked a reader, they will want more, and you have several other books that they can purchase now.

3. Traditional publishing is dying, and is not as financially beneficial to the author (not by a long shot).

Gosh, I'm such a nag. I know, but I really feel strongly about this. I think that you should re-issue ALL of your already-published books and all your unpublished books and put them in several different eBookstores. Since I seem to like numbered lists, here's how you might go about doing it:

1. I think you need new covers for some of the books so that you can tie them to your brand. One of the keys to a successful eBook is a catchy cover. But that cover should also be somewhat consistent with your other books, so that the reader can immediately recognize it as one of YOUR books.

2. Reformat the books and get them into all the most popular eBook formats. ePub, mobi, pdf, etc, etc.

3. Put up a website to promote all the books. Tie a blog to the website and start capturing eyeballs.

4. Submit the books to all the major eBookstores - Kindle, B&N, Smashwords, etc.

5. Figure out where/how to promote your book. Send out review copies, get some reviews on GoodReads.com, etc.

6. Promote, grow your fanbase.

7. Make money doing what you love.

If any of the technical aspects of any of this are giving you pause, I'd be happy to help get your books out there. Just let me know.

OK - nagging done. For at least a week, that is. :)

Peter”

It wasn’t the technical aspects that gave me pause. This was in February, and I had just finished my YA dystopian and had high hopes my agent would love it. I was also under the delusion that the odds would somehow swing in my favor and I would eventually be traditionally published. I sent Peter a rather final-sounding reply that I didn’t have the strength or temerity to accomplish his list.

However, once I accepted the fact that my agent and I were not a good fit and requested she release me from our agreement, I wallowed in uncertainty. As much as I felt I didn’t have the confidence to self-publish again, I felt even more strongly that I could not re-subject myself to the traditional ringer. The thought of querying other agents and beginning the process all over again made me queasy.

Writers are compelled to write, even if hardly anyone reads our efforts. You might say we suffer from Einstein’s definition of insanity; we keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. So, at the end of this story I’m confronted by the same two choices I had to begin with, neither of which I am all that enthusiastic about! Damned if I do…

I’ve chosen to self-publish again, solely in ebook format through Smashwords and Kindle, beginning with my YA dystopian, Xenofreak Nation.

My honest assessment of my chance of success is that I have no idea if I will win this particular lottery this time around. I can’t help but think I’m due, but like my grandfather used to say, “Spit in one hand and wish in the other. Which hand has the most in it?”

And since I’m not quite the Pollyanna I used to be, I won’t be sitting around wishing and waiting. The word “marketing” is in my vocabulary now, and I even have a basic idea what it means in today’s world! I have Facebook friends and Twitter followers! Since I’m an artist as well as a writer, I have the skills to create cover art and book trailers. I also have some damned good books to hawk, even if I do say so myself.

Animate Text so it Looks Like it's Being Written Using Photoshop Elements

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:27:00 +0000

I made this YouTube tutorial on how to animate text so it looks like it’s being written onscreen. I searched for how to do this and only found tuts in expensive programs like Photoshop CS5 and After Effects. I wanted the ability but wasn’t about to pay for it, so I figured out how to do it using layers in my old version of Photoshop Elements. It’s simple but, like most animation, a bit tedious! And you will need video editing software to put it all together. I just upgraded to Corel VideoStudio Pro X4. If you find the tut helpful, please give it a ‘thumbs-up’ on YouTube!

Why they call it an 'Extended Warranty'

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:55:00 +0000

A month ago my son was idly watching Spongebob when he called to my attention that the picture on our 3-year-old, 50-inch Samsung plasma television had gone out. The sound was still working, though, so I did all the usual things: switched channels, turned it on and off, checked cable wires and cable functionality. Finally, my husband shined a flashlight down into the holes at the top of the back of the television.

“Uh, oh,” he said, stepping back and waving his hand. “Unplug it, quick!”

It hadn’t quite burst into flames, but our house was soon filled with the noxious odor of smoking electronic components.

I located the Samsung warranty, which was for the standard one (measly) year, then found the Best Buy receipt tucked into an extended warranty information pamphlet. Yay! For once, all those thousands of dollars we’d dumped into extra coverage on our appliances was paying off. We were saved!

Well, perhaps we would have been if the warranty had a “Pain and Suffering” clause…

The next day during business hours, I called the Best Buy 800 number. An automated voice gave me my options, none of which were, “If your television exploded, please push four.” I chose to speak to a representative and the call was transferred with a loud “BEE-BOOP-BEBLY-BOOP!” in my ear. Then I got the “wrong number” tone and the call was disconnected. I tried again with the same results.

Okay. Best Buy 800 didn’t want to talk to me, so I looked up and dialed my local Best Buy. The friendly clerk gave me the 800 number for the Geek Squad and then kindly transferred me through. “BEE-BOOP-BEBLY-BOOP!” Not sure what the purpose of that painfully loud transfer tone was, but I made a mental note to hold the phone away from my ear when being transferred by these guys in future.

I spoke to a Geek Squad rep who transferred me to another rep, who took down my information and made an appointment for a repair technician to come to our house. The next morning, I hadn’t heard from the repair people, who were supposed to have called to let me know what timeframe I should expect them, so I called. It was a company located an hour’s drive away from us. When I told the guy why I was calling, he said rather grumpily, “They’re not supposed to make my appointments for me.” Turns out he only comes to our town when he has more than one service call to make, AND he wouldn’t come out until he’d ordered some parts that he thought he might need to make the repair based on my description of what happened to the television. We waited almost three weeks before the parts came in and it was worth his while to make the trip. Mind you, we live in a suburban area of over 150,000 people, but when I called the Geek Squad to complain, I was told that it was the only television repair company that had a contract with Best Buy to provide service to our area.

During that time, we moved the clunky old 15-inch television from our bedroom into the living room. My husband discovered the joy of watching Netflix on his laptop, my son hovered two feet away from the screen until we had to put the dog gate up to keep him back, and I wore my glasses whenever I wanted to see what was going on.

I know what you’re thinking: BOO HOO, why didn’t you people just read a book or play a board game or go outside? But I’m telling you, we ARE a huge book-reading, game playing family. And we love to go outside, but there’s just so much family time you can spend bundled up against the 20-degree January weather. The thing is, we also happen to enjoy watching the large screen television we paid $1600 for (not including tax and warranty). And, to complicate matters, the Super Bowl was approaching rapidly…

So on Repair Day, I anxiously watched over the repair guy’s shoulder as he opened the back of our television. He replaced a part, turned the set on and BRZZZZT! Smoke began to curl towards the ceiling. I ran to open all the windows before the fire alarms went off.

“Okay,” said he, clapping his hands together. “I’m going to have to take this back to the shop.”

Progress, right?

Ten days from that point, we figured we’d waited long enough. I called the repair guy, who told me to call Best Buy. I did, got transferred to a rep (“BEE-BOOP-BEBLY-BOOP!”), and Hallelujah! The rep informed me that at long last a decision had been made. We were to get a new TV!

On the way to the store, my husband and I had a naïve conversation about our options.

Him: We paid $1600 three years ago and those televisions are worth a lot less now.
Me: I know! We should be able to trade up for a much nicer one with the extra cash.

Once inside, the clerk led us to the wall of TVs and said basically, “Here’s the one you get.”

“Um,” my husband replied, staring at the borderline-obsolete technology on display. A thundercloud began forming over his head, so I jumped in.

“But that set’s only $599. We paid a lot more.”

“It’s a comparable television,” said the clerk. “We’re replacing your old one.”

“Oh…I see,” I said as the Truth began to dawn. “We get a replacement set regardless of the price now. So what about taxes, delivery charge and a new warranty?”

“Taxes are covered, but this completes your old warranty, so if you want a new one, you’ll have to buy it. And delivery is $50.”

My husband’s head spun 180-degrees on his neck. It was urgent now that I convince him of the intrinsic fairness of the situation.

“Honey,” I whispered. “You have to consider that we got three years of usage out of the old TV. Best Buy would lose money if they gave us all our money back at this point. It isn’t their fault Samsung made a defective product. And if we hadn’t of gotten the extended warranty, we’d have nothing at all.”

The clerk was listening and chimed in, “I’ll tell you what. I see from your receipt that delivery was free three years ago. Why don’t we throw that in? And the extended warranty isn’t $299 anymore—it’s only $149!”

My husband’s mouth moved stiffly, but the impending explosion didn’t happen. “Can you get it to us before Super Bowl?”

You never saw a clerk type so fast. “How’s Saturday, the day before?”

I’m writing this before we actually get said replacement television, which is perhaps a little Pollyanna of me. After an extended amount of time with no TV, the inconvenience of ‘cashing in’ on our warranty, and the additional cost, I should probably wait to make sure everything works out in the end…

Super (Bowl) Salsa

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:45:00 +0000

This is my own recipe, which took years to perfect, so if you substitute ingredients don’t blame me if it comes out wonky (wink). We don’t like spicy salsa in my house; we’re wimps who prefer to taste our condiments rather than suffer through them. If your clan and/or guests, on the other hand, enjoy the sensation of burning tongue, just add some fresh diced jalapenos to the below recipe and/or get the hot version of the La Victoria chiles. If at all possible, buy fresh, organic ingredients. Also, some people find that cilantro tastes like soap (I used to—yuck!—but as the following article in the New York Times explains (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html), I got over it after being exposed multiple times to the herb and now adore it), so you may want to separate your batch into one with and one without.

Ingredients:

1 small can La Victoria mild diced green chiles
One bunch fresh cilantro (warning! Cilantro looks a lot like parsley and to further confound you, the grocer will often place them next to each other. Double-check to ensure you get the right one)
Six to eight vine-grown red tomatoes. (don’t be cheap and get the Roma!)
One bunch green onions
Two or three red, orange or yellow peppers (no green!)
A few peeled cloves of garlic
Two bags Tostitos Scoops

Thoroughly rinse and drain all fresh ingredients. In a super bowl, toss in the chiles, chop and add about a loosely-packed cup of the cilantro leaves, not stems (a tricky enough task; don’t worry if it’s not chopped fine), chop and add the onions, dice and add the tomatoes, remove and discard the top inedible portion and insides of the peppers before dicing and adding (I use the Chop Wizard from Bed, Bath and Beyond for all my dicing needs). Use a garlic press to crush the garlic, estimate about a teaspoon or two. Mix and refrigerate for a few hours before serving (unless you can’t help yourself and must consume immediately).

By far our favorite chips to serve with my salsa are Tostitos Scoops. This recipe makes around a quart of salsa. In our house, it doesn't last. Enjoy!

Cybersquatters: Legal Extortion on the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:22:00 +0000

Your name is Jane Doe and you’re ready to join the ranks of .com owners. Congrats! But then you find that someone else already owns your preferred domain name. That’s cool, you know you aren’t the only Jane Doe out there, but what if the owner of janedoe.com is a company that trolls the Internet for business and personal names to buy up and resell? A domain that would have cost you $14.95 a year is available to purchase, but it’s now $350. You’re just getting started and that’s a tad steep, plus, it doesn’t seem fair. It’s one thing if another Jane Doe beat you to the .com or even the .net or .org, but how can these companies or individuals get away with basically holding *your* name hostage until you or another Jane Doe ponies up?

On the face of it, it seems like slightly shady, but perfectly legal free enterprise, right? Ehrm, wrong. If you’re famous, that is.

A person whose name is widely recognized is protected under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which is designed, among other things, to prevent registrants from profiting in bad faith from a domain name that is identical or similar to theirs.

But we’ve already established that you’re not rich and you’re not famous.

So what can YOU do? Not much, as it happens.

You can try contacting the domain service provider (registrar) that sold your name to the reseller in the first place, but they will likely refer you to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is the governing body behind UDRP, the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy. This is a policy that exists between the registrar and the domain-name holder (the reseller that owns your .com) that supposedly protects you. Well, it would if you were famous or trademarked, but you’d still have to pay a UDRP provider to handle your complaint, starting at around $1000, according to Wikipedia. Or you can really hemorrhage from the wallet by hiring an Internet lawyer.

The reseller that owns your domain name knows this! They count on the fact that it’s cheaper to pay them than it is to fight them, and have likely taken that into consideration when setting the price. Not only that, but they often have an exclusive deal with the registrar (like Tucows) to purchase domain names that have expired. Even if the original owner of janedoe.com defaulted on their registration, it never becomes available to the public to purchase. The instant the registration fully expires it’s sold to the extortionists. If you own a .net or other extension of the same domain name, you may even get unwanted emails attempting to sell the .com to you. (Beware, because this is usually a scam.)

In summation, there are no laws to protect the average Jane from these cybersquatters, and janedoe.com will sit unused in their domain inventory until someone pays the ransom, or, probably, hell freezes over.

Disclaimer: I'm not any sort of authority on this subject, merely a victim who educated herself to the best of her ability and wanted to pass on what (little) she learned. Nothing in the above should be constituted as advice in any way, shape or form.

Circumhorizontal Arc - A "Rare" Phenomenon From My Backyard

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:52:00 +0000

The sun has to be in the right place in the sky at the right time of year. The cirrus clouds have to be at the right altitude, and the ice crystals that make up those clouds must be in the right shape. These are the basic circumstances necessary to create a Circumhorizontal Arc.

After I saw my first one from the backyard of our new house in June of 2008 (I posted the vid of the event on YouTube, here: http://www.youtube.com/user/melissaconwaywrites#p/a/f/0/npL9n1UsR0E), and after I found out what it WAS, and that it was a rare phenomenon, I felt privileged to have witnessed it. After I saw the second one exactly a year later, and then a THIRD a few days after that, I was flabbergasted. Thrice in one lifetime? How can that be? Add to that the many, many Sun Dogs and Sun Halos (and moon Halos!) Iridescent Clouds and Coronas I've seen and photographed, and you can imagine I started thinking that my backyard was a very special place on this earth.

Today, to my astonishment, I saw and photographed another Circumhorizontal Arc.

And I realized that arcs must occur way more often than reported, at least this far north in the US. The real reason I see so many of them is because I look up to the sky so often in order to appreciate the beauty all around me (I do!)

By the way, the best site I've found to date on these kinds of sky phenomenon is Atmospheric Optics, here: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/. If you are at all interested in this sort of thing, this really cool site answers all your questions and more.

Cancer: Instant Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:56:00 +0000

I was wetting down my son’s hair, wrestling with the hurricane cowlick at the back of his head, when the phone rang. It was unusual for us to get such an early morning call—I immediately thought, “Uh oh.”

The caller ID was unfamiliar, but when I picked up, it was my neighbor up the street; we’ll call her Susan because I don’t want to identify her here. Susan is an attractive blonde, younger than me by at least a decade, with two beautiful children, a new house in our upscale-ish development, and a husband in the medical profession. The few times I conversed with her, we hit it off—both of us are the talkative type with similar senses of humor—but probably for reasons attributable to how busy we are with work and family, we never became more than friendly acquaintances.

Susan’s daughter “Emily” is in my son’s first-grade class, and is a pale, serious child, smart and observant. She always seemed so much more mature than my wild child, which is probably why my son had a crush on her all through kindergarten.

“I thought I had your phone number, but I had to look it up in the white pages,” Susan said. I thought we paid the phone company $3 a month NOT to publish our number, so I was slightly annoyed. “Emily missed the bus, and I’m a mess this morning. I had some surgery last night, and I’m sore and running behind and I know you drive your son to school still, right?”

“Oh, sure!” I said, knowing what was coming. “I’m sick, just a cold, but I’ll keep my germs to myself. Do you have a booster seat?”

She probably meant to keep it to herself, but her talkative nature (so much like my own), the urge to share even the worst news, to EXPLAIN why she was so out of it and needed the help of a virtual stranger (albeit a friendly one), probably prompted her next words, “I just found out I have cancer.”

“Oh, my GOD,” I exclaimed. My son looked up from across the room. He was stuffing his arm into his coat, his hat perched rakishly on his just-combed hair. Tears flooded my eyes.

“I haven’t told Emily,” Susan said quickly.

“Of course. I won’t say a word.” My son asked, “What?” so I put on a cheerful voice and said, “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” and rang off.

I rushed him through the rest: shoes, zip coat, stretchy Spongebob gloves, backpack. I grabbed a plastic grocery bag as we went out to the truck; after strapping him in his seat, I filled the bag with garbage that littered the back seat: mostly straw papers and cup lids and napkins from McDonalds.

Susan ushered Emily out while I proclaimed, “Missed-the-Bus-Express here!” Susan hardly even met my eyes and I fully understood. I didn’t want to so much as offer her a sympathetic look. Right now, she needed to act normal. She needed to hide one of the worst bits of bad news a mother can get. Hide it from her innocent child, who got into our truck like it was any other day, like she rode to school with neighbors all the time.

I fought tears all the way to school. Luckily, my boy blither-blathered on, completely unaware, and if Emily suspected something was wrong, she gave no indication of it. I dropped the children off with a smile on my face, reminding my son to be good.

On the drive home, I thought about Susan. She would want privacy right about now, so I decided against calling her. On the one hand, I wanted her to know I was here for her, but on the other, I doubted she wanted to talk any further about it. She must be reeling right now, but I knew she had family to lean on and hashing it out with a mere acquaintance wouldn’t help. She probably needed to formulate a plan to get back on solid footing.

I thought about my life, of course. About how the little things had been getting to me lately. But no matter how frustrating the elements that make up my existence can be, at least I don’t have cancer…CANCER!—Jesus, that’s the scariest word. Something in your body gone dreadfully wrong, with connotations of chemo-therapy, radiation, indignity and death. Once you get that diagnosis, nothing is ever the same, is it? Even assuming you beat it, your life is now defined by it, forever. You are forced to join the legions of Survivors, and the fear that it will return will never leave you.

So this morning I guess I got a wake-up call. Suddenly the little things are in sharp focus and my perspective isn’t skewed towards the negative anymore. When my son went to school today, I wasn’t hiding anything from him. I don’t have cancer.

One of Those Days

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:14:00 +0000

You ever notice nobody ever says, “One of these days I’m going to have one of those days?”

I got a call last night from my son’s teacher, more evidence that we no longer live in the big city. She wanted to find out if it was okay for her to personally deliver, on her winter break, the gift she’d guided the children into making for their parents for Christmas. Awww…!

I did some quick calculations: appointment with Toyota to get a new tire at 11am meant I’d need to leave the house at 10:30am. Assuming I had my usual poor night’s sleep (snoring hub, cat on and off the bed all night and/or playing the drums in the catbox, nightmare/bathroom/thirsty son) followed by the rare opportunity to sleep in until an incredible 8am, I would have about two hours to tackle the mound of dishes in the sink that I swear breed like bunnies and vacuum the dog and cat fur embedded in the carpets and blowing in the corners like wispy white tumbleweeds.

Morning comes. At 9:38am I’m wearing sweatpants, a stained shirt with no bra, hair unclean and uncombed, and nothing on my face but a layer of sweat as I frantically vacuum so I can get into the shower before my son’s teacher arrives. Just as a memory of the previous night’s conversation poinks into my mind (“Okay, great! I’ll be there around 10:15 OR A LITTLE EARLIER), the dog begins to go nuts in his crate, a sure sign the doorbell rang and I didn’t hear it.

With a resigned look on my face, I open the door. She’s standing there in her holiday finery, cheeks rosy from the cold, holding a wrapped gift with a photo of my son wearing a red Rudolph’s nose on top. Just as it occurs to me that maybe she won’t want to actually intrude on my obvious domestic dishevelment, my son, still wearing his Wall-e pajamas, arrives at the door. It’s an affectionate reunion, a pleasant surprise for my boy, who proudly takes the gift and presents it to me. In comes teacher.

“Oh, dear,” I splutter. “As you can see, I’m running a bit behind this morning.” (I may have actually said something more along the lines of, “I’m so mortified. I’m simply gross and as you can see from the half that I was unable to get to, my home is usually a disgusting pigsty,” but my state of extreme fluster wiped the conversation from my mind.)

Mrs. Teacher assures me that my home is lovely and commiserates with me that she, too, barely managed to get out of the house on time this morning (or EARLY you mean? -I probably thought uncharitably as I got a whiff of yesterday’s failed deodorant).

Once she’d gone (up the street to my son’s classmate Anna’s house, where I’m utterly certain the floors were spotless and the smell of pungent dog didn’t permeate the air), I could only shrug and smile that wry “Murphy’s Law” smile.

Fast-forward to the end of my day. I’ve just endured the following:

a.) Cold coffee from McDonalds. Clearly someone forgot to turn the burner on. This may not seem like a huge deal, but when you’re looking forward to a hot cuppa joe and you’ve driven too far to make another trip through the drive-through to complain, it sours you.

b.) Tire ordered by Toyota staff is not only the wrong tire, but I can’t even have both front tires replaced with stock on hand because the height of my tires isn’t “standard” and only a few tires exist in the whole world that can be used without disrupting the four-wheel drive, should I engage it. Plus, replacement of the malfunctioning heater motor is going to really cost us.

c.) The Geek Squad at BestBuy still hasn’t diagnosed my husband’s computer, even though they’ve had it for eight long days in which my hub has gone into severe video game withdrawal. I am not looking forward to telling him that he’s in for another few days at least of enforced “family time.”

d.) The clerk at Big Five can’t demonstrate the treadmill I’m thinking of buying for Christmas (for my hub to give me) because she can’t find the safety key. I assure her it isn’t her fault. Clearly my Karma is paying me back for some past indiscretion(s).

The good news is: we are all relatively healthy and reasonably happy. Christmas will come despite this one poopy day, and my son’s face as he tears into the gifts “Santa” brought him (we got one extra year of “you better watch out” out of him) will brighten the whole house.

Happy Holidays!

Why I’m Not Doing NaNoWriMo This Year

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:23:00 +0000

According to www.nanowrimo.org, the first NaNoWriMo event took place in 1999 with 21 participants, a “literary marathon” that got bigger and bigger every year until it became the phenomenon it is today. For those non-writers among my three readers (hi, Mom!), NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Beginning on November 1st and ending on the 30th, wannabe authors all over the world knuckle down and write, write, write, pounding out a minimum of 50,000 words in order to “win.” The prize, of course, being the rough draft of an actual book, something a lot of people dream about, but can’t always find the inner wherewithal to accomplish.

I’ve participated several times, but this year I chose to pass, watching wistfully from the sidelines as a good portion of my writer friends and online acquaintances entered the fray. I had a lot of reasons for forgoing the “fun,” not the least of which was the demanding task of setting up a writer’s alliance book review blog (www.booksquawk.blogspot.com) with several outstanding writers. Plus, my WIP (work in progress) is the second in a series—the first of which, The Gossamer Sphere, is with my agent right now, making the rounds of editors at honest-to-goodness publishing houses.

I started The Gossamer Sphere last year on November 1st.

On their website, the good folks at NaNoWriMo have this to say about what to expect:

“Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

“Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.”

That’s why I didn’t win last year, and the final reason why I chose to set aside my writing shoes this year. I’m way too OCE (obsessive/compulsive editor) for the official doctrine of “write your brains out and ignore that your manuscript is likely chock full of glaring errors.” On November 30th last year, I had only written 10,000 words on The Gossamer Sphere, so unless you count the fact that I went on to finish it within six months, secured an awesome agent and it’s actually (actually!) being considered by the folks who can Make It Happen for me, then, no, I didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo.

But I miss the excitement, the feeling of satisfaction when I’d eked out 1000 or more words in a day. I miss the feeling of accomplishment, and the mounting belief that this time the words on my screen were something the powers-that-be just might lean forward in their ergonomic chairs to take note of. The Gossamer Sphere is a fantasy/sci-fi, so I often hit the old “research” roadblock, which, along with my OCE, really prevented me from whipping that particular horse across the NaNoWriMo finish line.

I’m not participating this year, but I’m so glad I did last year. I consider myself a NaNoWriMo success story.

If you’re in the thick of it this month, what are you doing here wasting your time reading my silly blog? Get back to your writing space! Make this your year.

I tweet, you tweet, we all tweet for..

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Conway) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:01:00 +0000

Conceit? Well, it rhymes anyway.

As fun as some of the social networking sites can be, I’m getting a little disillusioned with the whole process. I’m trying to get myself out there, to link up with other writers and professionals in the publishing industry. It’s just…how do I, with the limited time at my disposal, succeed at this networking game (stand out from the crowd), and how do I even measure my success?

I love that sites like Twitter exist, but I can’t keep up. I’m a parrot posing as a small brown bird—one among a flock of billions flying in perfect synchronization, turning on the wing this way and that—all chirping madly for attention. We mellow, brightly colored squawkers just can’t summon the same energy level as those hyper little brown birds who somehow come up with interesting things to tweet and re-tweet all day long. And how on earth do they keep up with what anyone else is saying? My follow flock is modest at less than 70, but even so, with everyone tweeting at once, the rare epiphany is often drowned out in the cacophony.

Those of us putting ourselves out there suffer from varying levels of narcissism, that’s just the way it is, but some (and yes, I realize I’m beating the bird analogy to a pulp with the following) fly where the air is a little too thin. I was under the impression that in order to be successful at self-promotion, a person needed to sort of *hide* the fact that self-promotion was their goal. So we tweet about this, that and the other thing, and toss in a few “hey, come read my blog’s” now and then, hoping someone will accidently click on the link we provide and maybe even read a sentence or two. An actual comment on my blog has been known to put me in a good mood for several warm, fuzzy minutes and a re-tweet puts me over the moon.

So anyway, I’ve noted several social networking personalities. There’s the Blatant Bird, who posts the same series of tweets over and over again as if the pressure of coming up with those interesting comments made him/her snap and go over to the Spam Side. There’s the Re-tweet-a-holic, who can’t seem to come up with his/her own amusing musing, so they forward the best of the best and take credit for it. There’s the Daily Doings folks, who let you know every time they have a satisfying cuppa joe or someone ticked them off at the supermarket. There’s the Social Networking is my Life group—these folks seriously must spend the majority of their days online, dedicated to being in their followers’ faces. There’s the Official Spammers, who don’t even try to hide that’s what they’re all about.

And there’s people like me, I guess I’d call myself a Professional Novice who freezes up half the time, deciding that no tweet is better than a lame-o tweet, so I only buckle under and update every three days or so. But I’m out there, in the thick of it, flapping my wings, leaving a trail of stressed-out feathers wherever I go. ;op