Laziness

Stuck with a big hole in my plot/structure/whatever. I have a vague idea what should happen, but how everybody gets to that point is another issue.

So what happens when I strike this kind of a point? I read books on writing. Does that help? Oh, yes, it helps the writer who wrote the book on writing by providing him with a royalty, and it helps me to procrastinate, and it helps me to think about how other books are structured and why their plots work so wonderfully...

What it doesn't do is help me write my book. And the actual reason for that is laziness. I'm not under pressure to get the book done, and I've got three books under my belt already in the same genre. Why do I need to write a fourth?

Well, I don't. The world won't miss it. But having done a draft that covered possibly two-thirds of the book, and having done another shorter draft before that, and now having done another chunk of draft that takes the book from a different point of view - that's another approach to avoiding getting on with what is the problem in the book - it's time to get on and do some actual work.

Sitting down and working out the problems is too hard. Thankfully I have plenty of mentors in this, some of them very famous. I'm not going to mention names because it would only embarrass them...even the ones that are dead. But there have been any number of writers who know that they should get on and do the work and don't, or didn't...

Anyway, I've got other things on my plate at the moment and they're bound to be more important, and...

That last sentence reminds me of a tweet I've kept in my files: One of my New Year resolutions is to always finish what I

Promoting your product

I've been spending a lot of time in the last year promoting my three e-books. It's a tough task but it has to be done. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's a chore. You meet interesting people online in the process, and there's always plenty of advice as to how to do it better - too much, perhaps.

But one thing is certain, if you're not a big name and not already a big seller, you're going to have to be patient and let the sales trickle in bit by bit.

I was thinking about this while walking the dog this afternoon. I came across a sign on the roadside which had blown over (not the one in the picture; that's just an example, and doesn't look as if it would blow over easily). It was advertising firewood and so on. I wondered if it would have been anymore effective even if it had been standing up.

Firstly, it was right on the corner of the road that the customer was expected to go up. No warning further down the road, nothing. Just the one sign.

Now this isn't a road where motorists are doing any great speed, but even at 50 kmph, it takes a bit of doing on the motorist's to read the sign, understand it, think about whether he really wants that product, think about whether he really wants to stop or if he's got better things to do; it takes him time to realise the sign relates to the road they're just about to pass, to discuss it all with his wife, to find a way of turning around and then going to investigate. Even if he thinks about all this and decides to come back later, it's possible he'll forget, or find something else more urgent needing to be done.

I know all this because I've often not stopped when going through the orchard area in Roxburgh. At 100 kmph it's even harder to make all these decisions.

At the very least there needs to be two or three signs further down the road at considerable intervals (and yes, I understand that's all a cost to the seller), each one pointing to the road that's coming up, and giving the driver plenty of time to consider whether he wants to make the effort of stopping and buying the product.

Without those warning signs, however, it's unlikely anyone will stop, unless they're absolutely desperate for what's on sale.

Now compare this to an author trying to sell his/her book on line. If I post a tweet, or a facebook comment once, and don't bother again, all I've done is announce to a few possible followers that I have a product. Big deal. If they happen to know me, happen to have read my previous books and enjoyed them, then it's vaguely possible they may suddenly decide on the spur of the moment to purchase the latest one.

It's more likely they'll pay no attention at all. In a digital sense, they'll keep driving.

However, if I post tweets at regular but not annoying intervals, and make them different, enticing, and interesting (that is, not just sales blurbs, but like real tweets or comments) then over the course of time, interest will be aroused, and the reader/follower may think: I remember that from a week or two ago. I might be interested.

They may still switch off and go to the next more interesting tweet or pretty picture. But after seeing these tweets/comments several times, couched in creative ways, they may start to say: Yes, I will look into this. They may click on the link, investigate further, check out the sample. They may even buy.

But notice what a long process this is.

This is why advertisers keep on hammering away at us on TV, in the newspapers, online. They know that the first time we won't pay any attention. We might like the ad, if it's clever, but as for the product, we may find we have no use for it, or it doesn't appeal just at that point. But over successive weeks, months and so on, the product starts to click in our memories, and we slowly change our view. We may resist forever - some ads make me resist, though obviously the advertisers don't realise that. Equally, we may finally think: now's the time.

Perseverance, creativity, continual exposure. All keys to telling the world that we authors have got something they'd like to read. Just this week, a person who has their own online app and with whom I've had a lot of contact via email about what he's selling, suddenly announced he'd bought my book. I think the only way he'd have known about it is because it's on the bottom of my emails. And has been for months.

Two interesting lists

I happened upon Kindle's list of Most highlighted passages of all time today. What this refers to is the way in which you can highlight (like the old idea of using a highlighter in a book with real pages) a section of a book you're reading because you think it's important, or it struck you as of interest, or whatever.  These highlighted sections can be tracked later, if you want.

Considering that this list has the most highlighted passages of all time, they're a strange bunch. (All time being somewhat hyperbolic, I think.) Passages from the various books in The Hunger Games prevail, which presumably means that a huge number of people are not only reading these books on Kindle, but are highlighting more than ever.  Initially it's almost hard to find anything else in the list, but wait! Jane Austen is there, third in line with It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. (Let's hope they read further than the first paragraph.)  She manages to sneak in at eighth place as well.   Sherlock Holmes makes an appearance in the top 25 along with a book entitled: Heaven is for real: a little boy's astounding story of his trip to heaven and back.  Hmm.  


Dorian Grey gets in at around number 27, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People makes more than one appearance in numbers 26-50.  After that it becomes open slather, with a real mix of books turning up.   The interesting thing about this list is that, unlike those lists produced by retailers and other places, where the greatest books of all time will include Harry Potter and suchlike, this list is actually related to what people are reading and highlighting.  The highlighting is the relevant factor.  It will be worth checking out this list again when The Hunger Games has run its course.


The second list is related to Twitter, and appears in the NZ Herald, where a list of NZ's Twitter top 50 appears today.  Taika Waititi, who made the film, Boy, appears first on this list, with 11,520 followers, though he's actually the second most followed tweeter.  Comedian Rhys Darby has over 79,000 followers, Cory Jane (the All Black) has around 53,000, nearly twice as many as TV3's John Campbell, who almost ties with another commentator, John Lai.  Except that Lai is a social media commentator.  


The interesting thing about this second list, for me, is that I don't follow a single person on it, although a few of the names turn up in retweets now and then, notably Hamish Keith.  There are quite a few New Zealanders I do follow, but none of them appear on this list.  Maybe they'll turn up on the Herald's second list, which is due out soon. 

Greens and the elderly

The political party debate last night on Channel 3 brought more Tweets to my Twitter page than any other subject has ever done.  Even my son-in-law made some comments.  It was all very invigorating, and it hasn't stopped.  I don't think anyone made any more sense of anything as a result (not assisted by Paul Henry getting in on the act) but at least everyone was involved.

Tonight it seems the Greens are taking over Twitter, pushing their policy on child health/poverty in NZ.  I think their concern for child health/poverty is admirable, but it's interesting that the only person with any concern - as far as I'm aware - for older people is Winston Peters.   On the other parties' radar, the older and elderly don't even appear.

I've replied to the Greens tweets about child poverty with a couple of questions about whether they're concerned for older people.  No tweets in response, at this stage.

Update on this: 
Someone at the Greens has sent me a tweet: We sure are. Sue Kedgley did a report about it last year.  

I've now downloaded the report and will have a look at it after Downton Abbey has finished....

Second thoughts

Everyone should sometimes write with pen/pencil, to recall what it’s like to have 2nd thoughts before the 1st ones are complete.

Alan Jacobs, in a tweet on the 4th Oct, US time.