It's been quite a year: humbling to start in the position of hoping that somebody–anyone? Beuller? Beuller?—would read my book.  

​And then the intense gratification as people (strangers!) have read it, reacted to it, talked about it, and asked me exactly the kinds of questions I love love LOVE to answer.

And to top it off, surprise presents, wrapped up in a bow: the book won a thing!

Two things!

​Contests!
​
​Oooh la la! Wheeeee! Awards! Prizes! ​ 

Not that contests are all that...(she said with a weary sigh)

One sad truth about publishing: EVERYBODY puts a hand out.  Some of those outstretched hands are dipping boldly into pockets, like raccoons in quest of graham crackers. 

Publishing's an industry built on dreams–naturally, opportunities abound for exploitation. And there are contests and contests: some are designed to highlight excellence and broadcast the news, others are designed to extract fees and stroke egos.

I can't claim to be immune; my pockets are overspilling with graham crackers. 

​Sometimes one learns best from uncomfortable mistakes, right?

To determine whether a contest is legit. It's not rocket magic.

It's the same process with which we should approach any transactional relationship: due diligence and dial the BS detector to "zero tolerance."

Each writing contest and award offers a value proposition: at the heart, the contest gives writers the opportunity to be read by a judge (ooh! one reader at a time!), the chance at wider readership (appealing beyond words), and possible bragging rights (world-famous even if a tiny world!), often in the form of a sticker to slap on the cover of the book.

An award has some value to me as creature made of vanity, but does it have value to my customers? Maybe.

I read a whole slew of Newbery Award winners one summer. I know book clubs that selected only Nebula Award winners or Booker Prize books, so that's something.  On the other hand, I bought a "Reader's Independent Something or Another Award" book recently because of the shiny sticker, and tbh, it was pretty awful. 

But THESE prizes, the ones my book brought home? THEY are not that.

​Both contests rate well among watchdog groups, and one is cutting me a check for $1000. Big time, baby!

I won the quarterfinal round of the annual Booklife Prize.  Booklife is the self-publishing arm of Publishers Weekly magazine.

They give you a nifty little electronic image for promotional purposes. 

I think a quarter-win is still a win. Plus I'll be quoting their critic's report on my various retail product pages. ​

And—drumroll please—I earned a nice fat check for $1000 and the top spot in the Writer's Digest Annual 32nd Annual Self-Published Book Award in the Literary/Mainstream Fiction division.  

This contest has been around for 30+ years, and is generally known for providing a chunk of useful feedback to entrants. 

​She Taught Me Everything is still in competition for the grand prize from Writer's Digest, which earns another nice purse and the cover of the magazine (with 40K paid subscriptions).  We'll cross fingers for that one.

Meanwhile, $1000 will purchase a lovely cover for novel #2.

References
One list of contests from Reedsy:
https://blog.reedsy.com/writing-contests/

This list of contests from Poet's Weekly:
https://www.pw.org/grants

A blog about fake contests
https://writerbeware.blog/2019/04/26/awards-profiteers-how-writers-can-recognize-them-and-why-they-should-avoid-them/

​A watchdog list of contests: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/author-awards-contests-rated-reviewed/

The website for Writer's Digest's contest
https://www.writersdigest.com/writers-digest-competitions/self-published-book-awards

My BookLife Contest Critic's Report around here
​https://booklife.com/prize/9/category/11/1

I'd been working on novel #2 for most of the summer, Irish-fading from regatta parties to get to my portable writing study, listening distractedly to friends while thinking about that story,  welcoming rainy days for the chance to sidle past regret as I put my head down and set my fingertips to the keyboard.

Stealing time from real life. 

The book is past Draft 1, which means I kinda know how the story starts, goes, finishes. I know the theme and the setting, and I've gotten to know the characters.  It's all flexible: characters might get cut or split into two people, events might change order or get worse, and so on, but I have the general shape.  

​Draft 2 should be hugely better, with plot holes filled in, structure revised, themes bolstered, and characters grown rounder.  ​I tend to underwrite sections as the plot takes me, and overwrite scenes that I have known for a while. But it's not always easy to get there.

To a great extent, writing equals me daydreaming about my imaginary friends. So late this summer, I sat on station, butt in chair, hands poised over the keyboard, imagination flapping around the story when it occurred to me, obvious as a brick to the back of the head: the friendship between the two young women in my story was big and important, but it got very little screen time in the story as written.  

Aha, I thought, how can I show the depth and importance of this connection? More scenes? More conversations!  More!  
 
My characters—then called Annie and Lila—were already sitting together and chatting while sewing in chapter 5; I sat back and eveasdropped, knowing that they are best friends. Lila's nursing a crush on one of Annie's brothers. Annie's beloved has disappeared. The chatter goes back and forth, with Lila eventually crossing a boundary to ask a painful question of her old friend. 

I jotted down their conversation as I imagined it, not judging when they nattered on, knowing I—mighty queen of this universe—could take a nip and tuck at will later.

Here's some of what I kept pressing them/myself to know: How to express the tenderness between best friends? How to show that they've been friends for ages? I knew what Lila was jonesing to ask Annie, but how to show Annie's feelings, the pressure she feels, and and how to present this all without sounding 21st Century-ish?

As I wrote "Annie said," "Lila said." "Annie replied," and so forth, I realized two things: first, Annie is far too modern a name for my maiden hero and second, the names Annie and Lila are not nearly distinct enough from one another. These are my own dear creations, and I'm getting them confused? That cannot be good.

It's quick work to do a global change, but to what? O high-speed internet on the farm, how we do thee entreat? Clicketty-clatter ensues.

A morning passed as I stopped by baby name sites, checked etymology, and consulted the mighty Goog.

Annie has become Auda, a name with a Scandinavian twist, as befits the setting, and Lila has become Lilan, a name that appears in a variety of cultures and calls to (my) mind the flower. These names, I hope, make sense in the vaguely Northern, pre-Industrial, magic-exists, wool-processing, flax spinning, small village setting. I like to think these names give them a bit of depth and roundness.  

And to my shortcut-favoring brain at least, the names appear different enough on the page to keep me from confabulating the two.

​Victory is mine! 

​One scene down, half a dozen more to go.

Where was I going with this?

​Oh, yeah. Promo Monday.  

For a few years now, I've aimed at limiting promotion activities to a predetermined chunk of time. Like a kid getting a set number of minutes with their video game. (A game that is both addictive and designed to keep your attention engaged—to the exclusion of sleep and food. Just ask author Johann Hari.)

Monday mornings might find me watching a YouTube video  from another independent publisher on what is working, or checking my website for optimization. But what's been most difficult — and most vital! — is figuring out what I am promoting.

Let me step back to take a long swing at this: back when I first went away to college, I shared a dorm suite. Two girls in each room on either side of a shared bath. One of our suite-mates was a self-absorbed full-blare yacketty yakker. Through the popcorn textured walls, her voice would drone on and on: "I moimel moimel ME, moimel moimel, I, moimel moimel MY."

It was a solid early lesson on the distinction between what feels important to one person and what SOUNDS like a dental drill to another.

Even if Lifted Board Press had a blockbuster budget to promote She Taught Me Everything, you know how it goes: you see an exciting movie trailer four times, then one of your buddies goes, "Oh hells no, that crap cost me 1 hour and 47 minutes I'll never get back."

Personal opinions just weigh more.

​With a tiny media budget, I rely on friends. On Facebook, for instance, what's going on with the writing gets a lot of air-time, but I don't want to be that girl, broadcasting day and night in stereo.

Likewise Instagram, a platform that my artist sister suggested. Less politics, more pretty pictures, she promised. Turns out I have a weakness for funny reels—which absolutely does NOT help my focus. 

I try to post, but not be spammy.

It's a reasonable-enough marketing motto, right? Be Not Spammy.°
​
Honestly, it's a low bar. Not that anyone is born knowing how to do this stuff, and it sometimes does seem like yelling louder is a strategy. Ask any toddler. 

But no, a quick précis (by way of a couple of seminars and a dive into the beautifully open world of YouTube creators) zeroes in on the dang point of social promotion: giving value for anybody's attention. In other words, listen up and it's gonna be good. 

Easy on the Spam. I might adopt a personal code of arms of non-maleficence, thanks in part to sweet Ms. Larson, my Latin teacher:  Non esse servavit porcos.

I ventured to the clock to play on TikTok for a bit. Overall, I enjoyed engaging with other writers (Golden Angel! Oh my!), even though it felt like exposure therapy to see and hear myself on the tiny screen.

So instead of serving up seasoned pork, how about some opinion, theory, facts?  The value I offered: opinions about books.  

After a couple of months, it was clear, however, that whatever new readers TikTok sent my way, and regardless of the community spirit, the time-drain and brain-drain was not worthwhile.  

In July, a Monday whim and a detour sent me to Pinterest, a site I associate with designing a cabin or finding out how to fold fancy paper stars. It allows you to save ideas onto various "boards," which appeals to the organized creature I long to be.

Turns out Pinterest is a kind of a social media anomaly: instead of yelling into the void and having a day or two to make an impression, this social content sticks around. Pinterest provides something like an endless reading room, full of beautiful images and content that endures. And the best part for my selfish needs? Readers hang out here too! 

With advice from various Pinterest gurus (discovered via Pinterest. I have them pinned on my "Self-Publishing Lessons" board. Naturally.), I set up an account for myself as Author Amy Smith Linton and began to curate. It did not cost a dime, though I spent time making pretty pictures.

Two months into the experiment (it's all experimental!), I give Pinterest a few hours a week, and get kind of a lot of traffic in return.

By my standards a lot: two thousand views the first month, six thousand last month. Do these numbers translate into sales? Modestly, possibly, yes. I can't tell for sure, since I cannot quiz the individual book-buyers, but there's an uptick. And that's gratifying.

Daunting, but gratifying. 

And on we plow, making our furrow as we go...

°Why not "Don't Be Spammy"? Because, though I haven't found the source for this data, the rule I remember is: when attempting to effect social change, it's far more effective to suggest what to do rather than what NOT to do. For example "Bin Your Trash" works better than, "Don't Be A Gross Litterbug."  
 
References
https://www.addictioncenter.com/behavioral-addictions/social-media-addiction/#:~:text=Social%20media%20addiction%20is%20a,impairs%20other%20important%20life%20areas.

https://www.goldenangelromance.com/

https://www.pinterest.com/liftedboardpressllc/

​https://www.tiktok.com/@creativelyflailing?lang=en
​

Have I been slacking at book promotion this summer? Yes, yes I have.  

Is it because I'm lounging on the divan, popping bonbons into my gullet and binge-watching David Attenborough? No, not at all. 

First, I don't have an actual divan. Second, I can't eat dairy. Third, well, honestly, I do enjoy his lovely voice, but television is not my vice. 

Instead I have been listening to a playlist heavy on Anaïas Mitchell, Allison Kraus, Hozier, and Rhiannon Gibbons, working on the next thing.

The next thing.  
​If I were a younger writer, I might have put this next thing aside and focused instead on writing another novel like She Taught Me Everything. A contemporary family drama, say.  It would be a smart career move, to focus on building a brand for my readers to more easily identify me. Excellent strategy long-term.

But I am not a young writer. So rather than thinking about building a brand within a genre, I have passions. Ambitions. Wild horsey dreams.

​Plus this other chunk of words: what I've labeled on my computer as the "Woodkeep trio."
​
These are three (actually five now, but okay, it started as three) related stories clamoring to become as big as a Rubens, and which ask significant chunks of time from me. ​

The three (five) are very different from She Taught Me Everything --like set in a pre-Industrial magic fairy-tale world different.

If I've lost you at fairy tale, so be it.  

The folks clamoring in my imagination don't care about genre conventions. Who am I to argue with fictional characters and their demands? They have a story to tell, dammit!  
But enough excuse-making. They are who they are.

Two Scottish ballads haunt me. One is Tam Lin, about Janet, a spunky noblewoman who will NOT be told what to do. Forbidden to go to Carter Hall, she hikes up skirts and skedaddles, "for young Tam Lin is there."  
As night follows day, Janet finds herself pregnant, and thinks to end the pregnancy with some herbs at Carter Hall.  Tam Lin confronts her and when she says that she will NOT be having a baby with some freaky-deeky fairy knight, he tells her that he's just a poor human, held prisoner by the Queen of Fairyland.
And if Janet is willing, she can save Tam Lin from a fate worse than death this coming Halloween...   

The other ballad is Thomas True or Thomas the Rhymer, in which a guy is snatched up by the queen of fairies — that hussy! — and when he tells her that he wants to go home to the world of humans, she says fine, be that way, and she lets him go...giving him the gift of speaking only truth. Nice gift! 

And that's partly what is inspiring me this summer. These two ballads, along with The Princess Bride, the concept of true love, and a cat. Not a real cat, because allergies, but a cat. 

I don't have a title yet (working on it!), but I do have a date with my editor. Which means, I must hustle back to the—oh, yeah, I am already at my computer.

It's also those scarlet suggestions, notes, generalized messages that teachers and editors are prone to making. They often use red pencil, actually, which likewise does not erase from the page.

When I am an editor working on someone's paper manuscript, I like to use green ink or purple, just to mix it up. Still, even if it's purple, it's red.  And when you are a writer, red = love.  

Or in my world it is.  Because when I have plunked down cash, it's nice to hear from my editor that they like a turn of phrase or the story is interesting. But far better is the attention, time, and—yes--love poured into a note that says something along the lines of, "I think this section could be tighter. Does this word convey the emotion you want? Why are we learning this right now?"

The point of a critical editorial reading is to improve the work. In the immortal words of the original Soloflex ad, it's hard to make improvements. 

So when the manuscript returns with lots and lots of red ink—and yes, the modern version is a Word or Google annotated file, which provides less emotional connection, as you aren't seeing the hasty checkmarks grooved deeply into the page —it's a joy.

Because it's gonna hurt, but it's gonna be better at the end.

But truly, I was NOT lurking. A pair of young women drifted past the table of stacked books, and one, Rachel, picked up my book.

"Squeee! You just picked up my book!" I said.
"Wha?" she said, not yet fully alarmed by my obvious excitement.
"Look on the back!"
She flipped the book over and compared the author photo with my face. "It's you," she said.
"I know!" I said, then, because emotions: "I've got goosebumps!"
"I picked it up because of the cover."
"It's beautiful," I agreed, without the slightest self-consciousness.
"And it's about sisters!"
Were they sisters, I asked, indicating Rachel and her book-browsing friend.
"No. But we both have sisters." Rachel gave me a shrewd look and added, "Is this inspired by a real sister?"
"Yes," I said, truthfully. "But my charismatic older sister is much nicer than that one."
"Oooh," Rachel said. "I'm a charismatic older sister."

And that, gentle reader, is how I accidentally strong-armed an unsuspecting passer-by into purchasing a copy, as well as how I ended up signing a short stack of books at the Barnes & Noble bookstore this afternoon.

Thank you https://www.facebook.com/bntampafl Barnes & Noble South Tampa. And thank you, Rachel! 

In other authorial news, I was invited to map the settings for She Taught Me Everything into a nifty little app called Squirl.  
Squirl is designed to help users, as its tagline announces "Discover the places described in books."

You can visualize where a book is set. So, is Brooklyn Heights your hometown? What snippet from the book did this author choose to go with the pin on the map for Brooklyn Heights?   

You can check the map for books set in any given place—a special treat for bookish folk: to see the locations we've read about.  Or, if you're built this way, it's a way to pre-view spots before visiting by finding books to read that are set in a specific spot.

I love this idea, and hope other authors and their publicity departments will pile on!

Thanks ​https://squirl.co/

"Mathy Math, Math-Math."  That's how one of my friends hears any discussion of numbers: "Mathy-mathetty-math-math."

But even the most innumerate of us have landmark numbers.  These are the numbers that maybe we learned to count by (5-10-15-20, for instance) or numbers that just feel less challenging to keep in mind (100 vs 97, or a dozen vs 13).

I'm approaching a landmark number as an author—a fact that is truly of interest to nobody but me. Has that yet stopped me from writing about anything? No.
​

During my feverish rush last year to get current in my understanding of modern publishing, I gathered some depressing facts. About half of the US population does't read even a single book a year. Not a surprise, but oh! poor creatures!

Also, most books will sell less than 300 copies in the US (1000 copies factoring in all formats across the world). Not just in the first year, btw, but ever.  So if, let's say, you just so happened to be pouring your life-force into the creation of a book, this base truth is helpful for framing one's expectations.

Joyfully for me, I have at least 300 friends kind enough to buy my book. I am grateful for each one. It's a deep thrill every time someone tells me they have read it.

Which brings us to the wonderful-to-me landmark number: 1000.  On Goodreads.com, a website helps 150 million readers track and rate books, She Taught Me Everything is inching closer and closer to the 1000 mark.  

​Meaning that nearly 1000 readers on that site—mostly strangers! people who love to read and who judge by covers!—have either already read or plan to read the book. 
​

They might be getting it from the library (ooh! If you use the library, consider requesting STME), or from a bookstore, iTunes or Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Amazon...

But 1000. Whatever expectations I had six months ago, this number feels a lot bigger than 999. ​

As soon as someone admits to me that they want to write, I point out that there one single action that writers do, and which nobody else does: they write.

You want to write? Write! Like everybody offering unsolicited advice, I'm pretty awesome at suggesting solutions.  

​As for following my own recommendation?

Erm.

​If my house is clean, and there's a complicated meal in the oven, and I have reorganized the books or weeded all the gardens, let's just say as a writer, there's room for improvement.

Since I'm working mostly for myself (and you, dear readers) these days, I go easy on my work shortcomings.  

​Distractions are merely side-quests. 

In the novel that I'm trying to finish right now, (or is it a novella? It's a lot shorter than She Taught Me Everything but okay) one of the characters spins wool and linen. The story's set in a pre-Industrial world where there's magic, but she's often to be found spinning away.

Do I know how to spin wool or linen? Do I need to know? Pffft! I make up shi—ooh! There's a CLASS!

Just so happens I bought a plastic sack including some wool and a spindle last year at the thrift store. One human's trash is another person's back-up hobby supplies.

Add in a pleasant day spent in the company of an enthusiastic teacher (thanks Julia at the Thousand Islands Arts Center!) I now, as have our ancestors for thousands of years, can use a drop-spindle to make wool yarn. 

The process of making fiber behave is not unsimilar to making twine from nettles or willow. Missed that craze? here's my link: http://www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/paleo-crafts

Spinning can be pretty lo-tech: a hank of wool, a stick, and within moments, you create a fluffy bit of innovation. Kind of like magic, really.

Or like writing...

​Oh how I ache to work in a reference to the soccer fans' chant about Roy Kent! 

Consumer ratings are here, are there, are every-something-where for some really good reasons.

It's hard to trust the internet.
I know, reeeeeealy?

Most of us wonder is it advertising, is it paid placement, or is it plain old fakery?  One way around the uncertainty is to get word-of-mouth recommendations, yet in this marvelous part of the 21st C, that takes time. 

So we turn to the social part of media: we check who recommends any given item—and we look at customer feedback before plunking down our cash or time.

How often has the phrase "worked great for about a week" convinced us to select some other Amazon gadget?
 
Speaking of the 'Zon, shall we walk through how to do customer feedback on the world's largest retailer for a book?

Start by finding the book listing on Amazon. Scroll down the page to "write a customer review."
​
​Pick a number of stars. Skip over the headline part for now.

The feedback can feel hard. Stuck for words? Think about the Who, What, How, Why, of the story:
 
Who did you like or dislike in the characters?  (For Moby-Dick, "I liked Ahab, he was poetic and strange.")

What kind of story was it–sad, humorous, romantic, spicy––and did you enjoy that? ("The story was one long whale chase on the high seas. There was a lot of belly-aching, which I could do without, tbh.")

How did the book unfold, how was it told, how did it make you feel? ("Moby-Dick has beautiful descriptions of a lost way of life, which I really appreciated. The obsessive captain was so emotional I was kind of tired just reading it.")

and Why or not you recommend. ("This book is a classic, and it's hard to read, but in the end I felt like I really accomplished something.")

If you didn't finish the book, say why. ("My own white whale showed up.")

The only do-not? Don't mention or imply a connection to the author. Amazon doesn't want someone's mom stuffing the ballot box...

Finally, send a flare up for readers who might like the product. ("This is good for fans of seafaring adventures or anyone working on their vocab.")

Then go back to pick a headline ("Vocab on the high seas")

Press the "submit" button and voilá! you have provided insight for readers, writers, and publishers. You rule.

Pro tip: you don't need to buy the book from Amazon to share your opinion about it. Yep. You can go in and share your opinion regardless. 

Same with other retailers like KOBO and Barnes & Noble... those links can be seen here, btw.
www.amysmithlinton.com/get-a-book.html

Even if you didn't enjoy it at all, don't be shy. It's helpful for other readers to know that someone else has given the book a try and has had an honest reaction.  

Cheers!