The colossal effort continues to surprise me. I'm not complaining, mind you, this IS a lifelong dream. Yet.

Writing a novel is hard.
Making it as good as you can make it, also not easy.
Transforming a .doc file to a pretty object to hold in the hand— exquisitely tough. 
Helping the book get to readers: off the charts difficult.

It's a mountain range of data to climb to understand even a little about how to market and promote a book these days.  Amazon reviews! NetGalley reviews! TikTok! Amazon ads! Blogs! Goodreads reviews! Vlogs! Contests! Pinterest! Reddit! Bookbub promotions! Newsletters! In-person events! Print publications! Instagram! Kobo promotions!

All to the good in my ongoing quest to blaze new neurological pathways, but also, just—Wow. It's a lot.

Wouldn't it be cool if I could describe a coherent, clever strategy I used? Alas, my marketing efforts have been a bit of mad scramble, learning on the fly at the last possible moment.

I started from what I knew: Press releases and e-mails went to my local news outlets and business contacts: an old-school strategy that was frankly useless.

Book reviews used to be the way the word was spread: you'd hear about a book in The New York Times, or your local newspaper, magazines, or on television. Alas, without the backing of a traditional publishing company, none of these traditional media outlets gives non-traditionally published books the time of day.  

​I mean, honestly, even my alumni magazine disses self-published works. ​

Luckily, as the landscape has changed (how many of us subscribes to a local newspaper?!), on-line reviews from peers have become increasingly valuable. Which is why I have and continue to ask (politely but incessantly!) for readers to leave a review, even if they didn't love the book. Reviews on Amazon, StoryGraph, iTunes, Goodreads, are at the core of my advertising. 

On the advice of some YouTube experts, I contacted on-line book bloggers and interviewers and made headway with a couple of mentions/interviews. Results (ie, sales and other actual metrics) were inconclusive, though each mention contributes to the book's online bona fides. Which is ultimately worth SOMEthing.

I visited many local bookstores with books in hand, which was gratifying when it works. And rather deflating when it didn't. I really want to support my independent bookstores, yet some were mystifyingly aloof and unfriendly.  Poor things: they don't know what they're missing.

To focus on the joy: I love my local Barnes&Noble, I adore The Little Bookstore of Clayton, I am smitten by The Gilded Page in Tarpon Springs, I treasure Book+Bottle in St. Petersburg.  Angels and saints walk among us, many sporting tats and selling books. I am grateful, and they get my business when I am buying.

A foray onto TikTok connected me to some really fascinating peers and helped me overcome what little self-consciousness I had been carrying. I do in fact look and sound like that these days. Woosh! 

More importantly for the book marketing efforts, TikTok has made me a more cautious consumer of online opinion.  There are hundreds of earnest book lovers talking about books they love and hate; there are hundreds more who look as if they have passionate opinions but who are side-hustling as advertising shills. It's a performative world out there.

Other things I've learned from YouTube and the generosity of other writers: a person can leverage content.  This sounds jargonish, but in plain language, this means recycling.

For instance, a blog I wrote ten or 13 years ago (omg!) can be polished and posted on Substack. Bookish content I filmed for TikTok last year can be reposted on Pinterest and YouTube.  

Over and over and over. ​

When I worked in adult learning, one of the designers had a poster that consisted of 99 thumbnail photos of a person saying "Sit," to the dog standing at her feet, along with a final tiny picture of the dog sitting, and the person saying, "Good dog."

Granted, that message was a bit toxic and reductive, but also, it was not wrong.  

​So I'll be over here continuing to natter on and on about She Taught Me Everything and the second (ooh! I know what the name's gonna be!) novel.  

Perhaps, I can imagine certain old friends pointing out, I'll natter on and on because I do, yeah yeah, but also because like that 100th tiny photo, Good dog! 

And poof! just like that, I am now part of a class-action suit against Meta.

But why?  It's a little complicated, but first an overview of copyright.  ©
​
​Copyright, as we have defined it since the 1970's, is the innate right of any creator to control what happens with their creation (book, song, drawing, movie, sculpture, all the cool stuff) for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years.  

The idea being that if you've gone to the effort to make something, you should be able to profit from and control (to some extent) what happens to it for long enough for you and your heirs to benefit.  

Which is why, if someone wants to make a movie of your novel, they need to obtain the movie rights from you.  You can make a deal or not make one, depending if you like the cut of their jib.

Or for example, the fellas in Aerosmith can say no (or send a cease-and-desist) to some rando using "Walk This Way" at a racist pep rally.  If those jerks want a rally-song today, they should turn to something older, like, say, 1923's "Yes We Have No Bananas" by Forman and Nash, or better yet, find a likeminded collaborator and compensate the artist for the use of the work.

©

​There are a few exceptions to copyright, but they are small and specific: anyone can quote a small part of of copyrighted work, for instance, for the purposes of review or scholarship. 

We all use copyrighted material, assuming we read books, buy artwork, listen to modern performances of music, watch K-drama, etc., etc. And we mostly pay fair value for the pleasure: buying a copy of a book, paying taxes that support libraries, purchasing an entry ticket, keeping up on subscription fees, or even renting our ears and eyes to advertisers by the 15-second-increment.

The wicket grows sticky almost instantly when the user of the copyrighted material puts that original work to use for gain.  Like when Vanilla Ice five-finger-discounted the "Under Pressure" rift from Queen and David Bowie for "Ice Ice Baby." ​

Vanilla Ice, bless his goofy heart, ended up having to apologize, give credit to David Bowie and Queen, and pay for the use of the riff, btw.  See also "cautionary tale."

And that's copyright generally sorted. Now the Artificial Intelligence (AI) kerfuffle.

Say Jane Doe, avid reader and would-be novelist, buys a copy of Novel X and reads it, later crediting the influence of that novel in her own success as a novelist. How is that different from Llama AI gobbling Novel X up in an effort to learn how to write and speak? ​

Such a good question. I have opinions!

To start with, what would AI be doing with Novel X anyhow? Overly simple explanation: the way that these AIs like ChatGPT, Llama, and even Grammarly learn language is through examples. Give it Shakespeare, and you get Shakespearean English. Which is not helpful when you want to make your hastily written e-mail sound more businesslike. Alack! A pox on your deadline, sir!

So in order to be really useful, AIs need an ocean of source material. Like, say, a library.  Only thing is: copyright.  ©

To get hold of Novel X, someone somewhere somehow in the AI world has to upload (which is to say made an electronic copy) the work. 

For instance, an impatient fan got the clever idea of having ChatGPT finish the last book in the Game of Thrones series in author George RR Martin's style. Except of course, George RR Martin holds the copyright to those books, and he never gave permission for the series to be electronically copied to ChatGPT.

​Cue the lawsuits.  ​​©

Third, and I suspect this will be the sticking point legally, Llama AI is not a human, working on creating an original work of her own; it's a for-profit business product that stands to make bajillions of dollars for Meta as well as for users of Llama, a list that currently includes Google, Goldman Sachs, etc etc. More than 170 million downloads, according to Meta's own website.  

Bajillions of dollars, let me reiterate, off the backs of many, many writers like me.

And what do we get?
Zip, and absolutely no creative control when someone wants to imitate us. A bad actor could easily say anything in imitation of my narrator's voice.  Like, "Hey Google, write me a 30-second TV advertisement script in the tone of Margaret Atwood's The Testament for a new non-hormonal drug regimen for ED."

Which is horrifying and exactly the opposite of creative control. ​​

REFERENCES
https://routenote.com/blog/all-the-songs-now-in-the-public-domain-2024/

https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/

https://abounaja.com/blog/copyright-infringement-cases
https://www.txpatentattorney.com/blog/common-copyright-violations-you-probably-commit/

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-court-trial-over-use-of-copyright-material-ai/741985/

https://authorsguild.org/news/meta-libgen-ai-training-book-heist-what-authors-need-to-know/

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/21/meta-has-revenue-sharing-agreements-with-llama-ai-model-hosts-filing-reveals/

​https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-revenue-and-net-income/

​https://about.fb.com/news/2024/05/how-companies-are-using-meta-llama/

https://originality.ai/blog/how-do-ai-writers-work#:~:text=Essentially%2C%20an%20AI%20content%20generator,content%20that%20matches%20the%20prompt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technicalwriting/comments/1ddr4tz/tech_writers_how_do_you_use_ai/

https://wjlta.com/2024/03/05/plot-twist-understanding-the-authors-guild-v-openai-inc-complaint/

https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-books-ai-completed-removed-lawsuit/

Kobo is Toronto-based alternative to Amazon's Kindle. The company has its own e-reader devices, its own catalog of books, and phone and desktop apps—it boasts 30 million users and a global reach.  You can use Overdrive and Libby to access library books on your Kobo device. 

I'm not trying to sell it, but it has an appeal. 

And, after So. Many. Tries. there's a Kobo book deal on She Taught Me Everything. Whooot whoot!

Kobo users will get 30% off the cover price for the next couple of weeks. It's advertised by newsletter and on the site's "deals page."

If you're curious for details, I give up something like 45% of my royalties during this time in exchange for Kobo promoting the title to readers who might like it.  
 
My marketing efforts, admittedly, lack an overarching logical framework. There's a lot of seat-of-the-pants, learn-as-I-go, last-minute efforts to figure how this or that works. All to the new neurological pathways good, right?

Kobo has not been a huge seller of the book (Amazon has the numbers), but it continues to find new readers there and I do have reviews on the site (a key element to sell any book is proof that the book exists!).

I did put together a couple of videos for the various social media (O TikTok! O Insty! Hello Facebook!), but If my strategy were a bit more organized, I'd stack promotions on this Kobo deal.  Alas, I have been wrestling with novel 2 and my ducks are not in a row. They are flapping and quacking like mad, honestly.

But I do salute and celebrate this victory. Thanks Kobo!

Kobo user? I want to know about it — drop me a line in the comments.

It's not like going to Suwannee or Coachella, but there is a definite sense of "morning after" with a book festival. 

Bookish festivals are less Bacchanalia, more tea-party, in my experience. Rarely do we experiment with questionable dance moves or off-script substances. Communal toilets, however, are common to both. 

Oh, did I guzzle a big honking glass of wine at the end of the day? Yes, but I wasn't hung over that way.

Did I get dehydrated in the interest of reducing trips to the ladies'? I did. It was a choice.

Was it either freezing cold or slightly sweaty at all times? Indeed it was, and I should have worn my wool skirt with the deep pockets and the flannel petticoat, because I—a volcano under most circumstances—was on the edge of shivering all day. ​

None of this physical fiddle-faddle plays into it. What gives me the morning-after feels is the overload of stories. So. Many. Stories.  

Get us together and writers know how writers are; we're all playing with paper dolls in our rooms. So even the shy ones are willing to talk about why they write what they write, confident that ain't nobody gonna cast stones in this big glass house.

At the mixer before the event, I consider the crowd and think: it's almost as if the authors themselves fall into genres: The ones who do it for the children in their circle, the ones who want to share their history, the ones who want to shoehorn their lifetime's expertise into the setting of a cozy mystery. ​

Putting aside for a moment what drives them, I should be ashamed to admit how the optics play out for me: the man straight out of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a rheumy eye affixed upon the hapless wedding guest.  I couldn't keep looking away from that tiny masked lady who wore enough purple marabou to render her into a child-sized, dyed Easter chick.

Truly, it's my failure getting stuck on appearances. I might have learned their stories rather than allowing them to write themselves in my imagination. That's on me.

As a pre-tween, I was pressed into use as a tiny servitor at my grandparents' cocktail parties. I think most of the cousins were. I'm grateful, decade after decade, to have had this early job. It was useful not only in teaching me that gimlets* aren't the same as martinis, but also at fostering a layer of social callus. 

*Ask me how long it took for me to differentiate between "gimlets" and "giblets." Stir "gauntlet" and "gibbet" into that confusing mix as well. 

To earn Mimi and Bompa's approval as a waist-high moppet, one had to go ahead and give up the idea of being timid. It meant asking random adults the obvious question about what they wanted to drink, and then listening to what else they say. If they said something incomprehensible or uncomfortable, deflect and move along. ​

Or in the case of this book festival weekend—being tethered to the table under a cirrus-puff of grievances—deflect and attempt to chat up any readers within reach. It made for a loooong day.  

On the plus side, I got to ramble in Payne's Prairie a bit on the way up, share meals with a couple of button-bright youngsters of my acquaintance, and visit two very nice bookstores in Gainesville.

​Aw, that glass is lovely! And it's nearly half full!​

As with birdwatching, so it is with authors.  Oh, I've seen Stephen King stepping into his big black SUV at the Publix, but most writers are drab birds, well camouflaged and not terribly showy in the wild. 

Until they gather in flocks. ​

When USF used to host the Suncoast Writers Conference, it was a bit of amusement for my sister and me to play "Spot the Oddity."

For instance, the guy in the brown wool cloak and Gandalf staff? On a hot Florida afternoon, btw. Def a fantasy novelist.
10 points to Gryffindor!

Oh, and that lady with the Crocodile Dundee hat who thrust a photo at Connie May Fowler in the signing line. Connie May, a charming and delicate woman, looking up at the Dundeehatter with a look of horror. "It's the trailer park where you grew up!" the woman said. Then she added, in case we had doubts, "I'm a writer too!"

I went to a reading in maybe 2013 where the poet—lovely writing, by the way—was sporting a leather jacket and lace spats (like Madonna circa "Lucky Star"), but NOT ironically...  We listen, and we DON——oh, I do so judge.

Mostly, even as I judge, I'm curious about why. Perhaps the choice is driven by the panicked thought of so many watching eyes, when many writers spend their days deep, deep within the safe snail-shell of their skulls.  

PS: If you're in Gainesville, swing by the Sunshine State Book Festival. It's excellent people-watching. I'll be there, trying to sell some books and meet up with my flock.  

​https://guides.fscj.edu/writers/ConnieMayFowler
​https://writersalliance.org/event/2025-sunshine-state-book-festival/

​​

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

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/

Modern book clubs are a wonderful worldwide phenomenon: a social occasion to maybe enjoy a bit of food and beverage for the purpose —ostensibly—of discussing a book.

Clubs vary widely: some are focused on the wine and the company. Others look into the origin of the book or what affect the book has had on our world. Still others are all about the feels. 

So when I was invited to attend my first book club as an author, I wasn't sure how it would be:  would I get a grilling for my choices of plot or writing style? What if they hated it? What would readers want to know?

And what did I want to tell them?

As it turns out, so far, I am most moved to say "Thank you!"  It continues to surprise me how wonderful it feels to have someone else read the words I typed out. To have people commit to the time (let alone money) is an honor. 

Here's my giddy reaction video after the first club meeting, which I did via phone:

I've got another four club appearances lined up (half in person, half by phone), in the next couple of weeks and I can't express how lucky I feel. 

Got a book club? If She Taught Me Everything might be a good fit for your group, I'll come by and chat!

I've even got discussion questions... 

There were a gratifying lot of photos -- some people included pets, others snapped the picture unlikely settings, many included libations and snacks. It was heartwarming.

I put those images into a montage -- with music! oooh! It was so much fun I did it twice.

Truth be told, I'd like to have done the one and be done, but the cool music track didn't track across social media gaps, so we have us a TikTok edition and an Instagram one too. 

My favorite skipper picked a name from a hat (my actual hat) to chose the lucky random winner of the Face in the Place contest. 

And the lucky winner was...Kathy Lacey.  We did a handoff of the loot (a gas card) in a grocery store parking lot.  Not sketchy at all!

And because of his bold choice of photo shoot, Mr. Mark Taylor earned himself a viewer's choice award. A gas card! 

It was great fun for me, and I hope my shutterbug readers enjoyed it as well. 

I'd like to do another contest. I'm a fan of fabulous prizes from way back –– any suggestions for ways to award such  things?

I am psyched to see reviews coming in, but honestly, I almost don't look at them myself.

First, I have a generous dollop of self-confidence already––without any real external encouragement. (And I'm reluctant to burst that bubble on purpose.)