Minutia

I am feeling constantly like I'm working, working, working, but nothing is getting done.

"Explain this to me," Blair said last night. "Give me an example."

Here's what I told him: On Thursday, I received an e-mail from a Colorado bookstore employee--one of the stores who had requested a review copy of Lessons In Stalking through the BookSense program.  The person actually nominated my book for the BookSense award, which was immensely gratifying. They also wrote Spotlight Publishing to ask if they could order a copy of the book through a distributor.

And so it began.  I don't have a distributor.  I e-mailed my friend who is going to start working on behalf of Spotlight Publishing to land us a distributor.  "What should I say," I asked.  He e-mailed back, asking if I'd like him to correspond with the bookstore.  Well, wouldn't that be weird, I e-mailed back.  I had mailed the book to the store with a cover letter from Dena Harris (vs. Spotlight Publishing). So to suddenly have a new person come in might seem odd, yes? We e-mail a few more comments back and forth and now we're up to about 30 minutes worth of time.

Finally, I e-mail the bookstore to say we're a new, small press operating as our own distributor but I would be happy to send them out copies of the book.

The bookstore responds by asking what our shipping costs are. They would probably only order 2 copies and if our shipping costs are too high, it might not be worth it for them.  And to let them know if/when Spotlight gets a distributor.

I forward this e-mail to my friend. He e-mails back, asking if I have a price schedule as set out in Dan Poynter's book on self-publishing that I've been following since this book publishing adventure again.  Price schedule? Huh? So I drop everything and flip through Dan's book, finally finding what I need.

But this is new to me.  So far, the stores I'm dealing with are on consignment. Which means I give them the book and they pay me when they sell one.  Bookstores buy books outright, usually at a 40-55% discount.  BUT, they are also allowed to return any unsold books.  So there's just a whole slew of paperwork and documentation that needs to take place.  I start to get a headache.

I e-mail my friend a sample price schedule for review but ask if it wouldn't just be easier to charge a 40% discount across the board? Yes, it may be more encouraging to say 25% discount for purchase of 1-5 books, and 30% discount for purchase of 6-10, etc.  But that just seems a bigger headache.  So a few e-mails go back and forth on that.

Finally, I decide to go with stacked price schedule.  I e-mail the bookstore with the schedule and say I'll handle the shipping charges.  (It's more important to me my book gets out than to hassle about $4 for shipping).  I ask if they'd like to order copies and that's where it stands now.

So we're up to almost 2 hours spent now on this one task.  Not a consecutive block of time, but still--it's time consuming and take note of what got accomplished: an e-mail was sent.

 That's how the majority of my day goes.  I'm digging through all these minute details and falling farther behind. So I finishing relaying this to Blair. He looks at me and says, "You need to prioritize. In the big picture, what was this? The sale of two books. Way too much time was spent on this."

And I agree.  But my argument was that yes, this was a lot of effort to respond to one e-mail but the effects are more far reaching than that.  The price schedule I sent to this bookstore was going to have to be the schedule I stick to for ALL stores. Also, this distributor issue is going to come up with any bookstore that contacts me.  So I didn't feel I was doing it all for one e-mail, but rather to start to get a grip on future transactions.

I did identify a few key areas.  One: I need to move past my phone phobia.  I hate talking on the phone.  I hate it, hate it, hate it.  Given the choice, I'll always use e-mail.  But that's not time effective.  My 1 hour of e-mails back and forth with my friend could have been handled with a 10-minute phone call.  I do that with a lot of work.  Instead of calling and moving it off my plate, I e-mail and am stuck waiting for a response.  So that's one thing to work on.

The other is to not be such a perfectionist.  I want everything in my life and my publishing business to be in a straight row,  lined up, with clearly defined rules for engagement and a handy checklist to make sure things get done. Life isn't like that.  And I know that. But I keep trying to make MY life like that and getting frustrated when it doesn't happen. 

Of course, that's asking to change a lifelong pattern of operation.  It won't happen overnight.  Small steps.  Like using the phone.  And moving away from e-mail.  I have a writer friend who checks her e-mail once a day.  If it's not in her inbox at check time, it gets left until tomorrow. 

I admire the spirit.

Bookstore Diva

Back before my book was published, I dreamed of walking into a big chain bookstore and finding my book on the shelf.  And even though Lessons In Stalking has been at the Greensboro Borders for months now, I've never made the time to walk in and see it.  So today, when my friend Bernie suggested we pop into Borders, I eagerly said yes, ready to make the dream come true.

Entering the store, I wasn't sure where my book was.  I scanned the humor section and didn't see it there.  Then I saw a section that said "CATS."  Yeah, that would be me.  And sure enough, there were my 4 books, three rows from the bottom.

I immediately did what any good author would do, and that is to turn my books so the cover faced out (vs. just the spine).   That was a mistake as the shelves don't meet the back wall of the bookcase so my 4 thin books went tumbling down three rows of shelves to the floor. 

I fished them out and tried again. This time, I just placed one book facing out, leaning it against my other books.  I stood back to observe my handiwork.  Better.

I wandered over to the travel section and picked up a Fodor's guide to Great Britain. Walking back, I saw a staff member had already refiled my book so only the spine was showing.  Damn, those Border's employees are good.

So I left it.  Honestly, the experience was a bit of a dud.  It wasn't the spine-tingling thrill I thought it would be.  It was more like, "Yup, that's my book.  Looks just like the 2,000 I still have at home."  

What's been more fun is I've been visiting some local boutiques, leaving a review copy of my book.  I'm hoping Rag Poets and the Painted Daisy will both agree to carry my work.  I dropped my book off at Rag Poets on Wednesday, and came back on Thursday to return something and the young woman working the counter said, "Sharon and I were reading this book yesterday and just howling. You're hysterical."  

That's encouraging.

BookSense Advance Access Program

My friends Pam & Michael Cable alerted me to a wonderful little gem of a program called the BookSense Advance Access Program. Here's a description pulled from their website:

Several times each month, we email over 1,000 independent booksellers with news of galleys, reading copies or finished books that you are offering for review. After receiving a free review copy from you, stores will read and decide whether to carry the title, and hopefully even nominate it for the Book Sense List. We make no promises, but the Advance Access program has proven to be a very effective way to get the word out about your titles. Stores will email you directly, and generally, you can expect requests from 25-50 booksellers. The stores do know that it is "first come/first served," but the more booksellers you can provide copies for, the better, of course.

 The fee is $50 and the mailing with Lessons In Stalking listed went out on Monday, February 6th.  Since then, I've had 15 independent booksellers request my books.  Requests have come from Arizona, Iowa, Alaska, Maine, California, New York and--my coup of the day--the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge Massachusetts. 

At this point, it's just me sending them a free review copy of my book.  But that has several things going for it.  One, they've requested it, so it's not like a blind mass mailing where I hope they look at it.  Two, in their e-mails requesting the book, several bookstore owners already said, "Oh, this looks like a staff pick book for us" or "Our customers love cats.  We can't wait to receive your book."  So I'm extremely hopeful sales will be forthcoming.  The final benefit is I would MUCH rather be in small independent bookstores where owners know my book and can talk about it to clients vs. the major chains where it would just get shoved on a shelf and lost.

So all in all, I'm feeling very satisfied I've gotten my $50 worth of value from the program. I stated I was willing to send out up to 50 free review copies, so I'm hoping the requests keep flowing in.  And if anyone needs to find my book in the upcoming months, I'll  direct you to the "Ha-vad" bookstore.

Professional Redemption

Two things.  First, I received an e-mail from PMA this morning congratulating me on having Lessons In Stalking ACCEPTED for trade distribution to national book stores through their program.  Of course! I thought.  The rejection had been a misunderstanding.  A silly mistake I'll laugh about with the hosts of Good Morning America as my book picks up speed and I go on my national tour. What good PR this will bring!

Then two e-mails down was another e-mail from PMA, apologizing for the "incorrect e-mail regarding your acceptance status" in the trade distribution program.  They "apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused" me.  Hmmm.  The next time those of you reading this blog see me, could you do me a favor?  Would you mind checking my back to see if someone has taped a "KICK ME" sign there while I wasn't looking?

I do have good news, however.  I was accepted by the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) which does hold a small amount of prestige.  So "nyeh, nyeh, nyeh" to PMA.

I've been rather gloomy for some time now over my work.  Nothing in particular, just a "not satisfied" feeling in general with life.  I try my hardest to ignore this feeling because history reveals that following this feeling almost always leads to a drastic cut in monetary benefit to our household. 

My first "not satisfied" feeling led me to quitting my full-time job in 1998 and earning my Masters in Library Science.  I worked for a year as a database librarian and loved my job and co-workers but the "not satisfied" feeling crept back in and circumstances allowed me to quit so I travelled and goofed off for 6 months.  You would think that would be every person's dream, but  "Not satisfied" knocked again  so I went to work part-time at the Women's Resource Center and started writing part-time.  Then, (guess who!) "Not satisfied" came a calling and I quit my job to write full-time.  Now that I'm actually earning money with writing...take a guess.  Wow, you're good.  Yes, "Not satisfied" has decided to visit again.

Here is what I think.  I don't think "Not satisfied" really has much to do with the actual work I'm involved in.  I think I'm lacking a deeper foundation, a spiritual base, which is harboring this "not satisfied" feeling.  Work and recognition and all that is a fine thing, but I know there's a deeper purpose for being on this planet.  I used to belong to a spiritual group I enjoyed very much because it gave perspective to life.  These day-to-day "Oh I got accepted/rejected by PMA" are the side shows, not the main event.  But the group I belonged to was moving in a direction I didn't care for, so I dropped it.  That's been over 5 years ago and I haven't yet found anything to replace it. 

I'm not a church person.  And I think churches are very good things for many people.  But for me, spirituality is an exploration, and I prefer discussion, questioning, raising doubts and finding your own answers--something I haven't seen as being popular in most churches.  

Some of it is just laziness.  I've been saying I'm going to attend a meeting at a Quaker church in GSO for some time because I've heard wonderful things about this particular church.  But it's a 45-minute drive there and back which eats up my Sunday and blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse.   I'm holding to that "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear" philosophy, as that's pretty much how I found my first group which brought so much to my life.  But I also think "God helps those who help themselves," so I need to be proactive in seeking things out.

But I do think the reason for my discontent isn't that I'm unhappy with work.  I love what I do.  I think it's just feeling off-balance in life.