So, I’m flipping through the coupon inserts that came with the Sunday paper, because Monday is grocery shopping day, and I noticed a couple of coupons for a new type of product that seems to be all the rage:
“Personal insect repellent.”
Now, just what sort of “personal insects” would those be?
What did you do in school today, dear little boys of mine?
I decided that I would make myself an author website, distinct from By Light Unseen Media’s site.
I had actually twigged to the importance of this in January when I was collecting data on hundreds of authors for Broad Universe. All I was doing was running up stats on gender distribution in the science-fiction/fantasy/horror field: how many authors were male, female, or undetermined, and of those, how many were acknowledged with reviews, “Recommended” or “Notable” listings, and so on. (If you’re a female writer, the results would depress you. 🙁 ) I often had to look up the author to be certain of his/her gender. It didn’t take long to realize that if I wanted to find information about an author, and s/he didn’t have either a Wikipedia entry or an author’s website that had a guessable domain name or came up in a Google/Yahoo search, I was (a) SOOL and (b) very frustrated. Then I thought unkind (and probably unfair) thoughts about the writer and how serious s/he was about writing if s/he couldn’t even buy a domain name. Then it occurred to me that undoubtedly, anyone else looking for an author online by their name–editors, agents, other writers, journalists, reviewers, etc–would react exactly the way I did if information wasn’t fast and easy to find.
It’s true, I’m all over the Internet, and if you Google my name, you’ll find By Light Unseen Media, “Real Vampires,” Mortal Touch and lots more. I’m the only Inanna Arthen on earth! But I decided I needed an author website that focused on my fiction and writing. Among other things, I want BLUM’s website to look like a small press website, not about me. I put an author bio up for Anne Fraser as part of that change.
So, I bought up inannaarthen.com and a bunch of other domain names. Trouble is–that’s the cheap part. Hosting a website is expensive. I already pay $14.95 per month to host bylightunseenmedia.com, and that’s the lowest rate my ISP offers. There are cheaper hosting options, but even they add up when it’s a monthly fee. My monthly fees have gone up as it is, with the upgrade in my phone service, and fuel costs driving everything else up. Even first-class stamps just went up another cent.
But, I discovered that I can forward iannnaarthen.com and vampiresofnewengland.com to a dedicated subdirectory of BLUM’s website. At least if someone types those domains into their browser nav bar, they’ll go to the right place. That is…they will, as soon as I design and upload The Right Place. I underestimated how much work that was going to be!
Of course, I wanted it to look nice. Not slick and Flash-animated or anything, just tidy–and immediately different from BLU and BLUM. So, I needed a color scheme. I needed to design a header graphic. I needed to figure out the page layout. I had to decide how to organize the information, and what information was important. I’ve spent hours looking at author websites linked on the Broad Universe Member page. They’re all so different! I’ve never done a website that was intended to promote just, you know, me. All my websites have been informational sites.
I decided to completely convert my least-used Blogger.com blog into an author/writing blog. BLU Media Blog is for publishing stuff. I had this blog I started for political commentary, but I never posted there, so I renamed it and moved it onto BLUM’s server. But now it has to be re-designed, too! It has to match the author pages.
So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two days or so…ye gods, what a time sink web design is! And I haven’t even done style sheets for the revised sites–I want to, but that’s even more time! The new material isn’t all uploaded yet–I hope it will be up by tonight. I just wanted to make an update here before any more time went by.
This is very cool:
California’s top court overturns gay marriage ban
I saw a bluebird in the front yard today, and I sold another Kindle edition of Mortal Touch. None of the above, however, compensates for the fact that I failed to make the finals for either the Ben Franklin awards or the IPPY awards (which were just announced), and I am sulking a deep and fuming sulk. Entering those contests involved a rather significant monetary investment, for the entry fee, multiple copies of books and shipping. It would have been nice to have gotten something to show for it. I’d be sulking less if it wasn’t for all the people in various groups I belong to squeeing about their books making the finals. I’m too jealous to congratulate them. *grump, grump, grump.*
Yeah, I know, I know, grow the *bleep* up, already. *grump*
It’s overcast, wet, and chilly today…again. I can’t imagine why I harbored this blithe delusion all winter that when spring came, it would get warm. I’m wearing two sweatshirts, and freezing! It’s only five weeks to the summer solstice! And I can’t even eat chocolate. *grump*
Whew!
I didn’t post an update yesterday because I didn’t quite finish, and I hated to make a post that just said, “I spent the whole day working on a project and stopped just short of uploading it, so you can’t see it yet.”
Now you can. I did a fairly substantial revision to By Light Unseen Media’s website. I didn’t change the basic color scheme, but I did change the hierarchy, main menu, and templates. It looks much more like an independent small publisher’s website now, and much more the way I want it to look. I added some new content to the page for Mortal Touch (a new review blurb I’d used on postcards but not the website, the link for the Kindle edition), and put the link for Pandemonium Books on the link page. But I also added the two forthcoming books, Gideon Redoak and The Longer the Fall, and author pages, even though I still need to get cover designs done. I’ll continue to update the website, but I like it much better now.
Despite the fact that I didn’t think much of it before, I was stunned at how much traffic it has been getting. I seldom logged into my administrator’s console–and I need to do that more often!–and when I did so, I saw that the BLUM website had 8,819 unique page hits in April! *amazed stare* Well, now people have even more to look at. 🙂
I feel like Robert Neville in “I Am Legend:” broadcasting on all frequencies, nobody answers, nobody hears me, nobody out there… 🙁
Of course, there aren’t 9 million CGI’d monsters trolling for my ass, so I suppose things could be worse!
I posted a condensed version of the Saint-Germain Memoirs review to the book’s Amazon detail page. I finished composing interview questions and sent them off to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s publicist. Now I just have to wait and see. My lawn mower is repaired and I went to the shop and picked up it. I got the usual Monday chores and errands done. It’s been a cool, overcast day but we “dodged a bullet” as they say, just missing this huge storm. But then, it’s been so dry, there are high fire risk warnings up again!
We’ve had a ghastly cyclone in Myanmar. There has been a ghastly earthquake in China. A volcano is erupting in Chile. The WHDH meteorologist, Pete Bouchard, notes that so far this year, there have been 910 tornadoes reported in the U.S. The normal average by the end of May is 539. I glimpsed a news headline about “landslide election wins” and flinched before I read it more closely. Hurricane season starts officially in two and half weeks.
Good thing I’m not superstitious.
You know all those SUV drivers who insist they drive SUVs because they’re “safer?” The people who imagine that if they were in a compact car, they’d be toast in an accident? (Especially an accident with an SUV. *wry look*)
This one’s for them:
Two killed when SUV rolls over on top of Volkswagen
Note that the SUV landed on top of the Volkswagen and demolished it. Note the results:
“The male driver and female passenger of the SUV were declared dead at the scene. A male passenger was seriously injured.
The female driver of the Volkswagen received minor injuries.”
Further comment would be superfluous.
To everyone who is a mother, a foster-mother, a de facto “mom” or a mother’s child…
Happy Mother’s Day!
For ages I’ve felt like there was an ominous cloud over me, and I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me. Today, for the first time in a long while, I woke up without it. Maybe that’s just a fluke…or the cloud was just a fluke! But I woke up with a boost of psychological and emotional energy. Physically, though, I feel more than usually wiped, so I don’t know what’s going on there. Maybe sleep deprivation, maybe pollen (I never used to have allergies, but in recent years I’ve noticed that when the allergens are bad, I experience a certain malaise), maybe some bad food choices yesterday. I was so elated about the book signing afternoon, I “splurged” and had ice cream.
In the past, I wouldn’t expect that to be an issue, but I’ve really purified my diet in the past month. I have a terrible chocolate jones–it’s really my only “addiction” or vice, and it’s very limited. But when the going gets tough–really tough–I start popping the Hershey’s Kisses. While annef was sick, I was eating more and more of them. I had cut way, way back, almost to nothing, after I left Dracu-job. But now my intake was getting high again. Meanwhile, I had ramped my exercising way up, and then cut out just about all junk food by eliminating corn syrup, transfats and refined grains from my diet. Alas, Hershey’s Kisses (and potato chips!) are innocent of any of those nasties. But I wanted to lose some weight, and no matter how hard I exercised, I just couldn’t seem to lose an ounce.
After annef passed away, I got a grip and cut the chocolate down to less than one eighth of what I had been eating: four Kisses per day, max. Now I am losing weight! Slowly, but definitely. (Mind you, I weigh the same that I did when I was 17, and I’m in much better shape than I was then–in fact, I’m in the best shape of my life. But I was too fat at 17. 🙁 ) So, if I eat ice cream, my whole body now goes, “huh? WTF are we supposed to do with this??” because I’ve cut back so far on both chocolate and sugar.
Oh, well, I only bought a little pint, not a gallon tub! It’s hard to find ice cream without corn syrup, too. And I can’t eat any of the fancy “mix in” flavors because the chips, sauces, cookie pieces, or whatever are bound to have white flour, transfats and/or corn syrup. Of course, Ben & Jerry’s can’t make plain old chocolate. It has to be “Fair Trade Chocolate”. *laugh* It’s good, though!
I was amazed that my Blogcritics review was posted by the editors last night–usually it takes about a day, especially on weekends. This morning, the review showed up in my Yahoo news filters. See, that’s a major reason I want to contribute a lot to Blogcritics: not only do they get 50K unique hits per day, but they’re indexed by all the search engines very fast. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/05/10/224920.php if anyone wants to read my opinion of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s The Saint-Germain Memoirs.
I was also amazed when I went to the compost pile late last night and realized that the grass I planted is all sprouting! It’s still so thin and light green, it showed up better in the flashlight beam than in broad daylight. I was about to despair–it’s supposed to show up in seven days and it’s been two full weeks for the east side patch. I thought maybe I didn’t cover the seed enough, or it had gotten dry, or there was too much rain, or it had been too cold. Evidently, none of the above! It’s coming up like gangbusters! Which is terrific, because I bought a huge bag of grass seed and I have lots more places I want to re-seed.
I better get some work done! Ideas…I woke up with ideas! 🙂 It’s a stunningly gorgeous day here–crystal clear blue sky, bright sun, and the violets are blooming. It’s still on the cool side, though. Oh, Happy Whit Sunday/Pentecost to those who observe that day!
Well…
Perhaps in straightforward “book signing” terms, it was a slow day. We (in fact, the store in general) had very few customers. Pandemonium Books has a large gaming area in its basement where we had a long table. We shared the space with several small gaming groups but they were not interested in books. I had taken a plastic skull-and-bones cup to fill with chocolate coins, and the cast resin human skull to have on the table, and a couple of other people brought similar “props.” We put the two posters I printed on the wall behind our table, and had all our books and various related handouts and freebies displayed. But there wasn’t too much traffic, and most of the group tossed it in and left by 4:00 p.m. I stayed until 5:00 p.m. with one other person, because I’m an optimist, and besides, I believe in sticking to one’s posted times.
However, I would have to call it a most fruitful day, from my perspective. To begin with, the store bought six books from me to stock. I gave them the standard non-returnable retail discount of 45% and came home with a nice plump check in my pocket. You know, it’s just amazing how much warmth is generated by a little piece of paper! That check in my pocket made me feel so gosh darn cozy! *wry smile* AND…I am now stocked in an actual bookstore, on the shelves! Yay!
Second, the people taping for the documentary spent quite a bit of time with us and individually interviewed everyone as well as taking footage of us all at the table. They asked to interview me in more depth at a later time, to which I said, absolutely. They’re very interested in independent publishing and what goes into that. So they have my business card and will be getting in touch.
Third, I had a really enjoyable time chatting with my fellow authors in NEHW, most of whom I hadn’t met before. One of them is going to send me an ARC of his new book to review for Blogcritics, I’m sending another person some information on book marketing and networking, and I got a tip to contact a fairly well-known and traditionally published author, who may have something he might like to have me publish. I was taking notes.
Fourth, as I was leaving I stopped to thank the store assistant copiously for generously hosting our event. We got to talking about his role with the store, focusing on the gaming side of things. I have been looking for a retail business to volunteer with as research for one of the forthcoming books in my series. I’d been thinking of a comics store, but it can just as easily be a gaming store. It sounds like I’ve found my source. The individual I was talking to even looks a bit like the character in my book! So I told him that when I get closer to the deep research phase for that book, I’ll be in touch. It sounds like they’ll be delighted to have the help!
I was pretty cheerful as I drove home! It definitely felt like an afternoon well-spent, even if I didn’t have fans queuing up three-deep like J.K. Rowling. Hey, someday…! 🙂 As I headed up I-95, I was thinking, “more, more, more! I have to do more of this! It’s fun!”
I’m sorry that business was so slow in the store today, but several NEHW members mentioned that it was a disadvantageous weekend for our event. Most college students are just finishing classes, papers, final exams, and so on; it’s Mother’s Day weekend; and there is a big street fair tomorrow that will close Harvard Square, so people may have been avoiding the area. Although, there sure was a lot of traffic everywhere today. Parking was not an issue, there was a parking garage about four blocks from the store, only $1 an hour.
I hope everyone had a nice day today–for sure, no one is on the ‘Net! I uploaded the Yarbro review to Blogcritics, now I need to finish composing the interview questions and send those off.
I was so excited about getting my notice into Boston.com last night, I completely forgot to mention that I had two checks in the mail. I was paid for the church service, and I sold a copy of Mortal Touch. I also looked at BLUM’s latest bank statement and realized that Amazon direct-deposited my first royalties for the Kindle edition sales. It ended up being a rather lucrative day! They say money can’t buy happiness, but it sure does improve my mood. *wry smile*
I spent most of today finishing the Blogcritics review of Yarbro’s Saint-Germain Memoirs. Honestly…all those hours and the foolish review is only 1,135 words! I even have the subtitle and Amazon ASINs all ready. Now I’m chewing over interview questions, so I can send the interview off to Ms. Yarbro’s publicist.
I’m getting things together for the book signing tomorrow. I don’t have to leave too early, but I always angst about getting to an unfamiliar place and finding parking, especially in the city. Especially the parking part–anyone remember that 1960s cartoon, “The Jetsons” in which George Jetson’s car folded up into a briefcase when he got to work? Gods, I would kill for that! The fact that it’s a flying car is nothing compared to the idea of a car you never had to worry about parking! I’d cheerfully take the T in (even though I have extra books in the car)–but there is nowhere on the T line where parking is any easier. 🙁 Here’s hoping I sell at least one book and cover what it’s going to cost me to park!
The two huge flowering crabs by my house are in full bloom, a solid mass of pink. Now, we’re supposed to have wind and rain through tomorrow, and even more heavy rain on Monday and Tuesday. The flowers will be ruined. I guess that’s life…
I submitted a listing about the New England Horror Writers book signing to the online edition of The Boston Globe, Boston.com, by the mechanism of adding a “comment” to the existing blog list of author events for this week. For several days, I didn’t see it, and I wasn’t sure if it would be approved or not. But it’s up!! We’re listed on Boston.com! Woo-HOO!!!!!
Today I went up to Staples and had two posters printed ($2.99 each), very simple, of the NEHW logo and website URL. I’m hoping we can hang one behind our table, and possibly one can go elsewhere, like the front window? I have never been to the store and I don’t know how they’ll manage this. I may give them a call tomorrow because I’m not even sure how they want the payment for the books we sell. If the bookstore ordered the books, it would be all set, but I’m bringing my own books with me.
I’ve gotten some candy to put on the table, and I’m taking some props (I have an extremely realistic cast resin human skull who likes to get out of the house now and then). I also have promotional material to give away. This should be very interesting. I’ve done a signing at a convention but this is my first store event, albeit a SF/F themed store, not a big general store like Borders. Speaking of which, when I was in Borders today picking up a sample copy of Cemetery Dance (to which I hope to submit some short stories), I asked again about author events and got some names and information. With all the excitement about the “Twilight” movie and forthcoming book, now is the time to get into stores with talks about vampires. I’m thinking of combining my article about “seven wrong things you know about vampire folklore” and the one about writing a vampire novel and doing something entertaining with that–maybe even with “slides” I run from my computer.
It looks like another listing of writers’ markets, Gila Queen, will be listing By Light Unseen Media as a market. She asked me for the submission guidelines, at least. I asked an author who queried me to send her full manuscript but she hasn’t done so yet, and I have a feeling she may have done simultaneous queries and gotten a juicier nibble. Oh, well…
