It's May!

Raining this morning, but I think it's lifting off for now. Spring flowers are in full blossom, and many of the birds are back. My husband has become quite the birdwatcher, and watches them from the kitchen window. I'm called once in a while to identify one. He usually knows, but has to have my expert eye.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get my second book finished, Vampire's Trill. A lot of thought and work has gone into this one. I have been going through it several times to make sure I have not repeated myself--which is hard to do with a fresh eye every time, but I think I've caught a number of repeated phrases. Its hard to do a series and not explain, briefly, some of the things that came in first book, because you want your readers to remember things from that first one. But I don't like to brow-beat, and I'm not going to start out explaining who Sabrina is. If you don't know who she is, then you'd better go get the first book and read it first. Right?

Spring semester is nearly done--thank goddess!--at NIU. And usually I don't mind the summer's slower pace, but I still have to drive. My husband wishes I could just be home and write (and take walks to trim down), and just be at home doing my thing. Says he has not given up hope that something might come through. He's quite the believer.

I am also lining up more appearances--of my first book Vampire Ascending. Anyone trekking over here from time to time might want to pay attention, and get on over to Lorelei's Muse because I am going to be on another blog this coming Monday, and will announce it both on Sunday as to where, and on Monday I will give the link to it at Muse.

If you are a Muse reader, you know I affectionately call those of you who come over there my "lurkers and stalkers", and I need you to continue to lurk and stalk because you are what makes my world rock. I also must tell you, since you are reading this at this blog, that I have been writing for over 30, and had always thought back when that it wouldn't be long before I'd be published. Little did I know it would take this long, and that it would be such a bumpy, unkind road. But I've finally made it. I did not give up. I wanted to a hundred times. I tried getting myself a publisher (first back when you could approach publishers), and then I tried agents. Whatever the reason, I wasn't their cup of tea.

But, I learned eventually, that you--the readers--are the ones I have to care about. Not "them". You are the ones who put down the $$ for books to read books, and you are the ones who have convinced me that, yes, I am good enough. My readers have spoken. Shelly's Novice Writings made a review on Vampire Ascending, and she did a great job. The only other place I would recommend to those of you unconvinced, other than the places I've been to to promote the book is the book's own website Here.

And I've been placing certain hints here and there at Muse as well as Copperhill Media's own website FrogenYozert, if you want to investigate some of the background I'm working on for the next book, which I hope to be done with soon so that I can sent it out and it might make a summer publication, if I work a little harder this week to finish. I hope. That's why I'm not blogging as much now, since all this really takes up my time. I can't visit other bloggers' as much as I'd like either.

Hope you all have a good weekend!

More Thoughts on Popularity ~ In The Real World

Once your book is out there, it becomes very apparent that you have to work just as hard, maybe even harder, to get people to notice and buy it. Being shy, or not being aggressive will not help sales at all. Plus, you need to become a little creative in the finding places to get the word out.

In my case my job almost gives me the best of both worlds. I work driving a bus for a college campus. Thus I've got a lot of riders who get to know me (or they see me) 5 days a week and 7 hours a day. Every college has a paper, and NIU is no different. The Northern Star is sent all over the country, and has won several awards over the years. Thus, getting myself in this paper has taken both savvy, and guts to approach people who I know will get a story about my book into this paper.

Tony Martin is a columnist for Northern Star, and he rides my bus. Can you believe I could have such a deal? It's like kismet! His column is featured more than once a week. He reviews bands, music, and such mainly. But when I approached him about my vampire book, he was a bit hesitant. I knew he was. He probably thought it was another copy-cat of the Twilight series. So, when I told him about it, and I sort of pressed him into reading it, I felt I'd done everything I could in the name of getting the book noticed. I have no idea how many vampire fans there could be in a campus this size, but I figured it might be one in maybe 50. I don't really know.

This week Tony's review on my book came out. He gave it a 4 1/2 out of 5 rating. That's pretty good. It's good, considering that he is an English major. He was happy to see that my book, Vampire Ascending is not anything like Twilight. He said it was "a breath of fresh air in a genre that will, at its apex, be remembered for birthing some sparkly British super model vampires who wants to save it for marriage . . ." He called my work more of a "gritty, violent, dark and sexual world of Anne Rice's vampires. . . " He liked that I was able to create a female protag that caught him by surprise when he decided he liked her. Sabrina Strong had real problems, and tried to deal with them, and only got in deeper and deeper. He also like that my story had vampires existing in "our reality, instead of some hypothetical alternate universe".

There was a good reason for this. I didn't want to do a lot of back story. You get bogged down in that, as a reader, as well as a writer. But, it's a tough sell, as I told a young lady who had seen the article and started up a conversation about it while riding my bus the day the article came out.

Today, a day after the article came out, another young lady came on my bus saying "You've been keeping a secret!" she said, her cute dimples showing. I knew she meant that I'd kept it hidden that I was a writer. Well, you don't stop the bus and make the announcement, do you? But it's difficult to get the word out. I should wear a sign saying I have a book out there, maybe, as someone else suggested. One of those bill board things you wear. Yeah, that's a great idea. I also thought of chalking sidewalks, but my knees aren't what they used to be in my twenties.

Back to the lady with dimples. "I knew you were different, I just didn't know in what way." I had to laugh. I'm not sure if she meant the way I tried not to "look" like a bus driver, I try to wear suit coats once in a while, and just look nice. Author-ly, you might say.

Her name was Nicole, I found out, and she had been riding my bus for a few years, but I hadn't seen her in months. She is what I want to call an "absolute fan". She came up to me, began the conversation, and said she was interested in the book, and everything about it, so I gave her a book mark which gave places where to find the book, and I even jotted down my main blog. When I get people like this who don't have to be convinced to buy the book, that's what I call a fan. I want to hug them all.

Popularity with fans is more what I'm after. If I'm able to convince an English major who is more into zombies than vampires, that my book was worth his while, then, yeah. This is the fruit of my labor of throwing myself out there, getting the book noticed, and taking a chance that people will eventually find out about it. This is where my time and effort must go toward more now than trying to see how many new followers I can grab. My main blog, Lorelei's Muse is seen all over the world. Russia, Germany, Israel, Australia, Canada, Japan, Denmark. . .51 countries--some which I don't even know where they are. And when I begin seeing sales on Amazon--as I can track them--I know that somehow people are coming to find a new vampire book with grit, spice and things that some of those YA versions just don't have.