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.

Shark Attack

Is there a Great White swimming unfettered around the United States Postal Service?  Take a look at how my Writer's Digest magazine was delivered.  It's not just torn--it's mutilated.  And tell me it doesn't look like something took  a big honkin' bite out of my magazine. 

Really, we need to start paying our postal workers a bit more.

Pottery Queen

The middle-grade novel I'm working on takes place in a summer camp and one of the scenes is set around these 10-12 year olds doing pottery.  I've never touched a potter's wheel in my life and so decided it was time to engage in a bit of author research.

My friend Melody, who's very craftsy, hooked me up with a wonderful NC pottery artist named Susan O'Leary.  Susan teaches a class for 10-13 year olds at the Cultural Arts Center and was kind enough to invite me to sit in on today's class.

I have pages of notes.  Certainly I jotted down details about the space--how a white/orange haze seems to hang in the air and settle on tables and clothing. And how the recycled clay is produced in thick brown log shaped chunks.  And--my absolute favorite--how the plates that go on the pottery wheel are called "bats" and so Susan calls the metal cart that holds all these plates "the Batmobile."  Tell me that's not going to make it into the story!

But what I ended up scribbling down more than anything, was dialogue.

There were two boys in the class, age 10. ENERGY filled, they were.  Not having cause to spend any time around boys of that age, I had no idea they jumped around so much.  Just constantly in motion--hopping, swaying, balancing, leaping, running, ducking, diving...it didn't end.

And the dialogue was priceless. "Die, die, die!" exclaimed one, as he pounded a sculpting tool into a hunk of clay. Another one, while explaining a video game he played to me, said, "Yeah, I killed my dwarf at Level 10. It was cool." 

There were also some 12-13 year old girls in the class.  Much calmer. Torn jeans are apparently still big, as is writing on clothing - jeans and red tennis shoes were covered with colorful marker-made words and phrases.  One girl came in and had 5 small red hearts drawn on her knee, which you could see through her torn jeans.

So I scribbled like a madwoman. This is gold, baby. Then about an hour into class, Susan asks if I would like to throw my own pot on the wheel.  Never one to turn down clay and water, I agree.  So what you see here is my first thrown pot.  Susan helped, naturally, but I'm proud of it.  She had me write my initials in the side of it and said she fire it for me.  I'm quite pleased.

And exhausted.  I thought teaching adults was tiring...ha!  That's nothing compared to a roomful of kids, all doing different things at once.  And yet, Susan floated around the room, making sure everyone was engaged and working.  I took as many notes on her as the teacher as I did on the kids.

A very fun experience.  Thanks, Melody, Susan and kids!