Category Archives: Readers & Reading

I Finally Read The Iliad

August 7, 2020 By in Book reviews, Classics, Reading Tags: , , , , , , , 9 Comments

If The Iliad is any indication, the Trojan War was a complex and messy affair. Even on a fundamental level, it featured the lopping off of so many heads and arms and legs and the impaling of so many torsos and throats and bellies that navigating the battlefield must have been a nightmare. Just think of all the bodies and parts of bodies strewn across the beach, the rivulets of blood running to the sea, the fallen horses and upended chariots. Hector of Troy is rumoured to have killed 31,000 Greeks all on his own. If he fought seven days a week until Akhilleus (Achilles) brought him down, he must singlehandedly have done in an average of at least ten Greeks per day. And that’s just the body count for one warrior (albeit a fairly accomplished one) on one side of the hostilities: there were thousands upon thousands of warriors.

The combatants did get a few breaks from battle: hostilities were paused to allow the retrieval of bodies and armour, to accommodate the funerals and games of athletic prowess that marked the deaths of particularly notable heroes and – before the surviving warriors took up arms again – to attend to inspired speeches by the commanding officers. Between skirmishes, temporary housing had to be constructed – the Greeks couldn’t spend the entire war sleeping on their ships – and the troops needed to be fed. There was the inevitable drinking and carousing.

Just to add to the excitement for those on both sides of the conflict, every initiative they undertook was subject to interference by a host of manipulating, petty, quarrelsome and impulsive gods and goddesses. Just when you thought you were getting somewhere, a deity would send in a plague or deliver a thick bank of fog so you couldn’t see who you were fighting, This led to a two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of war.

No wonder it dragged on for so long.

Why I Finally Read The Iliad

My friend John Aragon has been so keen for me to read The Iliad, and I have been neglectful of his recommendation for so long, that he finally made the desperate move of mailing me his own copy (1974, Doubleday, Robert Fitzgerald translation), along with another book as a companion: Helen of Troy by Margaret George. I have just finished reading both of them.

I have always assumed that The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid would be very difficult to read: primarily because the few people I know who have actually read them have generally had several more degrees than I do (n=1) and (I assume, therefore) divert themselves by reading books like Finnegan’s Wake, The Canterbury Tales and the complete works of Franz Kafka.

I am pleased to report that, despite being an epic poem composed in dactylic hexameter, a characterization that might needlessly frighten off a few of the literature-phobes among us, The Iliad is not difficult to read at all. It is, in fact, not only action-packed and bloody, but beautifully written: worth reading for the pure wonder of the language. I was not expecting that. Since I didn’t read it in the Ancient Greek, I don’t know whether to credit the author or the translator for the marvellous turns of phrase, but you can’t make silk purses out of pigs’ ears, and common knowledge suggests that things get “lost” in translation rather than “found,” so I am inclined to give a lot of the credit to Homer himself.

I could cite almost any passage in the book as an example of the fine detail and surprisingly light touch of Homer, not to mention his vivid imagination.

At one point, Zeus (who was helping out the Trojans at the request of Akhilleus at the time) turned his attention away from the war, believing that for the moment, “No other god would come.” Big mistake, for Poseidon (“the strong god who makes the mainland shake”) had been watching the battle and noticed that Zeus had looked away. (Notes on this passage: Ida is a mountain. Priam was the king of Troy, so Troy was “Priam’s town.” The “Akhaíans” are the Greeks, who are also sometimes referred to in The Iliad as “Danáäns.” Samos is an island.)

And here is a section that again reveals Homer’s poetic turn of phrase as well as his compassion – which not only encompasses the fighting mortals but also imbues his depictions of the gods with depth and realism. In this segment, the Greek soldiers fight on despite their devastation at the death of Patróklus, the best friend of Akhilleus, whose body still lies on the battlefield.

“… folded in a ragged cloud of stormlight….” How wonderful is that?

The Plot

Most of us know the story of the Trojan War, which was precipitated when Helen – the beautiful wife of Meneláos, king of Sparta – ran off with Paris Alexander, the young Trojan who was one of King Priam’s many sons. By the time the Greeks finally arrived to rescue (or recapture) her, Helen had been living in Troy for many years: she’d been there so long, according to Margaret George’s telling of it, that she felt more allegiance to Troy than to Sparta. But finally, Meneláos and his older brother Agamémnon managed to call in enough promises and debts from the rulers of surrounding states to amass hundreds upon hundreds of ships (a thousand, according to Christopher Marlowe), all jammed full of warriors eager to help avenge the insult to Sparta and to Meneláos brought on by Helen’s “abduction.” (Note: even though she left her nine-year-old daughter behind, there is every indication that Helen went with Paris willingly.) (If there even was a Helen.) Despite the fact that Sparta was no more than a week’s voyage from Troy, the war – which took place primarily on the beach between the Aegean Sea and the high walls of the Trojan City – would last eight years, by which time the Spartans and their supporters became well entrenched in their own quarters near the walled city.

How I envision the beach on which the Trojan War was fought. There would have been many more large boats and one fewer small one, I expect.

Homer’s poem covers only a few weeks near the end of the conflict. He concludes the tale before what is probably the most famous scene of the War, that being the acceptance by the citizens of Troy of a giant wooden horse which they allowed to be admitted through the gates because they believed it was a gift from the departing, defeated Greeks. A brainchild of Odysseus, the gigantic horse was, instead, filled with Greek warriors who, in the middle of the night, climbed out of it and ran to the gates to let their fellow warriors in. Troy was sacked – the city destroyed, the Trojan men all killed, and the women killed or captured. Apparently Virgil deals with this confrontation in The Aeneid, and Homer refers to it in The Odyssey, and through time many others have written about it, painted it, and depicted it in other ways, but it is not mentioned in The Iliad, which ends after Akhilleus’s death.

The focus of Homer’s story is the conflict between the brilliant warrior Akhilleus and Agamémnon: commander of the Greeks, Meneláos’s older brother, and a fearsome warrior himself. When Agamémnon decides to take possession of Briseis, a young woman who is the daughter-in-law of a king who Akhilleus has received as one of the spoils of war and grown fond of, Akhilleus becomes furious and refuses to help fight the Trojans. It is not until Hektor, another of Priam’s sons and the greatest of Troy’s warriors, kills Akhilleus best friend Patróklus that Akhilleus is moved to action. Patróklus has been wearing Akhilleus’s armour when he dies, which sets up the story’s climax.

The Begats: A Warning to Fellow Readers

If you have decided that you, too, might like to read The Iliad, I don’t want you to give up at Book Two. For that reason, this is a warning to you that Book Two is an outlier, the latter half of it (about 12 pages in the version I read) being actually quite boring. It consists of a list of all the “lords and officers” of the ships, identifies their family histories, mentions the states they came from, and includes such (unnecessary, to my mind) details as what kind of work they did when they were not at war, the terrains of their home country, even what they were wearing when they arrived at Troy for battle. Homer says, “The rank and file I shall not name; I could not, if I were gifted with ten tongues and voices unfaltering, and a brazen heart within me,” and for that we can be grateful. In the meantime, even with just the lords and captains, he does go on and on. (Note: “Aías” is pronounced “Ajax,” a name you will probably recognize. There are two Aíases in The Iliad, one big and one small.)

Well, you get the idea.

When I came across this lengthy list, which reminded me of passages of Genesis, I was tempted to quit reading. But then somewhere online I came across an explanation of why Homer had included all of this apparently useless information: it would have been a high honour for the families and countrymen of those who had turned out in support of Agamémnon to be mentioned in Homer’s book, so it was almost compulsory for him to create this list. It would be a historical record that that would be pulled out and read with pride at family brunches for untold generations. Still, if Homer had been in my writing class, I’d have told him to spread this information out a bit – scatter it between other scenes – to avoid turning off his readers so early in the story.

Anyway, don’t let Book Two deter you. You can always skim that part. And after that is over, you’ll be off and running.

Of Gods and Men

One of the accepted principles of The Iliad is that the gods were active participants in the the Trojan War. In fact, they started it, Aphrodite having caused Helen to fall in love with Paris in fulfilment of an earlier prophecy. Some of the gods were on the side of the Trojans, some were on the side of the Greeks, and some switched from one side to the other. Their hearts were not in the battle the way those of the mortals were: for the most part, they treated the whole thing as though the combatants were mere pawns in a game they were playing with one another – as gods are wont to do.

The mortals, on the other hand, were fully engaged in the combat, passionate about their fellow combatants, and driven to acts of heroism. Dying courageously could bring honour to their states and families; whether they lived or died, if they fought valiantly enough, songs and stories would be sung and written about them until the end of time.

Leda and the Swan, a 16th-century copy after a lost painting by Michelangelo (National Gallery, London). Public domain.

When one of the mortals died, it was cause for deep mourning, and the deaths of significant players called for rituals and ceremonies. These included retrieving the bodies and the armour of the fallen from the battlefield, collecting wood for the huge pyres on which those bodies would be burned, and organizing “funeral games” (like mini-Olympics, appropriately) to honour the fallen hero. The gods, on the other hand, sat atop Mount Olympus or in other places that offered them better views of the action, arguing amongst themselves over who was more worthy of success in skirmishes, and settling bets and disputes by dropping down to interfere in the activities of the humans. They did have their favourites, particularly those to whom they were related: Thetis, mother of Akhilleus, was a sea nymph, and Helen herself was the issue of a coupling between the mighty Zeus – who took on the form of a swan for the occasion — and her human mother, Leda.

In all cases, Homer is careful to make sure that the activities of the gods can be interpreted in two ways: he lets us know exactly what the deities are up to, but their manipulations can also be viewed as benign natural events – as in the memorable scene when an eagle flies over the battlefield and drops a serpent into a crowd of soldiers, or the time when Athena disguises herself as a male beggar to give guidance to a captain.

There are one or two exceptions to the curtain of invisibility Homer generally draws to conceal the gods. When Akhilleus decides he must avenge the death of Patróklus by killing Hector, he needs new armour, so Zeus sends Akhilleus’s mother (“silvery-footed Thetis”) to get the “bandy-legged god” Hêphaistos to create it for him. The work Hêphaistos carries out in his forge – designing a shield, a cuirass, a helmet and greaves, and decorating the shield with detailed scenes taken from across the heavens and the earth – is described in what are some of the most beautiful passages in the book.

Or maybe it looked like this. I mostly got my mental image from the film called Troy, starring Brad Pitt, which I watched a few months ago.

Literary Devices

After reading about half of The Iliad, I began to recognize several mechanisms that Homer deploys regularly in his storytelling. One is his use of appositives to describe both gods and men. For the major players, he repeats these often, as though they were part of the individuals’ names. Some are fairly straightforward – “Nestor, charioteer,” “Apollo, lord of archery,” and “Hektor of the shining helmet,” for example – while others are wonderfully lyrical: “Diomedes, lord of the war cry,” “Meneláos, deep-lunged man of battle,” and “Aphrodité, lover of smiling eyes.” With Zeus — king of the Olympian gods – Homer pulls out the all appositive stops, describing him by turns as “Zeus, whose joy is lightning,” “Zeus, the storm king,” “Lord Zeus who drives the clouds of heaven,” and “Zeus who bears the stormcloud.” The various turns of phrase both reinforce and heighten the image of this powerful deity.

Another of Homer’s favoured devices is his use of metaphor. On almost every page, he takes the opportunity to compare the scene he is describing to one from a different context. His metaphors are often extended, complex and (of course) poetic: “As when a river in flood / from mountain snowfields reaches the flat land / whipped by a storm of rain, it sweeps away / hundreds of withered oaks, hundreds of pines, / and casts black tons of driftwood in the sea, / so Aías in his glory swept the field, / wrecking both chariots and men.”

Even without metaphor, Homer is a master of description. He shines particularly when it comes to finding new and interesting ways to describe how men are gored and decapitated and dis-armed (literally). My eldest grandson, already obsessed with Greeks and Romans, is going to love the battle scenes when I give this book to him. (They’re a bit graphic for an eight-year old, so I’m holding off for a few years.)

Homer is often unexpectedly funny -– capturing the petty arguments between the gods and goddesses and between the warriors on the ground so well that it sounds almost contemporary. (“Sack of wine,” Akhilleus says to Agamémnon, “you with your cur’s eyes and your antelope heart! You’ve never had the kidney to buckle on armour among the troops, or make a sortie with picked men [….] Leech! Commander of trash!”)

A replica of the Trojan Horse, located on the waterfront at Canakkale, Turkey, which is near where Troy once stood. Photo: Adam Jones 

There are innumerable variations on the tale of Helen of Troy and the Trojan War, depending on whether you are watching movies, cartoons or plays, viewing art, or reading books. (Wikipedia offers an extensive list of some of the writers and artists who have treated the subject in the past two thousand years.) For a long time there was dispute over whether the Trojan War ever actually happened, but it seems that it is now accepted that Troy endured a war that lasted for a decade and ended in the city’s destruction. There is, of course, no evidence that specific gods or mortals played roles in that destruction.

But in these times of fake news and half truths, maybe it doesn’t matter whether some or all of it is fiction. There are so many references to the Trojan War in subsequent culture of all kinds – and to the gods and heroes of ancient Greece in general – that the story might as well be true. The fact that The Iliad is a riveting narrative told by a master poet (and then conveyed to us by a variety of translators) is a bonus.

I could have read The Iliad from the perspective of the times we live in now, through the lens of political correctness, bemoaning war and the objectification of females, but I see no point in doing that. Instead I consider my approach to be in line with those cute teenage twins who are busy over on YouTube listening to “our” music (Phil Collins, Prince, and Janis Joplin, to name a few) for the first time. I take it as I find it, and when it’s great stuff, it works for future generations.

The Iliad is great stuff. I am looking forward to The Odyssey.

Erase the Barriers between Writers and Readers in Canada

November 24, 2016 By in Canada Writes, Independent publishing, Publishing, Readers & Reading, Self-publishing, Traditional Publishing Tags: , , 10 Comments

blog-post-nov-17-cancon

Canadian Heritage consultation site

“The federal government is poised to pursue the most significant cultural policy overhaul in over a decade and Canadian Heritage is holding a consultation on Canadian content in the digital world that will help shape new policy.” – Access Copyright email

It seemed important to me to contribute to this consultation, so I summarized my experience with the extraordinary changes that have hit the publishing industry over the past decade. Many of you who have been following this blog have already heard my story in bits and pieces, but now – thanks to Heritage Canada – I have it all in one place. Last week, I posted it on the department’s site (where there are lots of other interesting contributions which I encourage you to check out). I am reproducing it here:

A Promising Start

In 2000, I was well on my way to becoming at least a mid-list writer when I ran into an obstacle approximately the size of the Canadian shield – and almost as impenetrable and uncompromising.

By then I had published two novels and a collection of short stories. The first novel, The Woman Upstairs, had won a prize for excellence in writing from the Writers Guild of Alberta, and the print run had sold out. I had been eager to continue developing as a writer. However, my experience with the next two books, which came out ten years later (I’d been earning a living and raising kids as well as writing) was entirely different, and left me in despair. The second novel was published just as the director of the book’s publishing house resigned; she was not replaced for several months, leaving my book in promotional limbo. The publisher of my first short story collection went out of business shortly after the book was published. I doubt that either of those books sold more than 200 copies each, and it was no fault of mine: in those days, recent though they were, writers were discouraged from interfering with tasks that were considered to be within the proper purview of publishing – which included book promotion.

I determined to put all that behind me. I was working on a new novel that I hoped would find a larger, “national” publisher, allowing me to move slowly up the firmament of Canadian literary awareness as so many before me had done. My income-earning had included stints as executive director of the Writers Guild of Alberta and editor in chief of Lone Pine Publishing, and as well I’d served as a founding member of the board of the Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts and on various other literary and cultural arts boards and committees. I knew how the writing and publishing business worked, and I was prepared to move forward with confidence.

When the third novel was complete (it was then called The Whole Clove Diet; it is now called Rita Just Wants to Be Thin), I began to look for an agent/publisher. After sending out nearly 100 queries and receiving fewer than five requests to see even a sample chapter, much less a manuscript, someone told me about BookNet – a data source accessible by booksellers, librarians, agents and publishers but not by writers – which keeps track of numbers of copies of each book sold in Canada. Given that most of the negative responses I had received from agents and publishers had not even requested writing samples, it seemed likely that agents and publishers were taking a look at my BookNet sales figures for my previous two books, and passing on the new book, sight unseen.

It was a tough time for publishers then, as well. Amazon had begun to do serious damage to bricks-and-mortar booksellers, which were the traditional sales outlets for published books, and e-books and other digital changes were eroding the perennially small profits of the publishing industry. As I learned more and more about how book publishing was changing, I understood that if I were not a brand new (preferably young and, even better, sexy) writer, or an already well-established one, I was going to be out of luck when it came to getting a reasonably-sized publishing house to even consider my new novel.

A New Tack

After blowing a gasket or two on my then-new blog (see the first two or three posts of The Militant Writer), I calmed down and assessed my situation. Despite my long-standing anathema for vanity publishing (which I had been actively discouraging fellow writers from considering as recently as 2008), I considered that, given my background in publishing, if anyone could publish a professional-looking and literate book all by herself, it would be me. So I did.

First I learned the ins-and-outs of the self-publishing process by republishing my first novel, The Woman Upstairs. Then I hired an editor and a cover designer, and published the book now known as Rita Just Wants to Be Thin. By then, my friend John Aragon in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had just published his first novel with a small press there, and the treatment his book received from his publisher was even more inadequate and discouraging than my experience with my second and third books had been. We didn’t even consider traditional publishing for our co-authored comic western, The Adventures of Don Valiente and the Apache Canyon Kid – we just went straight to self-publishing, releasing it as a print book and an e-book in 2012.

Battling My Way Uphill

The last four years have been interesting and frequently discouraging. Whether you are a publishing house or a one-person show, it is very hard to get your books noticed by readers. As a self-published author, I had no access to book reviews or bookstore distribution. Without a publishing house, I was not invited to participate in festivals, events like Word on the Street, or most reading series. My books did not appear in libraries, which meant that they attracted no proceeds from the Public Lending Right Commission, nor did they help to extend my reputation through a connection with my previous publications.

Worst of all, I was persona non grata just about everywhere in the Canadian literary community. Five years ago (and even today in many quarters), self-publishing was still considered “vanity publishing” – an indication that you did not write well enough for your work to be accepted by a publishing house. Self-publishing was not yet considered a “choice”: it was only ever a Plan B. I saw embarrassment or disdain in the eyes of my fellow writers and others in the business every time I tried to explain what I was doing, and what the advantages were – the primary one of which was that I now had total control over my books’ destinies and, as far as I was concerned, I had no one to blame but myself if they didn’t prosper. Furthermore, when I did sell a book, the royalty I earned was far more proportional to the work I had put into it than was the royalty on offer from most publishers. Granted, I had invested financially in the books’ publications (not a huge amount – certainly not anywhere close to the amount that many companies today are now charging ill-informed writers to publish their books), but since my books belong to no company’s fall or spring season, but will continue to be promoted by me for as long as I am able to promote them, they go on selling until the upfront costs are paid and the income is all gravy.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I am not in the least surprised that the absolute mountains of indescribably awful, badly written, unedited self-published books continue to scare traditional reviewers, librarians and booksellers away from all self-published books, good as well as bad: these individuals and institutions have yet to figure out a way of sorting the wheat from the chaff without using up time for reading and evaluation that they do not have – and cannot afford to pay for. But the world is changing, and ways will need to be found to address this problem. This year, as an advocate on the National Council of The Writers’ Union of Canada, I am hoping to explore ways in which booksellers, reviewers, granting agencies and other literary entities can figure out how find the self-published books that are of literary merit amid the innumerable volumes of junk.

In my own case, there have been several bright spots. The Woman Upstairs experienced a selling flurry when Claire Messud’s novel of the same name was published: a lot of people bought mine by mistake. And during the past summer, I invested some money in a promotional strategy for Rita that actually paid off – 8,000 people downloaded my e-book for free during one day in July, and the e-book has been selling steadily at its regular price ($2.99) ever since, and has had a lot of reviews. Don Valiente has not yet had its moment in the sun, but those who have read it have been effusive in its praise, and I know its time will come. It is built to last. As are all of my books.

The Ground Settles

In 2016, I am far less of a pariah than I was in 2012. Canada’s professional book writers’ association, The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), now recognizes that many writers choose to self-publish either because they want more control over their own writing, or because they do not have access to traditional publishers, and it has begun to accept applications from self-published writers, who are then vetted by its Membership Committee. In 2014-15, TWUC invited me to present on the subject of self-publishing as part of a professional development workshop for members and non-members in cities across Canada. If still not respectable, self-publishing is at least becoming acceptable.

Today there’s even a word for writers like me: we’re called hybrid authors – meaning that some of our books are traditionally published, and some are not. I have decided that I want to publish my next book traditionally because I want to regain access to readings and other promotions, to the few review outlets that are still available, to bookstores (partly because of the PLR payments), to festivals and readings, to awards and prizes. And I want to re-establish my reputation with those of my peers whose lips still curl when they hear the term “self-published.”

I have no regrets about the choices I have made. Even in the midst of my times of greatest discouragement, when no books at all were selling for weeks or months on end, I did not regret my decision. I knew I was moving in a direction that many others would have to choose eventually, even if it was only to get their out-of-print books back onto the market. Throughout, I liked the control that self-publishing gave me over every aspect of the publishing process.

Keep Writers and Readers at the Centre

There can be no doubt that the writer is – and always has been – at the centre of the literary world: without writers there would be no publishers, booksellers, libraries or even readers – readers being the only other crucial component of the literary experience. Until this sea change, the publishing business had evolved to the point where the writer was an insignificant pawn in the entire process: the big business of publishing was happening around us, and we did what we were told to do, and we acted like we were grateful: even when our books were not delivered in time for our book launches; even when our books were not submitted for awards and prizes for which they were eligible; even when we knew that there was a market for our books that our publisher was not exploring; even when our royalty payments were one year late.

The world that is now emerging to replace that pre-digital world offers writers choice, power and control over the fate of our own writing, and that is where we ought to be. A cultural system that supports writers and writing in the future will be one that does everything possible to dissolve the boundaries and eliminate the institutionalized gatekeepers that stand between the writer and the reader, instead supporting all of us who live and work in the world of writing and publishing to move forward as a team.

BookBub and Me: 20,000 Downloads, 50 Reviews, and a Month (so far) of Daily Sales

August 17, 2016 By in Bestsellers, Book Marketing and Promotion, ebooks, marketing, markets, Promoting published books, Readers & Reading, Selling books, Selling Your Book Tags: , , , , 5 Comments

I even made it onto three Amazon e-book bestseller lists

BookBubI’ve never figured that paying a promotions company to market my book was a worthwhile investment of my money, but in the past month I’ve discovered – yet again – that when it comes to promoting books, I’m a neophyte.

After a few writer friends experienced success with a site called BookBub, I decided a few weeks ago that I’d give the company a try with Rita Just Wants to Be Thin. At the time, Rita was languishing at an average of about zero sales per week.

I was prepared to consider the $165 US or so that I thought a BookBub promo was going to cost me  (for “worldwide” distribution of a book in the Women’s Fiction category) as money down the drain, but aside from the money ( ! ? ), I had nothing much to lose. I was curious. I figured it would at the very least provide me with the fodder for a post on this blog. As it has. But I never expected that I’d be writing such an enthusiastic review.

How BookBub Works

Millions of readers from all over the world have signed up at BookBub, and every day those readers are sent an email notification of one-day-only deep discounts on e-books in genres that interest them. Typically, e-books from publishers such as Random House and Penguin that normally sell for $11.95 are offered on BookBub for anywhere from $1.95 to $3.95. The e-books may be available through Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, etc. (Please note that BookBub promotes only electronic books [e-books] – not print books.)

Although BookBub subscribers get one notification per day of books that may interest them, not all readers are sent notifications about all discounted e-books. Notices go out only to those who are interested in that genre, and only to those in the geographic areas selected by the publisher. Books are individually approved by BookBub’s editorial committee before they are scheduled for promotion. Once your book is accepted, you are able to set up your author profile.

The cost to the publisher (me, in this case) of the one-day promotion of a book depends on its genre and the geographic area(s) selected, the choices being 1) USA, 2) International or 3) All. Every few months, BookBub adjusts its prices depending on the popularity of various categories, and on recent sales figures in different regions. There is a list of prices – and typical revenues – on the BookBub’s “partner” site.

Bestseller July 8 amazon.ca

For a few days, I was on Amazon bestseller lists in Canada, the US and Great Britain

(I just checked how much it would have cost to list Rita in the women’s fiction category for All regions today, and the price might have scared me off. It has gone up considerably since I started my BookBub adventure. So if the cost for your book’s category seems too high, wait: maybe it will come down again in a month or so.)

Why I Set My Price at Zero

Since the regular price of the e-book version of Rita is $2.99, and since Amazon won’t let me drop the price below $1.99 without my giving up the benefits of being in the Kindle Select program (which I don’t want to do), and since giving a book away for free on BookBub costs a whole lot less than selling it, I decided that I would offer my book as a giveaway. Amazon allows Kindle Select participants to give their books away for a maximum of five days every quarter.

I was pleased that my book was approved by BookBub right away. I was also pleased that they suggested a less expensive category (Chick Lit) than the one I’d chosen (Women’s Fiction). I don’t consider Rita to be chicklit, but I figured, what the hell: the cost savings was considerable.

I then stood back and waited to see what would happen.

Wow!

I was amazed.

On the day of the giveaway – July 5, 2016  ­­–  19,159 people downloaded Rita for free! The following day, 740 more downloaded it for free (probably an international dateline thing). But more amazingly, on the day after the giveaway, nearly thirty people bought the ebook at its regular price of $2.99. The next day I sold eight copies, and I figured my moment of glory was done. But the day after that, I sold fourteen copies, and the day after that, 18. I’ve been selling e-copies of Rita ever since… at least one or two almost every day, and sometimes more. In addition, hundreds of people have read the book in the Kindle Unlimited library, and I get paid for those readers too.

One of the best results of the BookBub promo is that, since July 5, I have had nearly fifty reviews – most of them positive – on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and amazon.ca. I even had one review on amazon.au (that reviewer hated the book, but I’m sure the next reader from Australia is going to love it, just to balance things out). I’ve also noticed an uptick on my reviews on GoodReads.

Next?


I was hoping to do a promotion of The Adventures of Don Valiente and the Apache Canyon Kid on BookBub but my application was turned down. They say that sometimes they have too many books in a certain category already, and they invite publishers whose books are turned down to try again in four months. So I will do that.

Screen Shot 2016-08-17 at 9.01.27 PMIn the meantime, I’m going to try out a few other book-promotion platforms. Rita will be featured on StoryFinds on September 1, but without a price discount. I don’t expect anything like the BookBub response… but then, what do I know?

In the meantime, I highly recommend that both traditionally published and self-published authors check out BookBub. I’ve made my money back and more – and the reviews the promotion garnered were worth the investment all on their own.

While you’re at it, you might want to sign up at BookBub and StoryFinds to get some great deals on some great books.

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I invite you to share your thoughts on this or any other subject related to writing and publishing – either in the comments section below, or directly via email.

PLEASE NOTE: I will be away from email for one week (until August 24) so I will not be able to approve/post your comments until I return. 

 

Art and Reading: Combining Pleasures

October 18, 2015 By in Reading Tags: , , , 1 Comment
Art and Reading: Combining Pleasures

"The White Horse," John Constable. The Frick Collection

“The White Horse,” John Constable. The Frick Collection

It is one of my small gifts to myself after I’ve visited an art exhibition to purchase a few postcards in the gallery shop that depict the paintings or drawings or sculptures that particularly interested me.

I bring these home and then I use them as bookmarks. I write notes on the back of the postcard about the book as I am reading. Then, when I have finished the book I leave the postcard in it, and later I can revisit not only the book and my thoughts about it, but also remember a work of art I have seen somewhere and particularly liked.

IMG_4225I suppose I could choose the postcard on the basis of how I think the book is going to “feel,” but I don’t. That would make me dither, and I have enough things to dither about as it is.

Two of the most satisfying things in life are reading good books and seeing good art. I love that I can combine these pleasures easily and inexpensively.

Wattpad: Engaging Readers as You Write

January 2, 2015 By in Fiction, Literary Agents, Publishing, Electronic, Reading, Selling Your Book, Websites for writers, Writers Web Sites, Writing Process Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments
Note: This article previously appeared in a slightly different form in Write, The Magazine of The Writers Union of Canada

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Confession: Sometimes I have trouble writing the next page of my new novel. WPNot because I am short of ideas, but because I have a lot of other urgent matters that demand my attention. I have often envied the writers whose editors or literary agents I imagine standing at their sides like midwives, encouraging them throughout their labour, reminding them of the rewards of manuscript delivery, telling them how much the world wants to see their next baby, and finally urging them to “push.”

When I heard about Wattpad, an Internet platform for readers and writers that attracts 27 million unique visitors per month, and 200,000 uploads of writing per day, I thought it might be part of the answer to my problem. And it has been. But it is also other things.

What It Is

Wattpad is a social storytelling platform where writers can register to post all kinds of work – poetry, drama, fiction and nonfiction – and where readers can read that work: all at no charge.

Most writers post short segments of their works in progress (1,000 to 2,000 words at a time, sometimes much less, sometimes much more), adding to it at regular (or irregular) intervals. Some writers are posting whole manuscripts in serial format that they have previously completed. Others (like me) are posting early drafts of longer works one section at a time. Still others slap up writing fragments like ill-mixed paint with hairs in it, and leave it there to dry — perhaps intending to come back and edit later, perhaps not.

Once the piece is up there, the effort to attract readers begins. You can contribute to this process (but probably only once) by emailing all of your friends and inviting them to check your story out, and by posting your Wattpad link to other social media sites (here’s mine). Of course, you also want to encourage visitors to your page whom you don’t already know, and you can do this indirectly by reading and commenting on the writing of others on the site, getting involved in the discussion forums, and entering the informal competitions Wattpad puts on from time to time. The goal is to get people to “follow” you so that they will be notified whenever you post a new installment or an update.

Every time someone takes a look at a segment you have posted, your “read” counter goes up. Readers can also vote for or post a comment on your work. The more reads and votes you get, the greater are your chances of being noticed by even more readers.

Some people use Wattpad as an end in itself – they are not interested in publishing elsewhere. Others are creating works ultimately intended for self- or traditional publication. Many writers have several projects on the go. Some ask for input and guidance from their readers; others just write.

Who’s on Wattpad?

The two Canadians who developed Wattpad (Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen) intended it for readers as much as writers, and Ashleigh Gardner, Head of Content: Publishing, says that “Ninety percent of Wattpad visitors are there to read and comment, not to post stories.”

She also says that regular visitors include publishers and agents who are looking for new talent.

“Some writers use Wattpad to promote their books to publishers,” she says. “Perhaps their novel was rejected when they submitted it directly, but now they can demonstrate that there is significant interest in their work.”

Gardner also tells me that the Wattpad app for smartphones and tablets is downloaded about 400,000 times a day. “Eighty-five percent of our visitors now reach us from mobile devices,” she says.

The advantage of Wattpad’s mobility component is clear: your work is accessible to readers no matter where they are, and your followers will receive “push” notifications whenever you post something new.

Copyright and Other Concerns

Gardner says that the site features a very sophisticated data-checking system that not only protects what is posted, but also works to prevent piracy. “All work on Wattpad of course remains copyright to the author,” she says. “Further, it cannot be copied and pasted, and readers can’t download it.”

A few people have told me they’re reluctant to sign on to Wattpad because they fear it will lead to spam, but so far Wattpad has attracted no more spam to me than have Twitter, Linked In, Goodreads or Facebook (which is, in my case, none).

Wattpad has had a reputation for being a place where teens post stories for one another, but if that were true at one point (and wouldn’t it be great to know that there are millions of teens who are interested in writing and reading?), the demographics are changing. “The majority of visitors are now between the ages of 18 and 30,” Gardner says, “and the subject matter of the content is changing as the average age goes up.”

Making Wattpad Work

The important part of making Wattpad work for you is to remember that it is a social media platform. If you don’t engage with it (read others’ works, respond to comments, participate in forum discussions), you will miss out on the very important reciprocation factor, and your work will languish. Further, thanks to algorithms, the more readers you attract, the more readers who will find you on their own.

Networking is not as painful as you might think. While it’s true that the Wattpad platform sports lots of dabblers and thousands of very bad writers, it doesn’t take long to sort the wheat from the chaff. And there are also some very good writers there, clearly intending to do as I am — get the work written and noticed by intelligent and discerning readers.

I’ve found a few manuscripts on Wattpad whose next installments I am genuinely eager to read and I’ve also found a few very careful and helpful readers who will probably help me get through Seeds and Secrets far more quickly than I would ever have done on my own. There is a definite motivation to keep going when readers start asking when you’re going to post the next installment. (As of Jan 1, 2015, Seeds and Secrets had received 1,500 “reads” and 121 votes. It stands about 450 from the top in the General Fiction category.)

In addition to pieces of my novel, I’ve put up a couple of works of short nonfiction on Wattpad – one previously published, one not yet – and received encouraging – and immediate – responses on them as well. I am also posting blog posts from my 2011 solo trip to India – Watch. Listen. Learn – which seems to be very popular. In fact, the response is making me seriously consider publishing it as a book, which I had not considered doing before.)

For me, Wattpad is like a humungous writing group where no one has to make coffee or serve beer, get dressed before offering feedback on other writers’ works, or pay any attention to comments from readers who don’t get what they’re doing.

Wattpad is not for everyone, of course, but if it sounds like a tool you could use to stimulate your writing and find new readers for your existing work, check it out. I’ll be happy to read the writing that you post – as long as you read mine. :)

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Update: You can check out Wattpad’s 2014 Year in Review here. According to Nazia Khan, Wattpad’s Director of Communications, the company has noted some interesting trends this year:

  • People are writing novels on their phones
  • Episodic/serial reading is back (Dickens would be so pleased)
  • Everyone is a fan of something as evidenced by the growing number of fanfiction stories
  • Teens are reading. Yes, really.

I’m Checking out WattPad. Have You Used It?

April 10, 2014 By in Novels, Publishing, Publishing, Electronic, Reading Tags: , , , , 4 Comments

 

WP

Seeds and Secrets is a novel about a woman who accidentally discovers a formula that will allow her to grow younger… or at least stop growing older.

One of the (few remaining) challenges about not having an agent or publisher is not having anyone give a damn if you ever get the next paragraph of your next novel written. I know that my kind readers will say that they care (at least I hope they do!) and I hope they will feel amply rewarded for their patience when the next book does come out. But their support is not the same as having someone say, “We need your manuscript in two months,” or whatever the deadline might be that a publisher can impose. I’ve never had that kind of encouragement, so this lack of external pressure is nothing new for me, but it is hard. I know many writers who live on advances and deadlines, and I envy that: I think it must keep them writing in a way that a vacuum cannot.

So I’ve decided that maybe an alternative route might be to get a few readers interested in my next book, and eager to see what happens next. For that reason, I have posted the first chapter on WattPad, where it can be read for free, as will subsequent chapters as I complete and post them. This is actually the second draft of Seeds and Secrets – I wrote the first one before I started writing The Adventures of Don Valiente and the Apache Canyon Kid with John – but now that DV is up and running (my sixth book! Hard to believe!), and I have almost unpacked following my move to my new life with Arnie, and done some (quite a lot of) work for clients, and completed the first half of the PD workshops  for The Writers Union of Canada, I have started thinking about what’s next. And so I’m revising Seeds and Secrets, which is a novel about a woman who accidentally discovers a formula that will allow her to grow younger… or at least stop growing older.

The first chapter is up here now. You can read it on your computer, or download their mobile app. My goal is to have the revised draft of the whole novel up by the end of August, ready for publication. Even if no one cares if I meet that deadline or not, the fact that I will be under the illusion that a few people might be interested will be of immeasurable help to me: I know, in fact, that it will keep me writing.

However, you don’t need to do anything but click through: you don’t need to actually read a word. I am just playing tricks with my own mind and — in the meantime — doing more research for another book I’m writing, called In Defence of Procrastination.

While I’m here though, I will ask for your input. Have any of you used WattPad? Did you learn anything I should know about? Are you on there? (I can check out your book if you provide a link. Community-building is one of the goals of the site.)

I’ll let you know what I find out and how I progress with occasional updates on my WattPad Experience here. In the meantime, soon you will be reading in this space a diatribe about why I am so sick and tired of reading everyone’s whining posts about all those bookstore closures. That should make me popular. ;) Stay tuned….

 

 

 

Introducing the One-Book-Only Book Club: January 1 to 31, 2014

November 27, 2013 By in humour, literary event, Novels, Reading, Relationships with writers, The Whole Clove Diet: A Novel, women's fiction Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

What better time to read a novel about a woman who is struggling to get thin than in January?

TWCD_cover_v2Join other readers and the author for a fun, easy, interesting, on-line book discussion from January 1 to 31, 2014 to read and talk about The Whole Clove Diet: A Novel – the story of 29-year-old Rita Sax Turner’s frustrating and funny but ultimately rewarding journey to rid herself of sixty unwanted pounds (or so. Maybe more. Maybe less).

Each week we’ll read 100 pages, and then we’ll talk about them together. There will be set questions and topics posted at the end of each week, but you can ask the author anything about her thoughts on the book, or talk among yourselves – about the book, families, marriages, walking in the park, your own food-related issues, anything. If you have ever used food for something besides sustenance – like to make you thinner, or fatter, or just plain warm and comfy – you’re going to love reading about Rita.

The Whole Clove Diet tells the story of a young woman caught in a frustrating marriage with two step-kids, a nagging mom, a whiny mother-in-law and no clear plan for her future… well, at least none that she wants to think about. Not long ago she was a slim young thing with her whole future ahead of her, but as her options decline, she is getting fatter and fatter (her words) – not from hunger, but from frustration and rage, and feelings of despair and sadness. Her husband thinks that her getting pregnant would be just the thing, but this idea only makes her feel more trapped. She goes on diet after diet, and guess what? They don’t work. It appears that reducing your calorie intake does not take any weight off your problems.

Rita’s redeeming features include her ability to hope (true of anyone who has ever gone on a diet!), her wits, and her sense of humour (black though it may sometimes be). When an injury gives her an excuse to escape the home-front action for a week, she starts to figure it all out – and to figure herself out. The novel is ultimately a feel-good story that will leave you cheering for Rita (and feeling even more hopeful for yourself, and for those around you who are battling with addictions of any kind).

Some of the issues we’ll be talking about:

  • Is overeating an addiction – just as bulimia and anorexia are now thought to be?
  • How does the western world treat people who are overweight differently than it does people of normal weight?
  • Do we invite any of this treatment ourselves, by how we act when we are above our ideal weights?
  • What is self-discipline? Can you acquire it, and if so, where?
  • What is the difference between deciding to make a life change and resolving to make one?
  • Do women and men approach food differently? How much does this have to do with our historic roles?
  • Does one diet work better than another?

We’ll also get down to the nitty gritty:

  • Why exactly is Rita sexually attracted to a doctor who has been verbally abusive to her?
  • What can Rita do about the fact that her husband’s first wife keeps getting more and more attractive in everyone’s memory the longer she is dead?
  • What IS the recipe for Nanaimo bars?

As we read, your feelings of despair and sympathy for Rita will alternate with a sense that you want to sit down and have a talk with her, or maybe just give her a good shake. But she’ll also make you laugh and cheer.

Find out what the author was thinking when she wrote the novel, and what her own experiences with weight issues (and other addictions) have been, in this perfectly timed opportunity to join a book club that is reading only one book, ever.

Whether you’ve already read The Whole Clove Diet or have been intending to read it – or have never even heard of it until this minute – join us. (Check out the reviews by other readers first, on Amazon or GoodReads, if you’re so inclined.) If you have ever wanted to lose (or gain) a pound or two, are planning to make a new year’s resolution (about anything – the same principles apply if you’re on a weight-loss program, cutting back on the booze or cigarettes, or training for a half marathon), or just love reading some good writing, snuggle up with this book – and with us – for a truly satisfying launch to the new year.

Note: The WCD One-Off Book Club will meet on the The Whole Clove Diet blog, but the discussion will be copied to Mary W. Walters’s Author Page on GoodReads. Regular updates will also appear on the Mary W. Walters, Writer Facebook page, and on Twitter (@MaryWWalters). If you are not an on-line-forum kind of person, you can have printouts of the discussions emailed to you on request, and you can submit questions by email each week that will be answered and/or discussed by the group. (mary at marywwalters dot com)

The Whole Clove Diet is available from amazon.com in both print and e-book versions, and as a Kobo e-book.

Do you fall asleep when you are reading?

April 25, 2013 By in Reading Tags: , 24 Comments

militant writerSome people seem to fall asleep as soon as they start reading, especially if they are sitting somewhere comfortable, and almost always if they are reading in bed.

Other people intend to read a few pages before they go to sleep and end up, two hours later, forcing themselves to stop and turn the light out only because they know how they are going to feel in the morning if they don’t. (That’s me. Always has been. I am currently reading A Widow for One Year. It was 1 a.m. for me again last night.)

The falling-asleep-or-not response does not seem to have to do with content. I can stay awake reading books that are so boring they might as well be instruction manuals on how to watch paint dry. And those people who nod off as soon as they’ve opened their books often actually really do want to find out what happens next but, page-turner or not, they just can’t help themselves.

militant writer istockphotoI do not believe this is a gender issue (despite the fact that I have known more men who fell asleep while reading than women, and despite the images I’ve chosen for this article). One of my dearest friends (love ya, Bonnie) wears old glasses that have an arm missing to read in bed because she knows that she’s going to end up sleeping on them anyway.

I also don’t think that those who nod off are more tired than those who don’t. No matter how tired I am, I don’t think I have EVER fallen asleep with a book open in front of me.

Maybe it’s neurological.

Maybe the same people who fall asleep over books also fall asleep in movies.

Someone should do a study.

Maybe someone has.

I wonder if any readers who fall asleep over books are also writers, and if those people also fall asleep while proof-reading their own stuff.

Does anyone out there know anything about this?

The First Draft Is For You

April 19, 2010 By in first draft, Readers & Reading, Revision 4 Comments

Much as we want to believe that this time, we will only need to write one draft of a short story or a novel before it is publishable, down deep we know that if we’re serious writers we will never get off that easily. (There are benefits for the writer as well as the reader in revision, however, and I have discussed some of these on my Militant Writer blog.)

Because no first draft is ever going to be the final draft, creative writers (and most other kinds of writers, too) need to give themselves permission to relax at the first-draft stage.

The first draft is for you. At this stage, you don’t need to worry about your audience. Here you can just let go—write whatever you want to say, overwrite, get sidetracked and distracted. You don’t need to leave anything out because “people might not like it,” or “it isn’t written properly,” or because you know that you are capable of a better metaphor. If you know you are going to have to come back and rewrite anyway, you can leave unfinished sections and move on. You don’t need to worry about polishing sentences or making sure that your paragraphs aren’t too long. You just need to get the words down. You are free to get them down.

This is not to say that the audience is not crucial to the writing process. It is. If you ignore those you are writing for, as far as I’m concerned you will never write anything meaningful. But you don’t have to think about the audience until you get to the revision stage—in fact, it might be better if you don’t.

When you do start revising—or at least before you finish revising—you do need to include the audience in your deliberations. “Is this passage clear?” you need to ask yourself. “Are my readers going to understand why my main character is doing this?” “Are readers going to be bored by this repetition, or will they understand that I am using it deliberately—and why?”

The revisions need to satisfy you, of course, but they are also intended to ensure that your message and your story reach your audience in the way you intend them to receive it. But the first time through, you can turn your back on your readers.