My tail is waggin'

I uploaded the files on Saturday afternoon, then spent Sunday checking Amazon and Smashwords every, oh, ten minutes, to see when my book would be ready. Smashwords finished first, then the Kindle version late Sunday, and finally, this morning there was a pretty little paperback for purchase on Amazon. Barnes & Nobel will get it into their system within the next 30 days or so.

It was the best feeling in the world. Monday was a whirlwind of email messages, Tweeting, and Facebook posting. I also packaged up: copies to send to reviewers, a copy won in a drawing at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, and a copy a friend/reader bought from my website so she could get it autographed.

Now I can sit back and tell myself it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is useful information when your books aren't selling and all you hear are crickets in cyber-space.

Here are all the links you can follow to buy Hit or Missus at the moment (in addition to the PayPal button at the right for an autographed copy.

Paperback
http://www.amazon.com/Hit-Missus-Gayle-Carline/dp/1461093597
 
Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Missus-Peri-Minneopa-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00537SP5M
 
Other e-formats
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/62769

Tweedly-deedly deet, tweet, tweet!

In pursuit of readers, I try to be out on the social network, working it every day. Facebook, Twitter, Kindle Boards, Amazon discussions, Scribd, I'll go any where I can find people. The trick is, of course, to not look desperate. You don't get readers that way, any better than you catch a spouse.

So you talk about your personal life, and ask people about theirs. You recommend and encourage other writers. You post something interesting you saw somewhere else, or ask a dumb question. And every so often, you say, "hey, I got a book here you might like."

The tool I have the worst time with is Twitter. I spend some weeks with multiple daily Tweets, then I kind of fall off the map for awhile. It's been a hard groove to get into; however, I have learned some Twitter-Tips I'd like to pass along.

1. Don't over-tweet. If you're tweeting once an hour, I'm okay with that. Even a few times within a single hour is okay. But when I see multiple tweets in a row from the same person, I'm convinced they must have gone off their meds. If you do this, call your doctor immediately. I worry about you.

2. Say something interesting. I don't want to know that you just brushed your teeth, or that you hate your job, or you bought new shoes. I'd want to know if you bought new shoes for me. I also don't care what you just had for lunch, unless you say it in the most amusing way.

3. If you feel the need to tweet and can't think of anything interesting, find an interesting tweet from someone else and re-tweet that. In the Twitterverse, it's not plagiarism, it's a trend.

4. Don't just constantly tell me to buy your book or your product or sign up for your service. The only personality I get from you when you do this is that used car salesman with the plaid jacket and the slicked-back hair. It's like staring at frickin' billboard.

5. DON'T TWEET IN ALL CAPS. IT'S ANNOYING (see this for why - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vRiA91O14U&feature=related). I can read you perfectly clearly when you use lower case. If you use caps all the time, how am I supposed to tell when you're excited about something?


6. Reply to people's Tweets. If you just keep typing those tweets without any interaction, it's like, hmm, like that other activity people do alone that gives them intensely personal pleasure. You know - eating chocolate.

7. Follow folks. I mean, come on, Mr. Look-I-Tweet-But-I-Don't-Read Celebrity. If you want me to read your brilliance, have the decency to follow me back. It's not like I'm gonna stalk you. I've got a few more things on my to-do list first.

8. #Don't #put #a #hashtag #in #front #of #every #word #just #in #case #one #of #those #words #is #the #trend #for #the #day. Gah.

9. Don't put the hashtag trend word in every Tweet, even if the Tweet has nothing to do with the subject. That's needy.

10. Do give your followers a shout-out on #FollowFriday, #WriterWednesday, whatever #MM stands for, etc. 

Those are ten that came to mind pretty easily. Did I miss any? If I did, just Tweet me - http://www.twitter.com/GeeCarl 

Sample Sunday

In my attempt to both be a social butterfly and to meet people who might like to read what I write, I do the social networking thing, like Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is pretty easy and I find myself updating my status often. Twitter is harder for me. I just can't think of that many interesting things to say every minute of every hour of every day. Most of the time, I just re-tweet things that interest me, or I reply to other people's stuff.


In my deepest, darkest, most dastardly dreams, I'd like to tweet "LOOK AT MY BOOK! BUY IT!" I'd include the link and keep re-posting it until someone replied, "SHUT. THE HELL. UP." Then I'd know I'd hit my saturation point. But I digress...

Sundays, on Twitter, are now "Sample Sundays." You post a sample of your work on your blog, then you point to it with a Tweet that has a hashtag of "#SS". (For those of you who don't Tweet, putting a hashtag in front of a word or abbreviation lets everyone find all the Tweets with that hashtag.

So here's my sample for #SS. It's from my short story, Clean Sweep, now on Kindle and Smashwords, for only 99 cents.

* * * * *

Either Grant Franklin was getting better with his aim, or he hadn't been using this toilet for at least two days.



Peri pushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes and looked around the bathroom. The jaunty seaside décor seemed at odds with the teenage boy who used it. It also seemed unusually clean. She recognized the wispy swipes from her towel that remained after she sanitized the room two days ago. The faint smell of Lysol still clung in the closed space.


A small sigh escaped her as she pushed herself to a standing position, her right knee creaking like a rusty hinge. The beveled mirror was to her left, but she avoided looking at it. That reflection was never correct, anyway. Today she would see a face that looked younger than her muscles felt. On other days, when she felt young and sassy, the creases around her eyes and mouth reminded her that she was forty-eight, not twenty-eight. Mirrors were useless.


I know what I look like, she thought. Blonde, blue eyed and getting too old for this job. Gathering her bucket of towels and cleansers, Peri headed downstairs. As she entered the kitchen, she heard the garage door open and a hearty engine rumble to a stop.


"Oh, good, Peri, you're still here." Mrs. Franklin plopped two grocery bags on the counter. "I just went to the gas station, Good God, the pump actually stopped when it got to one hundred dollars and my tank still isn't full but I wasn't about to re-swipe my credit card." The tall brunette sighed. "You are so lucky to drive a smaller car. My Hummer just sucks the gas down as fast as I fill it up."


"Yes, I'm quite lucky," Peri told her, choking back her desire to say she wasn't stupid enough to buy a four-wheeled Goliath. "Do you need help with the groceries?"


"No, thank you, dear. It was only these two bags." Mrs. Franklin began taking items out and setting them on the island in the middle of the large kitchen, her hands flitting like small birds. Juice from the free range New Zealand steak seeped out of the packaging, onto the dark granite countertop Peri had just cleaned.


The housecleaner sighed. She knew she'd have to wait until Mrs. Franklin put the groceries away, then re-wipe the counter. Skylar Franklin wasn't really into cleaning up after herself.


"Peri, dear, I need to give you a check today, and I'm afraid I've lost your card again." The homeowner dug her checkbook out of her purse and began scribbling. "How do you spell your name again?"


"M-I-N-N-E-O-P-A."


She looked at the check before handing it to Peri. "Min-ew-paw?"


"Minn-ee-oh-pah."


"My goodness, dear, it's such a mouthful. Perhaps you should change it."


"Perhaps." Peri smiled and changed the subject. "So, where's Grant these days?"


"He's around." Her voice sounded light, but Peri noticed a momentary rigidness in her employer's toned shoulders, and the muscles in her slender neck strained for a heartbeat.


"Oh, I thought he was gone. His bathroom was so clean."


The brunette laughed a high, nervous twitter. "Maybe he's just growing up, getting neater."


Peri looked at her, one eyebrow cocked. "Boys or men, they never grow up that much. There's always a little 'aimlessness' around the toilet, if you know what I mean."


Mrs. Franklin blushed, but her narrowed eyes and tight lips told Peri to back off. "What time will you be here on Friday?"


"Ten, if that's all right."


"Oh." Peri saw a look of near-terror cross her employer's face. "Could you make it eleven? Grant likes to sleep in, and the vacuuming bothers him."


"Not a problem, Mrs. Franklin."


Peri threw her cleaning supplies back into her car trunk, then opened the driver's side door. She looked at the Franklin house for a moment. Two stories of Orange County magnificence, with a large front yard and the hint of an even bigger backyard, always kept beautifully maintained, from the rooftop down to the flowers. Beams of warm April sun erupted from the clouds, making it look like Heaven smiled on the Franklins.


And yet, something seemed out of place.


* * * * *

Like it? Go buy the rest of it! I'd stay and discuss it more with you, but I've got a date with Twitter.

What an adventure: Day One

I just got back from my trip and I barely know where to start. I was going to give you the Reader's Digest version of where I went and what I did, but the trip was so rich and filled with interesting things to see and people to meet, I'm going to take it a day at a time. It was a short trip, so it won't take long, I promise. And tomorrow, I'll have pictures.

My journey got off to a great start in Bakersfield on Thursday. First of all, I have this mental image of independent bookstores as hole-in-the-wall operations with tight rows of floor to ceiling bookshelves, crammed with Everything That's Ever Been Published. This picture was dashed when I pulled into the upscale shopping center and entered Russo's Books, next to Talbot's. It was clean and pretty and neatly arranged.

As always, I took a tour around the store, checking for their mystery section and seeing if they carry any of my friends' books. I then wandered to the back and saw a lady coming out of the office who looked like she might know something.

My spiel usually goes something like this: "Hi, I'm a debut novelist on my way to a book signing and I'm visiting independent bookstores (or libraries) along my route to see if you'd like to carry my book, or would like to have me come for an author event." This is said in a very perky voice, after which I whip out Freezer Burn and give them the 25-word commercial.

The lady in Russo's introduced me to Tony, as in Tony Russo, who went back to his office immediately and got his calendar to book me. Wow, as they say at Staples, that was easy! I'll be sharing a table at the Bakersfield Book Festival on November 7, which should be fun.

After my success, I headed up CA-99 to Fresno. The Fig Garden Bookstore was also in a rather ritzy section of town. While not exactly icy, they did not run to their calendar to see when I could come back for a visit. In hindsight, the lady who spoke with me is very old-school; she couldn't see beyond local authors and large publishers. But she graciously took my media kit and said she'd certainly order my book if anyone asked for it.

Naturally, I'm going to appeal to any of my Facebook/MySpace/Twitter friends in the Fresno area to go order Freezer Burn from The Fig Garden Bookstore. Pleeeeeeze. I want to turn this lady's head.
I had planned to see some stores in Sacramento, but I got into town too late for anything but dinner with my friends, Jim Barnes, his two daughters, Alyssa and Melinda, and their older sister, Sara. I met them in Roseville, at a place called Dos Coyotes. Getting there was fun…

Here's the thing: my 12-year old minivan does not have a GPS system, so I prepared for my trip with a bunch of Mapquest maps and the VZ Navigator system on my Verizon phone. As with most GPS systems, a gentle female voice told me where to go. I originally named her Wanda the Wonder Navigator, but after traveling 1200 miles with her, I've decided it's a pair of sisters. Wanda gives the very clear directions to "prepare to turn right in 500 yards" then lets her sister pronounce the names. Her sister (let's call her Justine) says things like, "Shee-Ay Wan ThurdEEN," for CA-113. I think she has a little problem, and Wanda may be enabling her.

I do hope she's not spending her entire paycheck at the corner bar.

The other problem with Wanda and Justine is that they are too polite. If I receive a phone call while they are in the midst of navigation, they won't interrupt to tell me I need to turn, like, NOW.

So as I was trying to get from CA-99 to the I-80, a girlfriend called, which silenced my navigating sisters and sent me to the wrong freeway. By the time we ended our conversation, I was in a very dark, very quiet, very industrial part of Sacramento. Was I worried? Pish, tosh, no. I had gas in the car, locks on the doors, and a potential story to tell.

"Recalculating," Wanda said.

After a few miles, I heard the reassuring direction to "prepare to turn right in point-five miles, onto-"

"Aye-etty eesht," Justine chimed.

After dinner, the gals directed me to my Motel 6, which seems like the kind of place you'd send someone who's just been released from the Institution for the Terminally Fragile. There are no sharp corners, no drawers on the desk, no lid on the toilet, nothing to hurt you. There are also no people who actually want to sleep or use their inside voices, and all the rooms have to be built underneath a busy freeway. But I was exhausted, so I slept anyway.

And that was Day One. Tomorrow, I'll talk about my signing in Quincy, but first, I'll show you pictures of some really big naked people in Auburn. Promise.