“RIP George Michael,
Another favourite gone…”
Seriously… who else is willing to work for free?
There are a lot of authors giving their books away – free – on Amazon and various other services.
I won’t be one of them.
To be quite frank, I believe my work is worth more than that. I believe that is true of most of the authors who discount their work. It’s certainly true of almost every book I’ve been willing to buy. For the record, the ones I haven’t liked were not on Amazon – one was a classic and one was a bestseller.
I fully understand not everyone will buy, read, or be interested in, my books. In the same way, some folks don’t like chocolate or pizza or coffee, and not everyone on the planet is going to like or understand me. I’m cool with that.
Even so, I believe that my work and what I have to say through it, are valuable.
If I discount my book, doesn’t that cheapen my work? Doesn’t that just make it less attractive? Doesn’t that make it seem like I don’t think it’s worth reading?
And really – who else works for free? I’d like to see people try to get a plumber, or doctor, or garbage collector to work for nothing because someone doesn’t feel like paying.
So, I have decided that $2.99 is a fair price for an electronic copy of my latest book, and probably the next one.
It’s less than a cup of coffee. It’s less than a slice of pizza or a sandwich.
And I’m worth it, dammit. L’Oréal said so.
So, there’s supposed to be a supermoon tonight. And my inbox had two email alerts that conditions were great for seeing the southern lights – the Aurora Australis.
In fact, ever since I signed up for those email alerts, it’s been overcast or raining every single time the “conditions have been ideal”.
And true to form, it’s pouring rain tonight. The only thing anyone around here is seeing in the night sky is lots of water.
So, what’s a girl to do?
Write nutty poetry. That’s what.
Just for fun, I wrote this and put it up on Twitter. It had a pretty positive response, so the evening has not been a total flop.
In the aftermath of the US election, it’s important to remember that there’s anger on both sides. Many, many people in the US, as well as elsewhere, feel marginalised and overlooked. For some, it’s been many years of actually being treated that way. For others, it’s hopes and dreams that have been kept out of reach by social forces that they haven’t been able to change or address. You only have to study a little bit of US history to see those things happening.
I think of this election as a pressure cooker – after a long time on “high”, the thing blew its lid off and left a heck of a mess when it did.
We must remember that people don’t always vote from a perspective of good policy. People vote because they long for a change, they yearn to be heard… or at least to feel as though they have been heard. Sometimes it’s a reaction to something as visceral as revulsion over what one candidate or the other has done or is accused of doing. There was a whole lot of all of that in this election.
This election in itself won’t fix anything. A new president, regardless of identity, is a figurehead. The real problems lie in the structure of the society under that leader. The anger and polarisation of the American society will only get worse while people engage in anger, vilification and distrust – of their leaders, yes, but particularly of each other.
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t hold their government and its actions to account. I’m a very firm believer in doing that. But let’s not destroy each other in the process. Let’s ensure that our commentary is focused on what needs to happen, what needs to change, and how we can work together to achieve that.
Personally, I don’t think either candidate was a good choice for uniting the country, or solving the underlying problems. That has to come from the people, and it starts with one, then two, then more, choosing to build rather than tear down.
I pray for America, and I pray for the world that still looks to her for military and international leadership. I pray for Australia, because we’re guilty of all the same things.
Today, I choose love. I choose encouragement. I choose peace. I choose friendship. I choose positive over negative. I choose proactive over passive.
Will you join me? Will you work to make a difference, too?
There’s always a bit of trepidation when you do something new and you’re not sure how it’s going to go.
There’s always a bit of trepidation when you do something new and you’re not sure how it’s going to go. ‘Leaf’ has been available for just over three months now, and I’m very thankful and excited to be getting positive reviews.
I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I am really thrilled about these two readers’ responses that I’ve received recently.
Both of these people, and others who have given my writing positive reviews and ratings, have encouraged me more than they realise. Sometimes being a writer is a really lonely thing, because there’s a whole experience and process you have to go through before you can know if anyone is actually going to understand and connect with what you’ve written. To know that my poetry has had such an effect on people is both motivating and incredibly humbling.
‘Leaf’ is my first published collection of poems in which I explore my own humanity, experiences, and observations about life in a way that will challenge the reader to see things from a new perspective.
‘Leaf’ is listed on Goodreads, and available as a paperback or an e-book on Xlibris, Amazon, iBooks and kobo.
One thing I’ve learned about being a writer is how hard it is to get people to take notice of your work…
One thing I’ve learned about being a writer is how hard it is to get people to take notice of your work. It’s even harder to get them to get them to buy a copy. There are a lot of “that’s nice!” responses out there.
At no point did I go into this with glazed eyes and a plan to “get rich quick” – as I explained to one of my students who asked if I would make a heap of money and stop teaching them, “…nobody gets rich writing poetry!”
I would be really happy to sell a few more copies of my book, though. There are always expenses, and I’d like to think that I’ll make back what getting published has cost me. It would be great to break even on the box o’books I ordered on the assumption that my friends and relatives would all support me, because that is exactly what I would do for them. Some have, and I am super grateful for each of them… and some haven’t. I guess I should have seen that coming. I’m still working on trying to not take it personally.
So, I’m busy engaging in shameless self-promotion. I’m posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads and anything else I can think of to advertise. If you have accounts on any of those places, please friend/follow me (just click on the handy links I’ve created) and share my posts with your friends.
You can also follow me as an author on Amazon and Goodreads. (Again, handy links!)
Another thing you could do to help me out is to rate/review ‘Leaf’ on Amazon, iBooks or Goodreads, as that really helps to raise both awareness and book sales. (Yep… links!)
I’m also in the final phases of designing and producing a website, which may or may not help me sell books, but it looks impressive! I’ll be sure to let you know when it goes live.
I do have a couple of book-signing events at upcoming fairs and festivals, which will hopefully give me opportunities to bless people with hard copies of my book in exchange for cash.
It’s hard work, but it is satisfying. Nobody can ever say I sat back and waited for something to come to me. And in the meantime, I’ll just keep writing.
I love watching the Olympics on TV. The achievements of the competitors are amazing, and I can only imagine what it must feel like to be part of the atmosphere there with the cheering, whistling, and excitement of each event.
I am getting increasingly frustrated with the TV and radio commentators, though. I don’t know what it’s like in other nations, but the Australian media seem to be frequently making remarks about our competitors not winning medals when they were “expected to”, with the implication that they’re letting us down somehow.
Let’s stop and think about that for a moment.
Whose expectations and assumptions are we working on?
Most certainly, not mine.
I don’t think the competitors have those expectations, either. I have no doubt they have hopes and aspirations as they pursue their dreams of victory and success. They put everything into it that they can. Nobody goes in half-arsed and decides while competing that it doesn’t matter so much.
It’s important to remember that every single one of them is a champion for just getting there. They’ve beaten a bunch of other competitors who wanted to be there too. They’ve achieved personal bests and performed feats that are pretty much impossible for most of us ordinary folk.
Our commentators aren’t doing anyone any favours by adding more pressure with the weight of comments that imply that someone was expected to win, and didn’t. Going into the Olympics, there were reports of Australia hoping for a certain number of medals, particularly in certain events. It wasn’t the athletes or swimmers who expressed those goals, it was the media. And how the people “back home” interpret the results is strongly influenced by the ways in which the events and results are reported on and discussed in the media.
It’s easy to want to win everything. It’s easy to consider our own nation a “favourite” among others. We need to keep an open mind, though, and remember that everyone in other countries has the same hopes as we do for our competitors. Just because someone holds a world record doesn’t give them any entitlement to win that event again. As Australian swimmer Bronte Barratt said on Thursday before the Women’s 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay, “As we’ve proven many times before, if you’ve got a lane, you’ve got a chance, so we’ve got a great chance.” She’s absolutely right. Everyone has an equal chance once they make the final.
As for the competitors, they want to do their best. Of course they’d love to win, and they’ll be disappointed when they don’t. But to be there is a victory in itself, and we shouldn’t let any commentator diminish that. And when the race is over, we should be praising and encouraging, not criticising.
My Year 10 English class studied John McCrae’s WWI poem “In Flanders Fields” yesterday. In our discussion, we contrasted it with some of the more brutal poetry about the war that we’ve been studying, such as Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”.
When I asked them what we could learn from the contrasts in the poetry.
one student answered, “Canadians are awesome and generally more polite about things than the English!”
Sorry, English people. He’s getting an A+.
My general response to today. It is not aimed at any one person or place.
No offence intended – and please, be aware that I cleaned it up.
WordyNerdBird 