Wednesdays With Joanne - "Do 'that thing you do!'"

Hi all,

How many of us wake up every day, rub the sleepy from our eyes, drag ourselves out of bed, feed the animals underfoot, put on the coffee, re-button our pjs, then head for our computer to do "that thing we do" as writers...which is to write, right?

Right!

Writing ('that thing we do') is The Best Weapon authors have against any and all woes: marketing, promotion, sales numbers, conferences to attend, agents and editors to query, signings and booktalks to schedule, manuscripts to push, or otherwise. Writers write. How many times have we all heard that? Lots for sure.

This morning, rather than reading "writers write" flat on the page, it's a pop-up for me! I get it. It's that simple and that complicated. Writers write. It's "that thing we do." Sounds simple, so why isn't it?

Because...it's so easy for a writer to become embroiled in marketing and promotion, so much so that a writer often stops writing to attend to these important aspects of being published. It's easy to wake up every morning and turn on the computer and--instead of working on our current story--we troll the Internet for this and that, to make sure we're doing all we can for our last published book. This is a good thing to do, but should be done later in the day during a time set aside to do so. We must not let this necessary task(s) suck up our creative writing juices when we should be using our creative energy to get our story pages keyed in. I try to think of the marketing hamster wheel now as something fun to 'hop on' later in the day, where it doesn't affect my daily story pages (which...duh...are very important, too!).

So I say..."do that thing you do" and write, first and foremost! I've discovered that to do so is our Best Weapon of Mass Marketing Construction! We feel really, really good if we've written the next phase of our story(s) to our satisfaction. Then, it's much, much easier to take the bumps and jolts we nearly always have on our marketing radar screens later in the day. We get to discover that we actually can still write. It's oh so easy to forget that when we get carried away on the next marketing wave. But...when we have our daily pages safely keyed onto our hard drive, it's our life saver, and we don't care so much about the marketing bumps and jolts.

You do 'that thing you do,' and I will, too!

Write on,
Jo(anne)

Wednesdays With Joanne - "Don't be discouraged by statistics!"

Hi guys,

I'm not a math person, so please forgive my attempt to understand the latest RWR, Mar 2007, article with forthcoming ROMStats re Popular Fiction Sales and Title Output by Category.

In Popular Fiction Sales for 2005, romance holds a 26.4% share while religion/inspirational holds a 25.5% share. That looks like about half the Popular Fiction sales to me. In Title Output by Category sales for 2005, romance is responsible for 5,994 titles while religion/inspirational is responsible for 9,949 titles out of overall releases. Interesting, huh.

I pay particular note to these "statistics" because I'm always looking to see where my writing might have a fit, statistical or otherwise. I write historical romance set in the West, which logically "fits" into the popular romance category, and might be included in the 5,994 titles sold. Those of you who also write historicals, already know that we're not as high on the sales charts as erotica which, excuse the pun, is the coming thing, especially from RWA-approved e-publishers. When one considers the growing number of religion/inspirational titles, obviously out-selling pretty much every other category, the "statisfical fit" for us grows even more tight. Ouch!

We who write historical romance must "not be discouraged by these statistics," rather we should be encouraged by the obvious fact that what we're writing is perhaps more unique, and, one can only hope, will soon be in higher demand.

Love you guys,

Joanne

Wednesdays With Joanne - "From Lincoln Logs to Linking Blogs!"

Hi All,

I'm excited as I'm getting a little closer to actually Linking my Blogs to others; hence, "a blogging we will go!" I know what you're all thinking...about time already, Joanne. I have an excuse. Remember. I'm 61!!!! (Darn, didn't work, did it?)

Just wanted to alert you to my game plan: I hope very soon, to blog on the Five Star Authors' Blog; RomancingTheBlog; and the WomenWritingTheWest Blog. I'm inserting myself in this experiment (on my part, always) to not only become comfortable with blogging and find out what's going on in the writing world, but also to help me access the value of "going on" in the marketing/promotion world, internet-speaking. It's a bad, bad, bad world out there in cyberland, to my thinking. I don't want to start up Home Pages on sites such as MySpace without good reason. How much marketing can one person (much less potential readers) take? The bottom line (and the gist of my self-proclaimed experiment) is to ascertain the value of involvement on numerable internet sites.

I do have a hypothesis: That internet exposure, while wonderful, doesn't coerce readers into buying, anymore than signings, conferences, booktalks, and just plain "hitting the pavement" with our wares. I'm thinking that there are still readers out there who enjoy meeting you at a bookfair or the local bookstore, rather than "hooking up" on the internet.

It's a good thing that I write historical romance, the operative word being historical. Obviously, I'm a throw-back to marketing of old.

Tune in tomorrow...and see whether or not my hypothesis is proved or disproved: whether Linking Blogs or Lincoln Logs have more value. I know. You're all right on the edge of your seats!!! Me, too!!!

B'bye...

Jo(anne)