Unexpected Applause: Lost and Found (a book review post)

Lost and Found by the A Beer for the Shower guys (Bryan and Brandon, for those of you that don't know) may be the best ghost story I've ever read. Not that I read a lot of ghost stories, but the ones I have read have all been pretty typical. This one is far from typical. So far from typical that you don't know... Um, wait... I want this to be as spoiler free as possible and saying that this is a ghost story is almost a spoiler all by itself.

Okay, so let's start with the technicals. Bryan and Brandon continue to deliver the best edited independent books that I've read. I think I counted, maybe, three typos. Not that I was counting, because I wasn't, but the lack of errors made the ones I did see kind of jump out at me. But it may have only been two. Few enough as to not be worthy of commenting on. I know, then why am I commenting on it? Well, the traditionally published book I am currently reading (you know, the one with a budget to hire professional editors) has already have three or four times as many errors, so I think it's worth noting that these guys do a better job of polishing their work than the "professionals."

Okay, so back to the story:
The story is told in two parts: "Lost" and "Found." Both stories are completely independent of each other in that you could sit down and read either of them and come away from whichever one you'd read and think, "Well, that was pretty good. Not spectacular but pretty good." However (and this is a big "however"), when you put the two stories together, they interlock and are spectacular. Seriously. And I wish I could talk about it, but that would be the spoiling part.

I think the best way to describe the story is like this:

In case there are any of you reading this that have never seen this particular illusion, there are two pictures there. You can appreciate either of them independently, but it's only the appreciation of those two pictures melded into one image that really makes this interesting.

So let's call Lost and Found a psychological thriller with a paranormal twist, which still doesn't cover it, but it's probably as close as I can get. It's creepy, maybe scary, but not gruesome in any way. It has a little bit of Ghost Whisper and a little bit of... um, I'm not sure... some kind of reality hunter type show. You should probably just go read it. Yeah, you should probably go do that right now.

Encouragement Does Not Equal Support (an IWSG post)

We have a very supportive household. Mostly, it's my wife's doing. She's the one that instituted it, at any rate, but I think it all came out of a discussion we had years ago about the lack of support I had when I was growing up and the abundance of support she had. So, back then, I couldn't really see the importance of support because I'd never had it.

We'll skip over the parts where I wasn't allowed to play sports or learn a musical instrument and go straight to high school. During my junior year, I talked a buddy into learning some Abbott and Costello skits with me for some thing or other we had to do at school. Initially, it was just "Who's on First?" but, we were so good, we got asked to perform at some function or other and did that, too. Which led to other performances and learning other skits (including my favorite, "Costello's Farm"). We had quite a number of performances during our junior and senior years. And my parents didn't come to a single one.

During college, I was in a drama group and we frequently performed in the area, and my parents never came to any of those performances, either. In fact, the only performances my parents ever came to were when the youth choir at my church sang at church because, well, they were already there and, actually, they often missed those, too.

So... We, my wife and I, made an actual decision, a conscious decision, to support our kids in their endeavors. Even when it's not easy. Even when giving them a little "Break a leg!"-do-a-great-job encouragement would be so much easier. So that means we go to things. We go to lots of things. We go to softball practices and softball games. We go to accordion lessons and accordion performances. We go to choir concerts. We go to plays and musicals. We go to improv shows. We spend money on tickets to a lot of these things. We make the effort to show our kids we're there for them, supporting them (and the organizations they're with), even when we'd rather say, "Okay, that's enough. We hope you do a great job tonight, but we're staying home." And trust me, when you have a week like this one where you're only home one night of the whole week because there are performances and games every other night, it can be tempting to skip the support and just go for the easy dose of encouragement.

And that's the thing: Encouragement is easy. It's the support that's hard to do.

Encouragement is nothing more than patting someone on the back and saying "good luck." It really doesn't take anything to do. There's no real effort involved. Now, don't get me wrong; encouragement can be nice: It feels good, but, really, it's completely insubstantial. It doesn't do anything real.

Support requires an effort. To put it in another context, support is more than just wishing fellow authors "best of luck" with their releases. Support is more than just cover reveals and blog hops. Support is more than just adding someone's book to your "to read" list on goodreads.

Actual support is buying the books of your author friends. And, sure, I get that not everyone can buy every book by every person just like we don't go to every performance of the same show (but we do go to at least one performance from each show); most of us just don't have the money for that. But I make an effort to pick up at least a "book" or two a month from someone I know (even if I know that I'm not going to have time to read it soon) and, really, with so many people using the $0.99 price point, it's hard to legitimately say you can't afford it (skip one Starbucks latte a month, and you can support three or four different authors!).

Actual support is reading the books that you've picked up from your friends. This is kind of a big one for me, right now, because I've been being tired for a while now of seeing on the blogs of indie authors the constant chatter about traditionally published books like Divergent and The Hunger Games. When you're an indie author but can only ever talk about traditionally published books -- and not just books but best sellers -- it really sends a wrong message. It's an unintentional message, but it's there all the same, and that message is "only traditionally published books are worth talking about." I make an effort to always have at least one indie book that I'm reading. [In fact, I just ordered a Kindle (my first portable device) to facilitate, specifically, reading indie books, because I haven't had time lately to do that while sitting at my computer.]

Actual support is, after having read someone's indie release, leaving a review. A real review. Not just a "yea! I loved this!" (which I've actually seen left when it's apparent the person didn't read the book at all (my favorite being "I went to high school with this guy and he wrote this book. It's good. You should read it."))
Just to say it, I review every book I read. I believe in supporting the authors.

This stuff has been bothering me for a while, the fact that there is kind of this constant talk about how "supportive" the blogging community is when what it actually is is encouraging. The blogging community is great at encouragement. There's no lack of "good luck!"s to be found. But actual support has proven to be few and far between. Since this is a "support" group, I thought I'd mention that encouragement does not equal support.

You're a Hitter, Now!

Softball season is well underway, here. At least, it is for me, since I count the beginning of the season from the point when my daughter starts practice. The actual season has also started. Games began last week. [And here is where I'm tempted to start talking about my daughter and how it looks like she's going to be an awesome catcher, but I'm not going to do that. That's not what this post is about. I'm sure that will come later, though.]

Hitting during a game is an especially difficult thing for this age range, due in no small part to the erratic-ness of the pitching. Many of the girls are so scared of being hit by the ball that they jump out of the box every time a pitch is thrown. And they all get hit at some point, so it's not an irrational fear. And, because so many of the pitches are balls, the girls have a difficult time discerning what to swing at. I don't envy them.

Amidst that, one of the girls on the other team got her first hit during the first game. It was a nice, solid fly ball. A foul, fly ball (right at me, actually, so I'm glad there was a fence there). Of course, a foul ball is a strike, so, on the one hand, it wasn't a successful hit, but, on the other hand, she hit the ball. In fact, her coach yelled at her after she'd returned to the plate, "You're a hitter, now!" and, maybe, something about doing it again. What came after wasn't important. The "you're a hitter, now," though, is very important.

There's a particular confidence that comes from knowing you can hit the ball. Actually make the bat connect with the ball. If you can do that, no matter where it goes the first time, you will eventually be able to get a base hit. You have to get on base to score.

Now, follow along with me here, and let me know when you get what I'm saying. [Note: I am not going back and sourcing this information, but this is all based on a few articles and reports I've read in the last few weeks.]

At the moment, indie books are being published at about the same rate as traditionally published books (despite claims by people supporting traditional publishing saying that indie authors are "flooding the market" (with crap) and making books indistinguishable for readers). That means for every 1000 indie books that are released there are 1000 traditionally published books released. But let's look at what that really means.
[There will be math involved, which will make Tina happy, but, despite anything she says, this is not "everyday" math.]

For every 1000 indie books published, that's like 1000 girls getting a piece of the softball with their bats. They won't all score or even get on base, but, hey, they hit the ball. They can say, "I'm a published author." If they keep at it, eventually, they will score. Now, here's the part you have to understand; that's a 100% success rate. Beyond that, two or three of them will do well enough to be able to go on and earn a living just playing softball.

But let's look at the traditionally published books. For every 1 of those 1000 girls at bat, there were anywhere between 500 and 1000 more girls told they couldn't play on the team. No particular reason, just "you can't play." So you have the same 1000 girls getting a piece of the ball, but the success rate is way less than 1%. In fact, it's as bad as 0.1%. Instead of 1000 out of 1000 being able to say "I'm a published author," you have 1000 out of 500,000 to 1,000,000 being able to say it. Those are bad odds. And you're no more likely to be able to go on to earn a living playing softball as a traditionally published author than you are as an indie author. In fact, instead of it being two or three out of the 1000, it's only one or two.

And the traditional publishing industry doesn't want you to know about the 1,000,000 kids, the 1,000,000 little girls, they turned away. Oh, wait, the 999,000.

And, yes, before anyone says anything, I know my analogy is not exact. For one thing, I'm assuming that every girl that gets up to bat will get a hit, but it worked for the analogy because that's what gave me the thought, "You're a hitter, now!" "You're a published author, now!" On that basis, it works.

The point is is that the traditional publishing industry survives by keeping kids off the field. By not letting them play. At all. Then they tell everyone that they picked the best players. That all falls apart, though, when you look over at the kids playing on the indie field, even some of those making a living wage at it, and you find out they were some of the same ones told by the gatekeepers of the traditional fields to get lost.

Look, we all want to score a run or two. At least bat someone else in, right? That can only happen if we can get out on the field and play. Personally, I believe in the system that lets people that want to play the game, play the game. Right now, I can say, "I'm a published author." I'm getting to play the game. Right now. I'm doing it. I'm not waiting in line over and over again to be repeatedly turned away hoping there will be an opening just when I happen to show up.

In the end, that's really what it comes down to for me: Are you going to let me play the game or not? As it happens, the indie field is open and has plenty of room for people to play the game. I'm not much fond of being told to take my ball and go home.

Reading in the Cracks (an IWSG post)

I've always been one of those people that carries a book wherever I go. It started in elementary school, actually, when I would finish assignments way before the rest of the class, and the thing I was allowed to do was read. Well, or sit quietly at my desk. I don't think teachers realize how difficult it is for an eight-year-old to just sit quietly anywhere when everyone else has something to do. So I started filling in those cracks with reading. Of course, at the time, it was from books in the classroom; it wasn't until middle school that I started carrying books with me. Probably so that I'd have something to read on the school bus. But I discovered that having a book with me was a good thing because it didn't matter where I was, when I was stuck waiting for anything, stuck in a crack in time, I had a book to read. By high school, I was the guy with a book. Not that anyone ever called me that, not to my face, anyway, but people would comment. And my friends would ask me why: "Why do you always have to have a book with you?"

They never really understood the answer. Even that I liked reading didn't suffice as an answer. I suppose that was too foreign a concept for most of them. I know they didn't get it, because the same people would ask that question over and over, like I was lying to them, "But why...?"

When I was younger, those cracks in time where I would slip some reading in were often large and happened frequently. Actually, thinking back on it, now, it's amazing how much time kids have to just... waste. And, mostly, that's what they do with it. Yeah, yeah, I know it's part of being a kid, but, still...

The biggest crack was at bedtime. That was like a grand canyon of time every night when I would spend a couple or few hours reading. Man, that was so luxurious, and I didn't even know it.

The problem is that those cracks get smaller and smaller as you get older, especially once (if) you have kids. In fact, some of those cracks get filled in completely. There's no sitting around in class reading because you've finished whatever everyone else is working on. I'm thinking that behavior is mostly frowned on at most jobs, at least most of the jobs I've had. And bedtime reading is nearly non-existent. There is just too much tiredness. Whereas I used to read at least an hour every night, I'm doing good to get in 10 minutes these days (which is why it took most of the last year to read The Casual Vacancy). My reading cracks have been reduced to waiting for my kids after school, a yield of about 20 minutes a day, and waiting in line at the bank, which I generally don't do more than once a month.

All of that means that I need to restructure the way I read. Reading in the cracks just isn't good enough anymore. But there's a bigger reason for that.

The way I read, or have been reading, requires that I have something I can carry with me, which means an actual, physical book (because I have no mobile device for reading), but what I really need to be doing is increasing my e-reading (which requires that I sit at my computer (not entirely pleasant after sitting in front of my computer all day already)). And why do I need to do that, you might ask.

One of the things that really bothers me as I bounce around to blogs by other indie writers ("indie" encompasses (by definition) self-published authors and traditionally published authors published by any publisher that is not one of the "big" publishers) is that, when they talk about the books they "love," they are almost exclusively talking about books from the "Big Six." In fact, there are frequent posts that just gush over books like Gone Girl (being the one that I ran across the most this week (half a dozen separate posts about this book)), which is not the problem. The problem is that there is a deficit of posts like that about other indie writers.

The implied message (which I'm sure is completely unintentional but is there just the same):
I am an indie writer and you should read my books. Yes, I am that good. However, other indie writers out there are not as good as me, which you can tell because I only read books published by the Big Six traditional publishers.

Yes, this bothers me. As an indie writer, I do my best to support other indie writers by reading their books (and reviewing them, but that's another discussion) and letting people know what indie books I've read that I really like (see that reviewing thing, again, which is still another discussion). It doesn't mean that you have to give up reading books by the Big Six, but, if you are an indie writer, you probably ought to be giving something close to equal time to other indie writers. That message says:
I value what you do as much as I value what I do.

That's an important message to be sending. Not to the other indie writers (though that is important) but to readers. Readers need to know that indie books are no less good than Big Six books, and the only way to let them know that is by showing that we are reading them, too.

For me, specifically, this is going to involve some changes in the way I do my reading (at least until I get some kind of portable device). No more just reading in the cracks. I will have to set aside deliberate time in which to do reading at my computer so that I can start working on, really working on, my TBR list of indie authors. It's important.

The Emotional Lawn (an Indie Life post)

I've never been a big fan of yard work. Evidently, my parents weren't either, because, as a kid, I did the bulk of the yard work. Fortunately, for my kids, we don't have a lawn or, even, much of a yard, and what there is is rocks (because that's what the previous owners had put in rather than have a tiny lawn to tend (and, I have to say, these rocks are terrible. Tiny and red, they get tracked everywhere, because they quite easily get stuck in shoes and stuff)). But, when I was a kid, we had a big yard with lots of trees. And lots of leaves. And I hated raking. More than raking, I hated bagging the leaves. It was the worst.

The yard also had a steep hill down to the sidewalk (on two sides, since we lived on a corner), but, even with the hill, I preferred mowing to raking. Besides, when I mowed, I would mow designs into the yard. Not permanent designs, because, once the yard was mowed, there was no design. But, still, my dad always got pissed when I was doing diagonals and stuff and would yell at me for messing up the grass. Seriously. (And I always wanted to say, "Then you mow it," but I never did.)

In my current "yard," though, even with the rocks, there are weeds. They grow up between the rocks, and it's difficult to get rid of them. For one thing, you can't just go out and mow them down. The last several weeks, I've sort of let the weeds take over, because they were growing up faster than I could pull them out.

And that's what it's like, sometimes, being an indie author. For one thing, you have to tend your own emotional lawn. Those big name authors often have plenty of people to help with theirs, not to mention the fans which will plant plenty of flowers (praise). But indies... well, they get to tend their lawns pretty much on their own.

And it can be tough. You get your book out there, but, really, no one knows who you are, and it doesn't generate the kind of sales you'd hoped for, and you don't get the kinds of reviews you'd hoped for, either in number or quality, or you get that one really bad review that just breaks your heart and makes you wonder what you're doing anyway, and, suddenly, your emotional lawn is full of weeds: resentment, envy, bitterness, even thoughts of revenge. Basically, you have a lawn that's invested in how others treat it. You're allowing people outside of yourself to control what grows in your own emotional lawn.

And, really, why should those other people care what's growing in your lawn?

Even the people that do care, close friends and family, and may try to help you out with the weed pulling ("That bad review doesn't mean anything." "Keep working at it, sales will get better." "Don't worry that <someone else> is doing better than you."), won't keep it up for long if you continue to allow strangers the power to grow weeds in your emotions.

Really, you are the only person that can control what you have growing in your emotional lawn. You have to cultivate grass, an attitude of doing your thing without regard to the outside. You have to tend the grass, work at it, mow it, water it. You do just have to keep working and doing your own thing. And, when you see a weed popping up, you have to go over and pull that sucker up, because they breed like crazy, so you can't let them start.

Why is this important? Because, as an indie author, your lawn is almost as important as your books. Maybe as important. Maybe, even, more important. When you're big and famous (and rich), you can pass almost anything off as just being the product of an eccentric artist-type, but, when you're a little indie guy, how you behave (what your lawn looks like) is a lot of what attracts new readers, so, if you have a ton of weeds (bad behavior and attitude), it won't matter how good your books are, people won't want to come around. (That's why when authors have public meltdowns over bad reviews (or whatever) can ruin their careers before they even get started.)

So, yeah, maintaining your emotional lawn as an indie author is a lot of work. But it's one of those things that has to be done. But, you know, you can always have fun with it and mow in some diagonals, checker boards, or, even, swirls.

This post has been brought to you in part by Indie Life.