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Q & A From A Shared Fear

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In response to a Q & A with The Spontaneous Reader Book Blog, these are some of the questions I’ve been asked since the publication of A Shared Fear in 2011. A Shared Fear was my second novel and brought together two of my favorite characters in one of my favorite places. Evie Davis is a former combat arms instructor (I’ve always liked those darn red hats) and Joe Graves, an ATF agent. The coast of Oregon provided a perfect backdrop for most of the book.

Q – I loved the opening for A Shared Fear. Was this taken from a real experience?

A – Yes to the airplane. No to the ATF Agent. I was on a flight from Salt Lake City to Bellingham, Washington, when part of this happened. We ran into turbulence as we crossed the Cascades and when we came into Bellingham, we encountered some wind shear and dropped like a rock. I was sitting alone and wasn’t really scared until that drop. The pilot took the plane out over the Pacific and announced we were going to make a second attempt at landing. He did and the results were just as bad. You know it’s ugly when the flight attendant screams. We diverted to Seattle. The conversation between Joe and the pilot was almost word-for-word what the pilot of my flight and I said to each other in Seattle. Unlike my character Joe, I still fly, but I’m not as big of a fan of air travel as I used to be.

Q – Is it true that you were told that having your main characters meet on an airplane was one of the worst openings an author could choose?

A – Yes. Several years ago, I was sitting in on a free online chat with a senior editor from a major romance publisher when she was asked what openings she hated to see. She responded that she rarely read past the first chapter if the main characters met on an airplane or met by spilling a drink on each other. In her words, authors who used those openings “generally lacked imagination.” I’d already written the opening to A Shared Fear and decided that my opening lacked nothing. Her comments were added confirmation that I didn’t fit in anyone’s mold and traditional publishing might not be for me.

Q – Where did the primary story line come from?

A – Ideas come at the strangest time and places. I was preparing to give a genealogy lecture, so early that morning I was testing my small laser pointer. When I turned it on, I immediately thought it looked like a laser targeting dot from a high-powered weapon. In a flight of fantasy, I thought about someone in a hidden position using the laser pointer to distract a bad guy who was holding a gun on a federal agent. It would be enough to make them think that another agent with a rifle had them in their sights and would force them to lower their weapon. I didn’t use it in the book, but that’s where the story was born. A genealogist with a weapons background and an ATF agent – how fun and different would that be?

Q – Tell me about June the waitress?

A – It’s always the old guys teasing the young waitresses. I thought it would be fun to turn the tables. June began as a means to lighten the moment and play with Senior Agent Terry Beamish as well as share a little information about Evie, but ended up taking over the chapter. This is one of the sections in the book that people most comment on.

Q – You seem to have a love affair going with Colt model 1911 handguns. Is this your weapon of choice?

A – I love the old 1911s. I’d been shooting revolvers since I was a kid, but when I shot my first Colt 1911, my whole world changed. It was truly love at first shot. The feel, the weight, the muzzle control, the smell, the sound… Everything about that weapon made me very, very happy. The next thing I knew, I owned a Colt Gold Cup, one of the finest semi-automatics in the world. I spent a lot of time shooting, and I spent a lot of money on that weapon and having it customized for a better fit. Beaver tail, ambidextrous safeties, Parkerized grips, better sights, throating and porting… I put a lot of rounds through that weapon over the years. There’s just something about those guns that I love. My friend Dave Dingley is the gun guru in my life now, and he provided most of the history for the weapon found in the book.

Q – You have an obvious love for the Oregon coast. Is this where you’d most like to live?

A –One of my retirement goals is being able to spend at least a week in both the spring and fall at the coast. If we’re talking “lottery dreams” than I’ve got a few spots that I could go for. I love both the Oregon coast and the Columbia River Gorge pretty much anytime of the year, western Pennsylvania in the fall, and Charleston, South Carolina, in April. After months of perpetual sunshine in Tucson, I’m always excited to go out and stand in the rain when I get to the Pacific Northwest, to inhale that crisp morning air back east that signifies it’s football season, and to see the blooming of the dogwoods and azaleas down south.

Q – Do you consider this Contemporary Fiction or Romantic Suspense?

A – I hate trying to figure out genre. I’m a little afraid of the Romantic Suspense title because I definitely don’t write romance, and most of the men I know are turned off by anything with that term in it. I market under Contemporary Fiction and Suspense and Thriller. There’s a good love story involved in all my books, so I suppose it fits Romantic Suspense as well.

Am I Capable of Blatant Self-promotion?

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One of my favorite authors is an Indie named Russell Blake. He writes what some lovingly call “Men’s Fiction.” It’s action/adventure/suspense/thriller. It’s fast-paced, timely, and topical. I’ve read a good number of his books and enjoyed them. Russell has made it big. So big that he just co-authored a book with Clive Cussler and is on the NY Times Bestseller List. He’s living every Indie author’s dream.

Russell also takes the time to give back and he shares his experiences in marketing and offers us his views. He reminds us that we have to put ourselves out there and take chances if we want to be successful. He constantly reminds us that writing is only one part of the job – the other part is marketing. And no matter how distasteful it is or how hard it seems – to not do the hard part is to condemn yourself to being unknown in your chosen field.

One of the more interesting and unusual things Russell does is interrupt his blog posts with a paragraph smack in the middle of a conversation that he labels “Blatant Self-Promotion” or “Breaking News” in which he points out a new interview, review, or his latest literary conquest. It’s not something that I could ever really see myself doing. It’s arrogant, self-serving, presumptuous, unapologetic, and bloody freaking brilliant! I love that he is so damn blatant about it. And the tactic absolutely fits Russell’s persona and his books. I really wish I had even half as much guts as he does. But putting something smack in the middle of a post as he does is way, way, WAY out of my comfort zone.

At the same time, I want to let you (my ten faithful readers) know when something exciting has happened, or when someone (without being bribed or threatened) is saying good things about me. I want you to be able to enjoy them with me as well as point them out to your friends. It’s your opportunity to smile knowingly and say, “I was reading her books from the beginning. I knew they were good!”

So how do you think I should handle this? Should I just post them all on the Lynne Scott Facebook page and share the links there? Should I put something at the bottom of the blog post that’s not so blatant, but still reasonably self-serving? I’d very much like to provide a link to the page of the person who was kind enough to do the interview or review – see below for an example of how this might look. Or should I do both, since there are some who only look at Facebook but never read the blog and others who don’t do Facebook?

New Reviews and Interviews

A new review of Vapor Point by Thomas Everson

An interview by Justin Bienvenue on Book Blogs

Please feel free to let me know what you think either by comment on my Lynne Scott Facebook page (which you all should have liked by now), by commenting below, or by sending me an email using the Contact Me tab at the top of the page.

No Butt Kissing and No Sock Puppets – Reviews Part II

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Let’s talk honestly about the review process and who’s doing what. We all know the average reader doesn’t bother giving a review. They speak with their wallets and buy again if they like you. Some will even tell a friend. I love those people. I also love the people who write a short, sweet four or five star review on Amazon and then post the link on their Facebook page. “I read the book, wrote the review, buy the book!” They make any day better!

The truth is that good reviews help sell books. Knowing that, most authors are out there trying to find someone besides their mom to write a review for them. Most of us are doing it the old-fashioned way and begging reviewers and book bloggers to look at us. I can’t help but feel sorry for them in some ways – there’s a lot of craziness and desperation out there and sometimes it lands on your doorstep. Paige from Page by Paige cut loose not long ago and nailed the rudest of the bunch – the spamming authors. She was much nicer than I would have been. There wasn’t a single expletive in there.

But spamming is only one of the ugly problems with that small group of desperate crazies seeking reviews. Some authors and publishers definitely overstep the bounds of what I might consider ethical. There is a dark side to the review cycle.

There are some publishers that require their authors (as part of their contract) to review other authors from their stable. Reviews, blogs, twitter posts, etc. are part of the social media blitz directed by the publisher via their authors. As a result, everyone is saying really nice things about everyone else because they are not only supposed to, but they need everyone else to say nice things about them in return. This is based on the simple premise of your ten fans will love me and my ten fans will love you. Are these reviews and comments all BS – of course not. Most of these folks actually like each other’s stuff. But that doesn’t mean you love everyone the publisher represents or that you think their book is worth five stars – unless you’re contractually obligated to and then all bets are off. I’m not knocking this (your 10 fans can be my 10 fans) marketing method, but I can’t and won’t lie. I simply won’t tell you the sow’s ear is a silk purse or that your terrible author is a great writer. I can keep my mouth shut and say nothing. Most of the time…

Now you know part of the reason why I’m an Indie. Apparently, my ethics would get in the way of some people’s business ventures.

But it’s not just the publishers who are doing this. Realistically, some self-publishers or Indies often do the same type of thing. In their case it’s by choice. They agree to review each other’s books and post positive reviews on the various sites and blogs. The problem here is the word positive instead of the word honest. It’s a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” operation. Where’s the honesty when you’re just blowing happy smoke so someone else does it for you?

I’m all in favor of soliciting reviews from other authors, bloggers, and websites that specialize in those things. I recently did it when I requested a review from Kindle Book Reviews. “Here’s a free copy of Stuck in Korea Time in exchange for a fair and honest review.” There is no expectation of reciprocation from another author and no pressure on that person to provide anything other than an honest review.

There are no ethical worries involved in requesting a review without reciprocation. That’s how I’ll be playing the game. As you might have guessed, I flunked Happy Butt Kissing 101 in the military and I’m still flunking it.

But not every author is happy with being ethical. Some of them have no ethical or moral codes and are trying to cheat the system.

The first way is by purchasing a positive review. We aren’t talking about a paid professional review by a respected company with integrity such as Kirkus Reviews. With Kirkus there are no guarantees of a positive review. You pay your money, you get an honest and fair review by a professional reviewer. You have the option to publish the review if it’s good, or to not publish the review if it’s bad. Honest work for honest pay. The ones that I’m talking about here are the sites (and there are more than a few) who will purchase your book and provide a positive review for a fee – even if your novel is a steaming pile of cow manure. Pay your cash and they’ll create X number of reviews and post them everywhere and anywhere you want.

The second way is by far the most disgusting thing that I’ve seen happen. It’s called “sock puppeting.” This is self-reviewing under another name/account. This is how the truly pathetic and unethical authors do it. All you need to open an account on Amazon is an email address and a credit card. One credit card can be tied to multiple accounts. Purchase one book for $0.99 or more and you can review an unlimited number of books.

What kind of a f***ing Asshat fakes positive reviews?

I use a name other than my own on Amazon when I read and review. This way I can be completely honest without any fear of retaliation. (There really is a thing called vendetta reviewing out there – how sad is that?) The point is, that if I think the book deserved a one or two star then “Sue from Des Moines” (not the name I use so don’t bother looking) will be the one to tell you that the book blew cookies. Is that fair? Yes. I as a reader have an opinion that I’m entitled to share. I bought the book, I read the book, and Sue from Des Moines can say whatever she wants. I rarely do so, but there are books that the public needs to be warned about.

What you will NEVER see is “Sue from Des Moines” reviewing a Lynne Scott or L. Scott book. It’s just not f***ing ethical, and I’m disgusted by those who do it!

I know it’s hard to believe that someone actually does this, but it’s happened. I personally know one author and his/her best friend who wrote five out of his/her 25+ five star reviews. Amazingly, the author saw nothing wrong with this practice. I read the book and it was good enough to have gathered the 20+ positive ratings without the unethical behavior, but the author just couldn’t wait. Frankly, I don’t care if his/her next book wins a Pulitzer, I’ll never spend another nickel on that author again. The only things I felt I could do was advise Amazon (big shock, they don’t care – someone spent their $0.99, so they get to say their piece just like I do), and I severed all ties with that person both personally and professionally. They still don’t understand what my problem is. I’m just not interested in being associated with someone who doesn’t get it.

So there’s the good and the bad. We want reviews and we need reviews. I believe that how I go about getting those reviews matters. I’ll take my books off sale and quit publishing before I compromise my integrity for a damn review.

Here endeth my current rant.

Tiptoeing into the Melee

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Almost all of the people who talk/write about doing this (I’m not supposed to think of it as onerous) task of promoting, suggest doing it in small increments. 10-20% of your work time should be devoted to marketing. I’ve found that in the last three weeks, it’s been closer to 80% of my time as I try to get educated and organized.

One of the sites I’ve learned from and really like is Goodreads.com, which bills itself as: “The largest site for readers and book recommendations. Chances are your friends are discussing their favorite (and least favorite) books on Goodreads.” I’ve established my presence there under both Lynne Scott and L. Scott. Anyway, in the process of completing my profile, I rated some books, answered some author questions, and in general made a nuisance of myself. But at least I got out there and did something genuine and real.

[In the interest of full disclosure – I made such a mess of setting up my L. Scott account for the Blood Link series that it took their poor customer service rep three days to straighten my mess out. They were very nice about it, but I’m still apologizing.]

Goodreads is also a place where readers, authors, editors, and just about everyone else mixes freely. There are groups for every taste and a lot of self-help areas for the clueless like me.

In the course of bumbling along, I managed to make a new friend. Her name is Rachel. It turns out that Ms Rachel has some public relations and marketing skills. And we all know that I’m desperately in need of those things. Ms. Rachel has foolishly agreed to assist me. I’m not sure there’s enough wine in the world to save the poor woman now. She’s already helped me get organized, set up a targeted approach to obtain reviews, and talked me up to some friends of hers who are now (just as foolishly) also interested in helping me get seen and noticed.

Why am I being so vague? Well, Ms. Rachel is still setting up her business and not ready for a full-scale launch. [And ya’ll back off, she has her hands full with me!] And as for the ladies at The Spontaneous Reader, they’re uber busy with plans for me in October. Big plans. Plans I’m really excited (and maybe just a little freaked out) about. Abbie’s interviews are wildly inventive and unique. I can’t wait for you to see what she’s doing to me next month. It’s the first time I’ve done an interview that I had fun with. You’ll have to wait until next month to see it, and even then, you may not believe it.

These women are making this so much easier and fun for me. For the first time, I’m feeling not only comfortable with the process, but even moderately hopeful.

I Was an Idiot!!!

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Lynne Scott will not be writing any reviews for posting on other sites. I’m not very good at it. I wrote one earlier this week and I’m not very proud of myself now. We all make mistakes – I made one, and I’ve corrected it. Now I’d like my readers and fellow authors to learn from my mistake.

The book warranted a solid positive four-star review – great plot, great characters, well done cop-speak dialog. It had some issues in POV and style that occasionally took me out of the story, but nothing to knock it below the four stars. It was a good debut novel, and I have no doubt the author’s next one will be even better.

Even though I gave it the four star review, I somehow managed to write only one paragraph about all the great stuff while wasting several on the minor problems with the book. What I should have done was the reverse. Mention the problems, and then talk about all the good things the author did. If I had to detail the problems, it should have been done in an email to the author. The author deserved a better write up.

Why didn’t I do that? Because sometimes I’m just an idiot.
The review was up about twelve hours before my brain engaged and I removed it.

We need to have some honest conversations concerning reviews – reader versus author? Can we do that? Maybe, but it’s not going to be easy and it will take more than one post.

I wear both hats on any given day. I write almost every day, but I still love to read. When it comes to reviews, what I want as a reader shouldn’t be too awfully different than what I want as an author.

What I WANT to see in a review as a READER –
1. Honesty. Don’t inflate the review. “Good book, good read!” means more to me as a reader than a whole bunch of empty 5 star reviews. Not every book is a 5. I enjoy the 4s just as much in most cases because I’m not looking to be wowed only to be disappointed.
2. Brevity. Just tell me what you liked and move on. I don’t need a 3 paragraph recap of the damn story. I want to read the story for myself. A couple short paragraphs is about the limit of my “give a crap” when I’m shopping so just say what you have to say.
3. A recommendation/non-recommendation for this and the next book. “I can’t wait for the next book” or “I’ll spend money on this author again” are things that say this is worth my money.

What I WANT to see in a review as an AUTHOR –
1. Honesty – Yeah right. As long as it’s the good kind. Otherwise I’d like you to practice what your mommy taught you, “If you have nothing good to say, say nothing.” Or at least not publicly. (I should have listened to my own rules earlier this week.)
2. An indication of what worked. – It doesn’t have to be a big deal. If you liked the humor or the banter, just say it worked; you don’t have to provide an example.

What I DON’T WANT to see in a review as a READER –
1. Claimed relationship Wife/Bestie reviews – “Buy my husband’s/sister’s/friend’s book. He worked hard.” This is an automatic killer for me. I don’t mind if you know the author, but write like you don’t and include something useful about the book not your relationship.
2. Spoilers without warning. Telling us who the killer is, how the book ended, or discussing plot twists without warning proves the writer of the review is a complete and total ASSHAT. I have been known to reply to those reviews and tell them they are an idiot (foul language can get you banned. Yes, it’s hard for me to express myself properly without expletives but I have to make do.). I generally follow that up with a note to Amazon.

What I DON’T WANT to see in a review as an AUTHOR –
1. Personal criticism – Attack the work, not the author. The difference: “This is s***!” is about the book. “Joe Blow is s***!” is about the author. Don’t do that. It’s rude.
2. A headline that turns off the review – I saw one recently in which the reviewer gave the author four stars, but the title was “MEH… “ Do you need to read more? I did because I was curious how MEH equaled four stars. It still wasn’t clear from the review.
3. All the same things that I don’t want to see as a reader.

One of my favorite reviews seen on another author’s book on a long gone website was, “Suspense and quirkiness. Solid read. I’ll buy again.” I bought the book based on the 4 out of 5 star review. Sadly, I can’t remember the name of the book or the author anymore. I’m sure it’ll come to me about 0330 tomorrow morning.

So, how am I going to let you know that I liked a book by someone else? I’ll put them in my blog and I’ll send a note to the author that I did so. Nothing big, nothing fancy. No more than “A good book, a solid read.” Just the book description and the cover, and maybe something about the author and where you can find the book.

If it appears on my blog, I read it, I liked it, and I would have given it a 4 star or better review. I won’t post a book with a link that I haven’t read and wouldn’t spend my money on.

In my next post, I’ll talk more about the idea of author’s trading reviews and the even uglier practice of author’s using secondary accounts and names to review themselves.

Baby Steps

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Writing the book is the easy part. It’s what comes after publishing that has always frightened me. It’s not enough to write a good book. Someone has to find you among the 6,000,000 other offerings and choose to buy your novel as opposed to another. You’ve heard me say before that the whole self-promotion thing is painful. Every time I try to do any of it, I begin to act a lot like my dog Daisy does when she hears thunder – there’s a whole lot of panic in the eyes, some spastic twitching, and the primal urge to run into the bathroom and hide in the corner until whatever it is goes away.

I’ve decided that I have to make the effort to promote myself, so I’ve committed to researching and reading about just how one is supposed to do this. There are a ton of folks selling books and services to the cowardly (like me). I’m kind of cheap, so I’m currently working through all the free advice offered. One of the best blog items I’ve read so far is: HOW TO PROMOTE YOURSELF AND YOUR BOOKS ON SOCIAL MEDIA WITHOUT FEELING LIKE A SOUL-SELLING, SLEAZE-SUCKING SLIME-GLOB by Chuck Wendig.

Mr. Wendig approached the problem humorously and has some realistic suggestions that made sense. There are a lot of other folks who specialize in social media marketing and a surprising number of them offer freebie information on their sites. I’ve downloaded quite a bit of it and made notes on some of the things I’m willing to try. I’ll be using my Lynne Scott Facebook page more than I have in the past. All 27 of my friends who have liked the page will probably be highly annoyed by the increase in usage.

My first step this week was the toughest. I asked for help.

Why is asking for help so hard? It’s not something I normally do even though I have great friends with big hearts. But this week I screwed up my courage and asked four people who regularly buy and read my books to read Vapor Point and write a review of it for me. You know that time in junior high when it was girl’s choice and you had to ask the guy you liked to go to the dance with you? You know the drill – you put it off, made a couple of abortive passes in the hallway that culminated in “Hi…” followed by a blush and run as you got all sweaty and queasy. Yeah… this felt just like that. I think I wrote four different messages before I just blurted out the question. All four were quick to agree and they actually seemed enthused about it. Maybe putting it off until after happy hour was the right thing to do after all.

The other thing I did this week for the first time was ask a Facebook friend who had just finished reading Saving Emily to say so in a Facebook post. She did more than that. She posted a short, sweet, and very cool, 5 star review on Barnes and Noble – “Saving Emily grabs you from the start! A little passion, some mystery and a strong female character. I loved it.” and followed it up on her Facebook page with: “If you’re looking for a great summer read… I recommend Saving Emily by Lynne Scott. Loved, loved, loved it!” Three of her friends posted that they were buying the book and a fourth added it to her Kindle Wish List. Her fifteen seconds of kindness has introduced me to four new readers who might never have heard of me otherwise. How cool is that?

Is asking people to review my books or mention me on their Facebook page hard for me to do? Yes. I feel like I’m imposing my business on our personal time and space. And yet, I ask people to share a recipe or a restaurant recommendation, so why shouldn’t I ask them to say something nice if they liked my book?

Is it a necessary part of low-budget marketing? Yes. People think that because I have 11 books out there that I must be making money. No book sales – no money. If you don’t get seen – you don’t sell books. That would be where I’m at.

Do I feel any less a soul-selling, sleaze-sucking slime-glob? I’m not sure how I feel. Kinda queasy, sweaty, and scared. But whether it’s a good or bad thing, I don’t know yet.

I have incredibly nice friends so the first steps have been much less painful than expected. Thanks to them, I’m ready to try a few more things. Slowly… very, very slowly.