Mary Kruger's Blog

My mother used to talk about getting old, and that from one year to the next she found herself able to do fewer things. I believed her, but in an abstract way. After all, I could still do pretty much anything. Yes, I was low on energy, but I’ve always been sedentary. And I’d recovered from surgery for TMJ and a hysterectomy just fine; in fact, better than fine, in that I was able to do things faster than anyone expected. Obviously I was a fast healer. And then I broke my wrist…

Last year, on a day of snow showers, I found the one ice patch in the entire city. Out went my foot from under me; straight down I went, landing on a very well cushioned part of my anatomy, and my left hand. I knew immediately that it was broken. I couldn’t move it in any direction, and it felt curiously dead. What I chiefly felt at that moment was disgust. Yes, I knew that time would pass, and I’d get over it. I just had to deal with it, day by day. I was soon back to work, where my co-workers decorated my cast with pictures of Snoopy, and the symbol for crash test dummies. My boss even wrote a limerick. Sure enough, time passed. The cast came off and I headed for physical therapy, which I worked at with a vengeance. In time I got my strength and mobility back. End of a bad chapter - or so I thought.

Fast forward to May of this year. My daughter and I were on vacation in California. We went to Santa Monica a couple of times, and Grauman’s Chinese theater, and Universal Studios. On the last day of our trip we went to the Getty Museum, with a trip to UCLA planned for afterwards. As we wandered through the Getty’s gardens, I tripped over a low curb protecting the flowerbeds. Again I went down, this time landing on my right hand. I will not repeat what I said to myself. Suffice it to say it wasn’t nice. This wasn’t supposed to happen, I thought. I had this problem last year, and I should have been OK for a few more years. Plus I was 3000 miles away from home and my support system. How was I going to drive to a hospital for treatment, let alone get back to our hotel in Hollywood, 12 miles distant, in LA’s traffic? And then to the airport the next day? This was serious. I was the only adult in our group. There was no one I could call for help. Eventually, though, I found myself in the hands of two very helpful EMT’s. They loaded me in an ambulance, which I found vaguely humiliating. Then there we were, the ER at the UCLA Medical Center. We got there after all, just not in the way we’d planned.

I had a great orthopedic doctor. He was the best looking man I’ve seen in a long time. As he gave me his diagnosis, I was staring at him, wondering how I’d describe him back home. Dr. McDreamy has been taken. I know! Dr. Delicious! Hey, Mary. Stop staring at this guy, and listen to what he’s saying. He set the wrist, wrapped it up, and sent me on my way.

All worked out. Hertz towed the rental car, we took a cab back to our hotel, and caught the shuttle to the airport the next day. Though I couldn’t find an open pharmacy for my prescription for pain pills (note to LA: leave the pharmacies open later on Saturday nights, and open earlier in the morning. I mean, in such a big city, shouldn’t pharmacies be more easily available)? After having my cast screened at security at the airport, to make sure I wasn’t disguising a bomb or some such, I flew across the continent with my arm upraised, for the swelling. My sister met me on the other end, and I found myself in the care of people who mean a lot to me. Now I sport a hot pink cast, with various signatures and a picture of Garfield. I’ve been given the reluctant go-ahead from my doctor to drive, thank God. When patrons at the library ask me what happened, I simply say I fell. I’m tempted to tell them I did it rollerblading or attempting a double axel while ice skating, but I haven’t been brave enough for that. At least I can get around and work and eat chocolate, though I can’t use a fork and writing is hard. However…

We return to the first paragraph. I’m not bouncing back from this as quickly as I did as a child, or even as recently as last year. I get tired easily, and I move slower than usual. Motrin and Vicodrin are my best friends. And I can’t get up much energy to work on the book I want to put out this week. My mother was right, as she usually was. What a drag it is getting old.

This has been a long, and somewhat self-indulgent entry, but if I don’t feel sorry for myself, who will? Such is life. Thank you Pat, Marcia, Tom, Chris, Kling, Karen, and Frank, and my wonderful doctor, Mi Haisman, who asked me what I was doing back in her office. And thank all of you who’ve persevered through this long story. I promise you that better days, and better entries, are coming.

It is an axiom among ebook/indie writers that self-promotion is absolutely necessary for the success of any book. Get on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Keep a blog, maintain a website, send out newsletters. Hold promotions and contests, and make sure everyone always knows what you’re doing, all to get your book noticed. Does it work? To an extent, sure. There are authors who’ve had a great deal of success because of their promotional efforts. There are also authors who haven’t. There are some who haven’t done a thing, and yet their books sell. This is all well and good, but to date I haven’t done much of it. The reason? I hate it.

There are few things that bother me more than a hard sell, and that’s what relentless self-promotion is. I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion, though, that I have to promote my books, at least, some of the time. So, occasionally, I’ll write an entry about this book or that. I’ll try to make it entertaining, so you’ll get something more out of it than a sales pitch. In that spirit, I must say that I currently have 5 ebooks available for sale. Two are Regency novellas: “Gifts of the Heart” and “The Crystal Heart.” Two are full-length Regency romances: The Rake’s Reward and An Unsuitable Wife. One is a historical romance, In a Pirate’s Arms. I will also soon be releasing a sixth book, another Regency, titled A Summer Folly. The release date is June 21, to coincide with the beginning of summer. All my books are available at Amazon, for the Kindle; Barnes and Noble, for the Nook; and at Smashwords.com for a variety of formats. Just search on Mary Kingsley, and the titles will come up.

There. That’s the end of the promotional part of this entry. Not too painful, was it?

Indie writers don’t want to admit that traditional books have any advantages over ebooks, but they do, and it’s important. It’s the ability to browse. Go into any bookstore and browse through the books. Maybe you’re looking for something special; maybe not. But something catches your eye: a title, a cover, an author’s name, and you find yourself reaching for a book on the shelf. You read the back cover copy and the inside cover copy, and you decide that, it might be not what you were looking for, but it’s exactly what you want. Serendipity.

You don’t get that with ebooks. Amazon tries to replicate the experience by showcasing books similar to those you’ve already bought, but that puts only a few titles in front of you. In a bookstore, there are thousands. Yes, Amazon has a far greater inventory, but their books aren’t available for you to touch and hold and browse. There’s something to be said for the old way of doing things.

So, where does this leave the ebook author? Forced to push her books onto an unsuspecting public, because she knows they’re not going to show up at airport kiosks or supermarket shelves anytime soon. When I began this blog, my intention was not just to sound off, but to entertain, which is why I’ve written about such disparate topics as sleep, make-up (ah, Sephora), and daylight savings time. My intention with writing books still is to entertain, but if you, the reader, don’t know what’s out there, how can you know what to buy? Hm. Maybe self-promotion isn’t so bad, after all.

It's officially Read an Ebook Week. To celebrate, I'm offering copies of "Gifts of the Heart" for free, until Saturday. Simply go to: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/... and download it to your computer or reading device. It's that simple!

In December, my old computer died. That didn’t seem like a good thing at first. It meant bringing it in for repair, and apart from the money, it was a hassle. I hate hassle. But then I thought of how old it was, that I’d had to replace the monitor and the hard drive, and decided it was time to retire it. Instead I bought a cute little laptop. It’s one of the best purchases I’ve made in a long time.

When the old machine was fixed and I was able to get my old data from it, I realized I had to transfer files written in software that was cutting-edge in the 1980’s, into something more modern. That meant reading my old manuscripts, and boy, has that been a revelation. It led to self-publishing an ebook (Gifts of the Heart, available at Amazon and Smashwords.com. Yes, I am a shameless hussy when it comes to promotion). It also led to rediscovering a very old, unpublished manuscript.

Facing the Music is my only semi-successful attempt at writing a contemporary romance, before I found my niche as a Regency author. And guess what? It’s not awful. Oh, it’s no masterpiece. While I did have an agent interested, it didn't sell. With experience under my belt, I understand why. For one thing, it doesn't really fit into any category. It's not a traditional category romance. It's not chick lit. If anything, it’s closer to the romances written by Elswyth Thane, one of my influences.

For all the negatives I just listed, it's still a book I like. I like the characters, who are people I'd like to meet in real life. The premise is slim, but can be beefed up. So can the characters' motivations. Do you see where I'm going with this? This book has caught me. It’s changed my direction.

Instead of working on revising and formatting No Honeymoon for Death, the second of my Gilded Age mystery series, I think I’m going to rewrite Facing the Music. It’s a pleasant little book. It’ll never set the world on fire, and it’s still unsalable in the traditional way, but that’s where epublishing comes in. It will give the old, new life.

So, after being creatively dormant for over three years, I’m going to take a deep breath to calm my anxiety and plunge in to rewriting and revising this old book, for which I hold a great deal of affection. If all goes well, I’ll be shamelessly promoting it in a few months.

When I stopped writing several years ago, I knew I was really taking a break. Tired and burnt-out though I was, I couldn't imagine the creativity that had always been so strong in me not returning. I figured I'd write again someday, and that, rather than going the traditional publishing route, I'd publish on the Net. Someday.

That day came unexpectedly a few weeks ago. First a patron at the library where I work showed me an article about the ebook self-publishing revolution. Then I talked with a co-worker, who just bought a Nook and loves it. They gave me food for thought. Self-publishing might just work for me.

That weekend, I got to work. I decided which publishing options were right for me, and I formatted one of my old Regency novellas, "Gifts of the Heart." I searched stock photo sites for images, which was lots of fun, and created a cover. Then, with some trepidation, I uploaded the whole thing to Smashwords.com. A few hours later, and voila! Instant book. I could go online and look at it, the way you stare at a new baby. It is my baby, after all, my gift of the heart. After several years of not being published, I'm back, and on my own terms. It's wonderful.

Librarians have a love-hate relationship with ebooks. On the one hand, we realize it's the way of the future. On the other, we like the physical presence of books, for their own sakes. We wonder what the library of the future will look like, and what our roles will be. Libraries are really media centers now, offering DVD's and CD's, and audiobooks in addition to the more traditional materials. We help patrons write resumes and (honest to God) search for mail order brides. One thing ia certain, though. There will always be books, and people to read them.

If that's the case, someone has to supply those books. Why not me? After all, I have a lot of previously published manuscripts collecting electronic dust somewhere on my hard drive. So now I'm working on getting the rights back for the first book in my Gilded Age mystery series, Death on the Cliff Walk. I'm revising and reformatting the second book in that series, No Honeymoon for Death. I hope to go live with that within the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, "Gifts of the Heart" is out there, just waiting for readers. It's available in varied formats at Smashwords.com, and at Amazon for the Kindle, under my pseudonym of Mary Kingsley. Why don't you give it a try? I think you'll like it.

Hi to anyone reading this. I am the author of 19 published books, and 4 novellas. Most of them are out of print - they're old! - but I'm in the process of rereleasing them as ebooks. The first one out is one of the novellas, "Gifts of the Heart." It's available at Kindle under my pseudonym of Mary Kingsley, and at Smashwords.com. I hope you try it, and that you like it!

In the entries to come I'm going to write about the ups and downs of being a writer, the process of writing, and the experience of being published. I hope I can keep you entertained. As a novelist, that's my job.

Thanks for reading - this blog, and any book. The world needs more readers.