Claudette Melanson's Blog - Posts Tagged "books"

Hey, I think I’m a nice person. I try to be as much as I can. Whenever other authors ask me for prize donations for an event, I never turn them down. I retweet and share as much as I possibly can across multiple platforms. I know I don’t get everyone, but I try with all the energy and time I’m allowed. I love animals and am a huge advocate for their rights, donate to the causes that ask for help with their vet bills. I know my schedule makes me cranky at times, but I really, honestly try to be nice to everyone.
Imagine my shock at getting a DM on Twitter from another writer, telling me in no uncertain terms I was, and I quote, “not nice.” She didn’t know me. We’d never interacted. I certainly hadn’t called her a bad name or thrown rotting produce at her…
So what had she taken issue with that drove her to message a complete stranger, someone she knew very little about, and tell said stranger they were a not-so-nice person?
Ultimately, it was the unintended tone of my Twitter bio. I am a writer. I need adequate space and character count to communicate my thoughts with any real authenticity. Twitter only allows a user 160 characters to tell the world who you are—barely more than a tweet! Desperately trying to convey all the information I wanted to get across, I tried to make a few points.
Twitter is a very reciprocal social media site. If someone retweets you, you want to retweet them back. Let me first say that I know I miss retweeting some people, simply from the sheer volume, and I retweet plenty of people who never connect with me at all. I try to help other authors and present the best in book and book blog news…along with a few other interesting tidbits. So, one of my short points I tried to get across in the confines of the limited space was “RT 4 RT.” Hey, you retweet me, why shouldn’t I reciprocate (unless it’s porn or hate speech)? It’s only polite to return a favor. That was my meaning.
I also included, “Will unfollow if no follow back.” I had no idea anyone would take issue with that. Why should I follow anyone who doesn’t return the favor? There are very few celebrities I follow and that’s because I don’t think anyone else on Twitter is ‘better’ than me or vice versa. If someone can’t take the time to follow me back, there is no good reason for me to continue to follow. It implies they have no interest in me or my tweets, so, naturally, there is no incentive to follow back. I mean it in no other way than this. This is my standard procedure on Twitter, so I was merely being upfront about it.
Due to my forced brevity, I supposed my message may have come across as snotty or callous, but I certainly didn’t mean it that way. I was shocked to find a message in my inbox saying said person might have followed me if I hadn’t said I unfollow (and I always give a week’s time to be fair) for not following in return. Then, she flat-out called me, “Not nice.” I have to admit I became quite enraged. As I said previously, she didn’t know me and knew nothing of my interactions with others, so I proceeded to tell her this. She still came back, arguing that what I’d said made me undesirable to her as a social media pal. I tried further to explain that Twitter is a very reciprocal community, and I was merely behaving within the unspoken rules that seem to drive the Twitter machine.
She still thought I was being a pompous ass (my words, not hers…but that was her general assessment). I promptly blocked her...I remove negativity from my life. I have enough stressful things to deal with, and refuse to invite anything further. Afterward, though, being a progressive thinker, I revisited my bio. I didn’t want anyone else to take me the wrong way, so I did make a change. It now reads: “RT in return, followback <3 same courtesy .” Despite being attacked in a way I considered most unjust, I didn’t want anyone to be put off by my words, so I did make the change and promised myself I would be more careful with my social tone. We’re already at a disadvantage what with no vocal inflection.
By the way, this little incident did have a happy ending. Although I’d blocked my attacker to avoid any further conflict, she did have one of her friends message me so that she could apologize via the friend. I told her friend to tell her I bore no hard feelings and even ended up helping her friend with a few questions she had about social media. Even though I would have preferred not to go through it in the first place, I’m happy it ended well and gave me some insight into considering the words I put together on social media profiles and posts.
Do any of you have a similar story to tell? I’d love to hear your stories about how social media might have earned you a verbal ‘ruler to the hand.’ Please share them with us below!

Whether you’re an author, a blogger, an Etsy seller or maybe a reader who loves to shout your favorite authors’ praises from the four corners, Twitter is an excellent place to get the word out. I have grown my Twitter following from 250 followers, when I first published in February 2014, to over 43,000 by studying Twitter etiquette—what works and what doesn’t—and though I still have so much to learn, there are two key tips I want to share with you on this blog today. If you employ these two simple strategies, they will help to give you a definite boost with your Twitter engagement, as it has with mine.

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Rule #1 – Pin that Tweet!!! – Have you ever visited a Twitter page and seen a tweet crowning the all others in an individual’s feed on their profile? Perhaps you’ve seen the words, “Pinned Tweet,” at the top of the box? There is a very good reason for this. A pinned tweet is one you can glue to the top of your Twitter profile. Typically, a pinned tweet is one that contains a message you urgently want to share with followers or visitors to your profile. For the authoring world, most of our tweets will be our pretty book promos, or perhaps we are featuring a giveaway about which we’d like to spread the word. Authors – PIN YOUR BOOK PROMOS. When I go to the page of someone who has retweeted one of my promos, this is the first thing I look for. What do you most want me to share with my followers? Don’t know how to pin a tweet? Check out the picture below. Follow the red-encircled instructions for any tweet:

 Rule #2 – OMG do NOT just Tweet Your own Stuff! – Twitter thrives on retweets. That is really what it’s all about. Now, you tell me, which would you rather: go to a page that has a mix of really interesting stuff from ALL OVER Twitter or go to one where a Twitter user tweets only their own stuff repeatedly. Humans thrive on diversity and variety, and your Twitter profile is no different in this respect. I can tell you that when I go to another author’s page and see nothing but his/her own tweets, I can’t help but immediately think, “Hmmm, not much chance of a reciprocal relationship here.” If I know he/she will probably never retweet me, they don’t have much chance of ending up on my list for reciprocal tweeting. Think about it. If you retweet the promo of twenty other authors, they are highly likely to retweet you in return, so you not only get the eyes of your followers but those of all the other twenty other authors, as well. Go look at my Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/Bella623 You will see my PINNED tweet and under that a whole lot of “Claudette Melanson retweeted.” I LOVE helping other authors and other types of Twitter users. I get back so much more in return. My retweeters and supporters are INVALUABLE to me. I love them. I would shout their praises from the highest rooftops (and I’m deathly afraid of heights!). Look at the picture below, and then look at your own Twitter profile. You need to be seeing this, not a whole whack of your own tweets…trust me!

I’ve said it before; I strive to be a nice person. Maybe that’s why I’m so flabbergasted when I encounter another person with such a complete lack of human decency. I’m not completely naïve—I do watch Criminal Minds. I know there are bad people out there. All in all, everyone I met in California, when I travelled to attend the InD’Scribe Conference, was so very nice. I even met a couple at Six Flags Magic Mountain who accompanied me on more than one ride, so that I wouldn’t have to spend the day alone—thank you Ben and Jennifer! But, on my last day, I found a little bit of human indecency right before flying back home to Ontario. This is the unfortunate story of what happened to me—a situation which left a grown woman feeling like a helpless, terrified child.
I won’t go through the long story which brought me to Extreme Pizza on Clairemont Drive in San Diego, but will just say due to my craptastic hotel failing to have neither wifi nor phone available, I ended up here, being unable to call for delivery. I was so tired from all the super-long conference days, a 103 degree day at the amusement park and a two-hour drive back to the city of my return flight the next morning. And I felt hungry enough to gnaw off my own arm. My exhaustion and frustration turned to delight when I learned Extreme could provide me with a gluten-free pepperoni and extra cheese pizza! I wouldn’t have to resort to self-cannibalism after all.
There was a man standing at the counter with me. I’d been so focused on ordering food that I hadn’t really noticed him before. He was probably in his late fifties—old enough to know better—short, but stocky and muscular with a shaved head. He’d heard me say to the owner of the restaurant that I was from Canada and proceeded to tell me he had relatives in one of the provinces, and told me a story about one of his visits. I’d met so many nice people, so I merely assumed he was being friendly, like my companions from the park. He was drinking a draft and asked me if I wanted to drink with him. I answered no, citing I had to drive back to my hotel. He asked me where I was staying, but I was smart enough to keep that to myself.
“Do you need someone to drive you back?” he asked. Ummmm, no…definitely not.
“No, thanks. I need to let my husband know I’m okay and made it from the park.” At this point he was a little too insistent for me, and I just wanted to distance myself. I looked on my phone for a wifi connection, and lucked up—unlike at my questionable hotel, which was really more like a camp for displaced humanity. I connected and proceeded to text Ron, letting him know I’d made the drive without running off any hillsides and explaining I had no wifi to allow for communicating at the hotel. The few times I’d had to turn my cellular on out of necessity had resulted in $200 in roaming charges (which Telus waived $150 of…thank you, Telus. I’m eternally grateful!).
The man had asked when I sat down to wait, dead on my swollen arthritic ankles, if he could sit and talk with me while I waited. It’s very hard for me to be rude, so I mistakenly said it was okay, though hesitation weighed heavy in the tone I used. He’d talked to me about how he was originally from Poland and asked me a couple of other things, but I was starting to get uncomfortable. He kept asking me if I wanted a beer, and I insisted I wouldn’t be consuming alcohol of any kind…although his insistence and overbearing nature really made me want to.
He, quite suddenly, became aggressive when I told him I needed to talk to my husband. He said, “You’re a cutie,” reaching out like he was going to touch my face.
“Don’t touch me,” I growled in warning. I could see the anger and frustration become more prominent in the set of his mouth and the flare of his beady, grey eyes.
He stood and held his mostly-finished beer out to me. I was getting angry myself, but I knew I was alone in an unfamiliar city with no one to back me up. “No, I said I don’t want any,” I told him firmly.
He stood up and moved around so that he was standing over my right shoulder…so he could read what I was texting!
“Can I help you with something?” I asked, absolutely incensed.
“I want you to drink with me,” he insisted again. “I can drive you back.” That was when I noticed he was very drunk. He stumbled and almost missed when he put his glass down on the counter.
“I told you I really need to get in touch with my husband.” I looked down at my phone, determined not to look back up.
This is when the scary stuff came out. There aren’t many humans more frightening than those who have a complete disregard for how they make other people feel and refuse to respect the fact they’ve been told no. This guy was determined to pull a reaction from me, with no regard for my feelings. He sat back down and started making loud noises, nearly shouting gibberish, making me jump and then smiling about it. He’d say something like, “Hey!” shouting loudly so I would look up, startled. He said something else, and I said, “What?” He just grinned back at me in a very evil way.
I started to shake a little. It disturbed me that he couldn’t respect me and leave me to my texting, resorting to scare tactics to get my attention. He was so insistent on getting his way that he’d resorted to harassing me. I started to wonder if he was insistent enough to try to follow me back to my hotel. Home suddenly seemed even farther away. I made up my mind to keep my head down. He stood back up when he couldn’t get a rise out of me. He walked around to my right side again, placing himself between me and the open door, and fairly screamed in my ear. I must have given quite the look, because he said, “Why you look at me like you wanna kill me?”
I said back, “I think you know why.”
He moved closer and rubbed the back of his hand across the backside of my bare arm. It made me nauseous, and I felt even more helpless at his determination to put his hands on me when I’d expressly asked him not to.
I was enraged, but also terrified. The store owner could hear him. He was being too loud not to be heard. Yet, he did nothing to aid me. If this guy took things further—we were the only three people in the shop—would he even do anything? It made me think about that quote which comments on the evil in doing nothing when you see something bad going down. I longed for the protection of the notorious Popcorn Man…or my bunbaby Pepper’s razor sharp teeth.
I’d stood up at this point, utilizing what I hoped was my formidable height, and said to the man behind the counter, “I really hope that’s ready to go.”
Luckily it was, and I made it out of the pizza place and back to my hotel with no other incident. But I was shaken and couldn’t help wondering what I might have done if I’d been attacked or followed.
It’s a sad statement that a woman can’t go on a business trip, even try to have a little fun, without being harassed and made to feel frightened. I’d felt completely confident and happy the entire time, before this incident. Wherever you are, Mr. Drunk Loser, shame on you for the way you made me feel. Shame on the business owner for not saying anything—Drunk Loser had mentioned at one point they knew each other. I didn’t realize until the next day, when I was Face Timing with Ron in Starbucks, how much it had shaken me up until I started crying when I told him about it. “I just want to come home,” I told him. And I did. To the safety of my writing couch, surrounded by the bunnies who love and always respect me. I won’t let this keep me from traveling in the future, but now I really hope I don’t have to do it alone—and I really shouldn’t have to feel that way.

Many of us love to read. I know I do! But what keeps that writer glued to their keyboard, oftentimes missing out on social outings or even getting to see the outside of the house—this is my life at most times—so that they keep producing the stories we most enjoy reading? Money? That isn’t what does it for me. Between my giveaways and the few trips I take to events, I make about six times less than I earn from my books. I believe most of us do it simply because we love the craft. I can’t imagine going for a terribly long span without creating my fictional worlds for my readers. I took a year off to try and build my editing business, but with the loss of my greatest passion, I found myself depressed and feeling much like a failure. That isn’t to say I don’t love helping my fellow authors to put their works out into the world; I’m just saying I was throwing myself waaaay out of balance. I’ve taken the last five months of my life and written in every spare moment available to me so that I could publish Riptide, the third book in my Maura DeLuca YA vampire trilogy. It did so much for my mental well-being, and I love writing for myself…but I still need the help of my readers, much in the same way I need to breathe or eat!
So, what can you do to help ensure your favorite authors keep writing? Here are just a few things:






















1. Buy Their Books!

An article on The Guardian’s website states that the median income for any author is $5,000. Wow. How is anyone supposed to survive on that? I know mine is much less than that number, hence my need to keep my day job. You can help by supporting the author and buying their book. Don’t download from pirating websites…you’re taking food out of an author’s mouth, essentially. It’s really no different than walking into a bookstore and putting a book under your coat before walking out without paying for it. Think $4.99 or even $5.99 is too much for an Ebook? Consider that five months I put into Riptide, and the span was nine months for Undertow. What would you expect to be paid for working eight to ten hours four days out of seven for five months? Additionally, many would gladly hand over $5 to Starbucks—sometimes even daily—for a latte that takes three minutes to make. (I know I have!) That Ebook, which costs roughly the same, will provide you with enjoyment multiplied by several more of the minutes you spent downing that coffee! And the author put so much more time and money for things like a cover and editing into creating the book.






























2. Leave a Review

For God’s sake, leave a review! Okay, I’ll stop being so heavy-handed, but a review is the best way to thank an author. It doesn’t have to be long-winded, either. A couple of sentences about what you enjoyed about the book, or even what you didn’t enjoy, will definitely suffice. I never realized myself how important reviews were to an author, but now that I do, I try to leave a review for every book I read. Most authors know about the magic number. In an article on The Huffington Post, point number three discusses the importance of fifty reviews on Amazon. Once a book hits fifty reviews, Amazon takes notice and will start making the book more visible on their site. Believe me when I say they are our lifeblood!
And just a note about book blogger reviews. Book bloggers, please, please, please stop excluding Indie Authors from your reviews, if you are one of the bloggers who do so. You are missing out on an avalanche of great books when you employ this rule. If you want the book to have a certain number of reviews on Amazon, so be it. But to refuse Indies entirely is blatantly unfair.
















3. Buy Print Books on Createspace instead of Amazon

Createspace is basically Amazon. They provide the print copies of Indie Authors’ books to both the authors and to Amazon for distribution. If you buy the book on Amazon, the author makes about half the royalties they would had you bought the book from the Createspace store. Either way, you’re getting the same book at the same price, but you’re helping the author make more money. Click here: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simpl... to visit the store where you can search for the title or author you’re looking for. See the snapshot below. That is a comparison of what I make in royalties on Createspace vs. Amazon:





























4. Help Authors Spread the Word and Engage

You may have seen authors posting about their books on Facebook and Twitter. You can help them out by engaging with them on social media too. Facebook will make posts more visible according to the likes, comments and shares a particular post gets. So, take that second as you’re scrolling down to like their picture, or even better, share it on your wall. Believe me, we appreciate it. Retweet their tweets on Twitter. Share posts on LinkedIn and plus one them on Google Plus. Like their Facebook pages and follow them on Twitter. Sign up for their newsletters so that you can help support them when they put out a new release or need a contest vote. So many of my readers have done this and I appreciate it so much!! Follow their Amazon Author Page. You can do this by clicking on their name at the top of any book’s page on Amazon. There is a rumor that Amazon offers you more visibility once you hit a certain number of follows, but I’m unsure as to whether that is true. And do you know about Goodreads? It is a site made for authors and readers. And one last mention—Facebook events. Make sure you attend the authors’ launches, cover reveals and parties. It’s all online, so can come in your jammies. They always give away awesome prizes, and I can promise you, the games are so much fun!



















Thank you for reading and for supporting your favorite authors!



















Website Resources:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brooke-...

“Show me; don’t tell me,” my English professor quipped as she handed back my latest creative work, a flourish of bright red ink gracing the top of the page with a  grade I found much less than desirable.

Learning to differentiate between showing and telling in my writing was a hard lesson to grasp during my early years as a writer. Luckily, I kept reading my weight in books over and over again as I practiced my craft. If Stephen King doesn’t provide a fine example of this technique over and over again, I don’t know who does. And I was lucky enough to find myself inside the classrooms of diligent and knowledgeable instructors, who were quite adept at teaching me the ins-and-outs of crafting a darned fine story. As an author today, I try my hardest to hold those lessons close, always endeavoring to hone and perfect my craft—and I will never stop trying to improve. As an editor, I strive to share anything I learn with my fellow authors. I’ve found that many struggle with the subject of this blog post and so hoped it might be useful to write up a post providing a couple of examples put into practice.

Showing in scenes of past action
I’ve read many scenes in which the author attempts to sum up actions occurring in the past, instead of flashing back to that point in time, giving the reader the opportunity to look through a magic window and watch the scene play out. It all comes down to adding adequate detail and expanding on one’s writing expertise so that the event is easily pictured in the reader’s mind. I’ll show you an example. The first scene will employ telling vs the second, which shows.

Telling-
When I was a little girl, Timmy bullied me horribly. He pulled pranks on me even his own friends found to be harsh and unnecessary. He tortured me with words as well as deeds, cutting me to the bone with his taunts. I couldn’t get him to stop, no matter how much I cried or pleaded. One day he did something horrible, and I found myself forced to stand up to him. I defended myself against his cruelty by fighting back, which actually brought the bullying to an end.

Showing-
  During second grade, I attended school with a little boy, Timmy, who’d become my worst nightmare. He’d stood nearly one and a half times my size and doubled me in girth as well. His beady little green eyes had always found me the moment I’d stepped onto the playground at recess every day. With the shock of greasy black hair falling over one of his evil orbs, one might’ve wondered how his aim was so accurate when he landed punches against my jaw and square in the middle of my solar plexus. The hard-earned love of my teachers had become a handicap when Timmy had used it as a weapon against me. He’d taken great joy in dubbing me, “Lil Ass Kisser,” replacing my name with the term every time he’d caught sight of me. This had lead him to come up with taunts like, “Hey, Lil Ass Kisser, what’s that on your nose?” after which I’d found my appendage being shoved into the sticky mud. He’d forbidden me from washing the dirt away before we’d all returned to the classroom, causing my teachers to roll their eyes in exasperation and disbelief as they’d banished me to the boys’ washroom to make myself presentable…again. My mother had advised me to tell him how hurtful his actions were, but when I’d told Timmy his words and actions, “…really hurt my feelings,” he and his cronies had broken into fevered laughter before he’d told me, “I’ll show you what real hurt is, you slug.” That had been the day he’d dislocated my shoulder as he’d shoved my face into the earth. My tears hadn’t moved him to mercy in the least, as he’d left me wailing on the ground, so racked with pain I couldn’t move until the teacher had found me under the jungle gym outside, my face streaked by muddy tears and snot.
One day, I’d caught a caterpillar who’d been making his way along the rough bark of the massive oak tree at the edge of the playground. As he’d innocently inched along my finger, Timmy had snuck up behind me, slapping his hand down over mine and smashing my new friend into goo in the process. When I saw the green splatter of wasted innocent life dripping from my hand, something in me had snapped. I’d whirled in fury, crashing into Timmy so hard, he’d fallen instantly to the dirt. My eyes red with rage, I’d straddled him, beating his face with my tiny but effective fists until it had been transformed into a mess of bright blood sullied by caterpillar guts. Every time Timmy had focused those dull eyes on me in the future…he’d run in the opposite direction.

Which retelling would you whether read? Adding a few dry facts about a flashback is no match for providing vivid details which take the readers to the place where they can picture the events unfold inside their imagination.

Showing with dialogue
As a reader, and an editor, there’s nothing worse than when I see something like this when reading a text I’m deeply engrossed in:

Telling-
We told each other stories about all the Christmases we’d enjoyed the most. I told him about all my favorite presents and he described his most treasured to me. We told each other which carols we’d sung and about our most beloved foods at Christmas dinner. He described to me his most beloved memory of Christmas: the tree with all its ornaments passed down through the years, coupled with the enchanting colors of the strung lights, the same treasured memory as my own.

While endearing…this can be much improved upon.

Showing-
“What was your favorite Christmas?” I asked him, staring up into the light that was his eyes.
“The year I was six,” he answered, his eyes growing misty at the memory. “I’d asked Santa for a train set. One that would run upon its tracks when I pushed a button.”
“And you got one that year?”
“Yes,” he answered. “All I had to do was pop in a new set of batteries to see it race over the track whenever I desired.” He paused before gazing down at me with curiosity in his eyes. “How about you? What present did you love the most? What brought you the most excitement of any Christmas morning you can remember?”
“I was four.”
“Can you really remember back so far?” he asked, laughing.
“I can,” I assured him. “That was the year I found my first drum kit under the tree. I really can still remember the way my parents stuffed foam earplugs into their ears, still smiling to make me believe they loved the noise I made.”
“Now, those are good parents,” he told me, after his laugher had died away.
“Oh, they were,” I assented. “We used to sing “Jingle Bells,” the three of us, when they tucked me in on Christmas Eve.”
“It was always “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in my family,” he said, a saddened smile playing across his face.
I wanted to erase the parts that weren’t happy in that expression of his. “Did you eat turkey and mincemeat pies?” I asked him.
“My family always ate ham. But my mother made the best pecan pies. Did yours?”
“The best sugar cookies,” I told him. I could feel the differences creeping in to separate us further. “I did love our tree,” I said, failing to see how anyone could refuse to cherish their own Christmas tree.
“That was always my favorite part of the holiday,” he revealed. “I used to lie beneath it and let the twinkle of all the colors carry me into sleep.”
“We have that in common,” I whispered. “I always did the same.”

See the difference again? Showing is always better than telling. Any writer can state facts… Can you make the details come alive with a flair that makes the reader forget their surroundings? Practice your own art of showing and work to perfect your skills as a writer.