I really debated whether I should do the traditional cliffhanger or just short of complete story so many series do. It didn't seem authentic to write this series that way. A woman's life doesn't work that way. It can be a lifelong cliffhanger, without ever having a single cliffhanger moment. We are a collection of phases, ages, and loves. It's my hope that if I crafted a good story, with characters my readers like, they would want to read on, without that frustrating book ending that forces a reader to read on.
 
I wanted this series constructed more true to a woman's life. Even if we have that one  great love throughout our life, it doesn't mean that it's always going to roll out smoothly. We love. We lose. We do things well. We do things badly. We create other lives. We walk away. Sometimes they walk away; and yet through it all we can always have that one great love. The one we think of as the possibilities of what might be or have been; the one who drifts in and out of our world; or the one we finally make work.

We can love forever our love of our life; but we continue to live. That's more authentic. That's what I've done with this series.
http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Half-Shell-ebook/dp/B00KBK4S98/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1401493267

I am being read on a ship in the Mediterranean. Got a note from a reader letting me know she took my book with her on a cruise in the Mediterranean,  was reading my story and that she was only in the fourth chapter but she loved, loved, loved it!

I can look at my sales reports and see: Someone somewhere in the UK, Australia and Mexico are reading my little book. How cool is that? Knowing that with a click I could send my story around the world and that I am there with someone far away. Better than money.

It's everything I ever wanted when I started writing!

I put up my giveaway and low and behold Rudy enters. By his profile picture, I'm not sure my book will be his cup of tea. But he enters my giveaway and that's cool. What's not cool is that he gave me 1 STAR with no review on a book he didn't read. Can someone explain that to me? Why do that? Why hurt someone randomly when they are offering you something for free? It has economic consequences and it is sort of just plain  mean.

The world at times is a confusing place for me!

I know why eBooks are so popular: price, convenience, and being good servants of the earth. I try to be a good keeper of the earth. There's even a bleed in my print books to spare a tree, be good to the earth, to donate or share my books. But there is still nothing like a printed book. I only indulge the preference with "special" books. The ones I'm really excited about reading. The ones I know will rest on my shelf in my forever library. I still have the first novel I ever read. I've got a wonderful collection of favorites with them. But my Kindle library is where most books go today.

I know the words contained are the same in the eBook. I know the experience will be the same, and yet somehow, the printed book makes it all different. It isn't different, but it feels different. And I will always prefer a printed book for those special books that I plan to keep forever.

It took me so long to get over the hurdle of sharing my work, I'm still not to the point of having people I know read it. I think I sent it to my mother because I knew she wouldn't read it.  If you knew me, that would make perfect sense.

Another author on another site made a snide comment about how easy it was to get reviews when you just use friends and family. I rolled my eyes. I don't understand the pettiness or was that self-revealing of her? Personally, I wouldn't know. No one I know has read my book. I don't look forward to them doing it. Writing makes one very vulnerable!

I set out to write a romance series that wasn't cookie cutter, wasn't formula, and where you actually understood why the people did the things they did. Never the less, it's still a romance Series, but the reactions I'm getting to this book are so unexpected.

I've had this book defined from everything in-between brilliant and a train-wreck.  For whatever reason, even readers not compelled to write reviews online feel strongly enough to send me emails after they are done reading. I stare at them and shake my head and ask my husband to explain. He say he can't. He hasn't read the book. I find reader reaction a baffling thing:

"Don't call your book Romance. You've bastardized the work. It is a brilliant, dark and twisted contemporary female coming of age novel, like a Catcher in the Rye."...Sweetie, I don't think so.

"Unusually introspective romance between two damaged souls."

"good literature doesn't pull punches. It reaches into our very souls and the very heart of who we are. THE GIRL ON THE HALF SHELL did exactly that for me. It's a beautiful psychological look at the complexity of human psychology."

"I couldn't stop turning the page. It felt like I was reading a train wreck. This isn't romance. This is unhappy!"

"This author has a gift of taking the reader on a beautifully balanced journey of exploring dark and twisted souls, followed by sweet and tender moments between the characters."

"Wow, that was the most intense and emotional thing I've ever read."

The only review I expect to understand is my mother's. I think it will go something like this, unless my brother doesn't show her how to post a review on Amazon: Filth, filth, and more filth. In mom's world I'm still not allowed to know about sex even though I have a house full of children!

Most authors  are overly worried about the reaction of their readers if their work doesn't fit in the current formula for the day for their genre. One of my series lines, The Half Shell Series, is about rich girls who are messed up, and on my other forum I've heard more than once, "Don't tell people she has a good life or let them see she's rich in the pitch or book description. It will turn readers off!"

I always thought that it was more important to make the characters relate-able. If the readers could understand her, regardless of setting and circumstance, then I've met the most important challenge. I don't like Scarlett O'hara, but I love her and I totally understand her. So when I sit down to craft a character, that's my objective. The most important thing is for the reader to connect and invest in the character, and  can do that even if they don't like her.

One of my favorite reader email said: I don't really have any experience with Chrissie's lifestyle, I don't get it, but I totally get it, get her, get it?

Another said: I can't stand Chrissie, but I couldn't put the book down. I had to finish it. She pissed me off, but I want to read the next one.

The human experience is the same for everyone. The rich girls just live in better houses. If readers hate rich girls, well that's OK, because if I've done my job well maybe it will end as a series of girls readers love to hate. That works too.

I've never invested a lot of time discussing the craft of writing, taking workshops or learning technique. I just write. I come from a heritage of people strong in the tradition of oral story telling. It is just a natural process for me to sit down and write. Whenever people toss about terminology about the craft, I go a little cross-eyed. I'm just a story teller.

I've been following a thread on my author's forum: what warnings and ratings to give their work. I never thought about it until Wattpad re-rated my work R, and my reaction was to laugh. What made my work scandalous enough to require parental guidance. Heck, I'm a mom! I was told expletives, sex standing up at a party, and sex in a car. Hmm, pretty much the entire college experience!

I've been advised to put a warning on my book description. But after 50 shades is it possible even to be shocking in the craft of Romance any more.  I don't know what I'll do. I've always thought the category of romance was self warning: sex, more sex, then eventually happily ever after. The expletives, the ones in my work, I hear out the young in buckets every day. So maybe my warning should be, my characters talk like their from the real world and have sex like they are really in their 20s. I wonder if that would work. Just my thoughts for today!

I don't know if lots of people get pissed when they see the book ads, but I do know that I see a lot of book ads and it is a free promotional channel.

Since it's taking time to get my Amazon pages consolidated and I'm still working through upload issues, the only promotion I've been doing is twitter. I'm in a pattern now of about 3 tweets a day. Morning/Afternoon/Evening. It takes me less than a minute to do. So the question would be does it work and is it worth doing.

My short term objective is to keep from falling into Amazon book ranking oblivion, until I have things in place to do my other promotions. The only place I'm driving sales is on twitter. My results: I've kept my amazon rank between 50K-70K since my release day,  which will make it easier to break into the top 100 list once the promotions kick in. I've had enough sales to be profitable on the project first month out( I allocate the cost of releasing a book over 12 months to keep it in manageable goal range). And today, my prime member book borrowing has started to pick up.

Whatever the results, tweeting doesn't cost anything. I can say it's helped me to maintain my strategy goals.

I've always thought that if you participate in a forum exchanging knowledge you should be supportive of each other. During the two months I worked toward self-publishing, I spent a lot of time one a single forum. During that time, I did BETA reads, if a BETA read was done to me I downloaded work and reviewed it, if a post for a 99 cent special or release went up, I got the book and reviewed it. Basic courtesy and support. Part of keeping my postie outlook and having the positive come to me.

It would be nice to say it worked out that way on my writer's forum. I've said this more than once: God, it feels like high school! The authors in my own, private, tight-knit working click have been terrific. But everyone else? When I posted new release not one person on the forum either posted well wishes or downloaded the book. It made me question myself, how I am, and I hated that. I'm glad though at the end of the day it didn't change me.

I still believe positive brings positive result. That people in a work cooperative should be supportive. I still post notes and download work I would be interested in reading. That's me.  It is sort of like how you should feel about what you write. There will be negative results there, but if you believe in the work, you shouldn't let it change you.

The toughest test in anything you do is staying true to yourself when there is a lot around fighting to change you!