To Authors: Five Hundred Blogs Later

My post today is dedicated to other authors out in Etherland who are struggling to accomplish marketing tasks that seem insurmountable.
You have to organize your tasks. I smile as I write this, because I have said this tens of thousands of times to my composition students, many of whom would have preferred to dash something off and turn it in, expecting that I would see the genius of the idea and award it an A. Those who flailed around with the job, rather than plan, wrote poorly with no plan of attack. Now I took my own advice. During my marathon review of book blogs, I worked from notes I'd made about my book, and I looked at them often as I accessed and reviewed the blogs. Sometimes the blogs called my attention to some aspect of the book I hadn't seen myself.
Because many of the review bloggers are so specific in the kinds of books they're interested in,  the notes centered on the question, What kind of a book have I written? The answers came from my having written two novels and having listened carefully  to what folks have said in conversations about both novels. I was able to analyze the new novel from a broader perspective, realizing that many of the characteristics of differing types of books can overlap in a novel, thus giving the author more blogs to match up with and contact. Here is an example of how the process worked, in considering the genre of the book.

• Usually I classify my novel as a mystery. Is it more than that? In the literary world, the definitions of "mystery" and "suspense" sometimes overlap. I could put my novel forward as a mystery with excruciating elements of suspense. That opens two categories in bloggers' pages.
• Could I find bloggers who like to read "serious" mysteries? This is a sub-category into which my book fits neatly. There is no silly woman tripping around on high heels while her cat solves the mystery and she worries about her hair and makeup and the new man. Connie Holt is involved in saving a horse's life, serious stuff all right, and there is a strong presumption that maybe people will be injured or killed as well.
• What other designation could the book have? It is for adults, but young adults of late teen-age can read and understand it. In fact, there is a heroic young girl in the book who is present at and participating in the climax. I could offer my book as YA. Now we have a serious mystery with excruciating suspense for adults and young adults. What else?
• Could it be considered as a romance? Yes. There are several romances in the plot. An acute reader, as a matter of fact, can compare and contrast those relationships. So yes, to romance. But serious, not silly romance.
• Another question is does the novel "say" anything? That is, does it pose questions which are universal in scope, and appeal to all human beings everywhere? Well, yes. To all those who hate what is done to horses in racing all over the world. For people who want a novel to make a point, here is their meat. Many critics think that mysteries shouldn't have a meaning behind it, a theme. It isn't appropriate; only mainstream literature  says something important. But that is a sour, narrow viewpoint from poor thinkers. So yes, my novel can be placed foursquare into stories that say something important. Another viewpoint to look for in the blogs.
• Finally, can the reader learn anything from reading He Trots the Air? That is, apart from my preceding point? Yes. The reader can find out about how a painting is proved authentic; what some types of Virginia architecture look like; how a horse is trained. Together with details of Virginia life and manners. This will appeal to many bloggers who like to learn as they read.

You will have to explain to the bloggers why your book has many of the characteristics of literature they like. Perhaps it is about a crime, but there is so much more there. Even though this is a tough marketing project, you can do it by being organized, coming up with a way to work through the many book blogs on the Internet. Good luck!

What I Found Out about Book Blogs

Like Heracles, I had to perform a task that seemed almost impossible to fulfill: access and read about 500 book blogs. By the time I finished this marketing job, I was pretty punch-drunk. It took untold hours, and if at the end I had been able to bury my computer in the ground, like Heracles with the Hydra's head, I would have done it.
What did I discover?

• I was impressed by the genuine love of reading expressed in the blogs. Whether they are carefully prepared or more informal, the writers want to tell the world about reading.
• The bloggers are often students in high school or at a higher educational level. Older bloggers can be librarians, housewives who have children and are starved for reading, and professional people who work for tech companies or teach or do other demanding work.
• Bloggers are busy people and it's not unusual to find them saying, "I want to apologize for not having blogged for the last four months but I had too much going on in my life."
• The bloggers are very definite about what kinds of books they will read for review purposes, whether it is YA (young adult), middle grades (fifth grade and up), fantasy, historical fiction, romance, science fiction, memoir, mystery, suspense, erotica, non-fiction, horror, women's lit, or any other type. Many have also broken down these types so we understand more clearly: it is to be a "serious" romance rather than a "silly" one, it has to be science fiction dealing with psychology rather than technology, and so on. Some bloggers won't read self-published works; others are more broad-minded. 
• The tone of reviewing blogs can be cheerful,  positive, and willing to read an author's book: "I usually get the book reviewed in a couple of months." At the other end of the spectrum, those who review can be cranky and threatening. "Better get this straight, I will not read anything that isn't in the list I've given you of types, and don't expect to get the book back and don't expect me to tell you if I'm going to review it or  not." 
• The graphic design of the blogs swings from wild and crazy and lots of clashing colors and everything super-size, including the fonts, to tasteful, with flowers and images of nineteenth century ladies reading and neatly placed text in a neat font. For some reason, there are many images of cats in these blogs, often the blogger's own animal. (Cats, for that matter, are often associated with bookstores. You used to see them sitting in many a sunny window before so many independent bookstores closed.) At any rate, I got very tired of seeing backgrounds filled with huge shelves of books; I suspect there's a Google picture somewhere of that same image because people seemed to like it.  
• The bad news for authors is that many of the blogs are not offering reviews. They want to tell what they're reading right now,  how many books they read last year, or how they're reacting to a local weather phenomenon, or what movies they saw or their opinion of a book that came from the syllabus of their freshman English classes.

          

Heracles, the Hydra, and Me

One of the most terrifying stories about Heracles was his battle against the Hydra, a thing of horror with the body of a serpent and many heads. (The number of the heads varies, according to which myth you read.) As soon as a head was cut off, the beast grew another two. Heracles and his friend thought that if they cauterized each stump, no new heads could erupt. But one head proved to be immortal, so the strong man cut it off and buried it.Today I feel like Heracles, except that the heads on my Hydra, the tasks of marketing my book, never die. Most folks, I expect, don't know much about this part of the author's life.  Many have been surprised when I tell them that I have to perform jobs that seem to them unnecessary. "But the publisher does all that," they exclaim. Like Heracles, I fought an epic battle recently. The Hydra head task was reading about 500 blogs and then finding among those,  a few bloggers who might want to read my book and review it. Like Heracles, I learned a lot from the quest. Tomorrow I'll tell you more.

HarperCollins vs. Open Road

In The January 11, 2012 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg tells us about HarperCollins and its upcoming battle with the e-publishing company, Open Road Integrated Media. At stake is a crucial question for all publishers: "...whether book contracts written before the digital age granted publishers digital rights, or whether those rights were retained by the author and could be sold to an e-publisher." He says that as long ago as the mid-nineties, publishers were taking pains to add specific clauses that guarded their right to publish an author's books as e-books. But what if they didn't, and took it for granted that the contract automatically covered e-books? Authors who find themselves in this predicament are fighting for their right to some of the lucrative profits from the Great E-Book Revolution by trying to buy back the rights from their old publishers so that they can either self-publish online or sell their newly-acquired rights to an e-book publisher like Open Road. To read more background and details, go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203436904577153142705735660.html.

Clarence Day: Truthteller

The publishing world has been in an uproar for the last few years over the supposed triumph of e-books over the printed books with which we are all familiar. Amongst the clamor of people who claim e-books are the future, and the competing chorus of voices that argue passionately that they love the feel of books and won't change to the new device, we should all remember what Clarence Day said about books. He was speaking the truth when he wrote that "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." The important point, I think, is that men and women recognize and cherish the truth, in whatever form it makes its appearance. 

Has Anyone Read Clarence Day?

Searching through my bookshelves for something cheerful to read, I found an old book I picked up someplace in my travels entitled The Best of Clarence Day. I don't suppose many students or their parents read Day's work today, seeing that he lived from 1874 to 1935. All his life he struggled with rheumatoid arthritis; that constant pain is reflected in his picture above. Despite R.A., he wrote beautiful, sweet, humorous essays, his best about growing up with his family in New York City. (Movie buffs may have seen the film made from his work, "Life with Father.") Every day, I read only one essay, to make them last longer. This morning it was "Father on Horseback," in which Day's intractable father meets a horse named Rob Roy who is equally as stubborn. I'll let you guess who wins. Although the essays make me laugh out loud, I'm also appreciating his word pictures of old New York. This morning, his description of what the eighteen-hundreds Elevated looked like held me at the breakfast table: "Soon a stubby little steam engine, with its open coal car piled full of anthracite, and its three or four passenger cars swinging along behind, appeared round the curve. White smoke poured from the smokestack. The engineer leaned out from his window." While Day's essays put me into a good mood for writing, they also make me a better writer, a fact which all authors know about reading other's works.

Wild Horses: Ted Williams Takes on the Issue

Photo courtesy of Colin E. Braley, http://www.wildwest-media.com/

In Audubon magazine of January to February 2011, Ted Williams, a longtime conservationist, takes on the explosive issue of the wild horses, In his article "Saddle Sores," he describes his trip to see the BLM's October 2010 roundup of the horses, known as a "gather." There is definitely a war on words in the struggle to take care of these horses; the word "mustang" as applied to them evokes the proud conquistadors riding gorgeous, equally proud horses, to which the modern wild horses are supposedly related. In reality, says Williams, "these  are mongrels, descended from livestock owned by everyone who ever dumped or lost horses in the West from 1540 to 2010." This romanticization of the horses' background is irrelevant. There are too many of them. Many are sick and dying.  They neeed help right now. The word "gather," used by the BLM in obeisance to those who fight against its practices, is a euphemism for "roundup." It is widely said that the wild horses are frightened by the helicopters used in the roundup and may injure themselves; Williams said that when he watched the process, the horses were "nonchalant" about the whole thing. They didn't stampede, they mostly trotted, they ate and drank contentedly in their holding pen. The helicopter stayed about a mile behind the horses as it herded them. The cliche "Wild and Free" is hardly true either, since they are quite grimly, free to get sick or die in a habitat that cannot sustain them.
As you can see from the picture above, their habitat is fragile. Williams describes it vividly: "I hiked across badlands of shale and polished stones, over sparse shrubs, thin, widely spaced clumps of grasses and forbs, and dry dirt that crumbled and sailed aloft. Ancient, scraggly junipers dotted the hills. Pronghorns and mule deer browsed the valleys. Less than seven inches of precipitation a year isn't unusual here, and that precipitation may come in two rainstorms, so it doesn't do much good." He explains that since horses have solid hooves and teeth that mesh, they are very destructive of all native vegetation. The horses wander over the range eating anything they can find--"horses stomp the shrubs into the dirt to get the last blade"--but drive away other animals, people, and grouse from the area.  More nutritious grasses are dying out, due at least partially to this overgrazing. When there is drought, this ecosystem becomes even more unsustainable. And with too many animals on this impoverished land, the problem looks unsoluble.
Can anything be done? Secretary Salazar suggested that the horses be transported to other, more fruitful lands but Williams says that he had to drop this idea because of the outraged reaction to his remedy. Even if they were transported to other habitats, the costs of maintaining these herds increases all the time.There was hope for a while that people would adopt the wild horses; that has proven a vain hope. People today are getting rid of their horses due to our depressing economic problems. How about euthanizing the excess horses? Few people want to even consider this as a solution. Surgical sterilization is a possibility as is injecting mares with an anti-fertility drug; Williams points out that the latter drug, PZP, isn't alway dependable and may wear off after several years.
It seems there is a stalemate here. But I believe that if people who want to save the wild horses, people who are fair-minded and willing to listen to many schemes and even try some, could sit down and talk about it without the hyperbole, bitterness, bias, and lack of common sense so often present when coflicts are approached, something could be done.
Williams suggested that all people who are interested contact Secretary Salazar and urge him to use every tool at his disposal to control wild horses. Keep track of what is happening in Congress about this issue. Contact your representatives about it. And above all, learn the truth about the wild horses and their terrible dilemma.

Wild Horses: Ken Salazar's Plea for Action

Photo courtesy of Colin E. Braley, http://www.wildwest-media.com/

Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, announced in 2009 that wild horses were out of control. In replying to many animal advocates who claimed that rounding up the horses was unnecessary and cruel, the Secretary said the following, quoted in the Los Angeles Times of January 14, 2010. I include the whole excerpt here because it states the problem clearly and succinctly without emotion fogging the issue, and calls for action on the part of everyone who cares about the horses.
"Though an American icon is again flourishing, the job of restoring the health of wild horse herds is far from complete. Without natural predators, wild horse populations have grown beyond the carrying capacity of the sensitive and sparse lands on which they live, causing damage to ecosystems and putting them at risk of starvation. As a result, federal managers must move thousands of wild horses each year off the range to pastures and corrals, where they are fed, cared for and put up for adoption. The current situation is unsustainable.
The American people expect the health of their lands and watersheds to be protected, and it is unacceptable to allow wild horses to be malnourished on inadequate ranges. Yet no one wants to see them gathered and moved off Western ranges. Moreover, the status quo comes with a steep price tag. The federal government spends more than $60 million a year on the wild horse and burro program, of which $35 million goes to the care and feeding of the horses. A broad range of animal rights organizations, conservationists and Western communities agree that we cannot continue down the current path. We must change course. I agree.
However, if we are to succeed in restoring the health of wild horse herds, we must choose our new path wisely. To allow wild horse herds to grow beyond the limit of the range--as some wild horse advocates and celebrities are arguing--is not realistic, humane or environmentally responsible. Instead, we need a comprehensive and balanced approach built on new partnerships, new thinking and new courage to tackle an issue that, unfortunately, has no easy solution."
Now Secretary Salazar lays out specific suggestions to effect control of the herds.
"First, we must control the growth of wild horse herds by humanely applying fertility control to wild horses on the range. We can do so responsibly and at a reasonable cost. We must elevate the stature and care of wild horse herds that will sustainably live on Western ranges for generations to come. As Interior secretary, I am examining ways we can better showcase special herds in signature areas of the West to provide eco-tourism opportunites and provide them greater protection. We must identify and restore new habitat where wild horses could be returned. Some of the prairies and ranges outside the West--places where forage is rich and where wild horses once wandered--could become sanctuaries for the animals. I have proposed that through partnerships with the private sector, stakeholders and local communities, we establish new sanctuaries in the Midwest and the East, where healthy horse herds could return. Finally, we must recognize that the federal government alone cannot restore the health of wild horse herds. We need citizens to help. We want Americans to visit their public lands where horses roam, to help us care for these magnificent animals, to share their ideas with us and to help us find citizens and animal lovers across the country who will adopt wild horses and provide healthy, happy homes for them. ...Preserving the health of our land and wildlife requires collaboration, patience, and courage. Demonizing others in the ways that some advocates have recently demonized federal land managers is neither reasonable nor productive. ..Let us find common ground and humane, environmentally sound solutions on our public lands."
Next post: Ted Williams

Ted Williams and Ken Salazar on the Wild Horse Problem

                     Photo courtesy of Colin E. Braley, http://www.wildwest-media.com/
In this blog entry and several more this week, my overwhelming motivation is to plead with all well-meaning, intelligent horse people to face the facts about the dilemma of the wild horses and work on their behalf without resorting to the same partisan bickering that paralyzes all progress on serious problems. We're all exhausted by reading about  our elected politicians who cannot seem to resolve the economic morass we are in, or the locked-in-battle people who seek to control the governments of other countries and accomplish nothing. This same sterile tendency to fight unproductively is seen in the factions that have grown up the problem of what to do with our wild horses. I've read the arguments of those who believe the horses should live free, and oppose all efforts to control their numbers and their habitat. Sometimes these arguments are inappropriately emotional and poorly thought-out. I've also read the more reasoned arguments such as those of Ted Williams and Ken Salazar, the first an environmentalist, the second the Secretary of the Interior. Both men have a passionate interest in the horses, and both have written intelligently about the situation. To come: I'll write about Secretary Salazar's reasonable, rational recommendations, and Ted Williams' suggestions which rose out his visit to the Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek Herd management area that contains the horses.

Rethinking My Blog

I've been thinking about this blog lately, and have decided to pin it down, so to speak, to the following aims. I'll publish good news about people who help horses survive. I'll talk about health problems for horses as well as abuse issues. I'll tell readers about the two mystery novels I've written, each one depicting a type of abuse, and the unraveling of the mystery by my character Connie Holt, who cherishes horses and wishes to save them, no matter what it takes. Sometimes I may write about the writer's life and the problems and joys therein.

My Heroes: NYS Racing and Wagering Board

On October 12, the New York State Racing and Wagering Board acted like heroes for all of us worried about the drugging of racehorses. Richard Dutrow Jr. was finally barred from New York's racetracks for 10 years. His name is well known in racing circles for almost 70 violations at 15 racetracks in 9 states. Consider this: Dutrow hid illegal workouts of his horses, used strong painkillers including butorphanol found in winnning horse Fastus Cactus, kept 3 syringes in his desk loaded with xyzaline, a muscle-relaxant. John Sabini, chairman of the Board, said: "His [Dutrow] repeated violations and disregard of the rules of racing has eroded confidence in the betting pubic and caused an embarrassment throughout the industry." It is hoped that Dutrow will not be licensed in other states to race. Those who drug horses to win are not only guilty of greed. Veterinarians believe that using both legal and illegal drugs on race horses is account partly for the fact that the United States has the world's highest rate of thoroughbred mortality.
But Dutrow has the right to counsel, and they managed a win when at a hearing, Judge Richard Giardino upheld the stay. If he hadn't, Dutrow would have been refused entrance to all New York tracks right away. One wonders how much the judge knows about the years on end of drugging horses and how many people have tried to get rid of this widespread horse abuse. With this stay, Dutrow can go on training horses until his appeal is heard; lawyers can delay this process easily. Dutrow said of Giardino's ruling, "I'm glad I still get to go to the barn. I got a very positive attitude here, no negativism at all. It's easy for me to get up in the morning and go to the barn. Everything else comes so naturally for me there." Unfortunately we all know what comes naturally. We congratulate the Board, and wish that Dutrow had been barred for life.

The Artist Jane Walentas

Over twenty years ago, Jane Walentas saw a battered old carousel from the 1920s. It had 48 horses and two chariots. The horses' bodies were covered with multiple layers of varnish that defaced their original bright colors. Jane was determined to restore it and then put it in Brooklyn Bridge Park on the East River. Twelve years ago, Jane and a team scraped away all that varnish and found the real horses underneath: their superb carving, their colors. The horses are resplendent, now, with gold leaf, their saddles and reins newly decorated. On September 16, Jane's Carousel opened to the public. The now-glorious carousel will be maintained and operated by a non-profit charitable organization, named, what else, but Jane's Carousel. I am indebted to its web page for the image of the horses. Why not visit the site yourself at http://janescarousel.com where you'll see more of the carousel?