Category Archives: writing

Buzz…

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Now that the initial buzz (and corresponding sales) for Nobody Told Me: The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees has died down, it’s time to start getting serious about the long term marketing plan. The big push this week is to get press releases to the local newspapers here in the greater Ceciltucky area (local resident does good), in Western Maryland (hometown boy does good), and to the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, and New York Times (because my ego clearly knows no bounds). I’m willing to concede that this whole thing may just be an exercise in vanity, but a bigger part of me still feels like there’s plenty of room in the marketplace of ideas for another snarky, sarcastic jerk who you’d probably still enjoy having a beer with.

As for what comes after that, well, to be perfectly frank I don’t really know. Writing and marketing are two tremendously different skill sets. I have some raw skill in one and a touch of formal education in the other, but I’m not anywhere near a master of either. The part of me that writes because it’s what I enjoy doing would be happy to get back to doing that and ignoring everything else. Of course the part of me that wouldn’t mind making a few coins from the effort is still chomping at the bit to sell, sell, sell. As usual, reality is going to land somewhere in the middle and be guided at least as much by the limits of available time as by anything else.

For my next trick…

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We all know I like to write. You don’t blog for seven years and publish a book if you’re adverse to putting words on paper. Writing is the best sub-minimum wage job I’ve ever had and it more than makes a run at what I’d do full time if I didn’t have pesky concerns like rent and groceries. For all practical purposes that’s a complete pipe dream, but it’s a happy pipe dream at least.

Since I took on the bureaucracy in my debut effort, the question I’ve been struggling with for the last month or so is what comes next. I’m toying with giving my short-lived teaching career the same treatment. I think there’s enough distance between me and that aborted attempt at a career that it could be fun. I worry that two and a half years over a decade ago might not give me quite as much source material as I’d like to have. I wasn’t as good at keeping notes of all the stupid things that happened back then as I am today.

Another option I’ve been kicking around is taking on the whole concept of leadership and management. God knows my brief tenure as a manager left me with enough material to at least get started on something interesting. Plus there’s the whole parade of good and terrible bosses that you encounter over the course of any career. That’s a rich mine of ideas right there, though I’m not entirely sure I want to stick with the business and career genre for another round.

Then there’s fiction. Maybe everyone who writes thinks they have the great American novel in them somewhere. I’m not sure I even have a proto-idea of what that might look like, but fiction is something I’d love to tinker with eventually… but I’d rather start out with the ghost of an idea rather than just a blank sheet of paper.

What’s the point? Yet another thing I don’t know. Something’s going to be next, but what’s that is just hasn’t occurred to me yet.

Introduction to Smashwords…

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So over the weekend, I realize that I may have not done a very good job explaining one of the retail channels I selected to do business with. Being the biggest in the business, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are pretty much self explanatory. They’re forces of nature that you just accept you’ll do business with if you want to write and publish a book. Sure, you can work around them, but why would you want to?

The third retailer I opted to work with is Smashwords. Unless you have a deep abiding hatred of the big e-retailers or are a serious fan of independent writers, chances are you’ve never heard of them. Hopefully I allretailers can turn you around a bit on that, because I’ve found Smashwords to be a fantastic platform for the indy writer (translation: the author gets to keep a much larger percentage of every sale than they do with sales through other retailers).

Although they are a retailer in their own right, Smashwords biggest claim to fame is that they are large and growing ebook distributor. That means their primary mission in life is making indy works available to a wide variety of other retailers like Apple, Sony, Kobo, and others. This is a good thing because the goal, really, is to have your work available in as many places as possible in addition to the Big Two. More distribution channels means more opportunities for someone to see and hopefully buy your ebook… and that makes for a happy author.

From a reader’s perspective, Smashwords has a lot going for it too. Primarily, that’s because once you buy an ebook from them, you can download it in all of the major ereader formats. Whether you own a Nook, Kindle, or iPad, a Sony reader, something from Kobo, or you just want to read on your laptop or desktop, you can download your book in a format best suited for what device you’re currently using. It’s a great way to make sure your ebooks are not locked in to a specific device or proprietary format. While the e-reader market struggles to sort itself and its industry standards out, you’re safe from the impacts of format change and obsolescence. If you happen to be a voracious reader with a large e-library, that’s a very good thing.

So that’s my pitch by way of introducing everyone to Smashwords. If you’re looking for a read that’s not on the best seller list or have a itch for some of the great independent work out there today, give them a go. I’ve been very impressed with them as both a writer and a reader for the last year. If you’re in a clicking mood, feel free to check out The Cynic’s Guide on Smashwords and take a look around the site.

Best of breed…

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I’ve been using the blog a lot lately to hock my own merchandise. I’m going to spare you from a round of that this evening in the understanding that as much as I wish it might be otherwise, you might be interested in hearing a voice other than mine from time to time. In that spirit, I wanted to take this opportunity to feature three blogs that I read and enjoy on a regular basis because they’re some combination of funny, inappropriate, or informative.
I’m listing these in no particular order other than the way my bookmark folder has them organized:

1. ChowderHead – Wildly funny and decidedly inappropriate. Do you need more reasons to click over and give it a read?

2. 25ToFly – Commentary on life, blogging, and the hilarity that ensues. She’s good stuff.

3. Break Room Stories – I did a four year hitch with McDonald’s, but I was always mercifully protected from the general public by two or three flat-top grills. This blog confirms what a good idea staying in the kitchen was.

One of the things about blogging is that you tend to do a lot of reading of other blogs in your travels around the internet. Some, obviously, are better than others. If you don’t have quite as much time to wander around the internet looking for the good bits as I do, these three blogs are some of the best of breed. Give them a read. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

What I know about marketing…

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I considered just leaving the body of this post blank to make my point more dramatic, but that’s not quite a fair assessment. I know some of the basics – like having a webpage and blog, using social media to get your message out, and even some old school tricks like punching out a press release. What I don’t know yet, is how to teach myself what I need to know about the business of marketing to someone other than your friends and fans on Facebook and whoever happens to stumble across your blog.

According to Google, everyone is apparently a marketing expert – or they’re trying to sell their own 16-sept program to super-powered sales. That’s fine. Everyone’s got to make a buck one way or another. It’s a little absurd to rant about someone shilling their own products when I’m spending so much time doing the same thing.

What I’ve found here at the end of the writing and publishing process, is the wide open, undefined space of “what’s next?” I’m going to try to spend some time in the next few weeks giving myself a crash course in marketing and sales… or at least looking around to see what seems to be working for other people in the same boat. Fortunately, I’m not the first guy to ever try doing this so there should be plenty of evidence out there of what works and what doesn’t. Still, I’m really wishing I would have paid more attention to that marketing class when I was getting my MBA. Stupid hindsight wins again.

The journey of 1000 miles…

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There are two things I’ve discovered for sure in the exciting world of self publishing: 1) Nothing is as easy or straightforward as it appears; and 2) You will find a typo about 37 seconds after hitting “publish.” Still, getting from the barest notion of an idea to an actual Createspace Announcementprinted book has been a real experience. Since I’ve turned my personal brand of snark and sarcasm loose on the world, the lest I can do now is stand behind it and bother as many people as possible to get behind the effort with me…

That’s why I’m please to announce to you today that Nobody Told Me… The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees is now available in paperback from Createspace for the low, low price of $7.99 (+3.52 shipping and handling of course). I might be biased, but I think it would still be a deal at twice the price.

For Amazon Prime members, the paperback should be available through Amazon in the next week if you want to save the shipping costs. As soon as I’ve got confirmation back from Amazon, I’ll post a notification here and on my Facebook Fan Page.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to step away from the keyboard, fix a strong drink, and take a breath.

It’s a kind of magic…

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Paperback ProofOK, so the alternate title for this post was going to be “The post in which the author gets sentimental…”, but in deference to Queen, I decided to steal their title shamelessly. Regardless, haggling over the title isn’t the point of this particular post. What the point is, however, is what an unexpectedly intense feeling it is holding a book your slavishly worked over for eighteen months in your hands for the first time. Sure, I’ve been dealing with the electronic version for the last few weeks, and with what feels like dozens of Word drafts for months before that, but there is a certain reality to having the physical book in your hand. Having mostly gone “all in” to the electronic world for my own reading, I’d be lying if I said this didn’t catch me off guard. I’d been looking at it mostly as one more avenue to reach people who hadn’t adopted e-readers yet and maybe talk it into a few local book stores as just an ego rub. What I found is something altogether different – after cutting away the brown cardboard wrapper, what I had wasn’t a collection of files, cover art, and a sales pitch. I had a book.

I don’t have any point of comparison for what standing in the kitchen holding the proof, tired from working all day with allergies making life miserable, was really like. Not being a particularly expressive guy at the best of times, all I can say is that I had a moment yesterday. It was one of those across a crowded room, golf shot, lighting strike moments. All I know for sure is I want that feeling again… and again… and again. It’s gotta be what that first line of cocaine is like. It’s an incredible, intensely personal high. I’ve got to write more. I’ve got to get that high again. Maybe it’s never as good as your first, but I get the feeling I’m never going to stop chasing it. I don’t know that I can stop chasing it now even if I wanted to.

Paperback writer…

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I really only ever planned to produce Nobody Told Me… The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees as an ebook. Representing the fastest and most direct method of putting text into hands, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the added time and effort of putting together a print edition. A few emails and Facebook posts, though, prompted me into action. Since I’ve been home anyway, I started tinkering around with Createspace too see what a print book might look like. As it turns out, the fine people at Createspace (a tiny little subsidiary of Amazon) have gotten the process down to a bit of a science. When you’re a one man show, doing the writing, layout, publication, and publicity yourself and on less than a shoestring budget, there’s a fine line between making smart decisions and making decisions that mostly just serve your own vanity. Conveniently, the Amazon family of businesses have made it relatively easy to feed both beasts at once.

So there you have it, in the space of about six hours I accidentally became a paperback writer; or to be more exact, I submitted everything to Createspace and anticipate being a paperback writer in 24-48 hours. Now, don’t get too excited just yet. Once they aprove my work, I have to order a proof, wait for it to get here, make sure it isn’t all jacked up and/or make a billion and a half changes, and wait for clean copy before posting any links or letting it loose for distribution through Amazon and it’s affiliates. I don’t know whether to expect this to be a two week or two month process, but whatever comes if it, you’ll hear it here first.

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…

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Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to tell you tonight that the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. My first book, Nobody Told Me… The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees, is now available through three major retail partners – Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

For the low, low introductory price of $2.99, you can enjoy (and critique) the fruits of my labor… so act now to lock in the introductory price before it goes up to full retail. Until I learn more about the printing side of this business, Nobody Told Me will be available as an ebook only.Cover

This has been a fantastic project and I’ve had a lot of help getting to this point – without naming names, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has had a hand in editing, provided material, or just let me talk though the ideas when I needed to. It would never have gotten done without your help.

To those of you who are considering laying down your hard earned money for this book, I want to thank you too – not just for supporting the notion that an independent writer has a shot at getting his work in front of people – but because you’re going to get a chance to look at the first edition. Even though it’s been through many, many cycles of editing I’m absolutely sure there are places where things can still be better. I want everyone to feel free to make recommendations, provide feedback, and have a hand in the process. I promise I won’t take it personally; not to mention once changes are made, you get to download the updates for free… and who doesn’t like free?

In conclusion, buy my book. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

P.S. Don’t forget to become a fan of my new “official” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/official.jeffrey.tharp,

When is good enough good enough?

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One of the hardest things, especially when it comes to writing, is deciding when something is good to go. In the print world, once the type is set, format, and layout is done, it’s really, really done because somewhere you have a warehouse rack filled with printed, final products. Find a mistake in one of them and it’s tough shit until (if) you get around to printing a second run. The ebook is a different animal. Even though it’s published and available for purchase, you can change it innumerable times by simply uploading a new file to your retailers. I’m afraid the tendency there is to make editing an ongoing process and never let the book “just be.”

I think I’m getting closing in on that territory now. I’m happy-ish with the formatting and layout, happy-ish with the cover, and happy-ish, with the content. There’s a lot of –ish in there. Mostly because I’m not complete satisfied. I’ll probably never be completely satisfied, though, so at a point sooner rather than later, I’m going to have to give it up, hit the “publish” button and turn this little project loose on an unsuspecting world. Wanting to get it all exactly right on your first go around is probably excessive, but hey, that’s just part of my charm, no?

If nothing unexpected crops up, I expect that’s going to happen in the next week to ten days. I’ve been secretly shooting for an Ides of March publication date, but for several reasons (mostly involving my need to continue working at my day job), that goal is all but out of reach. With that said, I’m still finding the occasional error that needs fixing, but the period of wholesale changes and rewriting seems to be at an end. Hopefully those of you planning on picking up an early copy will also feel up to sending in some constructive feedback once you’ve had a chance to see what I’ve been up to for the last eighteen months. I think you’re all in for a treat.