Scribe, unsubscribe

I recently unsubscribed from a lot of the writers’ newsletters I’d been getting for years, and most of the authors’ Facebook groups, and Twitter groups that happen to have been cluttering up my inbox and my news feed for the past few years.

 

Why? Because, while I’m always interested in learning new techniques for writing and book promotion, after nine mostly self-published book releases over 20+ years, I know what works: writing a great book. I also know what doesn’t work: not having a huge corporation to promote your book.

 

So, please buy my books.

 

It’s also been said that one shouldn’t be too blunt about promoting yourself.

F- that. Buy my books.

 

I’m tired of listening to chats about promoting books that dance around the truth; famous authors sell more books.

 

I hosted a Lit Crawl event for the (lucky) thirteenth time. Readings don’t sell books. But buy our books.

 

I stopped accepting invitations to seminars online, particularly one hosted by authors whose books I don’t want to read, but who says, ‘It isn’t a competition, support other authors.’

To that, I say, don’t buy their books; buy mine.

 

I stopped attending online seminars because they just repeated what I knew already; if you want to write, good for you.

 

If you want to get a lot of readers, write a commercial book and promote the hell out of it. Pay a billion-dollar corporation (Goodreads, owned by Amazon) $100-plus to give your book away.

 

Myself? Nope. Done that; complete strangers unfamiliar with gay fiction or books like mine will almost always dismiss or dislike something thy never would have paid to read.

 

Just buy my books.

 

I don’t do a newsletter, because I don’t care what you think about me, and I don’t have anything to say that would interest you. Did you know that I clipped my nails yesterday, and that typing the day after always hurts my fingers a little?

 

The interesting stuff is in my books.

 

Writing is difficult. I won’t be doling out advice to novices on spreadsheets.

 

If you don’t have a compulsion to write fiction or memoir or historical books, then do something else.

 

If you’re completely obsessed to the point of compulsion to write then do it.

If you ‘have an idea for a sort of book,’ then take up knitting.

Get out of the way. The future is crowded.

 

Buy my books, and my fellow authors’ books, and my frenemies’ books.

Go to an actual bookstore and buy books.

 

The underlying motivation for anyone to communicate is to sell their stuff.

And if you’re not buying my books, have never read any of my books, then go somewhere else.

 

It’s that simple. 

 

 

Now I'm Here - Enjoying the Ride of a New Novel

While it's been several days since the launch and first reading event for my sixth novel, Now I'm Here, I'm still energized by all the love and support shown by the nearly 50 people who attended the event.

So many folks sat patiently while I read and talked about my latest work. I'm not a big name author, so any attention and early purchases of my books are helpful, particularly from Dog Eared Books, where the first event took place, and Book Soup in West Hollywood, where my next big event on October 12 will include live music performed by Dudley Saunders.

I'm working with a small press, and with so many books being published these days, along with a barrage of painfully disgusting news coming from Washington, it's a feat to get folks out of their homes, or to make the decision to attend a book reading when we're all so busy.

And yet, after months of planning, it all came together. Among the photographers who attended (and whose images they graciously let me share on social media and here) were Tom Schmidt, aka Photos by Dot. Tom shot the cover photos for Now I'm Here back in May with our two handsome cover models, and the adorable border collie owned by publishing pioneers Jack Fritscher and Mark Hemry.

My Dog Eared Books event Sept. 20. photo: Gooch

Also taking great photos was nightlife and San Francisco community photographer Gareth Gooch, whose prolific work documents Bay Area events. I knew this event would mean a lot to me, and also that I would not have time to document it myself. So, it was great to have professionals capturing the evening's highlights.

I'd imagined recording each of musician Peter Fogel's four performances of acoustic versions of Queen songs, but was so nervous at one point that my camera work was wobbly.

I also knocked over the stool twice in between my reading excerpts from Now I'm Here! And I'm not sure if I should try to read the second excerpt (from Chapter 23), because I got a bit choked up. It was as if someone else had written those words, about my character Joshua's triumphant performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at a high school assembly.

Saying Goodbye - and Hello - to Bookstores

Tom Schmidt discusses his photos.

This week I attended and read at two of the last three events at Books Inc. in the Castro. The store has hosted hundreds of readings, many of which I attended. It will close next week, and it's a sad day. 

But while that store is closing because of the exorbitant renewed lease costs, Books Inc, itself is thriving, with several other branches throughout the Bay Area. It remains one of the most successful California independent bookstores. 

The gay events and stock will move to the Books Inc, Opera Plaza on Van Ness Avenue. It's often the location for high profile celebrity signings. With its larger size, it can accommodate signings by the likes of Christopher Rice and other big publisher authors.

Forty Wild Crushes: PR campaigns and Bitly links

It's more PR time. Win a signed paperback copy of Forty Wild Crushes, my new short fiction collection. Link: http://amzn.to/1TwAew0
 
"Teenage lust in summer theatre, cheating boyfriends on The Tonight Show, and an escapee from a pumpkin farm; these are just a few of the characters in short stories from Lambda Literary Award winner Jim Provenzano. The five-time novelist shares new and previously published works, and excerpts from forthcoming novels."

The GoodReads promo book giveaway is slower to get approval from their staff, even though it's owned by Amazon.com. Kinda ironic, since Amazon is 100 times bigger than GoodReads. Or not. Anyway, it runs May 14 through May 28.

You can pre-order the Kindle edition now, which will be out June 1. I was informed this is a good way to promote a book, so that when it's released it'll show up higher on sales rankings. Frankly, I'm a bit pre-exhausted with all this expected promotional stuff; giveaways, ARC (Advanced Reader Copies), blog tours, etc. 

One friend said "Get a cat and vlog shirtless with it." 
Yeah, okay, no.

You know how I promoted my first San Francisco reading in, 1994? I was in the anthology Waves, which included the title story, "Forty Wild Crushes."

I stood outside A Different Light Bookstore on Castro Street, handing out little mini-flyers with info about my story and the book, with this picture of a shirtless Robert Conrad, like a street huckster. The Wild Wild West actor is mentioned in the short story. By the time the reading started, the store was packed.

So it was surprisingly appropriate that my colleague Aldo Alvarez (whose short fiction collection, Interesting Monsters, was part of the inspiration for my assembling a short story collection) blurbed my book with this quote:

"Jim Provenzano's short stories are as beautiful and chiseled as a young Robert Conrad, and they make me swoon just as much." - Aldo Alvarez, author of Interesting Monsters, founder and editor of Blithe House Quarterly 

I have some San Francisco area readings coming up in June and July. Follow me on Twitter, where everything's reduced to a Bitly link. PR, Sweetie! Pop-Specs!

Selling point! PR! Giveaway link here!

Forty Wild Crushes - my short fiction collection

Forty Wild Crushes , my short fiction collection, is now available in paperback on Amazon.com. The Kindle edition comes out June 1, with pre-sale orders available now.

Here's the descriptive blurb:

Teenage lust in summer theatre, cheating boyfriends on The Tonight Show, and an escapee from a pumpkin farm; these are just a few of the characters in short stories from Lambda Literary Award winner Jim Provenzano. The five-time novelist shares new and previously published works, and excerpts from forthcoming novels. Varying from terse accounts of an anti-gay assault to a post-9/11 moment of resolution, Provenzano shares a diverse array of contemporary experiences in rural Ohio, New York City, at funerals and wrestling matches, Manhattan cathedrals and Paris museums. A moment in the life of a gay divorced father, a transgender performer on the rise, and a footnoted feast of pop culture crushes are included in this compelling collection.

"Jim Provenzano's short stories are as beautiful and chiseled as a young Robert Conrad, and they make me swoon just as much." - Aldo Alvarez, author of Interesting Monsters, founder and editor of Blithe House Quarterly

The fabulous cover art is an oil painting by the amazing Kenney Mencher! Check out his website for beautiful sexy art work available at reasonable prices.

PINS print and Kindle giveaways

Spring into action for a free copy of my debut novel, PINS.
Gay grapplers. Get a grip.

I'm currently giving away a few free Kindle Editions of PINS, for who have yet to read it.Two more weeks.

For a signed personalized print edition, check out the GoodReads giveaway. 
That's open until April 6. 

Message of Love vs. Message of Hate; Goodreads = Good Screeds?

Today is Chrissie Hynde's birthday, and I am celebrating, because the upfront take-no-prisoners 63-year-old lead singer and guitarist for The Pretenders has a new solo album, and later this year, almost on my birthday, she's be playing in San Francisco, and I got tickets!

Also, I got into a flame war on Goodreads and made a few hate-fans! Whoo Hoo!

Backtrack: As you may have noticed, my latest novel is titled Message of Love. The hit Pretenders song is referenced in the book, and my old pal, musician Dudley Saunders, recording a lovely acoustic cover of the title song. No, it's nothing like the original, and that's the point. 

A Bookstore's End: How 'Evil' Are You?

Giovanni's Room, the oldest U.S. LGBT bookstore in America, if not the world, will soon close. And it's our fault.

Giovanni's Room in June 2012

Think about it. We buy books on Amazon.com. I self-published my last two books with them. It proved to be the easiest and most profitable format for self-publishing authors like myself. Expanding our culpability, we use the arrogant Google, whose motto has quite obviously re-punctuated from "Don't be evil," to "Don't. Be evil!" Google the term "Google buses" to catch up on this ongoing San Francisco controversy. Feel guilty? Use Bing.com instead (even though it pales in comparison).

Our smart phones and Apple computers are manufactured by near-slaves in China who will die from the toxins made with these products. I wrote all my novels on Apple computers. I am right now blogging on a Google platform.

We're evil by association. And the last great American gay bookstore is our latest sacrifice.

How to Succeed in the Book Business While Really Really Trying

Every now and then I get a request from a fledgling (or even successful) author colleague asking for tips on the book business. To me, that's almost like asking a kid riding a Big Wheel for pointers on competing in the Daytona 500.

They also ask to "pick my brain" which sounds painful. It's not, really. 

But the prerequisite to any such talk is that you read one or several of Dan Poynter's books on self-publishing. It's as useful a handbook as my Wolf Cub Scout books were when I was a kid.

Pretty much everything you need to know is in Poynter's books, from developing a book that sells (if that is your goal) to marketing a "difficult" title that may be limited to a subgenre.

By "subgenre," I mean a book that's a genre within a genre, of course.  Take PINS, for example: gay + sports. While my subsequent three books were produced via Print-On-Demand (POD), PINS was done the old-fashioned way.

It's a long involved tale, some of which I'll be explaining within a few brief minutes at an author panel that's part of Word Week. The Noe Valley Book Festival is like a mini-LitQuake. Panels, readings, and a Saturday gathering of many authors selling and signing their books are part of it. It's mostly for Noe Valley area writers, but I got in because I'm nice.

Sinking the Pirates

One of the great things about having popular books is that they get read by a lot of people.

Not to get all Napster vs. Metallica again, but there comes a time when you have to stand up for yourself and your fellow artists when you see their and your stuff getting shared for free, without your consent.

And when it’s in the hundreds, we’re talking about rent money you’re losing.

So, when, in the midst of a title search, I added pdf and/or epub, mobi or ebook, I found web sites that do not sell my ebooks, but trade them, in the hundreds. If you're an author with a few ebooks out, you're probably getting bootlegged, too.

Fa la la la la...

...and buy my books. Rather fitting for the holidays, doncha think?




And if you're a fan of the thriving literary site GoodReads.com, please vote for Every Time I Think of You in this interesting poll of Gay Romances that Include Disability. I had no idea there were so many in this subgenre! I wish I had time to read more of them.

Check out the other lists my book is on; pretty neat. Vote!

Shelf Life

One of the problems of self-publishing is getting review copies out to significant reviewers in a timely manner. For big reviews like Booklist and Publishers Weekly, you need to finish your book and get review copies out a few months in advance.

My hasty publishing schedule for Every Time I Think of You (December 2011) led to a late arrival of reviews. It kind of got lost in the shuffle of the end-of-year holidays and 'Best Of' lists.

Nevertheless, it did win a significant Lambda Literary Award, so I'm especially thankful, as witnessed by my quite unrehearsed "gushing" "emotional" acceptance speech at this year's Lammies.

So, I'll be particularly conscious to plan review copies well in advance next time. The growing snowball of reviews has a new chunk, the prestigious American Library Association's GLBT Round Table reviews!

Readability

More readings, and a little online update.

The Books Inc reading organized by Rob Rosen, with myself and Alvin Orloff, was quite fun. Of course, as usual, I read too fast, according to my pal Marco (I also read too fast at the GLBT History Museum, according to others!).

Perhaps it's a holdover from my high school Speech Team days, where I once got disqualified from First Place by going over the time limit by half a minute. I don't know. Either way, it was nice to read a few unrehearsed passages, test my elocution skills.

Anywhose, as usual, I encourage you to buy from independent bookstores wherever possible. It may take a bit longer for me to get them a book, but "Every Time" and a few others are in stock at Books Inc on 2275 Market St. in SF, and at Giovanni's Room in beloved Philadelphia.