Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, Split-Personality Disorder

I’ve been reading Guy Kawasaki’s excellent book, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book. Kawasaki does a very nice job of describing and explaining each part of the process, stressing that an independent writer in today’s market needs to be all three of those things if he or she is going to succeed while giving practical advice on how to make each part of the process work.

I liked the book and have to say I’m 100% on board. At the same time, I’m finding myself struggling with internalizing the basic philosophy behind the book–which isn’t much different than the things I’ve been reading from other people on the web regarding success in indie publishing. It makes sense; it’s just hard to do. And I wonder if the book shouldn’t be titled APES: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, Split-Personality Disorder.

One of the Big Ideas in the book has to do with using social media to promote one’s work. But you don’t want to do it in such a way that you’re screaming “BUY MY BOOK!” in every post. That’s just obnoxious. It’s blatant self-promotion, and those messages get lost in a sea of similar sales pitches. What’s to distinguish you from the next guy shouting the same thing? Nothing.

So, instead the APE’s goal is to present him or herself as a likeable person on social media, as someone trustworthy, giving, and honest. With luck, the APE will be seen as an expert in his or her field and will seem like someone worth paying attention to, someone whose book will seem worth a try.

All well and good. Makes perfect sense. But it is a bit crazy-making, too.

Let’s say you’ve spent between six and nine months writing, polishing, and editing your book. Maybe you’ve dropped some money on an editor and a cover designer. At the same time, you’ve been establishing your author platform, blogging and connecting with people on social media; you’ve made some e-friends and you’ve been mobilizing your real friends as well (probably to the point of being irritating, but sometimes that’s what friends are for). Now you’ve just hit “publish” on the e-book and paperback versions of your baby. Do you want your next several posts to shine a spotlight on your generous, trustworthy, likeable self? No. You want to scream, “BUY MY BOOK!”

But should you? Probably not. That’s where the split personality kicks in. You’re wearing (at least) three hats: the author, the publisher, and the entrepreneur. But to really make that last part work, part of you has to forget that it’s one of your hats. People are going to see the APE’s book through a variety of channels, but they’re going to see a lot of other books, too. What makes potential readers pull the trigger on one book over another? It’s certainly not the author screaming “BUY MY BOOK!” They’re more likely to buy the APE’s book if the author is a known quantity–someone they’ve read before or heard of, someone whose book is reviewed comparably (and favorably) with other books the reader has enjoyed. But those things take time, and when there’s a part of you (the BUY MY BOOK! part) that’s been hoping all the pre-release efforts will yield some serious sales and the mythical-but-possible foot in the door, then it’s hard to let time run its course.

When getting ready to release The Girl at the End of the World earlier this month, I spent a lot time blogging on related subjects and trying to get the word out. When the book came out, it sold about as well as my first book did almost two years ago when I’d done ZERO prepping. Disappointing? Kind of. Surprising? Nope.

I put up a quick post on Google+ a few days after the release, letting people in a Writer’s Community know what I’d done to promote the new release and asking if there was anything else I should try. One wise person commented that it’s easier to make friends than it is to sell books.

I saw his point.

But I hadn’t read APE yet. Now that I have, I really see his point.

So, hard as it is not to shout “BUY MY BOOK” or to think it when someone “likes” my Facebook page without making a purchase, the best thing to do when the APE has reached the “E” in the acronym is to go back to the A and start the next book, keeping the entrepreneurial efforts going but not getting obsessed by them. The APE needs to remember not to let Entrepreneurial failure (or even success) define him or her, but should try instead to look forward, letting e-friends and actual friends and strangers and future friends know about the next project, hoping (without getting hung up on the numbers) that here and there someone will actually click through on a link.

I haven’t exactly mastered that, but I’m working on it. As much as I want to shout “BUY MY BOOK,” I’ll just thank you instead for reading this far. And if you’re curious, you can take a look at my Books or Stories links. They’re right up there at the top of the page.

And if you don’t, that’s okay. I can handle it. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll stop in again to see what else I’m up to. Maybe you’ll let me know what you’re up to, also. Maybe we can have a little conversation about it. In the end, that’s probably going to do both of us more good than if you drop four bucks on my Amazon link, or if I do on yours.

New Release–The Girl at the End of the World

The Girl at the End of the World

Now available in paperback and ebook formats

On sale this week only for 99 cents

Her fight begins the day the world ends.

Scarlett Fisher is an average California teenager. She likes hanging out with her friends and talking on the phone. She does all right at school, and she’s made the best of her parents’ divorce. But in one way, she’s special: on her fifteenth birthday, a fast-moving plague wipes out everyone she’s ever known, yet somehow it passes her by.

Her family dead, alone in a corpse-strewn metropolis, she has no choice but to survive. She needs food, shelter, a safe place to sleep. She discovers that an ordinary girl is capable of extraordinary things, and that she’s more resilient than she imagined. Even so, she wishes more than anything that she could just find another survivor.

Unfortunately for Scarlett, not everyone who survived the plague is looking for companionship. And she’s about to find out just how difficult survival really is.

You can read the first chapter for free here.

Enter my Giveaway to win a Signed paperback.

5 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Going Indie

Like a lot of people, when I jumped into the world of indie publishing, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I knew how to write and edit, and I’d gotten a lot of positive feedback from people who knew what they were talking about. Publishing an e-book through Amazon’s KDP program and setting up a paperback through Createspace seemed easy enough, far easier than the cycle of queries and rejections I’d been on for the years leading up to my decision to go indie.

So I released my first book, Take Back Tomorrow. And I waited for the sales to roll in. People who knew me bought the book. And they even read it. And they told their friends about it. In the first three months, I sold around 40 copies. Off to a good start, I told myself. And then, at around 42 sales, everything dried up.

So I moved on, getting my next book ready to go; this one was a novella. When I released it, it had maybe 5 downloads the first week. And not many after that.

And it was at that point that I thought, “Maybe I need a web site…”

Now, with 2 novels and 2 novellas out there and one more that I’m getting ready to release, I’ve finally figured out a thing or two about marketing. Not that I’m enjoying wild success or anything…but at least I’ve learned a few things that I wish I’d known back then. So, in an effort to help others who are jumping in with both feet, here are a few things that I wish I’d known when I started.

1. You Need a Web Site. Readers need a place to find you. There are lots of options for setting up a web site pretty inexpensively. At the very least, you should have a static page with your book covers and blurbs and links to the places where your book is available. If you’re more ambitious, you can set up a blog, which I think is a good idea: the more content you have available online, the greater the chance that people looking for your kind of writing will find you.

2. Give It Away Now. When I first learned about Amazon’s Kindle Select program, where you can make your book free for 5 days each quarter and earn 0 royalties on the books you give away, I thought, “No way!” The point is to sell books, not give them away. But I slowly became a convert. Most indie writers are unknowns, and people aren’t always willing to risk even 3 or 4 dollars on an unknown writer. They are, however, willing to risk 0 dollars. Yes, there’s some debate as to whether readers actually value those free books, but I’ve found that if I use some of the free book promo sites around my free days, there’s a little bump in sales that follows. Also, after giving away between 100 and 5000 books in a couple of days (results vary widely), there’s usually been a little trickle of reader reviews that have followed, and those were well worth all the freebies. Another strategy having to do with free books is to make the first book in a series permanently free to hook your readers.

3. Your Book Needs Reviews. As I mentioned above, readers don’t know you. Unless the elusive, magical thing called “word of mouth” has kicked in for you, they’re not likely to trust your blurb that the book you’re selling is the greatest thing ever. Contact bloggers and book reviewers; send them free copies of your book in exchange for honest reviews. Most book bloggers have a huge To-Be-Read list, so it’s tough to get them to commit, but if you contact enough of them, you’re likely to land a few reviews. Even if the people who follow their blogs don’t actually buy your book, just having those reviews and star ratings on Amazon should help others decide to give your book a chance.

4. It Pays to Advertise. You may have warm fuzzy feelings about your book, and you may know in your heart that it’s the best thing ever, but all your good feelings won’t generate sales. This is a business, and there’s a LOT of competition. Life would be so much easier if there weren’t so many people with the same dream as you, but that’s not the way of it. So, while your book should be able to stand on its own merits and attract readers across the universe just because of its glorious vibes, that’s not likely to happen. Drop a few bucks on an ad or two, maybe on Facebook, maybe a guaranteed spot on one of the Free Book promo sites. Try to get your book featured at Book Bub (but be willing to pay a lot for it). Note: the ads won’t always pay for themselves in generated sales, but it’s worth trying.

5. It’s All About Community. If all you’re doing is shouting “Buy my book!” from the rooftops, you’ll likely find that there are a bunch of other people on other rooftops and that your shouts are drowning each other out. Instead, it’s helpful to work on making connections with other writers and readers. Look at the groups on Goodreads, join a writers’ community at Google+, read other people’s blogs and offer comments and advice. If people start seeing your name and seeing you’re generous and thoughtful, they may mention you or your book in their posts, may reference your blog posts in their own, may even buy your book or review it next time it’s offered free or at a bargain.

And here’s the best piece of advice I’ve ever heard about indie publishing, so important that it’s not getting a number.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Cliche? Maybe. But true. You’re not likely to set the publishing industry on fire with the release of your book. But if you work at it, connect with others, write another book and another one after that, chances are you will develop a readership–not one that may ever set anything on fire, but small successes? There’s a good chance.

What things have you learned about this business that you wish you’d known when you started?

Free Short Story–Walk a Mile

My short story, “Walk a Mile,” is now available as a free download on Smashwords. It’s also available for 99 cents at Amazon, but I expect that price will drop to free as well once Amazon gets its bots to work figuring out that a competitor has the story at a cheaper price.

Like some of my other work, this one is set in 1940s California. The story centers around a young man who discovers that the girl he’s had a crush on for years is actually more than she’s seemed to be. There are dark, alien forces at work in the night, and the protagonist has no idea what he’s about to get himself into.

Here’s the blurb:

The girl of his dreams was out of sight.
Then he discovered she was out of this world.

Mike Parker has always had it bad for Ronnie Clark, the prettiest girl in town, but she’s never given him a second look. Not until tonight anyway.

When Ronnie climbs out of her father’s broken down pick-up looking for help, Mike thinks he’s in the right place at the right time.

But he’s about to find out that Ronnie Clark isn’t what she seems. He’s about to get to know her much, much better, and he’s about to find out how far out of this world she is.

If you’d like to read the opening paragraphs of the story, you can find a sample here.

Or you can just download it now at Amazon for 99 cents.

And at Smashwords for free.

If you read and enjoy, I’d be grateful if you’d post a quick review at the site you downloaded from!

Guest Post at The Cellophane Queen’s Blog

Today, you can find a guest post I wrote over at the Cellophane Queen’s blog–a post about time travel literature and my novel, Take Back Tomorrow, in particular. The book’s on the cheap for today–just 99 cents. So, head over and read the guest post, and if you want to follow the links to Amazon for some inexpensive but fun reading, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Time Travel for Less Than a Buck

Between now and Friday, my time travel novel, Take Back Tomorrow is on sale for just 99 cents at Amazon.

39 Amazon Reviews with an average 4.5 stars

“Raymond Chandler meets Robert Heinlein in this fun and inventive crossover SF novel from Richard Levesque.” —J. Orr, Amazon Reviews

What if all you had to do to make your dreams come true was violate the laws of the universe?

That’s not just a philosophical question Eddie Royce has to answer. It’s a choice he has to make when the most famous science fiction writer of the 1930s goes missing and his unscrupulous publisher becomes convinced that Eddie knows all of the older writer’s secrets—not just the secret of where he’s gone, but the secret of how he’s traveled in time.

Until now, Eddie’s fooled himself into thinking he’s got the system figured out, “borrowing” plots from Shakespeare and rewriting them as space operas to make a name for himself in the pulps. But when he finds out that Chester Blackwood—his idol and inspiration—has been cheating the system in ways Eddie could never have dreamed of, the hack science fiction writer finds himself in the middle of a plot that his pulp readers would never have imagined.

Now he has to do all he can to save himself—and Blackwood’s beautiful daughter—from the powerful figures who all want Blackwood’s secret. And violating the laws of the universe might just be the least of Eddie’s problems.

“The pace of the story is quick, and the time transitions are handled well. Overall, this is a good novel, one that even readers with little interest in sci-fi might enjoy.” — Publishers Weekly.

“Hardboiled 30′s crime thriller meets time-traveling pulp science-fiction for an original fast paced, page turner.” —S. Sager, Amazon Reviews

“It has a distinctly ‘noir’ flavor as well as an old school science fiction feel. It is fast paced and clever.” —C. Pellitteri, Amazon Reviews

“Apart from stopping to have something to eat I haven’t been able to tear myself away from this until I had finished it. This is good old time story telling that is well written, and definitely well worth reading.” —M. Bowden, Amazon UK Hall of Fame Reviewer

Getting Some Perspective on Bad (and Good) Reviews

I’ve had books for sale on Amazon for more than a year-and-a-half now and have had the good fortune to rack up quite a few reviews, mostly 4 and 5 stars but a few stinkers. I know there are some writers who claim not to read their reviews, but I’m not one of them. I have come to embrace the idea that readers are the new gatekeepers of the literary world–not so much agents any more–and I want to see what my readers think. Even when what they think isn’t so nice.

When I got my first negative review (and it wasn’t entirely negative, mind you), I was incensed because the reviewer made some personal comments about me and what she perceived were my politics based on some characters in my book. I talked to people, who calmed me down, and started developing a new layer of the thick skin I used to count on when waiting for agents’ rejection letters.

And then that review was followed by lots of positive ones, so I felt better again. The balance in my world had been restored.

Or had it?

The negative review, I’ve often found, is motivated by some specific thing that let the reader down. I’ve had readers comment negatively on the lack of science in my time travel novel and the reliance on tropes having to do with virtual reality in Strictly Analog. In those cases, there was something in the books that took the readers out of the plot, caused their suspension of disbelief to falter, and they had a negative reading experience. It wasn’t just that they didn’t “get it”–in fact, they didn’t enjoy it. My fault? No. Just a poor match between reader and book.

It’s easy to write off those negative reviews and bask in the positive ones, but in many cases I’ve found there’s also some bias in the good reviews–a book clicks with a reader because it reminds him/her of events or places or people the reader is fond of; or because the reader was amused or aroused or intrigued or curious. The reader was able to suspend disbelief and was taken to another world populated by characters the reader could care about. Mission accomplished. Does that make me a genius? No. My book found its audience; that’s all.

Of course, if a writer is getting reviews that complain about typos and poor editing, holes in the plot, character inconsistency, lack of interest, a dud ending, etc. then it’s time for that writer to pull the book and hire an editor. Fortunately, I haven’t had any reviews like that, but I would argue that even those can be useful for writers, showing them their shortcomings and motivating them to improve.

I recently ran across a negative review of Strictly Analog on a blog (and was grateful that the blogger opted not to post the review to Amazon) in which the reviewer criticized the handling of technology in the book, arguing that some of it was inconsistent with the other tech in the novel and that there was far too much time spent explaining the technology rather than developing plot and character. Rather than being a knee-jerk complaint based on the reader’s biases, this was actually an intelligent, thoughtful, well-reasoned critique that gave me a lot to think about. The bottom line was still that this reader, I suppose because of his own techie knowledge and lots more reading in the genre, couldn’t suspend disbelief, kept being taken out of the world of the novel, but I was still able to learn something from the review.

Ideally, that should be the function that reviews perform for writers. They may or may not affect sales: most people tend to look only at the overall star rating and maybe read the first one or two reviews, never getting down to the real stinkers. But for the writer, it can be helpful to try reading between the lines of those reviews, to look for the places where a book failed a reader as well as the places where a book grabbed a reader and wouldn’t let go. That’s what we want to do, after all. And it’s good for writers to know how close they’re getting to the mark.

At the same time, it’s important not to be misled by the gushing praise. That may be as biased and knee-jerk as the barbs.

We need to look for the reasoned, analytical, and carefully considered reviews. Those are the ones most likely to shed some real light on how a book is doing. The rest, treat with interest, but not as weighty deciders of one’s fate.

So…I wonder about other writers: do you take it personally when your work gets a thumbs-down? And as a reader, what sorts of things prompt you to write and post a review?

Blogger Book Fair: Seven of Wind by Pipit Di

Today as part of the Blogger Book Fair, I’m pleased to introduce you to Pipit Di and her Seven of Wind series.

Pipit lives in Indonesia where she works in the financial industry. Her hobbies include watching movies, reading books, and writing. She also volunteers as a teacher in her hometown, working out of her parents’ home. Ten years ago, she got the idea for the Seven of Wind trilogy and has been working on the books for the last three years. Book One, The Time Machine, is available in an English edition. She followed this with Book Two: Gurn and Eartixo, and she is currently working on the third volume in the trilogy.

The trilogy is a blend of science fiction and romance. As Pipit says on her website, “Do not look for flying cars here.” She’s not going for the sensational, but for something bigger.

You can read more about the Seven of Wind Trilogy here and download a sample.

You can also learn more about Pipit at her website. I hope you’ll drop in and visit.

Blogger Book Fair Guest Post with Becca J. Campbell

This week, I’m participating in the Blogger Book Fair, exchanging posts and ideas with other writers. Today, I’m glad to be hosting Becca J. Campbell. Here, she discusses her new book and the work of art that inspired it.

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My New Adult Urban Fantasy/Science Fiction novel Gateway to Reality is on sale this week for only $0.99. Read on to find out about the sculpture that inspired this story.

Gateway to Reality

Talented artists shouldn’t be waiting tables, scraping by, and living mediocre lives. But that’s exactly what art school graduate Wes Teague is doing.

Then he wakes from a bizarre dream, haunted by the sense that his life isn’t real. A harrowing truth presents itself–the real world lies in his dreams, not when he’s wide awake.

The dream world he enters each night is rich and vibrant. Chicago appears the same on the surface, but chaos runs rampant as gravity, physics, and other laws of nature become fluid, changing unexpectedly. There, Wes’s parents, brother, and sister are strangers. His girlfriend Emily doesn’t recognize him. Wes longs to return, to unlearn the truth about his dual reality.

Wes would sacrifice almost anything to get back to blissful ignorance in a false world.

But now he has feelings for the real Emily.

The Bean

The famous Chicago sculpture many refer to as “the Bean” is formally titled the Cloud Gate. This massive, mirrored, curvilinear piece of art sits in Millennium Park against a backdrop of angular skyscrapers, and was one of the main inspirations for Gateway to Reality.

I was fascinated by the sculpture before I ever got to see it in person. It’s difficult to capture the full essence of the Cloud Gate with a single photo, though many have tried. When I visited Chicago in 2006, I finally got to experience the Bean with my own eyes, and it immediately became one of my favorite spots in the city.

If you haven’t been there, you might be wondering why some giant bean is anything to write home about. I don’t have a definitive answer to that question, except my personal feelings about it. There’s something about modern art in general that inspires wonder. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been mystified and awed by pieces like this—elegant yet simple, and almost childlike in design.

One thing I admire about the sculpture is its accessibility. Not only was it placed in a public area, requiring no admission fee, but it isn’t barricaded with fences, posts, or warnings not to touch. The Cloud Gate was designed so that people could interact with it. If you’ve been to Millennium Park, you’ll know the pull that the sculpture has. It draws visitors in for a closer look as they examine the skewed reflections, enticing them in perhaps the way a funhouse mirror might, making them question their assumptions of what they think they should see . Beyond that, it urges people to touch its smooth surface, to walk beneath and gaze up at the kaleidoscope of images below the arch. All of this, the artist and builders have allowed.

Genius. Why can’t more art be like that?

In Gateway to Reality, the Bean is more than a piece of art. For Wes Teague, it’s the place where his sister vanished, and because of that, it exudes darker sensations. But it also holds what might be considered calming properties over him, drawing him to it repeatedly as he searches for equilibrium in the crazy world of the Existence.

What are your favorite sculptures or pieces of art and why? Do you think art should be set apart or readily available to the public?

Grab Gateway to Reality for only $0.99 (sale ends July 26th):

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

iTunes | Kobo

Becca J. Campbell is the author of the New Adult Romantic Science Fiction novels Foreign Identity and Gateway to Reality, and Sub-Normal, a series of short stories.

An avid lover of stories that tiptoe the line between fantasy and reality (even when they plunge off one side or the other), Becca looks for new angles on bridging the gap between the two. She holds a special place in her heart for any story that involves superpowers or time travel. Her passion is defying the limits of her own creativity. You can find her on her Author Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, and Amazon.

Missed It By That Much: Rejection Indie Style

It’s a Get Smart reference–by which I’m dating myself. That’s okay. There are worse things.

For those not in the know, super agent Maxwell Smart would drop the catch phrase, “Missed it by that much,” after failing at some almost awesome move in the old spy satire TV series. He was blissfully unaware of what a buffoon he was, mainly because he kept defeating his slightly more buffoonish enemies at every turn.

The old catch phrase popped into my head yesterday when I received my latest rejection letter.

It’s nothing new. I’ve been getting publishers’ rejections for more than 20 years now. And agents’ rejections. And editors’ rejections. Like Eddie Royce, the pulp science fiction writer in Take Back Tomorrow, I’ve come to look for that first negative word in the publisher’s response, the one that sets the tone for what follows. Yesterday it was “unfortunately,” but sometimes it’s “sorry” or “regret.” They’ve almost always been polite and almost always end with encouragement as well as some indication that the rejection wasn’t anything personal; often, there’s a phrase about the manuscript somehow “not fitting” in with the publication schedule, the rest of the list, etc.

Rejection is never easy, but I’ve gotten hardened to it. It doesn’t tear me up the way it used to, partly because I’ve also received some acceptances (from magazines rather than book publishers, but a thumb’s up is a thumb’s up no matter how you look at it). And I’ve also gotten some real approval from the new gatekeepers of the indie publishing revolution–the readers who’ve given me lots of 4 and 5 star reviews, enthusiastic emails, and a definite feeling of validation. The publishers who passed on my work may not have been wrong–my books very well may not have matched their needs. But then again, the readers who’ve found my books and thoroughly enjoyed them are proof that people other than editors value my writing. My kind of success may not be enough to finance an editor’s or agent’s lifestyle, but it’s getting the job done as I define it.

So why did I subject myself to one more round of rejection when I’ve already hung up my “Indie Author” shingle? Old habits die hard, I suppose. With three books independently published by last November, I saw a notice that a small but respectable press was opening its e-book line to unagented authors. I had a manuscript that I’d been sitting on for a little while, and it fit the description of what they were looking for, so I sent it in. If they passed on it, I’d go the KDP route as I had with my other books. No harm, no foul. Right?

The 4-month reading period came to an end and I hadn’t heard anything. So I let a few weeks go by before emailing and got a nice reply–the book had made it past the first reader and was on to the second. If both readers agreed, the book would go on to the editors. Another month went by, and then another. More polite queries followed and more polite answers came back. The book had made it past the second reader and was waiting for the editors to decide. It was hard not to feel hopeful in the face of those little victories, but I knew not to get too excited about the possibilities. Finally, after seven months, the decision came…with that “unfortunately” coming along a couple of sentences in.

So it goes.

What would acceptance have meant for me? A bump in sales for my books? Probably (wouldn’t take much). An increase in my fan base? Maybe. Some money? Yes, but probably not a life changing amount. Validation? Yes, but more valuable than what I already get from my readers? Not necessarily.

I’m pretty sure it would have meant giving up some control–of editing, marketing, cover design, and other things I can’t even imagine.

But here’s what it really would have meant: fantasy fulfillment. The dream I’ve had for more years than I care to count would actually have come true. It’s the same carrot that was dangled in front of me in the days when I had an agent and my books were sent out to (and rejected by) the Big 6 and lots of the little publishers, too.

I can’t let myself look at it that way, though. If I think of my books as rejected, as also-rans, as not-quite-good-enough, it’s terrible. If I walk through Barnes and Noble and look at the shelves as being full of accepted books, it’s like running a gauntlet, like telling myself those other writers grabbed the brass ring and I’m still going in circles. That’s the wrong way to look at it, though. Instead, I have to think of the validation I have received and view my books simply as being in a separate category.

I’ve heard it said that rejection is good for writers, that it forces them to write better, to push themselves and find ways to make their writing stronger. I think this is true, especially of beginning writers. I know rejection has pushed my growth as a writer. But in the case of this latest rejection, I know the manuscript didn’t get the axe because it’s not good enough. It is a good book. The first and second readers felt that way about it, meaning other writers who started the process at the same time got their rejections a long time before I did. And the editors liked it, just not as much as they liked some others. Or, should I say, they saw other books as having greater potential to help their publishing house continue to do well. Mine? Not so much.

So, from where I sit, that’s a victory.

Maxwell Smart kept missing the bad guy, but CONTROL beat KAOS in every episode, and Max got the girl, too. Maybe I haven’t been missing my target all these years, but rather just aiming at the wrong one.