Write like a butterfly, sting like a businessman.

Once upon a time, people used to pay me to do marketing. As I was young, and it was for a huge company I made very little decisions and mostly copied things out of a book. Why I am telling you this? Well, while I wasn’t responsible directly for any marketing strategies, that time taught me a valuable lesson in aggression. The effort involved in constantly putting yourself out there has to be crushing for some writers, but even at the butt crack dawn, the day after Thanksgiving, I’m only breaking a sweat if someone denies me my mocha. 

I really think marketing is sort of my natural habitat. I like it, and I am ok with wearing many hats. I don’t think people realize that when they are a writer, even if they have a traditional publishing contract, that they are something like an independent contractor. Ultimately they are responsible for their level of success. All my favorite authors, even best selling ones, can be found on Twitter. They all blog, have contests, they all do work that is other things but writing. In this day and age, if you are going to sell books, you are going to work for it.

While AngelaWriteNow loves all writers no matter their goals or skills; AngelaAllBusinessNow gets annoyed with people really quick.

The business me, breathes fire when her friends make bad business decisions that she could have prevented them from. If only they had asked listened to her unwanted advice.

AngelaAllBusinessNow knows it will never make sense to spend years of your life painstakingly restoring a car (first draft) that you pulled out a junk yard, if when it comes time to sell it, you slash it with mud and insist that people will see the art behind the mess.

I’m sure granny only drove the book five miles to church on Sunday.

Sunday Late Night Pigments Tweets

If you missed it, tonight I started tweeting bits of PIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION seen below. Remember it will be available for purchase on Amazon by the end of May.

Tonight’s Tweets: Hand picked by my very own @Karenof4
 

She opened her mouth to speak to him, just as one of the swans gave a loud squawk. Lucia watched, as it pulled itself effortlessly into the starry sky of the painting--she gasped.

He was suddenly so close, she could smell what she assumed was his soap. It mingled with the smell of oil paint, and was oddly comforting.

Enjoy!
And don;t forget I am running a blog follower contest. One entry per post every time you make a comment to enter and win an Amazon Gift Card.

Judge a Book by Its Cover

I originally wrote this whole long complicated post included the WHY but really, that should be for another day.

This is me, revealing the Cover to my new book PIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION which will be available to purchase on Amazon on May 30th, 2011

PIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION is a YA Urban Fantasy ::ROMANCE::

The eyes are the window to the soul, and Lucia paints them better than anyone else in the world.

I plan to blog about PIGMENTS at least once a week until release day, so don’t blink. Sorry, inside joke.

Take a sec and tell me what you think about the cover, and if you are curious about the amazing artist responsible for this work you can check her out on twitter. You can find a link to her website, and she will be talking about it soon too!

@JenBrookman

Also, don’t forget about my blog contest, after that I will be running a brand new one that has more to do with the book.

True Words of an Actual Double Negative

Attention dear followers! I hate to be the barer of bad news but alas, there is a plague upon the internets! A sickness not spread by vermin, or through the air, but by well meaning bloggers, not unlike myself, that have been infecting rainbows and sunshine on the known writing universe.

I know what you’re thinking (Unless you are a vampire) What’s wrong with Rainbows? What’s wrong with sunshine?

A ton if it’s only a bunch of half truths.

It has become a major blog theme, stay positive, keep going, BE HAPPY.

So what if I want to be miserable? I don’t, but what if I thought emotions, not all of them bliss, and rocks and hard places were more rewarding than any amount of fake sunshine could ever be?

How many of you have read ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis? For my afore mentioned Rock Dwellers you can buy it here (do it):

http://www.amazon.com/Across-Universe-Beth-Revis/dp/1595143971

*Spoilers- sort of*
You know how on The Godspeed, there was no sun. There was a ball of light, a giant bulb in the sky that made crops grow and let people survive, but it wasn’t real?

Would you want to live like that? Live some where the sun was fake? Be it, on another planet, or only in your head? I wouldn’t. I’d rather have a thousand days of real rain clouds than a thousand days of false sunshine.

It’s not that I have a storm cloud over my head all the time. It’s just that sometimes I am sad, miserable even, angry at myself. Why waste time or energy telling myself otherwise? It’s not worth it, and I need you to know, that despite what others might tell you, you don’t have to feel guilty about being unhappy about rejection, being sad something didn’t work out. Feel. And then don’t cover those emotions by pretty and positive exclamations all over the internet. You are killing people who haven’t figured it out yet.

When I started getting revise and resubmit responses on the first full manuscripts I ever sent out,I felt like a failure. So many people had read it, so many people wanted completely different things from it, and alas this story is for another day. But I needed to tell you that to tell you this. So many people said it was some miraculous awesome thing, and all I could think was  THIS REALLY SUCKS. Yes, I understood how it was a good thing. No one sent me a hundred form rejections on my birthday at least, but at the same time I started to feel like maybe I’d never succeed because my attitude was all wrong.

Because I wasn’t always rainbows and sunshine, and sometimes after a bad day I think maybe I should just quit.

I thought it was just me, but it’s not. I just prefer telling the truth to faux stars, and rainclouds to plastic rays of light. I just like to feel. I just want to write.

For Once I’m Not a Coward.

It’s April first.

This isn’t a sick joke, it’s my 140 characters or less Twitter Pitch Contest Entry!

I am really sure that I am not kidding. What I am sure of, is that I have less than 4 hours of sleep, a 3 turned 5 hour drive to the Grand Canyon under my belt, and feet that hurt! Though maybe not as bad as posting my work where others can rip it apart. It’s hard for me no matter how many times I do it.

Shelley Watters is having an awesome blog follower contest here:
http://shelleywatters.blogspot.com/2011/03/epic-follower-blogfestcontest.html

You will recall from that one time you were living under a rock.

Now on to the killing of my soul, in very few words.

“Skeletons do regret. Drowning was the easy part. The beautiful but ghastly bones of broken boys & false flesh are now Marlow's whole world.”

My book is a dark, young adult paranormal romance about creatures you have never seen, but that everyone has.

Would you like to help me make it better? I knew you would ;) And don’t forget when you comment (up to one a day) you are entered to win my follower contest!

For those of you under rocks, and others of you who long to be there…

Under Cover Rock Lovers
Shelly Watters is having an amazing, fantastical, awesome, wonderful, BLOG FOLLOWERS CONTEST. That can be found here:

http://shelleywatters.blogspot.com/2011/03/epic-follower-blogfestcontest.html

It really is EPIC. I would just like to say, I wish ever agent was as cool as Suzie and that they all did Twitter Pitches, because I think unlike more traditional query letters, there is very little anxiety of sending a tweet. I have become so accustomed to forcing complex emotions and thoughts into 140 characters or less, there is likely no better way for me to approach an agent.

Unless I am wearing a pirate hat and brandishing a large plastic sword, but I hear they frown on that.

Tomorrow (as soon as midnight perhaps) I will be posting my draft of my Twitter Pitch and I would love for every last one of you to help me make it the best it can be.

ALSO don’t forget about my blog contest. It runs until the end of April but the more people you tell, the more people they can tell, and the larger that Amazon gift card gets.

This weekend on my blog I will dispel the popular myth, and suddenly hot blog topic that you must be gleefully happy doing things that make you completely miserable. Crawl back under that rock lovelies, I will see you in a few hours.

WHAT TO DO WHEN AN AGENT HATES YOUR SOUL err BLOG & a contest

If you told me it was possible to not have agent, but have agents who dislike your blog enough to mention it, I would have looked at you like THIS o.0?! Because as busy as we are hearing agents are all the time you would assume that agents wouldn’t even notice if you had a blog much less explore it enough to know if they hate it.

The truth of the matter is THEY WILL GOOGLE YOU, YOU WILL PUT THE ADDRESS IN QUERY LETTERS, THEY MAY EVEN CLICK ON A LINK YOU GAVE SOME ONE ELSE IN AN AGENT CHAT WHEN YOU THOUGHT THEY WEREN’T PAYING ATTENTION. And so what right? You WANT agents to look at your blog. Your blog will be so shiny and awesome you may have to beat off potential representation with a stick! Even if you haven’t finished that novel is say, five years. (I’m finishing one this weekend, but that is neither here nor there.)

If you think like this I have $1,845,337,942.83 USD in a bank account in Nigeria I’d love to split with you. Please wire me a small $10,000 processing fee and I’ll give you your money.

What? I will.

Ok, I’m lying.

The thing is they may just hate your blog title. While you would think that some bad titles would be common sense to avoid. “Searching for an Agent Continuously Since 1993” “why agents suck” and “QUERYHATER09” some might not seem so bad to the person writing it like for example my former blog “The Desperate Authoress”

When the first agent told me she thought it made me sound… what was she said “Unappealing.”? I thought, well I’ll just cross her off my query list right now, because obviously we just aren’t a good match. Then the second agent, commented in a e-mail where she declined to represent my full manuscript (an urban fantasy for MG) that she thought it was inappropriate sounding for someone who wrote children’s fiction I maybe cried. I like to think that it was because she rejected my full with one line of not loving it as much as she thought she was going to, and spending more time insulting my blog than talking about my book- but really misery is misery. I’d swore I’d never blog again.

Ooops.

The thing is, I am desperate. Desperate for time, quiet, MORE COFFEE. Maybe forty five minutes all to myself. I’m not desperate for an agent, or a book deal, or in general. Those things I am willing to work for, not just lust after.

The desperate authoress is dead. Long live Angela Write Now.

And since I am starting a new blog and have near none followers. I am going to have a little contest. I am going to give away an Amazon gift card. I will add .50 for each follower up to 200 followers or $100. Contest ends April 30^th. To win, you must be a blog follower, and you must comment on at least one blog post. You can receive a new entry for every post you make a comment on, but only one per blog post.