Janis Hill

Okay, I feel I should warn you now this was half a real question, half a rhetorical one as right now I’m feeling I have absolutely no clue!

What have I tried so far? Well, I took part in the SA Writer’s Centre book launch events during Writer’s Week in March this year. I don’t want to sound bitter, but when I couldn’t even get the Writer’s festival to give me a plug via Twitter to an event that was listed in their own program when asked… yeah it was doomed. But when you look at exactly what was on the same night as my book launch – Clipsal, the Fringe, the Adelaide Festival, several free concerts and such, any unknown emerging author was going to struggle to compete, especially one for an eBook not due out til June that was commercial fiction rather than the paper in hand literary fiction preferred in that arena. 😉 Hey, some people turned up! And I wasn’t even related to all of them!

There was a flurry of joining fees as I renewed my SA Writer’s membership and joined the Australian Society of Authors and did as much name dropping and hinting to various media places as I could find.

I got myself interviewed by a local free paper, even got my picture in it! The other local paper I asked for help showed an interest… but I am just a no name eBook author of commercial fiction after all, and so wasn’t surprised it fell through. 🙂

My lovely local Library – the Mount Barker Community Library – held a book launch for me on the day the book was released in June. Even more people I wasn’t related to turned up (they didn’t out number my family but bless them all the same). There was good cake too.

Hague Publishing has done everything in their power to advertise my eBook from flyers to business cards to adverts to submitting it to various places for a free or paid review. I’ve gotten some pretty good reviews too. Heck, I even got to be the Kindle Book of the Day in August!

I have my blog, what you’re reading. I have two Facebook pages (one for me and one for Bonnie) and I even shake my assets on Twitter from time to time to encourage sales. I’ve gotten enough from my first two royalty payments for that glorious Chocolate @No 5 visit and brownie. But I’m doubtful I’ll make my third royalty payments stretch that far.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I never expected instant success or to be rolling in the big bucks right away. This is, after all, my first book. But it does make me wonder what exactly it is one must do to sell their work. Especially when you are one of millions who write eBooks of commercial fiction in a world still dominated by those who desire the need to hold paper in their hand and feel they are bettering themselves to read something more factual than fictional.

Oh, and this is seriously not a whinge and I do hope no one takes it as such. I don’t whinge in my blog as what would I have left to do on Twitter and Facebook? 😉 It is just a musing as to what you have to do to sell, sell, sell. I can cope with the rejection, seriously I’m a writer and I have had the occasional rejection. Well, more than occasional, but it’s part of the grand scheme of an author, isn’t it? How else can people quote you years after you’ve died of having this many rejections before you hit it big? As said though, I don’t expect to hit it big… I just don’t want my brownie money to dry up.

So when you embark on your journey as an emerging author, whether you are self-published or find a publisher willing to take a risk on you, just think of what exactly it is you need to do to make sales. As that is the magic thing I seem to be missing. I wrote a good book (well, the majority of reviews say I did), I am out there in the internet’s public eye being a mostly nice person (see whinging) and I’ve done all sorts of free, paid and begged for assistance promotional work to get my book noticed. What would you do?

No, this isn’t me asking for every ‘make money quickly’ spam artist to now comment on my blog telling me I need to spend big with them to get the attention I deserve. Any comment like that will be treated as spam. But it is a serious question I do ponder daily.

Right now I feel I’m getting the attention I deserve, and I’m just wondering what one must do to deserve better. To throw my love of quotes into this blog too – you don’t get something for nothing. And that’s exactly right. You can’t just sit back after your book is released and expect the brownie money to come pouring in. What can you do? How do you sell your book? Can you enjoy yourself and still sell your book?

This last question is the one troubling me the most. I hated the thought of a book launch as I wanted people to love the book, not have to turn up and hear me talk about it in case I ruined it. Remember my low self-image? My book is better than coming to see me on display… well, that’s how I felt.

And I don’t do the constant hard sell. Not every tweet or Facebook post has me saying “Buy my book or else”. In fact, on Facebook I’ve started to continue Bonnie’s life in the form of a diary for all to share for free. It’s fun, for me, as I love to write it. Do I get anything back? No, not really. But as long as I’m enjoying myself and look forward to doing it… then why not? Will it get me sales? Not so far, but who knows! It may get me people who like my work and that is half the point. It’s not brownie money, but it’s the bigger reason I write – as I enjoy it and want it to be enjoyed by others.

So, how do you sell your book? That time it is rhetorical. But something you should think on as you too immerse yourself into the world of being An Author. Me, I’ve got back to being a Writer. It’s more fun and the lack of pay isn’t so important. 😉

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO

As we welcome November and the warmer weather here, we say good bye to what seems to be a controversial holiday here in Australia – Halloween. And yes, this has nothing to do with writing or me wearing my author badge and all, but it is something I have had issues with this year and so wanted to talk about it.

Basically, the concept and celebration of Halloween here in Australia is only really just taking off. I refuse to say it’s only just started as I know of many families from Canada and America who have attempted to celebrate it here for years. At first it seemed to tentatively be accepted and taken on board, but in the last few years – this year in my area especially so – it seems to have turned rather nasty.

And it’s not the trick or treaters that are making it nasty, it’s the anti-Halloween bah humbuggers who are getting quite vocal and rude with it that is making it into a bad word to use in these thar hills. I left a good twenty groups and unliked pages on Facebook in the past few weeks as their anti-Halloween ranting turned into all out racist drivel towards America – the ‘United States of’ in most cases. It was very ugly to see such open and encouraged comments about how we shouldn’t let the American’s do this or that… and degraded into generalisations over them all being fat, lazy and stupid – I was appalled. And I really am starting to see that Australia really is as racist as the rest of the world seems to think we are and I am so very embarrassed to be Australian because of it. The disgracefully sexist behaviour and attitudes to our one (and possibly only at this rate) female Prime Ministers was bad enough… But to degrade a holiday to that! Horrid. Oh, and when you start a sentence with “I’m not a racist but…” yeah, you’re being racist. Saying it with a smile on your face or a laugh in your voice doesn’t lessen it either.

I see not as much nastiness went on about those also celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) or Diwali – both holidays around the same time. Then again, perhaps as those holidays hold more for grown-ups it’s okay to embrace those multi-cultural celebrations… or possibly as they’re not ‘American’?

Okay, so that’s what depressed me about Halloween this year. It wasn’t just all the Bah Humbuggery that went on, it was what it degraded to. Uncool Australia, very uncool.

I will just put in here too that I only celebrate Halloween as my husband is half Canadian and it is a family tradition he has followed for years. We never used to follow it when it was just him and I, but now we have the hordes, I let him have it. I mean, I’m half German and he’s had to put up with me celebrating Christmas on the Eve rather than the day for years. We won’t even go into the fact he is a recovering Catholic vs. me being a non-practicing Pagan. He gives me my solstices and most of my equinoxes and I try not to bitch too loudly that he wants the kids to celebrate the childish version of Samhain when it’s really Beltane. 🙂

Add to that I am not a fan of the over commercialised holidays and so should probably be in the Bah Humbug camp for Halloween…I mean I refuse to let him celebrate Valentine’s Day with me and I only put up with Mother’s Day from the kids as they’re forced into it by the school. For those made up days seriously – if you can’t love each other and show respect and pamper them for no apparent reason at any time of the year, that one day isn’t going to make up for being a sod for the rest of it. 😀

We won’t mention Christmas clashing with Litha (the Summer Sosltice) either. 😉

Back to Halloween. Why have I become so passionate about this holiday? When it goes against all my principals and beliefs? Because it means so much to my husband. I do my best to spoil him on Father’s day too as he was raised to celebrate it when I wasn’t. But with me being as romantic as a dead whale at a beach wedding – he is not getting Valentine’s Day.

Halloween also gives me a time to be creative. We make a lot of our scary props and decorations, and I get to bake! Rockyroad kill, bleeding eyeballs, blood and gutcakes, scary apples, monster teeth, witch’s fingers – it’s all good. Sadly this year I didn’t get to make anything as a sinus infection followed by suspected shingles does tend to drain one a tad.

Another downer to this year’s holiday was husband had to do the late shift and so couldn’t take our cat girl, witch or two faced Bob out trick or treating. I was too sick to take them, but helped man/woman/person the front door and hand out all the sugary ungoodness I could to anyone in a costume. My kids did get to visit a neighbour around the corner who I knew was expecting them and who they could get to without having to go on the road. So they did at least get something for their trick or treat bags. I had them try other neighbours we are friendly with, but got no answer from their knocks. So they were either not home or taking a silent stand against the holiday – which is fine. I feel a polite response like that far better than the ones where people were threatening to leave their large, aggressive dogs chained to the front gate, or even the angry carved pumpkin signs with a cross through them saying ‘Halloween and trick or treaters unwanted here’. That, to me, is just rude… and would lead back to the negativity I mentioned before if I let it. But meh, there is so much negativity in this world right now that me whinging on about it all the time isn’t going to be beneficial or really that interesting.

So instead, let me look at what I did see from Halloween this year. My kids were excited and got to dress up for a parade at school as well as dress up again at home. Their parents (their dad more than bed ridden me) decked out the house with spiders and bats and pumpkins and all those stereo typical Halloween guff. Hubby even made a grave in the front yard and put a fake skull on it (picture below).

What did it mean to the neighbours? No idea. We saw a lot of people smile and slow down and take a look… and no one came and ranted and raved about how un-Australian we were being. But then again I’d like to think we have lovely neighbours who wouldn’t steep so low. 😉

We had excited kids leap out of cars or race down the street in a mixture of home-made and shop bought costumes. They gasped at the grave and laughed and the flashing pumpkin lights and were so happy to be allowed to take copious amounts of lollies from our over-flowing pumpkin head.

My kids, despite the slim pickings out trick or treating, had a great evening too. They got to play out in the front yard until it was dark (which was about 8pm – don’t tell their dad I let them stay up so late. 😉 ). They played amongst the weeds and grave, they danced along the lawn encouraging more trick or treaters to come visit. They waved and shouted hello to the cars that drove by, and got a lot of people smiling and waving back. They stopped every single person who walked down our street and wished them a happy Halloween and patted their dogs (if they had them) and all in all were great neighbourly kids. Polite, happy and a little rowdy. You really don’t see many kids out the front of houses like that anymore. They’re either tucked away in their backyards or glued to the TV set. Heck, mine are usually in the backyard too but that’s as they’re riding bikes and scooters or communing with their pets and none of that is best done near the road. Especially as not everyone around here sticks to the speed limit. Still, I was watching them from the couch, going to check on them (and asked them to turn the volume on their voices down) every now and then and it was just a once the year thing. That is what Halloween was to my kids. Fun, play, meet new people (we don’t believe in stranger danger, merely stranger awareness as they could just be a friend you’ve not yet met) and get a few lollies at the end of it.

It was not an un-Australian moment; I was not being unfaithful to my country of birth. In fact I’d like to think I was encouraging the nicer side of what Australia is meant to be about. We are made up of many cultures and many traditions. I like my kids to experience as many of them as possible to help them be aware of how awesome our world really is to see all the great things we humans do. I take a blanket approach to multi-culturalism too. I’m an all or nothing gal and am not about to let people tell me what I can or can’t celebrate. That is the ugly Australia we seem to be becoming. Let’s just ignore them, have a good time and try not to make ourselves too sick on the caramel candy corn. 😉

Until next time,

Janis XXOO

Hello everyone,

Just a quick midweek post to let you know that the cover art for my newest eBook is completed and I just wanted to show it off. So here it is:

I would just like to thank the artist Jade Zivanovic and Scarlett  for creating such a fantastic image and corresponding text to make the cover what it is. You’ve made me humble… I just hope the story lives up to your cover. 😉

I also want to thank Hague Publishing for finding Jade and putting up with my minor Diva moments when it came to the design of this cover.

As I am already writing the sequel There’s no place like Hell I hope to get the chance to work with Jade and Scarlett again. They make a great team. 😉

The eBook itself is due out in 2014… when I know an actual release date, I promise to let you know too.

Enjoy, feel free to comment, question, praise the artist for her cleverness and, of course, go visit her website for some more brilliant art!

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO.

Adelaide just hosted the inaugural Body In The Garden book festival where they incorporated the public’s love of gardening and crime fiction into one event. Where crime fiction writers and gardeners (and writers of gardening subjects) got together and wowed the crowds. Sometimes it was just garden talks, sometimes it was crime but, to me, the best of times was when they mixed the two. I mean, body in the garden – crime or compost? How could you not want to listen to that topic? It was brilliant!

Anyhow, one of the crime writers invited to the festival was Ann Cleeves, known for her Vera Stanhope and Shetland series of crime novels (both of which have been made into TV crime dramas by ITV). And, thanks to twitter conversations for about two years now (has it really been that long?) with this lovely lady I happened to follow and chat to called Ann… who I later found out wrote crime, and who happened to be Ann Cleeves… I was looking forward to finally saying hi in person. Yes, I was going to ‘meet someone famous’! But you know what, um, I was more excited to be meeting this lovely friend I had made via the internet. I mean, she wasn’t the first person I’d made friends with via the internet… I’ve been on the damned thing for 20 odd years now, right back from the time it was a UNIX based command line interface used just to play MUDD (Multi-User Dungeon Domain – I think).

I’d even spent some summers of my miss-spent youth travelling Australia meeting face to face with these internet friends for a nice day out together. To me, it’s what I did. Yes, I even met my husband via the Internet… though I really didn’t know him or acknowledge him as an interesting person to get to know as, well, husband material until we met in real life via another internet friend. Yes, he gave me a double layer of Whitman’s chocolates back when they still made decent chocolate. Who says a way to a girl’s heart isn’t through a box of chocolates?

So, anyway, I’d met people before whom I’d gotten to know via the Internet. And the majority of the time it had been a good experience. So I was really looking forward to meeting Ann. Yes there was a bit of the fan girl ‘This is a real author! She’s had her work turned into TV shows!’ excitement… But, honestly, not as much as I’d expected. And the majority of this fan girl feeling was making me feel humble that she’d offered to meet me for coffee before her Saturday events. But, the good manners and ‘must bear a gift to a visiting friend’ that had been bred into me took over and away I went with a little book of pictures of South Australia and stickers for her grandkids. And as soon as we got to say hi – no more awestruck fan girl, just friends who met online finally getting to sit and chat in real life. In a word – awesome. Though she did throw me with the name dropping of a certain man… lifelong Who fan and chatterbox that I am was left speechless. 😀

And being the generous soul that I am with a great love of my home and a desire to share it with others, I invited her for a day out – and she said yes! I won’t go in to details, but I still have a smile on my face as there is nothing I like more than showing off my bit of world to a friend and visitor. I loved it when I lived in Darwin, in Brisbane and now Adelaide. Because of my severe lack of overseas travel (not through want of trying, merely through lack of money) I was never taken up by the various tourist agencies to become a travel guide. I can speak bits of various languages; I have a great love of local flora, fauna, history and architecture… but no. I never got to be that traveller of this great land (or planet) and so have always had to restrict my passion of showing it off to the occasional friend willing to let me drag them around places.

But I digress by waxing lyrically over love of playing tour guide (I’m probably not very good at it by the way). So, I had my brush with fame. I got to walk about the Body in the Garden festival at Ann’s side and be introduced as a friend and local writer. I got the usual mixed reaction of polite interest and complete dismissal for being a no-one. Meh, I know who I am and what I do, I’m not looking for worldwide fame and adoration, just enough money from my books to buy brownies and to see reviews from people who have read my worked, got what I was trying to give and enjoyed it.

Am I a better person to have met and rubbed shoulders with someone famous? Maybe, but probably not as much as people expect it to be like. Am I a better person for getting to spend some time with an internet friend where we both (hopefully) enjoyed our time together? Definitely! Though I will state now I’m not expecting to be lifted to her top ten friends or Christmas cards list, but am happy to have had my moment all the same.

What can I suggest to other’s who discover themselves meeting someone (whether they’re famous or just someone new they’d like as a friend) is simple be yourself. I think the reason I enjoyed myself so much today is I didn’t stress over my looks, my car, my kids, etc. I basically was just myself. Sunburnt, fighting off yet another sinus infection and in a car in desperate need of a clean with kids who had a bit of a meltdown as they needed some lunch. But I didn’t stress! I may not be happy with who I am on the outside (I think I’ve mentioned my low self-image thing before) but I just ignored that today and was my inner self. The person I am happy with.

Try it, be yourself. Not just in this situation, all the time. You may not schmooze your way to the top, or gain fandom and celebrity, but just try it. Who knows where it might lead.

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO

Ann and I in Hahndorf. Thank you for the lovely day and new book. 😉

And yes, I know I look like I don’t want my picture taken… I did. But my general dislike of having my photo taken took over. Hence the expression. 😀

Yes! Freshly posted to Youtube is the 2nd part of my interview with Hague Publishing!

This interview focusses on a little Q&A about Bonnie’s Story – a Blonde’s Guide to Mathematics. We discuss how it came about, how the characters were created and all in all gives a bit of a run down on who, what, where and how. I don’t think we’ll ever discover why. 😉

The interview can be seen on Youtube here.

And, just to let the low self-image I have of myself feel comforted in knowing I shared this – Yes I do look like a one eyed hunchback. But if you listen to the interview it’s still pretty darn good. I hope it inspires people to go buy the book. And again, not for the money, but for the sheer enjoyment as it is a rather clever little story. 😉

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO

Yes, this is a true question I’m often asked by a lot of well-meaning kind souls who have read Bonnie’s Story a Blonde’s Guide to Mathematics. I really don’t know how serious they are when they ask this question, though I tend to take it more as a tongue in cheek comment and just smile and nod politely. I mean, seriously… let me sell one hundred books before we get too mad people! 😉

But, if I was to jump into the unrealistic world of some talented Movie Producer stumbling over my book, falling in love with it and trying to buy the movie rights… I can’t say I’d actually accept it. No matter how many millions they flashed at me. Thankfully, in the real world, this isn’t an issue so we can all relax. Though, wearing my unrealistic world hat and being thrust into that situation, I love Bonnie’s Story too much to have it taken and ripped apart and put back together again in someone else’s view of how it should be. I don’t want the heart ache of being an author whose only credit to a movie is ‘Based on characters created by…’ as this translates to they’ve taken the names and concepts of your story and used them… while throwing the rest away and making up new stuff and calling it the real story. I’ve seen it happen before and it totally ruins a good book and a good story. I mean, I write and get published as I have a story to tell, not sell. I leave most of the descriptions of people and places vague in such a way that it allows the reader to fill in who they want to see and a place they can relate to. I don’t want to dictate who they look like or what their place looks like to precise details. Readers are smart and tend to have a brilliant imagination, why ruin the fun for them?

And can I take the unrealistic world hat off as it’s messing my hair and clashes with my ‘Author’ badge? No glitter either… just saying.

But it does raise a good question – are you in it for the story or fame and fortune? Not trying to belittle myself or my work here… but I’m in it for the story! If the rest comes can I request the fortune without the fame? As I like being a nobody when out and about. 😉 Though, I am good at writing and I do feel my stories have a lot to offer the right reader. I’m just trying to find enough of the right reader to share it with!

The thrill for me with my books, once the writing is all done and it’s out there, is when I get a review from someone and they got what I was trying to tell. They were amused at what I hoped were the funny bits, touched and brought to tears by the same bits I sat there blubbing like a big girl’s blouse while I wrote it, that is my fame, my fortune, as good as a movie deal. My story was told, it was enjoyed and they happen to write about it to tell me (and the rest of the world) I got it right! Yes!

I really don’t want to harp on about ‘it’s all about the joy of being an author, blah de blah’ as remember – there are millions of us out there. But for anyone wanting to be known as a writer or an author I do like to just point out the real world. You may enjoy wearing the unrealistic world hat and expecting to rake it in with your work and kudos to those who achieve it! For the rest of us, for heaven’s sake – just be proud of your work no matter how small the response to it is. Well done you for writing a story, for getting it out there (whether by blog, self-publishing or through a publisher) and having people like it. You did it! Go get a party popper and dance in the streamers! No, I’m actually not being sarcastic here, I mean it. Be proud of who you are and what you’ve achieved. It’s really my opinion on everyone actually, not just writers and authors. Don’t get bogged down in the shoulda, woulda, coulda of the world, the ‘if only…’ and fail to notice what you actually have, what you’ve actually done and how clever you are for doing it.

Oh look, a waffle about being a writer, unrealistic dreams and a pep talk. What lucky, lucky readers you are this week! 😉

Seriously though, when I wrote Bonnie’s Story a Blonde’s Guide to Mathematics I did happen to picture Damian Lewis (in a Soames like persona) as Sylvester. Since finishing the story I have happened to come across a fellow called Dimitri Leonidas and, to me, he just screams Rogan… but please don’t let that cloud your judgement as to what they really look like. They look like who you feel they look like. Though, yeah, Dimitri in a flannel shirt and shabby jeans – Wow! It was a scary moment when I was looking up something and saw Rogan staring at me from the Internet. 😀

To end my blog with the trifecta of writing waffle, pep talk and my mothering nature… anyone out there trying to toilet train a boy and you’ve gotten to the peeing standing up stage and he’s showing no interest. This week I’ve discovered the clever trick of putting a ping pong ball in the toilet bowl and asking my four year old to move it about the bowl with his pee. Sorry to all you non parents out there now cringing and fleeing my TMI moment but to those with boys – Life. Saver.

My last piece of sage advice to this though is – don’t use your daughter’s favourite pink ping pong ball and then let them flush the loo before you’ve used the scoop to retrieve it. Um yeah… let’s just say said favourite ball is now ‘drying somewhere safe’. AKA – will amazingly be returned to daughter once a suitable substitute can be found in the shops, snuck home and slipped into her room as if it’s been there the whole time. Oh yeah, I’m a sneaky mummy. If I can have the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa’s email address for weekly emails to them on my kid’s behaviour, I can assure you I’m capable of nearly anything. Not had to have a pet miraculously change colour though. I was raised rural and death is a reality that is best taught with pets before people.

And that is how you waffle boys and girls. 😉

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO.