Monthly Archives: July 2015

The City Romances Your Book – Ask Alice Saturday

Sunset Downtown NYC SkylineQuestion: How do I get attention for my little book in a big town?

Answer: First you stop thinking of your book as little. Definitely never speak of it that way. After you get over that – Persist Till You Prevail. Persist at your marketing plan which works the same way anywhere. It works from the inside out.

Walk out your front door. Look up and down the street. Don’t look at tall buildings or hurrying crowds. That’s how a tourist sees a city. A local resident sees it as a collection of neighborhoods. Each one different – like a collection of small towns.

Walk down your street. Really look and really see. Walk to the nearest coffee shop and sit down with your notebook. You did bring a notebook. You’re a writer after all. Order a java or fancy bottled water or – in my case – a Diet Coke and write these questions in your notebook. Answer them there too.

  1. What is the Spirit of my neighborhood? Trust your instincts. Don’t overthink. You might want to re-word this as – What is the FEEL of my neighborhood?
  1. What gives my neighborhood this Spirit and Feel? Be specific. You’re talking about overall uniqueness then breaking that down into these component parts. The organizations that function here. The stores and businesses that thrive here. The places where people gather here – people of all ages – including the elders. The places of worship – all denominations of worship and spiritual groups. Plus the venues that you brainstorm on your own.
  1. Where/how can I find out about my neighborhood? Is there such a thing as a paper and print yellow pages anymore? Maybe a Business to Business edition? And don’t underestimate the giveaway papers and pamphlets. Everything going on around you is in one of those. This is micro research – the Open Sesame to a neighborhood fan base.
  1. What do I have to offer that will appeal here? What about your story could strike a neighborhood note? Every situation and location will be individual to you and your place. Think – Imagine – Find your way to being noticed here.

For example my media mentor Maria Ferrer has a wonderful idea for my series set in Riverton NY. The town has a café called Ginny’s Coffee Corner that figures prominently in each story. Maria says to hold events in a coffee shop in my neighborhood and dub it Ginny’s for the day.

I’ve taken a step in that direction by offering giveaways of my favorite coffee mug. Go to my website www.aliceorrbooks.com. Sign up for my newsletter where you’ll find out how to participate in the “I Want to Share a Cuppa with Alice” coffee mug raffle.

I think you get the idea. Start from your home base to find your first fan base and reach out farther from there. Tell your fan base folks to spread the word beyond your address and your address book to theirs. And so it goes. You romance your home city. Then you and your books move on to romance the world.

RR

A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – is available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZBOTH5O.  Book #1 – A Wrong Way Home – the eBook – is FREE at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T9RVGGC. These are my 12th and 13th novels and they’ve had a true romance everywhere from the start. Alice Orrwww.aliceorrbooks.com.

 

Ginny Gives Us the Skinny – Riverton Road Monday

Interview with Ginny Simmons at Ginny’s Coffee Corner in Riverton NY

Go Confidently Mug on DeskCurious Questioner: Excuse me, Ginny. I understand you own this place. Could we possibly sit down for a minute and talk?

Ginny Simmons: We can talk, honey. But I hardly ever sit down. Why don’t you just try to keep up while I take care of my paying customers?

CQ (Hurrying after Ginny between pink and white booths as she refills mugs from the carafe in her hand.): What’s it like to be a woman running a business in a town like Riverton?

GS: Good morning darlin. (Ginny bends over a table while the man she’s greeted with a smile and a wink stares as if in a trance at her ample cleavage.)You just let me know if there’s anything else you need.

CQ (Still shadowing Ginny as she leaves that table and steps back to survey the room with booths along one side and a counter along the other.): Do you always flirt with your customers like that?

GS: Honey, you asked me what it’s like to be a woman doing business in this town. My business is hospitality and most of the people who come in here in the morning are men on their way to a long day of working hard. My job is to put a little lift in their step and a big smile on their faces.

CQ: And they know there’s nothing more to it than that?

GS (Turning with a hand on her hip toward CQ): Well, honey. If they don’t, they aren’t old enough or smart enough to be drinking anything with caffeine in it.

CQ: I’ve heard you know a man named Gus Kalli. Is he old enough and smart enough?

GS (Starts to walk away then doesn’t.) Gus Kalli is more than enough of just about everything. But most of all he’s more than enough of a man to take care of his family. Those four handsome hunks of son he has couldn’t have a better father than Gus. He’s been known to take in strays too, kids and even adults who need the kind of family that gives a hoot what happens to you. His wife Angela’s a good sort too. If she wasn’t, I might take a run at Gus myself. But she is, so I won’t. You can quote me on that.

CQ: It’s my understanding that the Kalli’s have been in the middle of serious trouble more than once. The kind of trouble that has go do with murder. What do you think about that?

GS: Well there, honey. It seems to me you shouldn’t talk about understanding much of anything if you don’t know life’s got trouble in it for everybody, here in Riverton and everyplace else in this world. You’ve just got to have what it takes to stand up on your hind legs and take care of business. The way the Kalli’s always do and the way I’m going to do right now.

GS flashes a smile and a wink before leaving CQ behind and moving on to the two gentlemen in the next booth): Good morning sweethearts. What can I do for you today?

RR

 A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 is available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZBOTH5O, This is Alice’s 13th novel. Stop on over for a cuppa at Ginny’s Coffee Corner and a good read too. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Win a mug like the one in the picture above by sending an email to aliceorrbooks@gmail.com that says “I want to have a cuppa with Alice.”

 

Let’s All Be Free at Last – Ask Alice Saturday

Celebration image 5Question: It’s Independence Day. What do you want to be free of as a writer?

Answer: I wish for myself and all of my writer friends to free ourselves from the tyranny of our expectations.

I launched a book several days ago. Yet my celebration of that accomplishment is shadowed by my disappointment with myself. What did I not do well enough? What did I do too much?

I’m not saying a thorough debrief isn’t called for at the end of any major undertaking. Of course we should evaluate. Of course we should learn from our mistakes.

What I am saying is this. I find myself and too many other writers failing to congratulate our achievements. Failing to say – “I did that just right.” Or even – “I did that just right enough.”

Someone else had to remind me. “Look how far you’ve come in the past year. Look how much you’ve learned.” Typically I responded with a litany of my sins of omission. The things I’d left undone.

I was altogether wrong in that. A backward glance was in order. As I have absolutely no doubt it is also in order for you. Where were you a year ago today? Where was your career twelve months in the past?

Stop a moment right now. Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Cast yourself back a year. Ask yourself this question. “A year ago what were the 3 things I most wanted to accomplish in my writing career?”

Don’t overthink it. Let your first 3 thoughts be your best 3 thoughts. Write each down and leave a generous space blank after it. Put the paper aside and come back here with me for a bit.

In my opinion the worst of our sins of omission is committed when we fail to relish our experience. Stop another moment now and consider what it is we do. We set down words in a configuration that is brand new. Entirely our own creation.

We invent stories. We articulate thoughts. We build pictures from syllables. And if we are doing these precious activities as we should – we enjoy most of it.

This is a gift we’ve been given. A gift worthy of recognition and reveling. When we fail to do so we’ve fallen victim to the tyranny of our own expectations. We have forgotten to honor what we did accomplish by wallowing in what we haven’t yet accomplished.

Return to the piece of paper and your 3 hopeful ambitions for the year just past. After each one record every step you’ve taken along the path to that goal. The short steps – the long strides – the hops and hobbles in between. I’ll do it with you.

Fill the blank spaces. Carry onto the back of the page and across the desk and up the wall. Crowding the room with a record of our writerly deeds. We’ll read them over. Recognize and revel. Then we will have triumphed over tyranny and be free at last. Happy Independence Day.

RR

My current novel is A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – available in eBook and paperback at amazon.com/author/aliceorr and other outlets online. A Wrong Way Home – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – the eBook – will be free for download soon at those same outlets. These are my 12th and 13th novels and I set myself free at last to honor them both. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.