“Brand isn’t just a statement created spontaneously. It is made up over time of many little experiences.”

Five minutes to go, I thought, while valiantly attempting to work off on the treadmill my over indulgence of Christmas treats. Thank fully I had t.v. to distract me. And distract me it did! Twenty minutes later I was still huffing along, engrossed in the Bloomberg’s story about the future of advertising.

It made me think, as I prepared for the end of 2013 and the new year- 2014, that as authors every word we write speaks to this concept. Our stories are our brands. But so too are we. Which one of us hasn’t heard the advice, write what you know? I believe this goes much deeper than a research suggestion. This is about being true to ourselves when we write.

If I don’t believe in my characters and the life they lead, how on earth will my readers? Our passions for the settings we explore in our novels, whether it is renaissance England, modern day Moscow, or the planet of Zeezee, will shine through in how we describe them.

But branding isn’t as simple as picking out a few words which fit our personality or writing. Branding needs to provide focus for our efforts, so that the choices we make reflect the experiences we want our readers and fans to have.

As we toast in the new year it is a perfect time for us to consider the brand we have created for ourselves, be it stated or unstated. Does it fit our values, our dreams, and our goals? Do we live by it in what write as authors and what we do as people? And finally, would others recognize it in the experiences they encounter with us?

Last year I made a handful of resolutions which may or may not have been kept. Unrelated to what was most important to me, I have lost track of what they were. This year I plan to keep it much more simple. I have one resolution only: To formalize my brand, Journeys Inspired by Love, in what I do, what I write and who I am. At the end of the year I hope to be able to look back and find specific ways that I created this experience, not just for my readers, but also for myself.

Here’s to the very best of New Years for each of us.

Cheers,
Deanne

p.s. last day to get your comments in for a chance to win $10 to the non-political charity of your choice. Check back next week to see if you won.

"We filmed it in the old, abandoned, part of a hospital. Very creepy."

I was volunteering in the IP lounge at the conference and so was privy to some interesting conversations taking place. Aside from the expected discussions of publishing, the Willamette Writers Conference adds a unique perspective in that it also includes screenwriters. It was clear, by simply observing the two two distinct groups, that film and print are very different worlds indeed.

Visual by nature, the film agents and producers represented this in how they dressed and spoke. Networking in a way that could only come from a world of celebrity interactions.

As usual when I attend a conference, I was primarily there to study craft. But even still, it is impossible to avoid the business end of things. And this, is something that draws energy from me faster than a wormhole. And yet, the energy of the film group was extremely contagious, so that I found myself drawn to them like a baby toward an open electrical outlet.

I went to sleep dreaming about the settings of my books, about re-creating the scene in Untangling the Knot where Gabriella discovers the Statue of Mary in Pienza, Italy, or where Jessica walks along the esplanade in Boston.

Lucky for me... it s not entirely a dream. In fact, just a couple of weeks from now I will be on the East coast. I will get to visit the Patriot's stadium and visualize Ryan doing his field goal kicks there. I will get to write in the sand at the cape, just as Gabriella and Chloe did, and I will get to go back to the church where Mandy and Ryan plan to get married.

It's not quite the same as re-creating it for film, but whatever is left out my imagination will cover for me and I will appreciate the chance, for a moment, to dream of the film adaptation.

Do you have a favorite book that's been adapted for film? I'd love to hear what it is (the classic and best, being, of course Pride and Prejudice:>) Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts. I always love hearing from my readers.

Cheers,
Deanne

The sound of a bird singing out the window, early this morning.

So you will have to forgive me for this late Thursday post. When I say early, it was actually around 3:00 a.m.; which, at the time, made me wonder what type of bird was awake and signing at that time of the morning. It also reminded me of the lovely, but very loud, nightingale that used to sing outside our window when we lived in England many years ago.

I could tell this bird was no nightingale though, much quieter and not enough range. Have you ever heard a nightingale sing? It is an amazing, if eye opening, sound. (Check out this Soundboard site for their song). Although I think it is a lovely song, the nightingale typically heralded my morning wake-up, so it isn’t necessarily associated with happy feelings for me. My schedule at that point in my life was crazy… fun and interesting and challenging, but crazy.

5:00 a.m. – Get-up, trying not to disturb my husband (while sort of wanting to because I was so jealous he still had at least two more hours of sleep ahead of him).

6:20 a.m. – Catch the early train from Sunningdale station to Waterloo (It was worth running for this train because it was marginally less crowded and I had met a couple of travel friends would would entertain me on the 45 minute trip into London).

7:45 a.m. – Stumble from the tube, hyperventilating from holding my breath for the last 40 minutes. (There is nothing so horrible at 7:00 in the morning than breathing in someone’s hangover breath.)

8:00 a.m. – Arrive at my office in Barclays Bank near Tower Bridge. (The walk was actually more like 10 minutes, but I never did get over the idea that I got to walk by the Tower of London on my way to work. Once I even saw white deer on the grounds, as if Arthur himself might appear at any moment.)

6:30 p.m. – Head pounding, leave my office at a run, trying to catch the 7:10 train. (The head pounding thing was aggrevated by the decision to pain our wide open office space a bright arrange and yellow…. I can’t imagine who thought that would be a good idea <picture me hanging my head in shame here>).

8:00 p.m. – Text my husband to beg him to pick me up from the train so I wouldn’t have to walk home in the dark. (Dinner waiting, we would talk briefly of our day, mine developing a content strategy for the bank’s online presence and him… uh… riding his bike around Windsor great park and watching a polo match which he swore the Prince had
attended).

9:00 p.m. – Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Good morning lovely nightingale. Thank you for humoring my trip down memory lane.

“Time for our daily stretch.”

My favorite thing to do on Valentine’s Day? Hang out at New Seasons Grocery store. You will have seen previous posts from overhears there, but this one shows why I love hanging out there so much. The loudspeaker went on to invite all customers to put down their baskets and reach, reach, reach up over their head. “The store that cares for your health,” they say at the end and I believe it.

There is a level of customer service that comes from a perspective of care rather than profit or sales. This is something that can’t be faked. It is sort of like Santa in A Miracle on 34th Street, when he sent customer to a
competitors store for missing items. Ask about a product at New Seasons and they will offer you a taste or test. I never feel like this is only a ploy. When I walk away I am convinced they want me to get the best product I can.

As an author I can understand this. With my new novel being released my entire marketing plan is based around finding the readers I think will really, truly enjoy it. This is not always as easy as it might seem. Readers are told by reviewers and authors and booksellers that every book is the best one. The good news is that I am sure all of these sources believe it; for the most part I don’t think they are trying to trick anyone. 
 
But, the fact is, not all readers will like every book. Some books aren’t written in the right style (just ask my husband about first person, present tense). Other books are about topics or in genres that simply aren’t interesting to the reader.

So, how do I find the readers who really will like my book? I think it is all about authenticity. If I am honest about my reviews, good and bad, if I am really present in the Facebook and Twitter friends I feeds I follow, if I care about the topics in my book and allow others to see my concern, I think my readers will understand that what I write comes from my heart and hopefully is my own Valentine to them.

Enjoy!
UNTANGLING THE KNOT - now available:
Kindle Format - Amazon
Other formats (including Nook and Kobo)- Soulmatepublishing

Also read, An Unlikely Valentine - A free short story based on Untangling the Knot, available Feb. 15th 2013 from
FREE READS from the GENRE-ISTAS

“If you want to get time off you go to work for a bank or the school system.”

Interesting perspective. I suppose it is all about trade-offs. True, when you work in a bank, as I did for many years, you are basically there nine to five and rarely on Sundays. On the other hand, banks don’t have a lot of
extra profit anymore to live the high life. Instead, every minute of those hours is worked hard. As well, with the increase in the number of grocery store banks, traditional banking hours don’t actually apply much
anymore.

And, while it may be sort of true that if you work for a school you get the summers off, it is also true that during the school year your work lives with you everywhere. And I am not simply talking about taking home homework to grade. Being in charge of a classroom full of young children is a responsibility that keeps you awake at night unless you are very good at compartmentalizing.

So, what is a dream job? Maybe the point is not to avoid work (as I mentioned in my blog last time), it is to enjoy the work you need to do. Few of us can afford to not work at all. So assuming we want to eat, wear clothes and sleep someplace warm, we have to get a job. But this doesn’t mean we have to hate it.

It used to be that Europeans thought we were crazy for working so much. And I will admit to enjoying my six weeks of vacation when I lived in England. But on the other hand, perhaps we work so much because we value choice
in what we study and where we work. Unlike the historical model of nepotism in England, where your line of work was so much a part of your family that it would become your last name, here we have tried to create a system that allows for choice.

Sadly, we don’t always hit it on the head. Since education is the key, and schools are taking a big financial hit right now, our children’s choices are increasingly limited… even more so in lower social-economic systems. In truth, the Starbucks customer should have said; “If you want time off you invest in education.” Working hard at the right job is the best way for all of us to enjoy our vacations.

Because, as my father always said; There are no free lunches.

“I gotta say, I kinda rock at accounting. Hard to believe but I actually like it.”

The scary thing is that I totally understood what this person was saying. Okay, I didn’t exactly love accounting in school (especially a certain teacher who will not be named) but I did like the precision of calculating financials. (Photo couresy of Dummies.com)

That said… accounting has become one more thing to add to my already overly long to-do list as an author. The business of being an author goes soooo much farther than simply writing and editing. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Just like any small business there is the financial end of the business to consider.

As any author will tell you, money begins flowing out long before it ever flows in. First there might be classes you take to improve your craft. As well, every writer should belong to an appropriate writing organization. I belong to three – Romance Writers of America, Rose City Romance Writers, (a chapter of RWA, but paid for separately) and Willamette Writers. Next there are conferences you attend to network, pitch your work and again improve your
writing skills. These can set you back hundreds of dollars. And finally there is the cost of marketing yourself and your writing; website costs, business cards, material to give away (like bookmarks), book trailers, author photos… the list goes on and on.

The good news is that, if you can prove you are actively engaged in the business of writing, not simply doing it as a hobby, many costs are tax deductible (okay, here is where I write the disclaimer that much as I like accounting I am not actually an accountant and you should check with one before writing off any expenses!)

The bad news is that unlike when you work for a company or as an independent consultant, there is no one else picking up these costs for you. Because of this, writers should always track their expenses and then create, even in the simplest way, a cash flow statement (with income and expenses) as well as a balance sheet with assets (ex. your books, $ sent aside for marketing, your computer) liabilities (the contracts you have for your books, taxes owed,
credit card debt owed) and equity (the amount you, as an author, are worth = assets-liabilities). Overwhelmed? Read more here: http://www.moneyinstructor.com/lesson/linkincomebal.asp

Tracking your financials in this way helps you to better understand both how to spend/invest your hard earned money and also makes you appreciate and not take for granted the very important assets that often get overlooked by everyone, including spouses… your talent and your creative imagination.

Thankfully these are the very things which save you from being an accountant in your day-job.