retailers

B is for Buy This Book

/ dorothyhagan / Leave a comment

Okay, with all due respect to Sue Grafton and her enormously clever list of titles, it seems that since mentioning her in a post, I have had an awesome increase in traffic, well-deserved or not. So…thank you, Ms. Grafton, for your skirt tails and titles for which to grab a hold. That said, behold…a shameless self-promotion.

The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean is a rollicking good read, with tales of feminism, addiction, religion, goofy families, awesome friends and an ending so fun and unexpected you will be smiling for a week. So, please, do me and yourself a favor and Buy This Book!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+offshore+triumphs+of+karla+jean&x=0&y=0

Happy summer, amigos…

A is for Apology

/ dorothyhagan / Leave a comment

Being a fan of fairness and civility, I wanted to share that Sue Grafton (her very own self) alerted me to the knowledge that she had in fact offered an apology to the indie publishing community, following some not-very-well received comments some time ago. She didn’t have to do this, and I appreciate that she did.

That said, I remain frustrated with the hordes of others (still waiting for your contact, Mr. Green) who just don’t seem to get that Art is Art…Stories are Stories…and One Man’s Drivel Is Another Man’s Peach. That Peach may fall straight from the tree, sit all by itself and rot in obscurity. Or the lucky thing may be picked up by Dole Company and end up swimming in syrupy goodness on your table. It’s a Peach either way. So please don’t judge that Peach unless you have had a look at it, a discernible sniff and maybe even an unbiased bite.

Not to belabor the point, but the following bears repeating. Dismiss the following self-published authors, if you professionally dare: Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, Virginia Wolff, Beatrix Potter, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Anais Nin, Deepak Chopra, Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Zane Grey, William E. B. DuBois, Strunk and White, E.L James, et al. I personally cannot imagine my literary life without them. They cared enough to share their work; they said Yes when others told them No. Good for them. Good for us.

If you are sitting in a well-marketed can of Peaches, jolly good for you. You have my sincerest good wishes and congratulations. But to those of us still struggling to get noticed, lying on the ground in either the sun or the weeds, let’s aim for some mutual respect, and hope that we can all fall into a vat of Peach cobbler. If you know someone with some ice cream, by all means, ask them to bring it.

Dorothy Hagan is the indie-published author of The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean, (2012) seven years in research, writing and publication. (This book is actually a heck of a Peach, and has great Amazon reviews to prove it. Unusual story about a young woman in the offshore world of men. Have a bite. It’s tasty.) Another deliciously published Hagan Peach is The Edge of the Grace Period. This did in fact fall from the same tree, being a companion novel.

Sue Grafton: H is for Hubris

/ dorothyhagan / 2 Comments

The indie-published crowd is in a deservedly righteous dither after Sue Grafton and John Green tossed the lot of us into the “isolated” and “lazy” slush heap of artists. This author will not even validate their positions with a rebuttal. My only response would be the following: Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, Virginia Wolff, Beatrix Potter, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Anais Nin, Deepak Chopra, Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Zane Grey, William E. B. DuBois, Strunk and White, E.L James …self-published…every one. I could keep going but my indie-published, short-cutting fingers are tired. If this is the “lazy” and “isolated” conglomeration of authors of whom I am a part, well, I humbly accept my position within their indolent midst.

The publishing paradigm has shifted. To those on the “traditional” side, my sincerest good wishes and congratulations. But to those of us with the pluck and mettle, the tenacity and persistence, and the temerity to launch our best efforts into the hallowed realm of publication…kudos to you all, my thick-skinned brethren. Keep your chins up and your pens a’ penning.

Dorothy Hagan is the indie-published author of The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean, (2012) seven years in research, writing and publication. (Not a lot of books written about women working in the gritty, offshore world of men. Honest. Go try and find one.) Oh, yeah. And Lazy Hagan also published The Edge of the Grace Period in 2000, POD with IUniverse, before most “traditional” people had even heard of such a thing. Ms. Hagan’s books will never go out of print and will be entirely available when Oprah calls up for the Book Club.

Mounting a Square Hat on a Round Head

/ dorothyhagan / Leave a comment

“But it’s really a good story. Really!”

After seven years of thinking, plotting, writing, revising, submitting, proofing and finally publishing, that precious time comes at last when as the author you get to actually hold your printed, bound, glossy, glowing masterpiece. So you hope, anyway.

But before the euphoria is even allowed to infect your being, you know it’s also time to do what comes most unnaturally to a majority of artists: it’s time to sell your work. Only now it’s called a product. That you need to market. In the marketplace. For money. To strangers. And worse, your friends!

Publishing a book is a very long process, and one I have just recently completed for the second time in my life. It was intense, concentrated and laborious. And at its end I was forced to watch helplessly as my book became “live” electronically via my publisher’s website and online retailers around the world. I waited in anxiousness for the author’s copies to arrive so that I could physically hold my own book for the first time. There is an indelible nose print on my front window as I watched daily for a visit from UPS. (To further my angst, the books arrived on my doorstep sometime early in the morning on a wet, humid day. While stepping out to feed my stray cat, my foot landed smack on top of my delivered, moist books. Yowch.)

But the books did arrive, both hard and soft covers, and they look good. The website is up and progressing, blogs are rolling, Facebook and Twitter announcements are in the pipeline, events are being scheduled…there remains nothing to do except to ask, with all humility, the five hardest words coming from an artist:

“Will you buy my stuff?”

Asking this is well nigh impossible for this creator, but necessary, nonetheless. Turning an author into a marketeer is not unlike trying to pound a square peg into a round hole, or mounting a square hat on a round head, as this case may be. That said, I now humbly ask you to purchase a book, and more than that, read it and tell your friends. Because in the end and in all honesty I can say:

“But it’s really a good story. Really!”