Tag Archives: writing

Sep 23 2026

Help Us Finally Go Home

I never imagined I’d be asking strangers for help, but today I don’t know where else to turn. After spending nearly twenty years trying to rebuild our lives after Hurricane Katrina, we were finally three days away from moving into a new home on the family land where five generations of my family lived. Then everything fell apart. The loan never funded, the home was never delivered, the savings we’d spent years building were gone, and today we’re living in a house we can no longer afford to keep up with.

I’m not asking for help to build my dream home. I’m asking for help because we’re running out of options. For years we’ve patched, repaired, and held this house together with everything we had. Today, the damage to the bathroom, hallway, and one bedroom remains, additional repairs are still needed in the kitchen, and we simply don’t have the savings left to make them after losing everything we invested in the home that was supposed to get us out of this situation.

For me, asking for help has been one of the hardest parts of this entire journey. Like so many people, I kept believing that if I just worked harder, saved a little longer, or found one more solution, we could get through this without anyone ever knowing how difficult things had become. But after exhausting every option we could think of, we’ve reached the point where staying silent won’t solve the problem. Sharing our story isn’t easy, but it’s the only path we have left.

How We Got Here

To understand why we’re asking for help today, I have to go back to August of 2005.

When most people hear “Hurricane Katrina,” they think about the devastation along the Mississippi Gulf Coast or in New Orleans. We lived nearly 100 miles inland, so we never imagined the storm would change our lives the way it did. But the winds were stronger than anyone expected, and our family home suffered severe roof damage that allowed water to pour inside.

That house wasn’t just where we lived. My grandparents built it, my father grew up there, and it’s where I was raising my own children. Five generations of my family have called that land home, and at the time, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Like so many other families, we turned to our insurance company believing they would help us rebuild. Instead, our claim was denied. We suddenly found ourselves in a position we had never expected to be in. We had a home that had been badly damaged, no insurance money to repair it, and nowhere else to go.

So we stayed.

We patched what we could, lived with what we couldn’t, and kept hoping we’d eventually find a way to save our home. What Hurricane Katrina damaged in a single day, time slowly took from us over the years that followed. Every new leak, every section of water-damaged wood, and every repair we had to put off because we simply couldn’t afford it brought us one step closer to losing the place where my family’s story began.

Leaving was never part of the plan, but eventually we reached a point where we could no longer keep up with the repairs. After holding on for years and doing everything we could to make it work, we had no choice but to walk away from the only home we’d ever known.

Starting Over After Katrina

By 2011, we knew we couldn’t stay in our family home any longer. The damage had become more than we could realistically repair, so we purchased a foreclosed house that had been sitting vacant for seven years. It wasn’t the fresh start we’d dreamed of, but it was one we believed we could rebuild.

We weren’t looking for our dream house. We were looking for something we could afford.

The only thing within our budget was a foreclosed house that had been sitting empty for nearly seven years. It needed a tremendous amount of work, but compared to what we were leaving behind, it gave us hope. We emptied our savings, rolled up our sleeves, and spent the next year and a half repairing walls, replacing flooring, painting, and fixing everything we could ourselves. Every paycheck seemed to go right back into that house.

Little by little, it started to feel like we were finally getting our feet back under us. We knew it would never replace the home we had lost, but it was ours, and for the first time in years it felt like maybe life was beginning to settle down.

Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last.

About three years ago, we discovered a water leak that had been quietly causing damage we couldn’t see. By the time we found it, the floor in one bedroom, our only bathroom, and the hallway had already sustained damage. Despite doing everything we could to stop the damage and make temporary repairs, the damage remains because we haven’t had the resources to complete the repairs.

A year later, we noticed the floor beneath our refrigerator beginning to sink. The work that section of the kitchen needs is beyond what we can currently afford, and we know we’ll eventually have to address it. We haven’t had running water in our bathroom sink for years because the plumbing had to be disconnected, and every time another part of the house needs repair, we’re reminded that we’re running out of time.

We’ve spent years working on this house together because that’s what we’ve always done. We fix what we can, save for the next repair, and keep moving forward. But we’ve reached a point where patching it together isn’t enough anymore. The problems are bigger than what we can solve ourselves, and each new repair seems to uncover another one behind it.

Why This Land Means So Much

People have asked why we’ve fought so hard to get back to our old family home and the homestead we were forced to leave behind. The answer is simple. It’s home.

Long before I was born, my grandfather cut timber from that land to build the house where generations of my family would live. Like so many families in rural Mississippi, they made a life with what they had. My grandparents raised cattle, pigs, and chickens, grew vegetables to feed the family, sold the extra produce when he could, and took on odd jobs to help make ends meet. My grandmother sold eggs every year to pay the property taxes. They didn’t have much, but they always found a way to make it work.

By the time I came along, the house had changed some, but it was still home. There was a front porch with wooden columns where our family gathered, birthday parties were celebrated, and stories were shared. There was a Black Jack tree in the front yard with a swing hanging from one of its branches, and three giant oak trees lined the road leading to the house. Those aren’t just details I remember—they’re part of the picture I still carry in my mind whenever someone asks me where I grew up.

One memory has stayed with me more than any other. Somewhere, there’s a photograph of me when I was about four years old. I’m standing in the front yard wearing little brown pants my mom had hand embroidered with flowers, an orange tank top, and holding a plastic rake while pretending to help rake leaves. My hair is blowing in the wind, and behind me is the old green house with its original front porch. I’ve searched every family photo album I can find hoping that picture will turn up. I’d give just about anything to find it again because, to me, it captures what “home” looked like before everything changed.

There are other pictures taken years later, after my dad remodeled the porch, added siding, and painted the house. Then there are the pictures after Katrina. Today, there isn’t a house there at all.

When we prepared the property for the manufactured home, we had to remove what remained of the original house because it had already collapsed. The new home was going to sit in exactly the same place where the old one had stood for generations. I’ll never get back the house I grew up in. I know that, and I’ve finally made peace with it. The people who made it home are gone, and no matter what we build there, it will never look exactly the way it did when I was a little girl standing in the yard with that plastic rake.

For a long time, I thought what I missed was the house. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that isn’t entirely true. I miss the people who filled it with life. I miss family dinners in my grandmother’s kitchen, birthday parties on the front porch, afternoons spent outside until the sun went down, and a time when home simply felt safe. That house represented my past, my childhood, and a huge portion of my life.

I know I can’t get any of that back. The house is gone, and so are many of the people who made it home. But the land is still there. Every time I stand on it, I’m reminded that while I can’t recreate the past, I can build something new for the future.

That’s what this has always been about. Not trying to rebuild the house I lost, but creating a place where my children and, one day, my grandchildren can make memories of their own on the same land that gave me so many of mine.

A Plan That Finally Gave Us Hope

For years, going back to our family land was something we talked about as “someday.” We wanted to believe we would make it home eventually, but it always felt like something far off in the future. Meanwhile, the repairs on the house we were living in had become more than we could realistically keep up with, and eventually we had to stop talking about someday and make a real decision about what came next.

A few months before we began looking at manufactured homes, I drove past the old place for the first time in nearly eight years. I had stayed away because going back was simply too painful. Every visit left me grieving what had been lost, and after a while, I couldn’t keep putting myself through it.

When I pulled up that day, the property was almost unrecognizable. The circle driveway that once went around the house had disappeared beneath years of overgrowth and young pine trees. Tires and trash had been dumped on the land by people who had come onto the property without our knowledge. The growth was so thick that I couldn’t even see what remained of the house, even though it had stood only about a hundred feet from the road.

I sat on the side of the road and cried for nearly half an hour, thinking the same thing over and over: My home is gone.

I think that was the moment I finally understood that we couldn’t keep putting everything off. We’d reached the point where we could no longer keep up with the repairs on our current home, and patching things together was no longer a long-term solution. We had reached a crossroads. We could invest tens of thousands of dollars into a house that continued to need major repairs and commit ourselves to staying there for the rest of our lives, or we could put that same money toward starting over on the land we had always hoped to return to.

Neither option was easy, and we didn’t take the decision lightly. More than anything, we needed a place we could build a future. But if we were going to take on another mortgage and invest that much money into our future, we had to ask ourselves where we wanted that future to be.

A manufactured home seemed like the quickest and most practical way to make that happen. It would allow us to stop investing in a house we could no longer keep up with and finally return to the family land we’d hoped to call home again for nearly twenty years.

Before we signed anything, I asked every question I could think of because we couldn’t afford to get this wrong. My biggest concern was whether we would have to sell our current home before moving into the new one. That wasn’t possible because, despite its condition, it was still the only roof over our heads.

I explained that concern more than once, and each time I was assured it wouldn’t be a problem. We were told we could move forward without selling our current home first, and hearing that changed everything. For the first time in years, we stopped talking about “someday.”

We paid the down payment, worked through the design process, and chose the floor plan that was supposed to become our home. While it was being built, we cleared years of overgrowth from the property, prepared the home site, and completed everything we were asked to do so we would be ready when delivery day arrived.

A few days after the clearing and dirt work were finished, we went back to clean up brush and start making plans. We talked about where we might put a shed, where the carport could go, and what the property would look like once we were finally living there. I took a video that day, and when I watch it now, what stands out most is how happy I was. Because for the first time since we were forced to leave our home after Hurricane Katrina, I had hope that I was going to finally get to go home.

It was the first time since we moved away that going back didn’t end with me crying. For once, I wasn’t standing there grieving the home that was gone. I was looking around and imagining the life we were about to build. For the first time in nearly twenty years, “someday” had become real.

Three Days Before We Were Supposed to Go Home

Three days before our scheduled delivery, my phone rang. I still remember exactly where I was when I answered it because, even now, it’s one of those moments I can replay in my mind as though it happened yesterday.

The person on the other end told me the loan wasn’t going to fund after all. If we wanted to move forward, we would have to sell our current home first.

I was stunned. From the very beginning, I had explained that selling our current home before moving into the new one wasn’t possible. Despite its condition, it was still the only roof over our heads, and that’s why I had asked that question over and over before we ever signed a contract. Every time, I had been assured it wouldn’t be a problem. We were told we could move forward without selling our home first, and we trusted that information when we made one of the biggest financial decisions of our lives.

Now, everything had changed. The home had already been built. Our family land had been cleared. The homesite was ready, and we had spent months preparing for the day we thought we would finally move home. After all of that, we were being told something completely different than what we had been told from the beginning.

The manufactured home was never delivered. We lost the money we had invested, and the property we had worked so hard to prepare sat empty. We weren’t simply back where we had started; we were in a worse position than before because the savings we had planned to use to build our future were gone, and the home we thought would finally take us there never arrived.

Looking back now, I think what hurt the most wasn’t just losing the house itself. It was losing the certainty that, after nearly twenty years of waiting, we were finally going home. For a brief moment, “someday” had become real. Then, with a single phone call, it became “maybe” all over again.

I wish I could say we immediately found another solution, but we didn’t. Instead, we spent the next several months trying to figure out what options we had left and whether there was any way to salvage the future we had worked so hard to build.

Trying to Find Another Way

After the manufactured home fell through, we weren’t ready to give up. Our first instinct wasn’t to ask for help—it was to find another solution. We started making phone calls, asking questions, and looking at every option we could think of to see if there was some way to move forward.

One of the first places we turned was our bank. We hoped there might be a way to borrow against our current home so we could make the repairs it desperately needed or recover enough financially to start over. Instead, we learned that wasn’t going to be possible. It wasn’t the answer we were hoping for, but it forced us to face the reality that our current home could no longer provide a path forward.

We also reached out to family to see if there was any way to bridge the gap. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option either. Like so many families today, everyone has their own financial responsibilities, and no one was in a position to help us with something this significant.

When those options didn’t work out, we didn’t stop trying. I continued working my full-time job while also taking on a second job, putting every dollar I could toward rebuilding what we’d lost. We’ve cut expenses where we can, postponed anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, and continued looking for any realistic path that would allow us to solve this on our own.

The problem has never been a lack of willingness to work for what we need. The problem is that the repairs have become more than we can realistically keep up with.

Today, the damage to the bedroom, bathroom, and hallway remains. The repairs to our kitchen floor are still beyond what we can afford, and we still don’t have a working bathroom sink. Every month that passes brings another repair we simply can’t afford to make. If this were simply a matter of working longer and saving for another year or two, that’s exactly what we would do. But after everything we’ve experienced over the past several years, we honestly don’t believe we’ll be able to keep up with the repairs for another year or two.

That realization was one of the hardest parts of this entire journey. Asking for help was never part of the plan, and it’s not something that comes naturally to either of us. We’ve always believed in working hard, solving our own problems, and doing everything we could with what we had. That’s exactly what we’ve tried to do every step of the way.

This fundraiser isn’t about avoiding the hard work. It’s about running out of time. That’s ultimately what brought us here.

Where We Are Today

Today, we’re still living in the same house we’ve called home since 2011. We take things one day at a time, but the reality is that we’re living in a home that continues to require repairs we simply can’t keep up with. It’s not the future we imagined for ourselves, but it’s the one we’re doing our best to navigate until we can find a way forward.

The good news is that we’re no longer starting from the beginning. We’ve been able to save enough for a down payment, and we finally have a realistic path toward returning to our family land. Our goal has never been a large or elaborate home. We simply want a safe, modest place where we can finally return to the family land and begin rebuilding our lives after everything that’s happened.

What we’re asking for isn’t help paying for the home itself. We’re asking for help covering the essential expenses that remain before we can finally move home. Those include installing a septic system, connecting utilities, purchasing essential appliances, and adding the storage space we’ll need after downsizing from a 2,000-square-foot home that has held more than thirty years of our lives.

Because the new home is much smaller, there simply won’t be room for everything we currently own or for a dedicated workspace. I work a full-time job, a second job that I do from home, and I’m currently working toward my PMP certification through online classes. Having a small outbuilding that can serve as both storage and a home office will allow me to continue earning that second income while also giving us a practical place to keep the things that won’t fit inside the house. It’s not about adding extra space—it’s about making a smaller home work for the life we’re already living.

Every donation, no matter the size, will go directly toward those remaining costs and help us move one step closer to finally going home after nearly twenty years. We’re not asking anyone to buy us a house. We’re simply asking for a little help getting us across the finish line after losing the savings we’d spent years setting aside for these final expenses.

If you’re not in a position to donate, we completely understand. We know times are difficult for many families, and simply taking the time to read our story means more than you probably realize. If you feel comfortable sharing our fundraiser with others, that kindness alone could help us reach someone who is able to make a difference.

For more than twenty years, we’ve done everything we knew to do. We survived Hurricane Katrina, rebuilt a neglected foreclosure with our own hands, saved for years to return to our family land, and when that plan fell apart, we kept looking for another way. This fundraiser isn’t the beginning of our effort—it’s the final piece of a journey that’s been decades in the making.

If you choose to be part of that journey, whether through a donation, sharing our story, or simply keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, please know how deeply grateful we are. Your kindness gives us something we’ve held onto through every setback we’ve faced: hope.

Our dream has never been to build a perfect house. It’s simply been to go home.

To everyone who has taken the time to read our story, shared our story, or donated, thank you. God bless!

If you’d like to learn more about our journey, we’ve been documenting parts of it on TikTok here: Nikki’s Homestead.

View Our Fundraiser on GoFundMe

Jul 18 2017

My Take on Scammers Breaking The Kindle Store

 

Forword: please note this is an opinion piece.

A recent blog post entitled “Scammers Break the Kindle Store” has now been shared on FB more than 5 thousand times in just three days. If you haven’t read the article, I highly recommend it. You can CLICK HERE to read it in its entirety. It’s very interesting, to say the least. I suppose what bothers me the most about this article is it accuses this author of using black hat tactics to gain a #1 spot on Amazon’s paid list with no other proof than the author not having any type of social media presence and had not used any of the “traditional” marketing ploys most indies use – lack of self-promotion via social media platforms and no Bookbub ads, in conjunction with the fact this author is “unknown” to the writer of this article. (As a side note, I’m pretty sure Amanda Hocking did not have a social media platform nor did she use Bookbub before she became one of the first authors to successfully sell a million copies of her own self-published books prior to being offered a 7-figure publishing deal. Oh, and Anne Rice hit the big leagues long before social media was even a thing.)

As I was saying, I would like to point out the Amazon ranking system routinely catapults “unknown” authors into bestseller status. I can’t even begin to describe how many times I’ve seen the words “NYT Bestselling Author” or “USA TODAY Bestselling Author” on the front of book covers on Amazon and have absolutely no clue who these authors are. I would also like to point out an incredibly wild notion – there are other ways to promote books outside of the internet. I know, crazy concept. I’m sure the author of the article actually has very good reasons for thinking this book hit this status with less than ethical practices, just as I know why he chose not to lay out the proof so other people can’t use the tactics to scam the system further. Unfortunately, by not giving a play-by-play and no other proof other than his gut, the entire article has become nothing more than an opinion piece, just like mine. As a matter of fact, I’m going to go so far as to call total bullshit on his entire article and way of thinking. Judging by his reactions to some of the comments, he’s just another author who seems to be frustrated with the entire craptacular we indies are forced to deal with every day.

With that said, I’m about to voice a very unpopular opinion about this, but I’m hoping you will bear with me and read through to the end. At the very least, I hope this will get you thinking, because I honestly do not believe the thousands of indie authors who have been sharing this article fully understands how the publishing world works – and by “publishing world” I mean not just the indie scene, but the trade publishers as well. As I’ve stated many times, I’ve spent the last twenty-six some years in the publishing business, either trying to break into the trade pub scene, learning from it, interacting with both NYT and indie best-selling authors, being an active publisher and indie author, as well as having friends in both the modeling and music industries. To say I’ve learned a lot is a vast understatement. But I digress.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why indie authors are so upset over this. Well, I actually do get why, but it goes back to the reason they are so upset is they fail to see the broader scope of publishing from a business aspect. It’s like the authors who never once think about how their own business practices affect the industry as a whole, so long as they are making money right now.

Let’s look at this from a business standpoint. This type of “black hat” operations happens all the time with traditional publishers. The only difference is they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to “underground” marketing and PR firms to do the very same thing and are pretty much keeping how they operate their business a closely guarded secret shared only among other big-boy publishers. While this is going on every single day with bestseller books in the trade world, with millions of dollars being invested and earned off of Amazon, we have indies who want to crucify the indie authors who are following in the big boy’s footsteps using the resources at their disposal – which would be Fiverr and the like. It’s not pretty, and we have fewer “underground” resources at our disposal simply because we are not rubbing elbows with the big boy publishers enough to be “in the know” when it comes to which “secret” firms we should be hiring. We have to ask around, and doing so means our business becomes everyone else’s business. Remember, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and to be honest, as indies, even if we did have access to the same resources as the big boy publishing houses, most of us simply do not have the money required to hire these people.

So let’s look at a few case studies. Hugh Howey admitted he used his own money, one of these underground market PR firms, and a whole lot of Fiverr people to buy his way onto the NYT bestsellers list and pad his serialized book with fake reviews. He openly admitted this on his own website and did an in-depth interview outlining how he went about achieving his letters. And yet no one went raging to Amazon demanding his account be revoked, nor did Amazon demand his royalty payments be paid back. So pray tell how this is any different?

Purchasing dozens of “fake” reviews through businesses like Fiverr is no different than the author who band together all their family, friends, and fellow readers/authors to create huge review/reader teams and then not only enlist these huge review teams to leave reviews but oftentimes pay them as well to leave dozens upon dozens of reviews of a book which was just released. You ever see a book that literally has only been live for two hours with two hundred plus glowing 5-star reviews on it and wonder how they managed it? That’s how they did it. Is doing that any more ethical than paying a bunch of random strangers to do the same thing? Does knowing the reviewers somehow make it okay as opposed to finding a complete stranger to do it for you? The only difference is Amazon’s ToS says you can’t “pay” for reviews, but they do not specify what “payment” is specifically. We all just assume they mean we can’t spend money but giving someone a book in exchange for a review is okay. In my eyes, it’s still payment. Just because Amazon lets us get away with it in their world does not make it an ethical business practice.

I’ve seen authors gather together these large teams and then pay them to pre-order their book so when it hits, it shoots up the Amazon ranking with the potential to earn bestseller letters. Yet authors are okay with this because so many of them do it. How is enlisting these large review teams any different than someone buying the same exact services through places like Fiverr? Just because it is not technically against Amazon’s ToS does not necessarily make it ethical business practices.  Yes, large trade publishers hire people to leave reviews yet indie authors seem okay with that, but are quick to crucify an indie who pads their reviews through Fiverr. Either way, the ToS are being broken no matter how much you want to justify it, the only difference is one of them everyone is doing, and the other one is being done just as often, authors just don’t talk about it.

Everyone keeps saying what this author did was not “ethical” and it displaces “legitimate, hardworking authors” right out of the ranking. “Hardworking”? You mean “hardworking” like erotica authors who have used a few friends with blogs to amass a huge army of rabid fans who not only cause his books to shoot up the Amazon charts, but an author who then turns a blind eye to said fans attacking other authors and leaving bad reviews on their books? You mean “hardworking” like those authors who gather up the large review teams, pay them to preorder their books, and have them leave glowing reviews on their work as soon as it goes live? You mean “hardworking” like those authors who spent thousands upon thousands of dollars using private PR firms to buy their way onto these bestseller lists? Or “hardworking” like the authors who join boxed sets and then spend thousands of dollars gifting the anthology right onto the USA Today’s bestsellers list? Or “hardworking” like the ring leaders of these anthologies who not only learned how to game the system, but who then instruct their 30+ authors to do less than ethical marketing and break a huge chunk of Amazon’s TOS just so they can say they earned their letters? No matter how much indies or trade publishers try to justify it, black hat tactics are black hat tactics, even when they do not go against Amazon’s ToS. So I will once again ask, how is any of that different from what this author is accused of?

I’ve had Anne Rice herself tell me on more than one occasion that I should use all the tools at my disposal, which means calling in every “favor” I’m owed by family and friends and have them leave me a nice review on my books. It flies in the face of Amazon’s TOS yet trade publishers do the exact same thing. They pay other big-name authors to write some small, glowing review to pop on the front cover or include in the blurb of a new release. And you know how movie trailers are quick to boast how the NY Times, USA Today, and other critics are calling this new movie “The must-see movie of the year”? Yeah, you bet your sweet ass they were paid to write those reviews. It’s extremely commonplace with the big trade publishers, yet no one is demanding Stephen King or EL James’ heads on a platter because their publisher engaged in questionable business practices to try to launch a new book into bestseller status. It’s being done en mass, yet indies either seem oblivious to it or just choose to ignore it. Just because they are large publishers does not make it any more ethical than an indie doing the same thing. So if trade publishers get to do it, then why not indies?

It concerns me greatly that indie authors are quick to bring out the pitchforks against this one author, yet they are more than willing to turn a blind eye to the authors who are gathering up huge review teams to leave stunning reviews on their new releases, or the authors who allow their fans to openly attack any other author they deem a ‘threat’ to their own success. They are quick to join the author who can launch their own books into bestseller status knowing they are doing things against Amazon’s TOS and then only get upset when they lose all the money they invested into the scheme without hitting those coveted lists. Again, just because Amazon is allowing it doesn’t make it ethical.

I do not quite understand why indies seem to think it is okay for publishers to hire these firms who then hire third parties to purchase these books en mass, thus skyrocketing the books into bestseller status, or think it is perfectly fine for them to use marketing and promotion techniques to create a grassroots movement thus tricking the general population into believing a certain book is just the most wonderful book on the planet. We all know which book I’m referring to, yet no one is demanding she be stripped of her bestseller title or give back the millions of dollars she earned when her publisher used the bit of momentum she had already started on her own to catapult a poorly written piece of literature into the history books.

So why are authors okay with turning a blind eye to the indies who have huge review teams pre-order these books and leave dozens of shiny 5-star reviews on these books within a few hours of release? Why are they okay with joining boxed sets where authors are gifting copies of the set to people, knowing these gifted copies count toward their sales numbers. Regardless of whether you are gifting 3% or 99% of your total sales numbers, regardless of whether you are giving away copies to get a few hundred reviews, regardless of whether you are hiring people off of Fiverr to buy your book, pad your reviews, or “paying” your review team by gifting them swag, paperbacks, or other “rewards” for being a part of your team, ultimately all these tactics still do the one thing which goes against Amazon’s ToS- these practices ultimately manipulate the sales ranking.

People seem to forget while Amazon may allow you to gift copies of books, it doesn’t mean you should do it to the point where it is actively affecting your sales numbers. While Amazon may allow you to give a book away in exchange for a review, it does not mean authors should be doing it to the point where they have so many reviews in such a short amount of time it is actively affecting their visibility, ranking, and preferential treatment by Amazon to give those books with more reviews more exposure. Yet this is happening on a regular basis with both trade and indie books. So why are indies so quick to lynch one of their own over something like what this article talks about but are perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to everything else that is going on? Saying it is unfair to other, legitimate and “hardworking” authors is a total crock of bullshit to be honest. Trade publishers enlist underhanded practices to skew the rankings and both the NYT and USA Today bestsellers lists are highly vetted. The only difference between indies and trade publishers is Amazon is willing to turn a blind eye to anyone who is making them money.

While it certainly sucks this guy probably made a good $100K or more through this practice, how much did he pay out of his own pocket to get that ranking? I’ve seen my own books go from the 2 MILLION ranking mark to breaking the top 50K overall paid with only 3 sales. I’ve had authors tell me they had a book go from total obscurity to cracking the top 50 overall paid on less than a hundred total sales. And yet I myself have sold nearly one thousand copies of a single book in just under twelve hours and not have my overall ranking move more than a few places. The bottom line is, we don’t know how many sales or page reads it took for this guy to hit that bestselling status. It could have been tens of thousands of sales or it could have only been a few dozen. He could have easily spent a quarter of a million dollars to make a few thousand bucks or he could have spent $50 to make a few hundred thousand. Because of the way Amazon’s ranking system works, we simply have no idea what was actually gained off of this other than a bestselling ranking. It’s all purely speculation.

While it would be nice if everyone were playing on a level field, that simply is not the case nor will it ever be. So long as trade publishers are left to apply the same black hat techniques then indies are always going to be at a disadvantage. Even if Amazon began banning, removing, and revoking accounts and books of indies who engage in such behavior, there are still the trade publishers who are using questionable means to launch books into bestseller status, a practice which is always going to put indie authors at the bottom of the totem pole as far as both Amazon and readers are concerned.

It’s just another example of anyone who has the resources and money will always come out on top of this game, just like with any other business. It’s why I can’t exactly whine about not “making” it as an author when I know full well it takes a lot of money to hire professionals who know how to get me to where I need to be in order to make a name for myself. I simply do not have the money, and while I’d love to see those who do have the money be punished for doing what I cannot even though I may be a better writer, until Amazon starts enforcing that throughout their publishing platform and holding trade publishers to the same standards, I hardly see anything changing other than to make it even more difficult for indie authors to get a decent chunk of the publishing pie. And in all honesty, whining about such authors who do somehow manage to play with the “big boys” isn’t going to help any of us out. If anything, it just makes it that much more difficult for us to be seen.

First it’s this guy, but then what? They are already taking down reviews if the writer of the review is thought to somehow “know” the author. What happens when we are no longer able to have any type of social media platform with our readers because Amazon is removing all of our reviews? What happens when unverified reviews are no longer allowed because authors start complaining that giving away ARCs in exchange for a review is “unfair” to those who can’t find a huge review team? It certainly is unfair, but what if authors start complaining about it to such an extent that Amazon bans those types of reviews? What happens when boxed sets are banned because of all the shady tactics that are used to launch those into bestseller status?

The point, dear authors, is –  be careful what you wish for. Nothing about the publishing game is fair, least of all to indies. We have to be smarter, more cunning, and somehow manage to dance toe-to-toe with the big boys with a whole hell of a lot less money and nowhere near the connections. The more you complain about authors using the resources at their disposal, the harder it becomes for all of us to make it in the industry. I’d hate to know gifting copies no longer counted toward sales, that Amazon no longer allowed unverified purchase reviews, that giving out ARCs for reviews was no longer an option, and that the small readership I have thanks to social media was all for nothing because Amazon would no longer let anyone who was following me on social media review my books, even if they purchased them through Amazon on their own. It’s a slippery slope, and once one person starts screaming “unfair”, it’s just a matter of time before people start pointing out the tactics which are at the very core of being indie as being “unfair” practices as well.

 

 

 

 

Oct 22 2014

Advice from Random House – The Hard Truth from Editors that Every Author Needs to Hear

I am no stranger to the indie scene, nor the trade publishing scene. In recent months, however, I have noticed a growing trend among authors who are constantly losing their cool and ranting all over FaceBook, blogs, Twitter, and writing groups about the bad reviews they are getting from reviewers. It’s something that I can no longer sit idly by and watch as countless authors step up onto a soapbox that they have no business being on in the first place.

For now, I’m going to play devil’s advocate. As I said, I am no stranger to the publishing game, neither indie nor trade. I began my decent into this dog-eat-dog world some twenty-three odd years ago, when I was but sixteen, when I first started sending out query letters to every publishing house in the country. I was met by nothing but rejection letters and a lot of well-meaning editors who were more than willing to give me advice on what all I was doing wrong, and what I needed to work on to become a better writer.

A lot of what I heard from editors was cut-to-the-bone insulting. It hurt, a LOT. I cried an ocean of tears the first few years I spent trying to get published.  I, like so many other aspiring authors, thought I had written an absolute masterpiece beyond compare.  I could not understand why they were not jumping all over themselves to publish me. Their advice couldn’t possibly hold any type of truth to it. After all, all of my family and friends all raved about how well I had done. These editors had to be doing this out of spite because their own writing careers had failed.  They just wanted to take out their own inadequacies on good writers, ruining their chances of ever becoming published. Because, let’s face it, if there was a single shred of truth to anything they were saying, it would mean I was no where near as good a writer as I thought. Worse, it would mean that maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be the one thing on this planet I really wanted to be good at, and that was weaving a tantalizing tale.

I will admit that it took me YEARS of writing and editing other people’s work before I realized that 99% of what those editors told me over the years had been 100% truth. It took me even longer to admit that I actually NEEDED to hear the earth-shattering truth as to just how gawd-awful my first attempts at writing truly were. They were not secretly out to destroy me or my career; they were trying to get it through my thick skull that NO ONE writes well the first time around, and that EVERYONE needs to practice, practice, practice in order to hone their writing skills. It took me a while, but I finally stopped whining about how they were all plotting against me and actually looked at my writing through their eyes. Only then, once I stopped being so full of myself and to actually look at the work without any emotional attachment, that I realized they were all RIGHT. Most of my first few attempts at writing novels truly sucked eggs.

The self-publishing industry has done authors a great injustice because there is no longer editors standing in the way telling authors exactly what improvements they need to make to their manuscript before it can be published. Today’s fly-by-night, work-at-home editors are out to make a few quick bucks, and the scene has been flooded with phony basement-built publishing houses filled with ‘editors’ who will take anyone’s manuscript, tell them how greatly written it is, and be more than happy to publish it on Amazon for a cut of the royalties.

It’s a business built out of scores of poor, unsuspecting writers who are so eager to become published that they will do, and believe, anything, so long as they get to see that book in print. These people never stop to think that, out of hundreds of thousands of submissions sent in to the several hundred publishing houses in the country each year, only about 1/3 of them ever get any type of contract. So why on earth would some no-name publishing house suddenly take their first attempts at writing and be willing to publish them? It never occurs to these writers that these companies are not about quality literature and making your manuscripts the best it can be; they are only out to piggy-back off of the little bit of royalties you might can make them if you have a strong enough social media presence. These writers have never had a professional editor tell them the honest truth about their manuscripts. And since none of them have ever had any type of rejection letters or had anyone to tell them the cold, hard truth of just how badly written their work really is, it has left them unable to adequately deal with reviewers who not only know what makes up a good book, but also may be editors and authors themselves.

I can honestly say that, as a freelance editor with nearly two decades’ experience, a good 95% of what I have seen come across my FaceBook feed would NEVER be allowed to see the light of day by any self-respecting, professional editor. At least, not as-is.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received in a rejection letter came to me when I was about twenty years old , and it came from an editor from Random House. The rejection letter I received (and ripped to shreds in a fit of rage) called my work ‘amateurish’ and my writing style ‘bland.’ The editor went on to say that it was ‘painfully obvious’ (one of my favorite things to say now) that this was my first attempt at writing a novel (it was) and as such he had this advice to give to all aspiring writers: Never try to publish your first book, your second book, or even your third book, because it takes a writer approximately four novels before they settle into their ‘writing voice’ and really get a feel for what they are doing.

I cannot possibly stress how right this editor was. I have seen it happen time and time again, not just in the indie community, but in the trade publishing industry as well. Those who like to read series have no doubt noticed the change in an author’s style as the series progressed, the storyline becoming richer, the characters more tangible, and the overall flow of the writing much more palatable. Whether you like to admit it or not, the first thing that you write is going to be utter crap, pure and simple. The second thing is not going to be much better.

Now that I have adequately pissed off all the authors reading this, let me say that there is hope for every single writer out there, and it comes in the form of criticism and practice. A lot of authors are cutting their noses off to spite their face by NOT listening to all those negative reviews. Sure, it’s easy to chalk it all up to haters, jealousy, people just trying to pull you down. And while there ARE legitimate cases of weird people out there who make it their sole mission in life to ruin an author, most reviewers’ only intent is to warn people away from a book they deemed truly heinous.

We have all seen the mountains of astro-turfed reviews sitting on independently published “Amazon Best Sellers,” reviews  that are all the work of family, friends, fellow authors, ass-kissing bloggers and hundreds of street team members all singing the praises of an author. So you buy the book, get a chapter or two into it and wonder how on earth anyone could think it was actually a good book. So you start looking at the one-star reviews and realize that it’s not just you, there actually ARE people out there who thought the book stunk as much as you did.

But now here’s the question: how many of those authors blew a gasket on FaceBook and proclaimed to the social media world that they were being ‘picked-on,’ ‘bullied,’ or otherwise had jealous people ‘hating’ on them because of a few bad reviews? If you see any of them doing this, what is your first reaction? Chances are you feel like telling them to grow up, and take some notes, because you actually thought the book was terribly written as well.

You’ve heard the old saying, “The proof is in the pudding.” Well, in the publishing business, editors like to say, “The proof is in the one-star reviews.” It doesn’t matter how many perfect reviews you have if people are also complaining that your manuscript sounds childish and is an editing disaster. It’s one thing when someone just doesn’t like a story for no reason other than they just couldn’t get into the storyline. There’s not a whole lot you can do when they hate romantic comedies but read it anyway and still hated it. However, when you have people complaining about actual, tangible problems within your manuscript that an editor would have warned you about, such as typographical errors, bland writing style, formatting issues, etc., then it’s time to stand up and take notice.

I have often told writers, “If you want someone to stroke your ego and tell you how great your writing is, go talk to your mother. If you want to actually learn how to become a better writer, come talk to me.” What separates a mediocre writer with great potential from a mediocre writer without any potential is ability. Not the ability to get better, but the ability to WANT to get better. A mediocre writer who thinks they don’t need to practice or listen to criticism or to improve on their craft will never be anything BUT a mediocre writer. They will turn their noses up at the fountain of help that reviewers are offering, think none of it applies to them, and will continue to float around in their self-absorbed bubble until one day their rose-tinted glasses come off and they see their writing for not only what it IS, but what it COULD HAVE BEEN this whole time, if they had only listened and taken heed to what others had been trying to tell them.

This is not meant to discourage. Writers who are willing to listen to the criticism and try to get better WILL get better. It is those writers who want to throw pity-parties about how everyone is against them that will not improve their craft. Writers need to be encouraged, yes, but they need the RIGHT kind of encouragement. So if you want to get better, to really, truly become a better writer and have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it in the writing world, you are going to have to put on your big-girl panties, listen when others are trying to help you better your writing, and DEAL with the criticism. Otherwise, you are just another lonely, bitter author raving on FaceBook about how the whole world is out to ruin you. No, they’re not. But they may be trying to tell you to take that manuscript to a decent editor who isn’t afraid to tell you that you suck.

Jun 9 2014

Bret Michaels, I Hope You Wanted to be a Doctor When You Grew Up……

The hallway was always quiet at this time of the night, the hum of the florescent lighting the only sound breaking the endless silence. In the distance came a sudden, loud explosion, shattering the stillness of the night. Screams could be heard coming closer as muffled gunfire echoed through the halls. The overhead intercom system crackled to life, the static-filled voice tiny in the increasingly loud sounds of fighting. “Paging Dr. Sychak, Dr. Bret Sychak. You are needed in the lab. Bring security backup.”

Writing is fun, no doubt about it. When someone ticks you off, you can always make them into the bad guy in some twisted storyline, kicking their ass six ways from Sunday. And depending on just how messed up your imagination is (in my case, it would be a long stretch with serial killer Ashton Jones BEFORE he grew fangs and a conscience), those who have wronged you can either have a quick demise or a long, drawn-out and very painful time in the story. You get to make up worlds, rules, control everything and everyone in that world (usually, but all us writers know how our characters like to grow minds and opinions of their own and refuse to do what we tell them to do). You get to take readers on the most wondrous adventures, limited only by your own imagination. And for some of us, me included, those imaginations seem absolutely limitless.

There really is nothing like being a writer. For me, the majority of my characters are based in part from someone important in my life. The antagonist Sergeant First Class Steven Hall is a real person who really is a Sergeant First Class in the air force. He was a very dear friend of mine who I forever immortalized in the ongoing BTSR series. Ethereal is the name of a character I made up and used back when I was heavily into online RP games. The LeeLee character that will be introduced in an upcoming book in the series was another one of my RP characters. Her love interest, Akito, is based off of another online friend who also played in the games and is near and dear to my heart. The Vampire Stealth was coined in part after the wonderful Don Henrie. Because my characters are molded after real life people, they seem as real and are as dear to me as the people who inspired them. For me, these characters ARE real, as real as anyone else that I know in my day to day life.

Now I have decided to forever immortalize my mentor, Bret Michaels, into the upcoming novel IMMORTAL SINS, the next book in the BEFORE THE SUN RISES series. I plan to write two different characters into the series, the first one using his birth name and made into a doctor, Dr. Bret Sychak. The second appearance made by Bret Michaels will be in a yet –to-be announced novel. I may even bring him into another novel in the BTSR series before it is all said and done. Bret is an incredible person and has inspired me in so many ways throughout the years that the very least I can do for him is to write him into a book, or maybe even two or three.  And if I’m very VERY lucky, he might one day read all about those characters and all those characters that so many other people in my life have inspired.

Creating characters after those who have inspired me and then writing them into my storylines is my way of paying homage to them. It’s my way of saying “thanks” for all they have done for me directly and indirectly, for all their inspiration. It is a fun thing to do, and I do so hope that no one will ever become angry because of it. For writers, creating characters after real people not only help the characters feel more real, but it allows them to pay a great respect and a big “thank you” to these people in their own way.

So if you find yourself suddenly immortalized in an author’s novel, take a moment to realize that you have been greatly honored by the author, for they are paying you homage in the most sacred and special way that an author can. You touched their lives so greatly that they saw fit to coin a character after you – even if it is one getting his ass kicked six ways from Sunday.

Dec 5 2010

Keep It Simple, Stupid!

For anyone who has ever set foot inside an English composition class, you are probably pretty familiar with the K.I.S.S. acronym.  Today I’d like to discuss the two extremes of this very misleading, and often misunderstood, writing tool.

On the far end of the extreme are those writers who take this acronym literally and think that simple everything is better:  simple plotline, simple sentences, simple characters, simply dialogue.  This is all well and fine…if you are writing childrens books.  If you are aiming for anyone with more than a 5th grade education, you are going to have to get out of the “See Jane run” mentality.  A manuscript written for someone above the age of thirteen should not sound like it was written by an 11 year old unless:

1.  it actually was written by an 11 year old

2.  you are Stephanie Meyer

3.  you intended for it to sound this way because it is based around the view-point of an 11 year old

Most English instructors make the very grave mistake of telling their students to write everything on a 5th grade level.  Okay, unless you are writing for an audience who is 12 years or younger, then anyone else is going to have more than a 5th grade education.  I have always said that I have more than a 5th grade education, I think on a level higher than a 5th grader, therefore I write subject matter and in a style that is meant for those with more than a 5th grade education.  Most adults who read something as simply written as the Twilight saga are often bored to tears.  (I know I sure was.) They want something that will challenge their minds, intrigue their imagination, and totally engross them in the storyline.  “Here comes Edward” just isn’t going to cut it for the majority of the adult population.  Don’t be afraid to use a large vocabulary if you have one.  You are not the only adult in the world to know big words.  Just be careful to not use too many at one time, try to use more common words that a lot of people would know instead of just a few doctors or lawyers or those with a much higher education, and always look for new, if somewhat simpler words, to use in place of always saying the same thing.

For instance, writing “He exited the building” sounds much better than “He left the building.”  While ‘exited’ isn’t exactly a big word, it gives the illusion of a much more sophisticated sound.  Remember that having a large vocabulary doesn’t just mean knowing a lot of different words;  knowing a lot of different words that mean the same thing is not only included in that vocabulary count, but as a writer, it will help you tremendously.  Other ways to write that same sentence include:

**He departed from the building.

**He headed off into the unknown, leaving the building behind.

**He disappeared out the door, leaving the building behind.  

**He vanished out the door and down the steps.

As you can see, there are many ways to write “He left the building.”  All of the above examples are fairly simply stated, but the way they are written spices things up, uses different words to keep the reader interested, and is not so simple that it would make the reader want to bang their head on their desk in frustration.  That is not to say that using something as simple as “He left the building” should never be used.  But if you are having to write the same scenario over and over, learning new ways to state the same thing keeps the reader interested and keeps the writer from falling into a rut.

On the other end of the spectrum are those writers who write so far above the regular Joe’s head that no one without a Ph. D. would be able to understand what was going on.  This, of course, is fine if the work in question was being written specifically for doctors.  However, if the work is supposed to be for regular, everyday people, it is only going to infuriate the reader and make them feel like an idiot.  Most people, myself included, have the mentality that people use big words to make themselves sound smarter than they actually are.  This means that you, by default, are not as smart as they.  And trust me, no one likes to feel like an idiot.  Not to mention that no one is going to continue to read something that requires them to look up the definition of every other word in a sentence.   

When it comes to writing, a very important first step is deciding who your target audience is.  If you are aiming for children, then you are naturally going to have to write in very simple terms.  If you are writing for adults, however, you are going to have to find a happy medium.  Write things too simply and your audience will die from boredom before they hit the second chapter.  Write too far above their heads and they will quickly tire of trying to figure out what all the fancy words mean.  No one really needs to know that you secretly have a vocabulary that rivals Merriam-Webster.  What does matter is that you can choose the correct words from your vast vocabulary that will appeal to the most people.