Posts Tagged ‘creativity & inspiration’
Monday, October 28th, 2013
Where do you buy your books?
I’ve heard in author discussion recently that the publishing press and the traditional publishers they front for want us to still buy that 70% of all books sold are still sold in bricks and mortar stores.
If they’re talking about only print books, and maybe hard cover books or best-selling authors (and I mean the ones who sell millions of copies of each release), then, yeah, I’ll buy that. And if you’re one of those authors who can score a decent hard cover print run or for whom it doesn’t matter where you sign your next contract you’ll sell because you’re already branded, then New York must seem quite flattering and attractive for you.
If you’re mid-list author or a newbie, or even some of the best-selling authors I know (who’ve for years been hitting lists left and right and USED to score tasty hard cover print runs but not so much anymore), you aren’t buying the above statistic any more than I am. Because you live in the real world where digital is the new mid-list, mass market platform and traditional publishers have no clue how to make digital publishing work except for the branded, and for the branded the money’s still in physical stores.
In the real world, at least in commercial fiction,we want to see our books in stores, but we know that 70% of our sales won’t happen there. At least we hope not, because print distribution more than sucks, it’s becoming non-existent.
I write for Amazon. Montlake. They’ve made me more money in a year (my first novel with them launched the end of Oct., ‘12) than my primary traditional publisher has in my entire career (and that would be over 8 years of being “successful” on their lists). Montlake finds readers who love my work (reviews prove that), buy almost exclusively digital (95% of my sales) and come back for more (proof that my new team understands their marketing business and doesn’t care that we’ve been blacklisted from most physical stores). They’ve sold more of each title so far (including the one that’s currently been out for just a couple of months) than my traditional publisher could through their “successful” print distribution when I walked away.
Do I wish that my Mimosa Lane books were in print bookstores?
I do. Print readers would love them, too, and I trust my publisher to make that connection for me when they can.
Do I regret that I’m making TEN TIMES the royalty rate on my digital sales at Amazon Montalke than I have at any of my traditional publishing houses?
I do not.
Do I believe the publishing press that doesn’t want digital publishing to be the end of the print publishing model as we know it (notice I don’t say the end of print publishing, just that the way it’s always been done is going to have to change) includes my and my peer’s digital sales in their calculation of “book sales” to come up with their 70% statistic?
Don’t make me laugh.
Tags: Amazon, Amazon Publishing, Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, digital publishing, indie publishing, inspiration, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, publishing, reader, romance, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Posted in How You Write, Publishing Isn't for Sissies | No Comments »
Monday, October 7th, 2013
You wait, a storm’s chaos beyond your night window. The long summer, an overly-warm fall, cling fiercely. A thunderstorm in October.
It feels like forever, as if there will always be more. Steamy humidity. Suffocating. Like moving through warm water that never cools. You long for the fierceness to break, for the dark storm, this weary season, to pass.
You do not expect such glory.
Morning rises. Trees rain drops of watery sunlight. Leaves chant with each sway of limb and breeze. It’s safe. Come out. Play. You inhale, and you know.
It’s because of the storm, this beauty.
Trust the long nights. The chaos.
Morning magic comes in its own time.
Embrace the rain beyond the window, the storm within. When change is ready for you, step into that glorious opening. Live. And begin the wait again.
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, balance, creativity & inspiration, equilibrium, Families, family, family drama, fighters, heroes, hope, inspiration, Love on Mimosa Lane, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, promise, relationships, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, tribbles, Women’s Fiction, writer, writer resource
Posted in Anna's Soul of the Matter | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 25th, 2013
Read another segment of my new non-fiction writing project, “How You Write,” HERE.
For those who want more for now, until I pull all the past posts into the new book, check out my blog writing craft series.
Look for more fun, inspirational and other crazy stuff on the blog soon!
Missing everyone bunches!
~~Anna
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, How You Write, inspiration, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, reader, romance, Wattpad, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | 1 Comment »
Monday, September 23rd, 2013
Followed my How We Write blog series? How YOU write is the novel project I’ve been waiting to launch forever.
Join me over on Wattpad…
Or wait for the posts to crop up here on the blog.
I’m SUPER excited.
Hope you are, too.
And, yes, I’m back ;o) It’s been a crazy few months of finishing yet another book, burning out, revising regardless, promoting a new release, and getting my feet back under me. But I’m back.
I’ve missed you all!
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, How You Write, inspiration, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, reader, romance, Wattpad, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 14th, 2013
What wouldn’t you sacrifice for the ones you love? What makes family real? Small communities are so beautiful and picturesque…but what’s going on under the surface?
When I create and explore character, current events inspire me and challenge them. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles must be tackled, for the families in my books to be happy and succeed. And isn’t that pretty much a slice of every day life for the rest of us, too? We learn what life and family and love are really about, when we’re faced with the very real possibility of losing everything.
We see who and what we really are, by how we respond to life’s unpredictable curves and twists.
I love flawed families. I write happily-ever-after, but I do it as realistically as possible–which means I hold my characters feet to the fire a bit more than the average writer. My heroine in Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Sam Perry, and her husband Brian have fought their way back from an unimaginable tragedy–Sam witnessed 9/11 first-hand, as a preschool teacher in one of the many schools at the base of the World Trade Center Complex. She’s still wounded by her experience, but she’s still fighting for the life she wants, the way the rest of us must get up each day and struggle to make that day mean more than the last. Her struggles and her determination to overcome them are inspiring. Her marriage seems strong, if strained, and she’d do anything to become the kind of mother her children deserve. Anything?, I find myself asking…
How far is Sam really willing to go? As she and Brian face the truth about what their next step together needs to be, will they step up or back away?
Are any of us really ready to win the freedom we’ve always wanted–when it will mean putting everything we’ve thought we needed on the line? Are we ready to see what loving ourselves and our families with all of our hearts can really look and feel like?
Freedom from past loss and mistakes and fear. Freedom from being chained to confusion and protecting ourselves and failing even when we’re “succeeding.” Freedom from what we are, despite ourselves, so we can claim what we were always meant to be. What would that freedom feel and look and be like? (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, Families, family, family drama, family saga, fighters, Grief Recovery, grief support, Ground Zero, heroes, hope, inspiration, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, promise, PTSD, relationships, Robert Frost, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Women’s Fiction
Posted in Anna's Novels, Anna's Soul of the Matter | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, August 7th, 2013
I’ve just taken a week off. To be honest, I need more time away. Does that sound familiar–the lure of distance and silence and being still? Haven’t we all lost ourselves somewhere like that–nowhere–a time or two?
We need more off-the-grid than our busy lives allow. But how much “down” is enough? When must “doing” become the goal again, even though we’ll never stop needing the opposite?
There’s something eternally good-feeling about the nothing of zero responsibility.
Yet we want to be productive, too. We build and we push and we create and we dream and bring to life. Whatever our jobs, we do them because we have ambition and drive and discipline. But within us is a deep well of silence, forever wanting. This quietness must be fed, for us to be healthy.
Nosier, bustling objectives reclaim our daily focus faster than any “breaking away” can outrun life. Yet an inner call for peace lies in wait, continuously biding time, ever demanding. It’s a tricky balance. And when we allow things to go off-kilter–say by taking a much-needed week away from everything–equilibrium can be a bitch to grapple back.
I’ve focused on one goal, an important one, for months now. It’s attained, and I couldn’t be prouder. But… What next? As I survey the overwhelming demand of everything that’s been put off–piles of “I’ll do that tomorrow, or next week, or next month…”–I look at what once seemed easily done later, and now I see daunting obstacles.
I explained this waking up to my husband, as being like watching Tribbles multiply.
You push aside just one or two things, to stay tuned into an important goal, to the exclusion of every distraction. When you next pick up your head, you find ten of the wee furry beasties lurking about. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, balance, creativity & inspiration, equilibrium, Families, family, family drama, fighters, heroes, hope, inspiration, Love on Mimosa Lane, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, promise, relationships, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, tribbles, Women’s Fiction, writer, writer resource
Posted in Anna's Soul of the Matter | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
The words of Robert Frost have long been a muse for artists. He is one of my literary heroes. His words, even just a few of them, inspire thought and creativity and memory and vision for the future. His work feels; therefore, so do I, as I read him. I meet new characters. His emotion connects. His themes inspire deeply. He makes me want to write things that invite the same honest connection.
His poetry, his essays, quotes from his interviews and day-to-day life… They are glimpses into what he saw and thought and felt. They challenge me to search for new and uncharted discoveries of my own.
So much of RF’s soul lives on in what he’s shared…
I’ve read him so often, I knew exactly which quotes from his works I wanted to use in my second Seasons of the Heart novel. I was inspired by concepts, first, and then by the characters they helped me bring to life. And even though the quotes couldn’t remain in the published novel, each one still lives within the pages I penned with them in mind.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane, at its heart, is about teachers and learning. It’s about waking up to the world you have now, instead of allowing difficulties from the past, no matter how great, to define who and what you can be. It’s about learning from those we surround ourselves with, and letting our lives become something others draw strength from in return. It’s about sharing. It’s about heart.
No matter our challenges, we can learn and teach and help others do the same. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, Families, family, family drama, fighters, heroes, hope, inspiration, Love on Mimosa Lane, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, promise, relationships, Robert Frost, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Women’s Fiction
Posted in Anna's Novels, Anna's Soul of the Matter | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 24th, 2013
We all grapple with finding our secure place in this world. Some of us are forced to live the reality that NOTHING is guaranteed to us in this life–security, first and foremost–more in our faces than others. Every time I see a tragedy on TV, I want to hug those whose lives are being disrupted by the chaos swamping them. And when I hear a survivor talk of finding hope again, I want to cheer louder than ever, because THAT’s the reality that feeds me and keeps me dreaming and shows me that, no matter my challenges, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to give up either. We all need something to hold onto. We’re all fighting for the same hope and security and peace that life wouldn’t be the same without.
The comments on yesterdays’ post mean so much to me. I don’t write easy-to-read stories. At least not from Page One.
I write heroes, through and through. But the true hero for me is one who bottoms out in a way most of us wouldn’t recover from, and then soars to new heights because of their faith and love and willingness to fight until they grapple their heart and soul back into believing.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane is a survivor’s story. Not just our heroine, who was a school teacher at Ground Zero (we meet Sam first in Christmas on Mimosa Lane, where she steals every scene she’s in). But her husband–who’s stood by her side, at the expense of healing completely himself, all the years that he’s waited for her to come fully back to herself after the PTSD and trauma of everything she saw and felt and experiences on that awful day more than a decade ago. And their Chandlerville community and neighbors on Mimosa Lane. They’re survivors and heroes, too, tested on the first day of our story by a tragedy ripped from contemporary headlines: a school shooting that I swear was part of Three Days’s design, long before Sandy Hook happened.
I could have pulled back. I could have not written the more challenging things I’d intended out of the story. But these characters were already who they are, and they wouldn’t have been the heroes the were destined to become (or had the happily ever afters I wanted for them) if I’d pulled my punches. Happily ever after is essential to me as a creative writer, but it’s the journey to that beautiful place of discover that inspires me, as much as the destination. And this is one of my favorite journeys and endings of all! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
The Romance Reviews calls what I’ve created cathartic. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, Families, family, family drama, fighters, heroes, hope, inspiration, Love on Mimosa Lane, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, promise, relationships, Robert Frost, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Women’s Fiction
Posted in Anna's Novels, Anna's Soul of the Matter | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013
Three Days on Mimosa Lane is FINALLY live today! I can’t wait to share this amazing story with readers, where you get to see the three pivotal days of 2013 for our favorite returning characters on Mimosa Lane, and some very special new ones. It’s a spring story of redemption and renewal, it’s a summer story of freedom and courageously grasping your happily ever after, and it’s a Labor Day story about all that’s best about our country and how we keep fighting for family and our way of life and the love for each other that gets us through even the hardest of times.
It’s a love story about a family’s journey, and finding their way through some of the rough stuff we all face, and getting stronger, too, while they help each other get to that better place they find on their own.
It’s, hands down, one of my favorite novels I’ve ever written. And it was all full up with Robert Frost poetry that helped the book’s symbolism hits its mark even better…right up until I had to remove the quotes because of copyright concerns. But, BONUS, that doesn’t mean we can’t share the goodness out here on my blog.
“He knew a path that wanted walking; He knew a spring that wanted drinking;
a thought that wanted further thinking.”
~Robert Frost
Why, YES, now that you mention it, that’s why you see the beautiful, flower be-speckled path on Three Days‘ cover–a scene from Mimosa Lane’s park, where so many of our characters find themselves walking and trying to find their way back to the families and love they need so much.
Our characters have challenging paths to walk, and amazing happily ever afters to claim, and we’re lucky enough to be along for the ride.
Especially Sam and Brian Perry, whom we met in Christmas on Mimosa Lane. They came to the north-east Atlanta suburb they now call home over a decade a go, to start over. Except too much of what they need to deal with is still lurking beneath the surface, while they convince themselves they don’t have to. Of course, life has a way of making sure we deal with what we need to. Even if it has to kick us in the ass to wake us up.
And it’s the challenging journeys we often don’t want to take that bring us the most beautiful moments of our lives– (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, Families, family, family drama, fighters, heroes, inspiration, Love on Mimosa Lane, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, relationships, Robert Frost, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Women’s Fiction
Posted in Anna's Novels, Anna's Soul of the Matter | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 15th, 2013
The Woods Are Lovely Dark and Deep ~Robert Frost
Nature drives us, when we revel in its mysteries. Earth, water and sky surround and inspire and guide and cloak. We build walls and roofs and pave over the dirt and install artificial climate and run electronic entertainment that drowns out a lot. But it’s there: the woods waiting for us to explore. The lovely, dark and deep surprises of living…
In between the distractions, life insists that we focus. We’re so lucky that it does.
My life has insisted for the last couple of months. Attention had to be paid. I’m climbing back to the surface of all that’s “other.” Not the least of which because Three Days on Mimosa Lane launches next Tuesday, July 23rd.
In it, was supposed to be a collection of my favorite Robert Frost poems about the living that finds us when we least expect it. Hence the quote above, and the blogging I’ll be doing regularly again. Look for the Pinterest album that will collect them all as I chat about them. Come back and share what your favorites mean to you. I suspect I’m not the only RF fan out there.
The poems were removed from the final draft of the novel (one of the many surprises), because of copyright issues. But inspiration cannot be silenced. So let’s talk about the woods.
For me, they are full of wind and song and company, even when I’m there alone. Teaming with life and history and dreams and premonition, sometimes when I’m hiking interior to a waterfall or just a beautiful meadow someone’s told me about, I’m where I’ve always belonged, even though I’ve never been.
We don’t belong to the stress and the chaos and distractions of our every days. They are our days and we survive them, but they’re not our living. Our living is when we explore. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, Families, family, family drama, fighters, heroes, inspiration, Love on Mimosa Lane, Mimosa Lane, Montlake Romance, poetry, relationships, Robert Frost, Seasons of the Heart Series, Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Women’s Fiction
Posted in Anna's Novels, Anna's Soul of the Matter | 1 Comment »
