First Word

Do you ever feel wishy-washy when it comes to your writing? I am constantly coming up with ideas and thinking they’re great ones. I’ll start something and just stop. I find I often lose confidence in an idea or become distracted by other projects. In my world, I am trying to hustle and make money. So when a paid opportunity arises, I always take it. Unfortunately, I then find my own writing falling to the wayside. My other issue is losing confidence in my finished work. Oh, now I know my new novel The Abused is a great read. My focus group comments were all positive. My sensitivity comes from concerns about the marketplace. I lose confidence it will sell. As a publisher I’m keenly aware of how competitive the book market has become and saturated with many self-publishers. It takes a lot of effort to move a book into the audience’s hands. Therefore, I am nervous to spend money unless I know I’ll have time to promote it. Are you feeling my points? As an autho...

I thought today it would be fun to talk about my least favorite things in prose that bog down both story and readability. Inexperienced authors tend to do this. Can you guess what it is? Probably not because I’m being super vague LOL … hey, maybe that’s it! Being too vague. Nope, but that’s a discussion for another day. This habit drives me, your intrepid editor, crazy: too much attention to unimportant minutia or details. I saw this discussion on one of my social media groups. The question: should you describe someone’s clothes in a scene? A very good question and the answer is: yes, but don’t go too far. Actually, that answer applies to all setting descriptions – yes, but don’t go too far. The “too-far” part of the answer is the minutia. When describing people’s appearances, for example, it’s good to be straightforward to give an idea of the person’s looks and how he/she comes across in a scene. So, let me give you two examples. Bad : She was attractive when she w...

The Young Pope HBO Rating: ****1/2 The title itself caught my attention many months ago when HBO began promoting its new limited series, The Young Pope . I'm not Catholic but was certainly curious about Jude Law playing a youthful "Your Holiness," which the character insists on being called even to close friends. I'm not sure which I find the most interesting: the often surreal scenes (episode 4 a random note about Greenland and music appears as its prime minister dances) or the deadpan jokes that are sprinkled throughout. Aside from the strange quality of the setting at the Vatican, this series is just unique. I may not be Catholic but I am spiritual. The questions raised about God's existence and belief are provoking and inspiring. I like nothing better than a show that is intelligent, and The Young Pope is deftly written and every scene interesting. Now episode 1 was laden in too much intellectual reflection and slow-moving dialog. By episode 2 and th...

What is your experience being sold to? I always associated sales with things like car sales men rushing out to hustle you or the salesman who follows you around the store saying repeatedly, “How may I help you?” Both of these situations were met with an irritated reply, “I’m fine. Just looking.” I’ve never approached sales that way. First, sales are the mainstay of any business. Yet if you’re like me having to “sell” something can be akin to teeth pulling – unwanted, unpleasant and avoided if at all possible. As a result, I don’t approach sales and marketing from any of those viewpoints. In fact, I don’t think of sales as “sales”. I mean, I focus on my products and services and identifying people I can be “of service to.” My approach comes not from how can I make money off this transactions (and don’t get me wrong money is important), but how I can I make your life or business better. In that approach it’s all about what can I do? What product (think books f...

Driving Uber in San Francisco has been educational from a marketing standpoint about how to reach the younger audience. Understanding your audience is very important when trying to sell to them. If you don’t know how they do things and what they want to read about or know about then you’re missing out on a substantial portion of potential sales. In the publishing world, the key is to know that Millennials aren’t quite as in love with paper as their parents and grandparents. Not to suggest that Gen X and Boomers aren’t into eBooks (because they are), but the younger generation is all about the Smart Phone. To a greater or lesser degree, visit a major metropolis and look around at today’s city dwellers. You will be astonished to count 1 out of every 3 people has his or her head down reading or texting on their Smart Phones. One of the “security” gateways for Uber is the service requires a credit card and Smart Phone to work. I was talking the other day with pa...

Did you know that you can waste a lot of time by doing one thing. Do you know what that thing is? Not marketing to your target audience. YES! Many professionals fail to target their audience. When you’re doing marketing and promotion, failure to identify who you are trying to reach will fail to find your customers. When you’ve successfully found your target believe me you’ll know it. Your sales will immediately increase. And it’s not just a matter of targeting the right audience, it involves another key to success: Target audience + targeted message = SUCCESS. See, you could find your right target audience, but the message you’re sending might not be the right one. So when you’re doing marketing and promotion, you need to check. First, the obvious barometer of success is sales. Your audience is not responding to your message(s). Don’t be complacent. Sometimes you need to reach for a new message. Just because your audience doesn’t respond to the first...

I had a dream last night. I was walking through a local library and spotted California Girl Chronicles , book 1 and 2 on the shelves. They had been well worn and read. I also noticed that they had a hard copy of book 2, Brea’s Big Break . I wondered, “Who got this printed?” What a strange dream. I felt proud the books had been obviously read a lot since they were tattered up. I’ve always called California Girl Chronicles like chewing bubble gum – it’s sweet, fun and a way to pass time, especially on the beach. Both books are sexy, funny and frivolous in many ways. I was in a different frame of mind when I wrote these books. Today five years later after so much in my life has changed, I’ve considered whether or not I need to get a little more frivolous again. I was driving UBER and put the books behind the seats in the little pocket. A passenger picked up the second book, which says “It’s Sex in the City meets Entourage.” The girl says, “Oh cool!” Now that is an i...

It’s a new year and I’ll be if you’re an author your goal is to increase your book’s sales. I am constantly trying new things and reading other people’s ideas too. Every time I find some fresh tips I like to pass them on. Exclusive Reader’s Group on Facebook – Why not create your own Reader’s Group? Invite people to the group and do special giveaways and promo that can only be obtained in the group. Make people feel special. You will create not just “readers” but fans! Fans are loyal and loyalty buys more books. Wattpad ( https://www.wattpad.com/ ) – This is a new one for me. Apparently there is a large community of readers where authors can share information about their books. You can release free excerpts from the book and attract and build readership. I’m going to check it out and share more with you down the road, but it looks perfect for authors to use as a marketing tool. Letter from the Author in the back of your book – Many authors lose the op...

Here comes the launch of Habits and Attitudes by Lance Casazza. It will go on sale January 21 st on Amazon. I LOVE THIS BOOK (did the all caps emphasize enough: I LOVE THIS BOOK?). Why did I fall in love with the book? It inspired me right when I needed it the most. You see I read 52 stories about people just like me and their journeys and realized: I am not alone! YES! I’ll be honest (and some of you know) 2016 was no cakewalk. The departure of my business partner in such messy way started my year off just wrong . The financial crumbling created from the situation and the behavior that led up to it. To make matters worse, it was a personal loss as well. Stuck and facing some ugly realities left behind, I was beginning to wonder what was going to happen. Then … I worked on Habits and Attitudes and here is what I learned: Many, many, many successful people have faced the very same challenges and overcome them. I was feeling like a failure. How could I hav...

Funny thing happened when I posted this simple sentence on Facebook: I need to be inspired! Apparently, I should have been more specific. I need to be inspired to write my next book. The responses to that phrase ranged from generous thoughts to some outright and strange nastiness. One guy said: Look in the mirror and count your blessings??? Another guy responded with “clown ass, I don’t think she needs to hear that…” About this time, I’m laughing over the word “clown ass” … okay, new phrase. Not entirely sure why anyone would get all “pissy” over the request for inspiration, though. The interesting point is the power of words and interpretation. A general statement turned into something that people were either telling me nice things are being jerks about. A broad range of reactions to something so innocuous and simple. Makes you think about it, doesn’t it? In Lance Casazza’s forthcoming book Thank God for Layovers: Take your life from coach to first class ,...

The professional editor conundrum. I discovered that many people mistake “editing” vs. “rewriting”. Perfect example is a lovely client who wanted me to “edit” his travel book. He mentioned that the previous editors had not done the book justice. When I reviewed his material, I realized “editing” wouldn’t fix the problem, but rather rewriting was in order. I explained to him that the reason he loved my work vs. the other editors’ work was because I wasn’t editing I was rewriting . Why did I need to rewrite him? He’s not a native English speaker. Since English was not his first language, he used many words and phrases either awkwardly or just wrongly. When you hire an editor, it’s his/her job to make grammar corrections, tighten sentences, and make overall content comments or rearrange organization. Editors are not writers. So, if you want your document to perhaps flow better or present a professional approach to its content, do not hire an editor. You need a writ...

Violating my own rule of being an author, I have been caught many times now without any of my books to sell. Driving UBER as a quick way to bring in cash, many riders have asked me, "Why don't you have your book in the car?" OMG! Why don't I? My imagination went wild. I need a magazine-like rack on the back of my car seat. Yeah, you know ... like the doctor's office. If they browse the book and want to buy it, I can sell books via my car. Is this just crazy or what? Then I thought, "Man who am I to lecture authors about having their books on them all of the time when I'm not carrying mine?" You know what everybody, I had to stop and wonder about my card-carrying author rights about then. Good question. Well, I need some "braggadocio" going on here. Yes, I am not really an UBER driver. I'm a publisher/author pretending to be an UBER driver. It's like Halloween year-round. See my easy costume? Sweater and pants -- just need...

Lately I’ve noticed some “publishers” offering these “crash courses” on publishing. They are teaching people to write a book in a DAY. The old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies to this scenario. Any business professional knows that trying to take what is a complex, skilled process and distill it into a day’s work is akin to building a house of cards and expecting it not to collapse when the breeze blows. You cannot write and publish a quality book in a day. You can watch all of those online and video programs suggesting it’s easy, but it’s not. When it comes to publishing the idea that you can churn out a book in 24 hours will only lead to a bad book. Some people believe that grammar and spelling really don’t matter. Content is king. Who cares if there are 10 errors on a single page? It’s my message, right? Wrong. Professionals care if something looks like it was sloppily put together with very little thought to professionalism and excellence. Th...