A Sunday Pondering -- How Many?

 

In case you haven't been paying attention to my social media posts, this first week of October I stopped in at a shop in the historic town of Sutter Creek, CA. I've have a few family members wander into the shop called "Made in Amador" and then excitedly tell me that the shop as a "local author" shelf. I don't wander Main Street Sutter Creek often because I usually have my three little helpers with me who want everything and want to touch everything. But I made it in, spoke to the owner, and then last Thursday dropped off several copies of two of my books -- Could've Been Something and The Allegheny Chronicles: Eden and the Alchemist -- off. I have more author copies on the way to add to what's there, but it was a huge step for me to get my books sold in a brick and mortar (in this case literally a brick and mortar building) shop! I'm not quite sure how soon she got them on the shelves, but small, baby steps and if you are ever there, in Sutter Creek, and want to peruse my books, climb the stairs to Made in Amador and support the local businesses! They have all sorts of cute little goodies and locally produced items in that shop. I am happy she is out there! 

Also, in other local news, I did put another round of "publishing gremlin" affected books into the local little Free Library network so, keep your eyes open! I am wondering if I should create a hash tag that people can use to indicate that they found and read one of them. That would be fun. Like EmBrooksBookAdventure just to see where they go? I dunno. Gotta think on that one.  

This week I was talking to a new reader of my Portrait of an Unlikely Affair series (who is also a new reader of my books.) It's always interesting to talk to readers who are new to my writing. I understand how they can be hesitant in reading my books and they only begin to read them because someone else has raved about them. But then a strange thing happens -- they get hooked.  Oh, and here's the introvert's warning so you don't see me coming and cross the street just to avoid having to talk to me about my books. (Well, I mean, you still can if you want -- It's entirely up to you.)

From that point, I get to hear how they become involved with the characters. They get involved in the story. They get hooked. And they want to know more. They have a lot of questions like "Why aren't these mainstream yet?" and "Why isn't everyone talking about them?" I explain my personal conundrum about getting interactions and getting my books read, shared, and discussed. 

I do enjoy these kinds of conversations because I am learning several different insights from these random conversations. 

• A lot of people say they "haven't been able" to read fiction so they are hesitant to read more. Once they start reading, they find that they actually rather enjoy reading fiction when they discover my books.
• A lot of people really want to be readers but find they "don't have time" to "sit and read" and would rather listen to audiobooks. I am working on that.
• If they've known me for any amount of time, my books aren't quite what they expected I would write and the characters...Oh boy. The characters seem so real.
• Not very many people actually know authors. Authors are those people who are sometimes on TV and their books are always out for everyone to see. Authors are like Stephen King and Danielle Steel and Rick Riordan and J.K. Rawlings all them. You know, the "successful" authors. Whereas people like me are assumed to be writing as a "hobby." I get it. Everyone starts somewhere and those authors were once unknown authors. All it takes is one. One book. One person. One with the ability to catapult books into mainstream. I think that'd be an awesome thing to do -- A famous author with the connections who randomly reads (when they're not writing, of course) indie/self-published authors and then shares those books that they resonated with with their fans. And then that launches unknown authors into becoming known authors. That'd be cool. 

Outside of me learning what readers think, there's questions that they have --  How did I create the characters? Are they modeled after people I know? How do I come up with the stories? How do I find time to write? What is my process?  I try to answer these questions in my blog writings but one of the questions this new reader asked was, "How many pages and words have you written?" Good question. I don't exactly keep count so let's see: 

So, my published page count is 3,607, with a word count of 1,208,982 words. So that means my published novels average about 361 pages and are averaging about 120,898 words.  Not bad. 

Of course, that's not all the pages and words I've ever written for my stories. I've written pages upon pages that didn't make the final edit of these books. Extended versions of the plots that you'll never read. Directions that I wanted the stories to go but didn't pan out, including parts that I feel like I argued with my characters over and then they quit talking to me. Characters that were 'tried out' but didn't quite mesh as of yet. You could probably almost double, maybe triple, those numbers above. 

And on that note, as I am always thinking of or looking for new ways to draw in new readers, I noticed on Amazon they now have Amazon Book Clubs. Oooooh. For a brief moment I considered making an "Em Brooks Book Club" where everyone can read and discuss each of the ten books...Heck, maybe even some what guided? But then I remembered that there are actual book clubs all over the place and someone who is reading this MAY belong to a book club and their club MAY be looking for new books to read. So, if that is the case, may I make some suggestions?   

And on that note, I think I'll let you get back to whatever it is you're avoiding doing. Thanks for hanging out with me, I do appreciate it! 

Have you read any of my books? Don't forget to rate or review them on the vendor's site! Rating and reviews trigger the sellers algorithms to make the books more visible to potential readers. It's like moving it up from the bottom shelf to being more eye level.... All of my books are also on Goodreads! Thank you so much for your support!

If you haven't started any of them yet...what are you waiting for? Get them on eBook or in paperback and hardcover at www.amazon.com/author/embrooks, www.barnesandnoble.com, or on your Apple Books app today! All ten of my books are available on those vendor sites. 

I realize there are millions of books out there for you to read, and I am very appreciative that you read mine! Have a wonderful day!