Deceived: A Good Lesson for Bloggers

Hello and welcome to the J.Q. Rose blog!

When I began blogging, not using my J.Q. Rose pen name, but my real name, I was naive about the Internet. I thought everything I read on it was true! I bet you'v heard that tongue-in-cheek phrase--"If it's on the Internet, it's gotta be true."  Unfortunately, there are cyber snake oil sellers out there too. So beware and be alert.

Look at the scams perpetrated by those who are looking to make a quick, easy buck by duping rich old women to fall in love with them and then squeeze money out of them. How about those scam artists who portray themselves as government representatives to get private information and then steal a person's identity? And what about folks who set up shop as a kind person who wants to guide you through self-publishing your book with you, but instead charges you exorbitant fees to do so?

DECEIVED

I was fooled by a woman who portrayed herself as a romance author. At the time she contacted me, I was truly thankful she decided to be my guest and talk about her book on my new blog. To give me a chance, so to speak, to meet her readers. 

I put up her guest blog. In a few days I had 70 views, and the views kept growing. Wow! I was thrilled until one of the commenters told me this woman had plagiarized a novel. She had changed the character's names, but the story was exactly like the one by another author. 

I researched the accusation and discovered the commenter was telling me the truth! As I read on through articles about what the plagiarizer had done, I came across the comment about how she used unsuspecting bloggers to sell her books. 

I felt embarrassed and humiliated by this woman and her deceit. And yes, I felt used because I was such a rookie. I tried to contact her via email to ask about the accusation, but when she never answered I was sure she was a liar.  I immediately deleted her blog post and simmered. Come to find out this was her third time at trying this! Who knows how many more "novels" she manufactured for sure? How naive I was and trusting. To tell you the truth,  I was shocked to discover this could happen to me in my little corner of cyberspace. 

WHY TELL YOU THIS NOW?

I've never mentioned the experience on this blog, but I felt like I should today because it may help someone else to be alert and keep their eyes open to what could happen to them.

Thank you for allowing me to rant. Funny, in this season of forgiveness, I just realized I haven't ever forgiven that woman for tricking me. I guess I"ll have to work on that. Forgiving is so hard and just the opposite of what a human being wants to do. 

Have you ever been duped? How did you feel? Please leave a comment below.

Be sure to add your email to follow this blog so you won't miss out on any posts here. I hate spam as much as you do, so no spam! Thank you!

My Writing Career and Yours--Lessons Learned: Author Platform, Critique Groups, Video, Podcasting

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 
March 17

Greetings from sunny Florida!
Hope you'll be celebratin' the wearin' of the green on Tuesday! Tampa, Florida, colored the waterway downtown green for the occasion. Mayor Bob Buckhorn is an Irishman. Chicago, Illinois has dyed their river green for many years. Do you know of any other cities that do this? It's a unique way to celebrate, but I wonder if the water fowl and fish turn green too?

Let's talk. Grab your coffee/ tea and pull up a chair to the kitchen table and join me.

Four years ago in March my first e-book, Sunshine Boulevard, mystery/light horror, was published by MuseItUp Publishing. To me, signing the contract with the publisher and actually having a way for readers to read my work was the official beginning of my career as an author. Previously, I had non-fiction articles published in newspapers, magazines, and e-zines. After publishing this fictional piece, I felt I could add author to my resume because I had succeeded in releasing a story from my imagination. 

Through these four years I have learned a LOT about the business of writing. A few of my realizations are:

• Building an author platform seems to be the first requirement and first step to becoming a successful author--along with writing a great story!
• Building relationships with readers is important. Don't just yell buy my book, buy my book all the time.
•  Good-old fashioned networking with people in the business helps to get your name out there. This is a mutual partnership in which we all help each other to move forward with writing and publishing careers

Lessons Learned by J.Q. Rose

Here are a few points I have learned along the way. Perhaps you can glean a few nuggets of information to help you in your determination to make writing a career.

• Support Group--I have two mysteries published by a small press, MuseItUp Publishing. I would never have been a published author without the support and input I received from my critique group. You need someone to help you with your writing. Don't write in  a vacuum. 
• 
  
• Presentations/Speaking--I joined my critique partners in  two presentations in our local communities. The most important thing I learned at these presentations/book signings is you need a print book to sell. My mysteries (and all my books) are eBooks. I love them, but they are not a product you can sell face-to-face at a gathering. I've tried coupons, but folks don't want to deal with paying for the book, THEN go home to download it. When my first eBook was published in 2011, noone knew what the heck an eBook was. I spent my time educating people on this new reading opportunity, where to find it, and the device to read it on. Nowadays people will actually take my post card and put it with their iPad or Kindle cover to look up the book later. That is encouraging, but not a sure sale like a print book is.

• Guest Bloggers--Guest blogging and hosting authors really does help you get your name out. D'vorah Lansky's Book Marketing Challenge workshop inspired me to get proactive in marketing, so I invited romance and mystery authors to my blog to share writing tips. I thought the series would only be in the fall, but I had such a wonderful response from authors, the event spilled into February. This spring  an eBook filled with the authors' writing tips and new material will be released. You can find out more about my experience with this challenge in my February 26 post, Your Book is Just the Beginning. Subscribe to this blog so you will be updated on the progress and release of the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing ebook filled with helpful writing tips.

• Videos and podcasts are the buzz words nowadays. They help to build your audience and establish you as an expert/author and expose you to more readers. Videos actually do catch a surfer's attention, and the video will keep the reader at your site longer. You can teach a program or offer an interview.  I've learned to use the audacity.com program for audio and then the audio can be uploaded for a podcast program. At this time I don't have a desire to commit to offering a podcasting program. I have used Power Point to make a video presentation and played with Powtoon.com for a cartoon style presentation. I'm no expert after trying all these out, but I do plan to do more with Power Point in the future. My next big challenge to overcome is interviewing authors on Google Hangouts on Air. I will be interviewing my guest authors who want to "be guinea pigs" this spring and uploading  the Google videos to this site. I had a great time participating in a promotional video from the creative mind of Miss Mae. The official unofficial cyberspace reporter, I.B. Nosey, interviewed me about Coda to Murder. Take a peek.

Video:

Video:An I.B. Nosey Interview with J.Q. Rose

Consider learning how to make some videos for your site. There are lots of helpful Youtube videos from folks who know how to create video.  I especially enjoy watching video expert Lou Bortone. He also has courses available.

• Book Series--After reading articles on improving book sales, the information supports the idea to use a book series to build audience and sales. It makes sense that if people like you first book, they will come back for more and tell their friends. (the best advertising you can get). Plus the more books you have to sell, the more for readers to  buy and read. I'm developing a series on vegetable gardening to try out this theory. And I'm loving it. My husband is the expert and I am the writer.

• Finally, I discovered not to use initials for a pen name.  Yes, it's a bit late for this realization. For instance,  if you typed J. Q. Rose rather than J.Q. Rose, the search will not find my name. Nor will it find JQ Rose, because in both instances, the spacing of the letters are different from the original. Think twice if you are planning to use initials in your pen name.

Now, it's your turn to share what you have learned as you proceeded along the path to publishing? Please leave your comments or questions below. Thanks for joining me today. 

Be sure to leave your email in the box in the right margin to get notifications when the new posts appear on Mondays and Thursdays. I promise, cross my heart, NO SPAM.