Today I am happy to bring to you our host for the day, Author Nikki Jefford. Nikki is currently in the midst of her amazing Spellbound Trilogy blog tour for her novels, Entangled and Duplicity. Without further ado, Nikki, the floor is all yours.
Writer Friends Make the Best Friends
One of the most rewarding things about writing is meeting other writers.
What I love about author friendships is there isn’t another person on the planet who can understand the agony, distress, joys and triumphs of producing a creative work close to your heart.
Authors have a pay it forward mentality, at least the ones I roll with, and look out for their own. No one else is going to be able to sympathize as much when sales suck, you lose part of your document or entire novel (Lucy!), your book gets bashed, and pirated by harpies too cheap to spend 99 cents on an ebook.
And sorry to break it to you, but as soon as you join the Author Club at least three of these things will happen. Slow sales. Check. Book bashed. Check. Pirated. Check, check.
Then there’s the other deflator… no one in your life gives a @#$% that you wrote a book.
Okay, I’m being dramatic. I’m a writer. So sue me. Actually, don’t sue me. I’m broke. I said writer!
But you will find that people you’ve known forever, and therefor know that publishing a book has been your lifelong dream, will barely acknowledge this achievement. And if you go indie, heaven help you because that just doesn’t count.
I don’t want to sound unappreciative because I have family and friends whose support goes above and beyond anything I could’ve asked.
But it is interesting to see what kind of turnout you receive when push comes to shove. I know exactly who bought my book when it was first released. I kept a list. I’m neurotic. So sue me, but don’t. (See above.)
Writer friends were the first people to purchase my novel, including Lucy, even though I sent her a coupon code for a free copy. (Touched!) Since I was new to the YA genre, I came onto the scene with no connections, contacts, or YA writing friends. I wasn’t even familiar with twitter until six months ago. I began wiggling my way in by visiting YA author blogs, which led to a group project and meeting five fab authors including Lucy Swing and Kira Saito (who I’m pretty sure was The First Person to buy Entangled. I stop at her blog today, too.)
What disappointed me most was that a couple of my oldest and closest friends were less than enthused and they more than anyone know my purpose in life is to write.
What surprised (and delighted) me the most was that after my Facebook announcement, that Entangled was on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, several popular girls from my high school (Dimond High class of ’96) left messages on my wall that they’d purchased the book.
I was floored!
The popular girls at my high school (in Anchorage, Alaska) were actually super nice. (It was the nerds who were snots!) One of the girls who bought my book also stopped by a “party” I threw senior year and was nice enough to say, “It’s still really early, people don’t come till later” before heading out for another commitment. No one else ever showed, but I’ll never forget how cool she was about it.
Maybe the real title of this post is Kindhearted People Make the Best Friends because their generosity sticks with us through the decades.
Thank you to author friend Lucy Swing for hosting me today, making the beautiful Spellbound blog tour banner, and rounding up new followers and sales via twitter when Entangled entered The Dead Zone at the beginning of last month.
Enter to win the SPELLBOUND SWAG PACK (International)
· Evil Eye Amulet and Bracelet: In Duplicity, Gray wears an evil eye pendant, also known as a nazar, to protect herself from a spell that’s causing havoc over the witches and warlocks in her coven. The evil eye (a Turkish amulet) is used for both luck and protection against envy.
· Two Headed Quarter: Two Grays are better than none and two heads are better than one, especially when flipping over who gets to choose which movie to watch with a trick coin. Adrian returns in Duplicity and opens a magic shop.
· Entangled bookmark
Ends June 8, 2012.
Don’t miss the Cover Reveal of book three, Enchantment, at designer Najla Qamber’s review site: Unputdownable Books on June 7th.
Extras:
Buy links:
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Entangled is available for ebook at amazon. It will return to Barnes & Noble and Smashwords once KDP select ends July 15, 2012.)
About:
Nikki Jefford is a third generation Alaskan who found paradise in the not-so-tropical San Juan Islands where she is, once more, neighbors with Canada. She has a B.A. in journalism from the University of Alaska Anchorage and was a reporter before returning to her first love: fiction.
After a whirlwind romance in France, Nikki married Sébastien in March 2000. They reside with Cosmo the wonder Westie.
Find her at:
