Book Bonuses

By ThomasNovels

Good Friday evening and congratulations. You’ve gotten the hard part done and finished writing the book. You’ve found a willing publisher, read, signed and mailed (real paper mail) back the (notary of public embossed) contract. (Skipping the lawyer was not a good idea even though he wanted a hundred dollars a page to read it.) While you’re in the bedroom drinking grocery store champagne (leftover from your ten year anniversary gift basket with your employer where you won’t be working much longer), deciding you need a whole new hairstyle (and maybe a new color too), that none of your wardrobe deserves to dress a published author and you wouldn’t be caught dead carrying that luggage into the expensive hotel your publisher has selected for your first book tour stop … your email bings (dings, chirps, whistles or hollers) from the dining room table (where you really should consider knocking out that window and building an office onto the apartment, landlord be damned). Oh look. It’s an email from your publisher with an attachment. It’s probably an invitation (all expenses paid) to a monthly meeting where all their other authors to get together and discuss literary ideas while sipping chai tea and smoking long thin brown cigarettes.

You innocently open it to find … a questionnaire. Fair enough. You checked them out before sending your inestimable tome to them. You try to type your answer to the first question but the email is not set up that way. Now you have to copy and paste into a document to be able to answer the questions. No problem. But you sit there staring at the little hour glass twirling and start to worry. It finally loads and you scroll down to the bottom to find … fifty questions. It’s okay. Don’t panic. I am a professional and have some experience at this. I will help you through the hard ones.

Real name, address, P O Box, phone, emails, Facebook, Twitter?
“Check.”
Pen name, non de plume, pseudonym or alias (not what’s on your arrest record)?
“Hell, no. I want this published under my real name.”
Ah … you do realize your parents, every third cousin removed and that guy who lives downstairs will be reading this.
“Oh. Skip that and we’ll come back to it while I think up a really cool one.”
Trust me. All the really cool ones are taken. Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking while we’re doing this.
Social security number?
“For what?”
Uncle Sam gets to take his part out of your royalty check or you can wait until April and pay him one big lump sum.
How do you want to get paid?
“Well duh, in money.”
Yes, I know that but remember they are going to deduct your first two to five ‘free’ copies of your book from your first check. What they’re asking is do you want to use PayPal, direct deposit or check in the mail.
“Oh. Direct deposit.”

*
“umm …”
“umm …? Not worthy of a published author. What?”
“When the checks come pouring in, can we afford a new laptop?”
“No.”
“No, I can’t have a new laptop?”
“No, the checks are not going to come pouring in. Publishers pay once, twice or three times a year depending on the contract and you never know what the amount of the check will be because it is based on the number of books sold which they only tell you once, twice or three times a year depending on their accounting system.”
“Oh …”
*

Please provide your bank account number, routing number, type of account, location of bank and secret handshake.
“Is this going to get any easier?”
No.
What genre does your manuscript fall under?
If you keep drinking, you’ll be the one falling … under the table.
“It’s an erotic mystery where the female spy has secret paranormal powers.”
That’s four. You have to pick just one.
“Just one?”
Yes and choose wisely because this will determine where it lands on their website, in their catalogue and in what section of the books stores.
“Go on to the next and I’ll think about it.”
Maybe you should start a list of questions you’re skipping.
What do you see when you imagine the cover of your book or would you like for us to design one for you?
“Big breasted babe in a bikini on a bike blasting her way behind …”
You are drunk.
“Am not.”
Count the ‘B’s’ in the last sentence. You want them to design one for you.
Please write the dedication page for your book.
“To my mom.”
What about your father?
“To my mom and dad.”
What about your English teacher?
“No. What about my boyfriend?”
No. Hint: Never dedicate your book to a lover. Note: Please refer to the chapter entitled ‘Real Relationships’ located in this book.
“Okay. To my parents and my cat, Fuzzy. No, wait. To my cat, Fizzy and my parents. My cat stuck by me while I was writing the book.”
We’ll come back to this one.
“Why?”
You can’t even remember the name of your own cat.

*
“Excuse me?”
Yes?
“Why do they keep saying ‘your book’ instead of ‘the book’ or ‘our book’?”
Because you are the one doing all the work.
“No shit. Next question.”

*

Please write the acknowledgments page for your book.
“That’s a statement, not a question. ‘To my boss who didn’t know that all that late night overtime was really so I could write my exciting epic erotic escapade …’ ”
No.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so and we’re out of champagne.”
Please write the blurb for the back cover of your book. Remember, this is what will catch peoples’ attention and make them want to read (and buy) your book.
“Easy. ‘An exciting epic erotic escapade featuring a big breasted babe in a bikini on a bike blasting her way behind palisades using her paranormal powers’.”
Please provide a brief biography to be printed under your photo on the inside of the back cover.
“Photo?”
Yes, but don’t worry with that now. Just write the bio.
“The author is a New York Times Bestseller List writer who travels the globe (with a new laptop) searching for new and exciting ways to experience sex so her characters and readers can live vicariously through her words.”
Now write the real one.
“The author works a full time day job then comes home to a small, dusty apartment to write her sexual fantasies into stories all night long which is why she has no social or love life.”
Please attach two color JPEG photographs of the author. Note: Depending on cost, the chosen one may be printed in black and white.
“My publisher can’t afford color? You told me not to worry about this.”
That was then, this is now.
“It was a paragraph ago and while we have a moment, I just want to tell you how much I hate these bold lines.”
You’re just avoiding looking for a photo.
“I don’t have any decent photos.”
As well I know. The ones on your Facebook page should have been … no, you cannot use your mug shot. At some other time, you need to explain to me why you keep that as your desktop background. Your driver’s license is awful and we all know what happened when you tried to take your own picture in the bathroom mirror for the dating website because … where are you going?
“I am taking the chosen one to bed.”
Alone … again.

*

Good Saturday morning and congratulations. You have finally completed the questionnaire and feel like you’ve been through an FBI background check with a hangover.
“I do have a hangover.”
But that’s all right.
“The hangover?”
You are a pre-published writer (who’s wondering if there’s at least an old half bottle of Merlot hidden in the back of the refrigerator) who’s going through all the necessary steps to get your book out there and selling.
“Did you like the pen name? Paige Turner. Get it? Page turner.”
(You should Google her.) Now it’s time to kick back and read that stack of novels you’ve been putting off until your own opus was completed. It’s time to let Netflix know you really didn’t die. It’s time to … your email bings (dings, chirps, whistles or hollers) again. Oh look. It’s an email from your … editor.

My Tangled Web

By Thomasnovels

I have had a webpage and domain name … well, since I published my first novel. They were very easy to buy. Just give them your bank card number and it was done. Then I found out I had to design the webpage. Wait. What? Me? I have to confess, I panic over computer stuff that I’m only pretending to understand how to do. (I also panic over car stuff that I don’t understand. Big black hairy spider in the bathroom? I’m your girl. Strange light on the dashboard of the car? Forget it. I will need a tow truck and a nerve pill.)

I asked my-then-current man to help me. I mean he spent all his time on the Internet and was an engineer, so who better. (We were in a hotel room on one of our photo taking trips because we couldn’t go to his house because … fill in the blank.) He told me it was better if I learned how to do it because then I would know how to do it incase he wasn’t around (big shocker there) to help. Being mad motivated me to learn faster (and wasted the need for a hotel room and surprise, he is no longer around). It took me awhile to figure out how to build site and how to maintain it. I was very proud of my page. I even had the .com plastered across the rear window of my car. It was my home page when I logged in. Oh look, MY webpage. That’s ME right there with all MY names, all the books I wrote and published, reviews of MY work and pictures of ME from book signings. I put it on everything from Facebook to business cards. Can’t make up your mind about buying a book? Here have one of my handy dandy cards with MY webpage on it. Can’t find the car in the parking lot because I drive the same sedan as every other single middle aged … look for the website on the window.

Recently, my web host contacted me. This is a company I never hear from until it’s time to pay the bill. That’s okay. I leave them alone, they leave me alone. I open the email to find … oh shit … “We need to inform you that we have received a complaint from AOLTM about the number of spam you are sending out. If this problem is not corrected, AOLTM will blacklist our service. Please take care of this.” I’m paraphrasing but that’s close. And guess what? I PANICED. What? Spam? I don’t send spam. I don’t send emails. People contact me not the other way around. I emailed them back and told them all of this. Then … waiting for them to answer while panicking. Not the best situation.
They emailed me back with a list of things (computer things … rats) to do to take care of the problem. 1. Send emails to people you’re sure want to receive them. (What?) Do not use mailing lists. (I don’t.) 2. Go through and change any password you have. (You have got to be kidding. Do you have any idea of how many … I did it anyway.) 3. Turn on the spam accoster. (Cute name but where the hell is it located?) 4. Do not use mail fowarders. (I never have.) 5. Run antivirus and malware. (I do that every week.)

Okay, I’m computer illiterate but I did all of these things but before I could finish and email them back, they contacted me telling me … “We need to inform you that we received a complaint from …” Crap. I took my email address and contact page off the website. I took the website off all my other Internet places. I took down an AOLTM account I’ve had since I owned my first computer. I tried to remember everybody I had a password with. Wow. I informed my web host I had done all of these things and they … suspended my account. I received seven emails about spam complaints through my account page because the web host didn’t change MY email address to the new one and the old one was shut down because of the spam complaints.

I sent a really nasty email telling them I had done everything they had requested and their response was to shut down MY account? This was MY business, MY career, MY contact to the world they were messing with. They reactivated my account and gave me my very own geek to help me. And he really was helping. We discovered the spam was not coming from my IP address. (Yes, I found it on my very own.) My webpage had been hacked (no shit). While we were emailing each other and I was following his plain-easy-to-understand instructions, I got another email telling me … they had cancelled … not suspended … but cancelled my account and would sending me a refund. Meanwhile, the geek asked me to log into the webpage to check something or other. Ah … I can’t log into MY webpage. The other person (and I’m guessing they are located in the same building as you) just … turned off MY webpage. At that point my geek gave up.

So I was left dealing with the billing and accounts department. I asked them to take my refund and I would add to it to start a new webpage. (Which means changing it in all the places I have it including … crap … MY car.) The other person emailed me to say they couldn’t start a new website for me (hello? you are my web host) until I closed this account (and money) then go and start a whole new account (with different money). I could however take my domain name to another web hosting company. (Yeah, that’ll work when the hackers and spammers follow me to another company.)

But the reason they were contacting me was because they couldn’t deposit my refund back to my card. Excuse ME? You took it out of that card, so put it back. Very nicely, they asked if I have a PayPal account. Of course I do. I’m running a business here and you just killed, murdered and slaughtered my webpage. And how am I supposed to remember the new password to PayPal. I give up. Thomasnovels.com is off line until I see my refund which … surprisingly is taking a very long time to arrive.