Two years ago this month. . .

. . .Thinks Out Loud, a Blog at First, was born. As writers who are published by indy presses know, it’s a challenge to get the word out about your book, to snag readers’ attention. I was lucky to be able to do three readings in the Seattle area and one in Austin, Texas. I also got a review in Publishers Weekly and attention in the local Seattle media. Plus, positive reader reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I was appreciative of all that attention. And yet, Amazon proved to be more a hindrance than a benefit. The reviews and readings got the book off to a nice start, and then a lag set in. I had thought the book’s satire of high-tech with sci-fi flourishes and the South Pacific romance and adventure counterpoint would prove popular with the Seattle tech world. That didn’t come to pass. (If anything, the character of the flawed but visionary high-tech CEO who’s playing around with time and space seems even more relevant than two years ago!)

While a lot of friends did buy the book, I was a little disappointed that more of them chose not to. (Were they hoping for a free copy? I couldn’t afford to do so.) And I also thought bloggers would be intrigued by the blog format. For the most part, they weren’t. I know, folks are busy. Social media and web surfing account for large chunks of our free time. My novel is one brief wave in an ocean of books. I get it.

To those who bought Thinks Out Loud, you have my thanks! (I still believe the blog format and multiple stories by the bloggers provides a fun read.)

It’s on to the next novel, this one will be the picaresque adventures of two naïve young men thrust into the Berkeley, California of circa 1971. They are expecting to experience the love-ins of 1965, though times have changed, darkened. Sounds serious—but there’s plenty of humor to be mined.

Stay tuned.

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THE BOOK AND AMAZON: If you order Thinks Out Loud from Amazon Prime, you will be receiving an older version that is out of date and whose printing is lighter than the current edition. If on Amazon, order from the Thinks Out Loud seller option which will be the newer better print version. You can also order the newer version directly from the publisher via this website, thinksoutloud.com, or from your local bookstore, which will either have the book in stock or available via a quick special order from Ingram, the wholesaler.

A Blog (Novel) Is Born, Part 2

I’d been blogging two or three times a week for about a year and a half, mostly social and political commentary. Sometimes I was pretty good, other times rather lame. I’d say I was a minor blip on the blogging screen with several  thousand hits a month, depending on how much commentary and other interaction I did in the comments sections of related articles and other blogs.

One of the main features I became aware of was the number of hats a blogger wears: idea generator, researcher, author, editor, marketer, self-critic. Then I started thinking about veering away from my blog as commentary and doing something untried, approaching blogging from a different angle. What if I created a blog about blogging, a pulling back of the curtain to reveal what really goes into a blog, kind of a reality-blog show? That sounded promising. . .until I actually thought about the content. If I were going to be truthful about how I blogged and included all the steps leading up to a posting, that would probably be a contestant for the “Worlds Mostly Boring Blogs” contest: Woke up, checked Huffington Post. Saw article about latest Obama birth certificate rumor.

Beyond boring. No, a blog about blogging, at least for me, would never be launched into the blogosphere.

I went back to commentary on contemporary issues. Until a night in August. (I wrote most of my entries in the quiet of night.) I was casting about for a topic when (and I need a leap of faith on your part here) unexpected words entered my mind and flowed through my fingers onto the keyboard. Here is the original text:

Break time:  Guest bloggers coming your way!

Blogging can be taxing! After months of facing the daily pressure to perform, I'm taking a week, maybe two, off from blogging to pursue non-electronic forms of entertainment, relaxation, and procrastination. And discovery, both inner and outer. Truth be told, I need to figure out why page views seem to have peaked and are now beginning to decline. Not to mention, most of my visitors seem to be from former Soviet republics. Have I in some way peaked in my own life? And in a larger sense, if I were to really stop blogging, what would become of me?

On a more immediate front, to keep the pages fresh, a bevy of young Guest Bloggers I found on Craig's List have signed on to keep you in the know.

Stay tuned.

The “I” in the above posting was not me, the me sitting at my desk, in my house, in Seattle. It was a different voice, a character (who turned out to be Isaac). This other character, not me, was burned out and about to go on sabbatical and end up in Polynesia. Who these new bloggers were, I didn’t know. What they were up to, I didn’t know. From this moment on, the blog took on a life of its own. Thinking Out Loud became the novel Thinks Out Loud, a blog at first.

More at: thinksoutloud.com

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THE BOOK AND AMAZON: If you order Thinks Out Loud from Amazon Prime, you will be receiving an older version that is out of date and whose printing is lighter than the current edition. If on Amazon, order from the Thinks Out Loud option which will be the newer better print version. You can also order the newer version directly from the publisher via this website, thinksoutloud.com,  or from your local bookstore, which will either have the book in stock or available via a quick special order from Ingram, the wholesaler.