Category Archive for Writing/Publishing

I woke up to an email from Nanette, my publicist. Our article, Home for the Holidays Stress Free, is a full feature, not just a feed, in Yahoo! News. Now that’s good.
So I thought, “Who am I going to email it to?” I thought of busymom.net (Better Parenting through Coffee) and checked out her blog and read about revealing boobs and then read a Fox News story that revealed two boobs, laughed through the next three entries, and then had to stop and get to work again.
Yesterday Chris at Greenleaf Book Group called to tell me that Men Are Easy is on its way. I had to decide on how many to ship to myself. Wow! Months before the pub date–March 1 in the stores–I’ll have it here locally. And who knows? Oprah’s people visit here in the winter. Maybe someone will see it. Maybe that person will think it’s the greatest thing since whatever. . .wait. . .Maybe I should just see if anyone who doesn’t know and love me all actually pays money for it. . .
Or maybe I should forget it all and focus. The list. The Christmas list. I haven’t started yet. I’m going to be with all the men on Christmas Eve, a little frantic, guilty, and helpless, racing through Macy’s, then up all night wrapping. But I think that I like this system. It’s kind of freeing. Maybe the guys have it right.

Big day.Â� Sky Barnhart interviewed me for Maui No Ka Oi magazine a couple of weeks ago and then–Surprise–I heard from Karen at Morgan Stanley this morning that Men Are Easy was reviewed in the latest issue of the Maui Weekly! I went to my hairdresser’s–Mary at Colours Salon–and then ran next door to Maui Coffee Roasters, also known as Nicky Bean’s, to grab the paper, get on the Internet, and eat lunch.
A half-page book review, better written than any of my ad copy so far!

Thank you, Sky!

Last week my publicist Nanette Noffsinger sent out handwritten letters and a press packet to 70 magazines. Today the first big reply came in. I was emailed by a sr. editor of a certain women’s magazine with >3 million readers!!! She wants to interview me for an article for their April issue!!!

This is pubic relations gold!!! Nanette and I were practically screaming on the phone!

Life’s good.

I woke up this morning and it was like Christmas. I couldn’t wait to check the Amazon number. The first ranking was 176,480 . Last night before going to bed we checked it: 187,138.

The algorithm Amazon uses to determine ranking is proprietary–that means secret–but people have figured out some of their methods. Greenleaf Book Group’s blog has a great article with links.

The top 10,000 are ranked every hour and those ranked between 10,000-100,000 are calculated every 24 hours. But Men Are Easy was just reranked 3 times in 24 hours so there must be an exception for books that are completely new. Somehow a new book with hardly any sales is ranked higher than a long-term seller. Something to do with the sales trajectory and rates of sales.

This is too fun. Now I want to buy a copy of my own book every hour or so for the next couple of days just to see what’s going to happen. And then buy 5 of them in one hour and see what happens. But that’s cheating and I won’t see the miracle of what really is happening.

Buy one! Let me know and we can track it!

Somebody out there bought my book! Wow!

Yesterday the rank was “none.” Life’s good.

Tune in for a daily accounting.