Welcome Guest Blogger Jennifer Rainey

This is a great guest blog from Jennifer Rainy. author of These Hellish Happenings. Enjoy!

INSPIRATION SPRINGS ETERNAL

For me, inspiration is like a ninja wearing an invisibility cloak.

You never know when it's going to hit, and when it does, it hits hard and usually from behind. Bam! Pow! And just like that, you've got to write or your brain is going to explode.

Inspiration for my first novel, These Hellish Happenings, hit me four years ago in a grocery store. That's right, as I was trying to figure out what kind of soup I wanted for dinner, that ninja came up and knocked me over the head real good. Once I recovered for the initial shock, I realized what I had just, for whatever reason, been inspired to write: the comic story of a vampire who works at the registration desk of Hell.

Maybe that was some particularly devilish minestrone I was looking at.

To be honest, I can't really tell you exactly what inspired me. Like many writers, my ideas just kind of show up. Others, though, can always pinpoint the exact experience, image or emotion that drives them to write a story. Each source of inspiration, each writing experience, each publishing experience is unique. Even our goals are different. Some want to make a living, some don't think about the money at all. Some use writing as a means to connect with others and some use it as a means purely to express themselves.

After no success with querying, I independently published These Hellish Happenings in November of 2010, and I was pleased to see that there was an incredibly supportive community of other indie writers online. I always thought that all other writers were douchebags, if you'll pardon the phrase, but the people of Goodreads and Kindleboards really proved me wrong.

There's an incredible sense of indie solidarity; I suppose you could say we're not competitors, but rather teammates. But at the heart of it all, we are very, very different. Each one of us is writing different books, celebrating different successes, mourning over different failures and all around having different experiences. This balance of individuality and solidarity are what have made the indie publishing experience a wonderful one for me.

To me, the greatest thing you can do as an indie in order to market your books is to get involved with your peers. Everything I've learned, I've learned from people who are in exactly the same boat as I am. Get involved on Goodreads, on Twitter, on forums. Talk to people and see what has worked for them and what hasn't. Everyone is coming from a different situation, and so, everyone will have different advice for you.

But don't just take advice, give it, and keep up that sense of solidarity that is so unique. I've been on the internet since George Washington got his first Macbook, it feels like, and I can tell you that I have never been a part of an online community that was so united. This patchwork quilt of people who are always ready to help each other out despite any differences are a big reason why I'm happy and proud to say that I'm an indie writer. Just as our inspiration all comes from somewhere different, our writing careers all take us somewhere different, and yet we stick together.

For the record, the inspiration for my second novel, the sequel to These Hellish Happenings, came from a song by my favorite band, Muse. Not as strange as soup, but we'll see where the next inspirational ninja strikes. Perhaps the idea for my third book will be conjured by a visit to the dentist or something someone says on the bus or even by an oddly shaped potato. One can never say.

Jennifer Rainey was raised by wolves who later sold her to gypsies. She then joined the circus at the age of ten. There, she was the flower girl in the famed Bearded Bride of Beverly Hills show until the act was discontinued (it was discovered that the bearded lady was actually a man).  From there, she wandered around the country selling novelty trucker hats with vaguely amusing sayings printed on front. Somehow, she made enough money to go to The Ohio State University for a major in English.

Independent Paranormal

Guest Blogger Thomas Amo: The Reality of Fiction

I want to begin by thanking Natasha Larry for inviting me to guest blog on Paranormal Wire. I’m very fond of this site and very honored to be asked to write for it. My blog today is talking about the reality of what we fiction writers believe or pray isn’t true.

Attention all indie fiction authors in the room, if you would please raise your hands so we can take this very small moment to recognize you’re here. Sorry I can’t see all of you as there are some mainstream writer’s sitting in front of you blocking my view. Raise your hands a little higher if you wouldn’t mind. Oh yes hello Mr. Five Kindle sales for the month of March. How are sales going for April Mr. Five? Oh nothing so far? Wow that’s not good. Oh Mr. Five I meant to ask you where is your best friend Mr. Three? You were sitting next to each other at last month’s meeting. You’re not friends anymore? Why is that? He’s now Mr. seventy-five? How do you think that happened? Is it because he’s a better writer? He has more friends on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and a book cover with a hot babe on it? Is he better looking than you are? Whatever it is, it just isn’t fair.

Okay so how many of us fall into this trap of self-abuse? Do you imagine everyone is selling more books than you are? Living a far more interesting life than you. What’s their secret? Are they just popular people to begin with? Because only good things happen to the pretty people, right? Wrong! I know, their book sales are sky rocketing because they did a deal with devil.

There is no rhyme or reason why some books with lousy covers make huge sales over books with gorgeous covers. Then you have some books that loaded with bad grammar and offend the English language so much you can barely get through it, but they sell books like mad. It doesn’t make sense in fact for some of us it tortures us. You will drive yourself crazy if you think there is a magic formula for becoming the next super author.

It’s kind of like being in a casino. How often have you spent hours at a slot machine and everywhere around you, the sounds of slot machine bells keep going off. People are winning all over the place, but not you. You tell yourself if I keep chasing the bells this has to pay off eventually. You run from this machine to that machine until you’re out of money and you go home angry and hurt you spent it all trying to get something for nothing. If you do win you’re not really winning you’re usually just getting back what you put in earlier.  So how is this like writing? Because we all judge winning differently. Some of us are really excited about the process of slowly building a following and seeing our sales increase gradually. So getting five sales this month is five more than I had last month. Others view it as a personal insult and become beaten down so quickly they give up too soon.
All of us would love to do this for a living and get movie deals and hang out with Johnny Depp, but how many of us are truly willing to fight for it and not give up. That’s why there is only a tiny percent of huge movie stars, NY Times Bestsellers. Because they didn’t give up when they were Mr. Five sales. I have had my share of rejection letters. Hang on to those babies. They are your medals for the battles you’ve gone through.

You want me to read your book? You want me to know your name? Then you need to find out if I read books you write. Don’t send me something about sports, or how to be a vegan. I’m not interested in those subjects. I like ghost stories, true crime, and really good scary stories. I’m kinda worn out on the whole vampire/werewolf thing, so stick with a good serial killer.

Basically what I’m saying gang is make sure you’re preaching to the right choir and be professional always. No matter how much someone else pisses you off, let it go, be nice, we live in a time where your career can end based on as little as 140 characters and you want to do this for the rest of your life, so remember when your mom said, if you don’t have something nice to say don’t say it at all. Big mouths and offenders usually end up ruining their own careers, they don’t need your help.

If sales are slumping, ask yourself what more could I be doing to improve this instead of feeling defeated and saying, no one wants my book. Network; pay it forward, because this is a gamble worth waiting for the jackpot.