So, the truth is, analytics are a term that scares a lot of people. But don’t panic.
Let’s back up for just a second, all right?
You’ve got a community. And you’re working hard on it. It’s growing. But you have no idea whether what you’re doing is having any sort of an impact whatsoever. This is where analytics comes in.
Now, don’t panic if you don’t have a data analysis background. It’s not strictly necessary. What you do need, though, are (a) a means of measurement (preferably you should have a few of these) and (b) the willingness to measure. Really, it’s that easy. You do not need a degree in Advanced Statistics.
Google Analytics 4 (replacing Universal Analytics)
First of all, the primary measurement stick you want is Google Analytics. And it is free and very easy to use. It’s also a rather robust measurement system, capable of showing trends in Visitors, Absolute Unique Visitors, and more.
In addition, it shows, among other things, where your traffic is coming from, where your users land, and where they departed your site from. It also shows Bounce Rate, which is defined by Measurement Guru Avinash Kaushik as, “I came, I saw, I puked.” In other words, the visitor only visited one page of the site.
Keep in mind, though, that it’s entirely possible your visitor loved your site but got everything they needed in just one page. So, while they may have bounced right out of there, it might not have been due to any fault or failing on your part.
So, try not to take it personally, okay?
AHRefs
Thank God for AHRefs. While free website measurement tools have come and gone (apart from Google Analytics), AHRefs will review whatever is out there.
So, one thing to keep in mind is that as this post is updated, I keep finding new yardsticks. And then they go away after a while. At least AHRefs is still hanging in there. Whew.
Also, consider SEMRush and Ubersuggest.
Analytics From More Yardsticks
Furthermore, there are also measuring websites specifically designed to help you comprehend how you’re doing on Twitter and elsewhere, namely:
HootSuite – count the number of clicks you receive on shortened URLs, to supplement your Google Analytics click counts
HubSpot – measure how influential you are (with a hugely helpful diagnostic) and
Tweepsmap – analytics and info on who unfollowed or followed you on Twitter.
Facebook also has its own metrics, which you can see if you have a page.
Using Your Findings
So what do you do with all of this information once you’ve amassed it? Why, you act upon it! Does one page on your site have a far higher Bounce Rate than the others? Check it and see if the links on it are all leading users away from your site. If that’s not the culprit, perhaps its content just plain isn’t compelling enough.
Got a series of links you’ve tweeted that have consistently gotten you the most clicks? Then check to see what they all have in common, and offer similar links in the future. And maybe even build some onsite content around those subjects.
Has your HubSpot grade tanked in the past week? That might be due to external factors beyond your control, but check to see if any of it is within your purview. Perhaps your server was down.
Finally, small fluctuations over short time periods are perfectly normal and are no cause for concern. However, much larger hikes and drops, or trends over longer time periods, are more of an issue. But you’ll never know about any of these things unless you start to take measurements, and read and use them.
… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings Explained
… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings – in Facebook, how to do you change your account settings? When you pull down on the Account section of Facebook, you see a few choices but they change.
Keep in mind that Facebook is continuously testing its format. What worked a year ago might not work now, but these are pretty close to being right although some of the parts have moved around on the page or might now have new names.
You can decide on which notifications you get, with separate settings for desktop and mobile. Which is rather helpful.
Account Settings
This is a part of Facebook that always seems to be changing. It is entirely possible that, by the time you read this blog post, these instructions will be obsolete. I’ll keep everything at a high level and won’t get into too many specifics. So it is divided as follows:
Name
Contact
Ad Account Contact
Identity Confirmation
Security and Login
This section indicates if you are using Facebook Protect. It shows if you have two-factor authentication set up. You can also change your password here, and see if there have been any unauthorized login attempts.
Account Settings: Ads
This isn’t to run Facebook ads. Rather, it’s to make it clear what your preferences are. If you keep getting ads for stuff that you don’t care about—or find offensive—you can take action here. Is it a perfect system? Of course not. But the more signals you can give Facebook about what you want, the more likely you will get an experience you love.
Support Inbox
This area is undoubtedly going to continue to evolve as questions come up and the increasingly complicated Facebook system breaks in all sorts of interesting and as-yet unexpected ways. Here, you can see the status of anyone or anything (such as a group) you’ve reported.
You can also get to their Community Standards.
This kind of section used to have a space for questions. And it may have such a space in the future.
But keep in mind: Facebook won’t answer 99%+ of any questions you have for them. Why? Because they are running an enormous site with a surprisingly tiny number of employees. Hence many of the judgement calls come from bots.
Account Settings: Videos
In this section, you have some control over the quality and volume of videos you see on the site.
Accounts Center
All the way at the bottom (currently), click on it and you’ll be able to manage connected accounts, such as on Instagram.
And … that’s it.
For now.
Want More About Facebook?
If this article resonates with you, then check out my other articles about the largest social media platform on the planet.
Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)
Are offsite connections possibly via Twitter? The semi-surprising answer is: yes. Because Twitter is so bare bones, any number of applications have sprung up around it in order to help you manage it and become as great as you can be.
Understanding the people you tweet with is, of course, a great way to determine if offsite connections are going to be worth it. After all, offsite connections that are hundreds of miles away are not likely to be easy, cheap, or even possible.
Other Software
Here are some more sites to check out:
HootSuite – a tweet scheduling service (and more) whereby you can track stats and import your lists.
Social Oomph (formerly TweetLater) – time tweets and gather simple metrics on shortened urls. You can set up more than one account this way.
Tweet Stats – a graph of, among other things, daily aggregate tweets, your most popular hours to tweet and who you retweet.
Tweepsmap – analytics and info on who unfollowed or followed you.
Twitter Packs – find like-minded Twitter users (since this is a wiki, it depends on users to keep it up to date).
Offsite Connections: The Upshot
As Twitter continues to mature as a business tool, I predict that more and more of these off-site services will spring up. But understand that a number of older ones from just a few years ago are gone.
The most successful one will, in my opinion, combine the best features of all, coupled with ease of use and an ability to show trends over time.
And finally, Twitter changes things almost as much and as fast as Facebook does. So keep in mind, these instructions may need some tweaking.
Oh, and if you do actually see or even meet your Twitter connections, you’ll get to see if their imagery accurately reflects who they are!
Consider Craig Firenze, One of My Original Characters
Who is Craig Firenze?
For Mettle, the first character I came up with was the anchor. Craig is the linchpin of the piece and of the group.
He came tearing into my mind, swearing all the way, Southern accent in full swing.
Where Did Craig Firenze Come From?
I had way too many proper-ish characters. But Craig, and really everyone in Mettle, has a potty mouth. And, in fact, the first word he says (the first word anyone in the book says) is an f-bomb.
He’s sarcastic and smart. Much like Trixie LaRue, his Southern accent may fool some into thinking he’s just a good ol’ boy. But Craig is far more than that.
The Past is Prologue — Backstory for Craig Firenze
The head of communications at NASA is a veteran, who attained the rank of Colonel. But he’s also got two degrees in civil engineering, and a Professional Engineering license. A PE license is hard to get, so it should be obvious: Craig is no dope.
This combination of qualifications makes him uniquely suited to talk to the press about the astronauts on the International Space Station. But he’s also the one who has to report the negatives with the positives. And the negatives are really bad.
At the same time, the negatives in his life are getting worse. He just wanted to marry a beauty queen. But instead, he got a bipolar wife who doesn’t always take her medication.
Description
Craig’s look is essentially Chris Cooper in American Beauty. I have always intended for him to be and look a lot like a middle manager or midlevel military guy. Someone who you would not really notice.
He’s the short, almost Napoleon-like guy who people underestimate, but who quietly and purposefully gets things done.
But I do have an alternative, as Cooper is currently a bit too old for what I am looking for.
I also like Gary Sinise, but only a bit. Essentially, I only see Sinise when he is in a skeptical or frowning kind of pose.
But either way you slice it, Craig is not meant to have movie star good looks. And I never mean for him to have the classic look of a hero. Yet he is one anyway.
With an accent that’s Texas by way of Georgia, he sounds like he’d be sitting on a porch and dispensing homespun wisdom. But he’s a city guy with two difficult-to-get degrees and a major role in front of cameras in perhaps the most well-known government agency: NASA.
Purpose/Theme/Motivation
The chief motivator for everyone in the Mettle Universe is survival. But before we get there, we have about nine or ten chapters of preliminaries. Yes, I should edit those. I get it!
For the preliminary chapters, Craig has the most screen time and you get the most detail about him.
He is essentially trying to keep above water in his personal life, and cover everyone’s tail (Craig would say something far earthier) at work.
Quotes (Craig Reads the Riot Act to Dez and Nell)
Dez and Nell got their coats and followed Craig out. “What the fuck do you want?” she asked as they walked.
“Just hold your horses.” Craig got them inside the front room. The room was cold, and the shadows had lengthened. He fumbled around for candles and matches while the kids waited. Finding them, he lit one and used it to scour the room. He pointed. “There’s a sofa. Now sit.”
Grumbling and still in their jackets, they sat down. “This blows,” Nell complained.
“Shut up,” Craig barked. “And listen, both of you. Now I know this isn’t a great situation.”
“Right, yeah,” she said. “Get to the fucking point.”
“You interrupt your pappy when he does this?”
“I don’t even know who my father is, so fuck you on that account.”
“Right, sorry. I didn’t know that. But honestly, kids. This is not a fucking country club we got goin’ on here. You gotta pull your weight.”
“What are you gonna do about it?” Dez cracked.
Craig ran a hand through his hair. “I won’t starve y’all, and I can’t ground you in any way. But you gotta understand. This power outage has gone on for, I don’t even know what fucking day it is anymore.”
“It’s June first,” Dez said. “Mink had a calendar and I’m still crossing off the days.”
“So, it’s been a good ten days. We’ve gotten nothing from nobody. No communications, no planes flying and dropping supplies, no tests of power, nothing. That tells me this power outage won’t go away any time soon. And those people who left—including your parents, Dez—are probably not coming back for a while, if ever. That means you’ve both gotta step up.”
“I’m only fucking fourteen,” Nell complained.
“Well, I’m sorry that’s so, Missy, but we can’t just wait around for you to grow up.” Craig paused. “There are only eight of us. Mrs. Braverman can’t help, and Olga is pretty much giving all of her time to her care. So, it’s more like there’s only six of us. You back out and you’re not only hurting yourself.”
“Don’t fucking call me Missy. I hate it.”
“I don’t give a flying shit what you like.”
Relationships
Craig has a relationship of some sort with all the major characters. But these four are the most significant.
Jeannie Scutter Firenze
At the start of Mettle, Craig and his wife, Jeannie, are moving from a relatively even keel to rocky, roiling waters. Craig and Jeannie have known each other since high school. She’s a former beauty queen—and he was just some guy.
But her parents in particular pushed for the union, because Jeannie isn’t what she seems on the surface. The gorgeous Alabama cheerleader has bipolar disorder. As a result, the Scutters did everything in their power to keep the marriage together. They hid the worst of Jeannie’s episodes.
But when they’ve both passed on, the truth comes out. And it is not pretty.
At the Start of Mettle
When Mettle starts, Jeannie is heading right into a manic phase, like a speeding train in the process of derailing. And Craig is finding out that he doesn’t want to tolerate it any longer.
Noah Braverman
I don’t write Craig with any siblings. But Noah is as close to a brother as I’ve got for him. Even though Noah barely knows him, he takes Craig in, all the same. While they aren’t exactly partners in crime (Noah and Elise are), they both get ‘er done. Craig helps everyone to survive. But Craig would not be able to do that without Noah taking him in.
Nell Murphy
When Craig and Nell start off, they get off on the wrong foot. Nell and Dez abandon the others to follow childish pursuits. This leaves Craig and Mei-Lin lost in Brighton. Dez leaves Elise and Noah when they’re foraging for food. Nell takes a nap and Dez does ollies on his skateboard.
Craig reads them both the Riot Act (see above).
But Nell warms up to him, and comes to realize that he is pretty much the only person standing between the group and utter starvation and despair. The no-nonsense middle manager gets things done.
Mei-Lin Quan, MD
With Jeannie, everything is a difficult slog. But with Mei-Lin, everything is easy. Although some of that may come from sharing experiences in a disaster.
She chooses him, and decides he will be the reason she goes on. But when she first comes onto him, he’s like a deer caught in the headlights. It takes him a bit to come around.
Conflict and Turning Point
Like with the other major characters, and really the book itself, the turning point is when they set off the fireworks. Until then, it feels as if Craig will be the strongest one. But he’s not. That honor, rather, falls to Dez.
Continuity/Easter Eggs
Craig is one of the most easily funny characters I have ever written. He makes pop culture references effortlessly and relentlessly. But I don’t have a real continuity for him across the other universes.
Future Plans for Craig Firenze
There is no question that Craig will appear in the Mettle prequel story. That story will be a bunch of loosely-gathered vignettes, but they will all show foreshadowing of the main book. These vignettes will also introduce all of the characters, but as separate entities for the most part.
Craig Firenze: Takeaways
Before the disaster, he’s a mid-level government functionary. But afterwards? He’s the key to the group’s survival. The unlikeliest hero (and in that way, he’s a bit like Marnie Shapiro) is indispensible.
Craig Firenze — because sometimes your hero comes from middle management.
Want More of Craig Firenze and the Rest of Mettle?
If Mettle resonates with you, then check out my other articles about how changes in the periodic table nearly kill us all.
Consider Carmen D’Angelo, One of My Original Characters
Who is Carmen D’Angelo?
Carmen is a fun, take-no-prisoners kind of character. She is one of the most important characters in the Time Addicts universe.
Where Did Carmen D’Angelo Come From?
I wanted a smart, take-charge boss. At the same time, I also wanted to have someone who could intelligently relate to the characters. As a result, I made her a psychiatrist.
This did not just make it easier for the character to related to time travelers. It also created a separate application for time travel. Because apart from its obvious historian application, what can you do with time travel?
So, what if you could use it to help patients recall and work through trauma? Or, perhaps, help them be able to testify against abusers?
The Past is Prologue — Backstory for Carmen D’Angelo
Before the story starts, Carmen works as a psychiatrist. One of her patients, Robin McKenna, seems to experience life differently from other people. Other sane people, that is. Robin seems to be able to recall alternative realities.
When Carmen meets Peter Ray at a party, they get to talking and she explains she has a patient who can see alternate realities. Ray realizes that Carmen’s patient likely can tell the differences between timelines. That is, like Josie James, Robin is temporally sensitive.
Fascinated by Carmen and her unnamed patient, he hires Carmen. Carmen, in turn, hires Robin to be her assistant.
Description
Middle-aged by our standards, smart, and driven, Carmen is a caring, creative boss. She listens to her employees, treats them well, and gets right into the trenches with them.
She’s also from a British enclave on Rhea. Saying it’s a Rhean thing, she calls everyone Mister or Miss or the equivalent. It keeps her apart from others.
And, she’s an alcoholic. But I confess I haven’t shown a lot of that.
She will also, at times, lapse into Italian. I see Annabella Sciorra in her.
Purpose/Theme/Motivation
Her primary motivation is to protect what she sees as the primary timeline. But since she isn’t temporally sensitive, her idea of that changes with every time change.
However, in many of the particularly nasty timelines, she believes Josie when Josie tells her things were better. And more importantly, how they were better.
Quotes (Carmen speaks first, and is talking to Josie)
“I can still deposit into your mental accounts book. Or, rather, I can at least not be the one who’s withdrawing from it all the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am making the conscious decision to believe you. I can’t speak for the others; so they may still be skeptical about your reports of changes. But I shan’t be. You have my word on it.”
Relationships
Without getting into her employer/employee relationships, here’s how Carmen gets along with others.
David Wesley-Smith
In the original timeline, they’re divorced. It’s not due to any sort of argument or wrongdoing. Rather, he wants to see the stars, so he leaves on an Obolonk-centric mission. They divorce before he departs.
In other timelines, she is widowed. And in at least a few timelines, they are still married.
In the timeline where Josie meets him, David turns out to be an anti-Obolonk jackass.
Robin Campbell McKenna
Apart from David, the only other person Carmen regularly calls by their first name is Robin. And so that has led me to wonder—did they have any sort of a romantic relationship? Did it go past psychiatrist/patient? I honestly have no idea, but the concept intrigues me. Perhaps I’ll visit it eventually.
Conflict and Turning Point
Carmen’s conflict and turning point match those of the overall story line. Her mission is to preserve and protect the original timeline as she understands it. And the biggest part of that is keeping Josie alive and well.
Continuity/Easter Eggs
The main continuity is a similarity to another time travel agency boss character I wrote. That was Carmen Calavicci, and she was a product of fan fiction. Are the two Carmens the same? Well, the Carmen of Time Addicts has more depth, and no time-centric surname to clue in a reader.
Future Plans
Because there will be a third trilogy in the Obolonk universe, there’s a possibility that her name will come up again. But it will take place a good century after the middle trilogy. So, even in a futuristic society where people live a lot longer than we do, she’s unlikely to still be kicking then.
Carmen D’Angelo: Takeaways
Carmen manages quite a bit like I do, in the sense that I try to be collaborative versus commanding. But she’s a lot more likely to head to a bar than I am—and I don’t call everyone Miss or Mister.
Carmen D’Angelo — because why the hell wouldn’t time travelers need psychiatric care?
Want More of Carmen and the Rest of the Obolonk Universe?
If the story of the Obolonks resonates with you, then check out my other articles about how our society turns tripartite, with humans, robots, and Obolonks.
Are You Interested in Getting More Twitter Followers?
Who doesn’t want to be getting more Twitter followers?
Oh, it’s the Holy Grail, isn’t it? Getting more people to follow you, and moving that magical Twitter followers number up, up and ever upwards, to stratospheric heights. And, even more importantly, increasing it to more than the number of people you’re following.
More on that later.
Social Media Today weighed in on this, and I supported their ideas but would love to expand up them in this post. Here’s what they had to say about Twitter followers and increasing their numbers.
Quality vs. Quantity
First off, they point out that it’s not quantity, it’s quality. Well, yeah. Kinda. However, various Twitter graders (such as used to be found on HubSpot – now they provide a website grader) did give more credit for having more followers. Were these graders meaningful? Kinda, sorta.
HubSpot admitted that they did give some weight to the actual numbers. I am not averse to actual numbers being used as a part of the grading system. They are, after all, somewhat objective. But does any of it have a meaning? Probably, mainly, to fellow social media marketing-type folk, if anyone,.
Follower counts can also matter to publishers. This is because many publishing companies will see a writer’s followers as a slew of hot prospects for sales. It may even influence whether a publisher agrees to take on a manuscript, or not.
But if you were to tout your grade to anyone not into it, they’d probably look at you as if you had three heads (my apologies, HubSpot).
And, truly, the numbers are not so very meaningful a lot of the time. I mean, do you really want to show everyone how many bots are following you?
I didn’t think so.
Who Do You Want to Follow You?
So onto the techniques.
(1) Think about who you want your Twitter followers to be. Like with any other idea, you need to have some sort of a plan. If you want to sell landscaping services, it would help to target homeowners and gardeners, yes? And in your area, right? You might get John from Cincinnati but unless you’re in the Cincinnati area, forget it. John may be wonderful, but his following you is of little help to you.
Social Media Today‘s suggestion was to go after directories like We Follow. Agreed, and possibly also go after local groups of people. As in, put your Twitter handle on your business cards. The physical kind of cards, I mean. You’re mainly going to be handing those to local folk, so there’s a match there.
(2) Complete your profile. This is a no-brainer and I have no idea why people don’t do this as it takes very little time. And, while you’re at it, add a photograph. Make it of your face, or of the company logo if the profile is shared.
Return the Favor
(3) Follow others. Sure, but don’t do so indiscriminately. At some point, you will hit maybe 2,000 following. However, if your own Twitter followers are nowhere near as high, you’ll mainly look like a spammer (e. g. an account indiscriminately following whoever).
The easiest way to assure that a more balanced ratio is maintained is to get into the habit of doing it now, before you have to care about it. Therefore, don’t just follow back everyone who follows you, unless you’ve got a good reason to do so.
A lot of accounts will follow and then unfollow in a day or so if you haven’t followed back. You most likely don’t want these followers anyway. So, unless they are appealing for some other reason, do not bother with them.
Might I also suggest pruning? If someone isn’t following you back and they aren’t that interesting, uh, why are you following them again?
Use Tweepsmap to find people who recently unfollowed you. It’s free!
You’re Not the Only One
(4) It’s not about you. Agreed. I may tweet (on occasion) about shoveling snow, but the bottom line is, I know that’s not fascinating to most people. You have a new blog post? Tweet about it. The company landed a new contract? Tweet about it. The laws are changing in your area? Well, you get the idea.
(5) Hashtag, retweet, and reply. That is, pay attention to other people. How would they best be able to find your stuff? Would you want them to retweet your stuff? Then retweet theirs. Comment, reply, engage. Be involved with the Twitter community.
(6) Add people to lists. Of course. But use those lists! I’ve been on Twitter longer than there have been lists, and I originally just followed everyone. When I started listing them, I began coming up with people who I didn’t know at all, at least not on the surface.
Hence I created a list just called Who Are These People? and began investigating them further. I kept a lot of them, but a lot were sent to the great Twitter post in the sky. And that’s okay. Because it goes back to an original principle: follow who you want to follow, and don’t just auto-follow.
Get Personal With Your Twitter Followers
(7) Welcome your new Twitter followers. Personally, I’m not a fan of this one, as I have seen all manner of automated “thanks for following me” messages. There’s nothing wrong with a “thanks for following me” tweet every now and then. Those can be nice. Just try not to be too mechanical about it.
Oh, and don’t make your first direct message all about sales. Seriously, just don’t. It’s a poor look no matter who you are.
(8) Integrate, integrate, integrate. That is, like with any other form of social media engagement, put it everywhere. How many times do people have to see something online before they take action? Seven? Nine? Then get your twitter handle out there. Use it in signature lines, on business cards and, heck, even write it on name tags.
Does it all work? Sure it does. And it’s a lot more in the spirit of Twitter than just getting some generic and spammy auto-following list to add your handle, briefly, to their list of who to follow. Don’t be that guy. Be someone who you would want to follow.
Twitter Followers: Takeaways
Getting followers is not the be-all and end-all, so don’t make it that way. Rather, interact and engage. Be encouraging and positive. Being funny helps as well.
There is more to the engaging of a cover artist part of working as an independent writer than just selecting an image or giving them an idea of what you want. Working with a cover artist involves some paperwork. Welcome to the business side of writing.
Because—surprise!—guess what you suddenly are now?
You’re a small business owner.
Working With a Cover Artist Should Mean a Contract
A lot of us get nervous talking about contracts and copyright and that is completely understandable. They seem difficult, complex, fraught with meaning, and all-too final. It feels like a prenuptial agreement sometimes – don’t you want to have faith that everything will work out all right?
Eh, not so fast.
This is not your great love (even if the cover artist is a friend or a relative). Instead, this is about rights. Your rights and the rights which belong to the artist.
The question is: who owns what? Without getting into the minutiae of copyright law just yet, this site offers not only a decent basic breakdown of the law in the United States, but also a good basic contract for a free download.
Contracts are also extremely helpful because they are, in part, a set of instructions. The artist produces the work as of X date, you pay Y amount of dollars as a down payment, etc. So, you get the idea, yes?
So, Are We There Yet?
Are you all set now, and just have to fill in the blanks and you’re good to go?
Not exactly.
Read over the agreement. If any of it does not make sense to you, talk to a lawyer! Even those of us not specially trained in copyright or contracts law can generally dope out an agreement.
Further, in the US, you have got to have competence in Contracts Law in order to pass the Bar examination. It’s a basic part of the Multistate Exam.
Hence even your friend the real estate lawyer should be able to answer your basic contract questions. Oh, and please pay for their time.
One Quick Tip
For the part which is about City, County, and State, you want to write in your own city or town and state, and county or parish. Why? Because if a lawsuit comes down, you will be a far happier person if you get to go to the courthouse in your county, instead of one potentially on the other side of the country. It will be far less expensive, and you will be far more likely to exert your rights if you feel they have been violated.
But when it’s a dispute for $100 and it costs $200 each way to fly to where the lawsuit is happening, you’ll do a cost-benefit analysis and not assert your rights. At least, that’s what the vast, vast majority of people would and will do.
Second Quick Tip
Introduce the idea of a contract before the cover artist does anything. Make it clear you won’t engage them to do the work if the agreement is not signed, but also give them an opportunity to look it over and make changes to it (e. g. they might agree to a different-sized format, etc.). Note: this agreement is rather artist-centric. They probably won’t have much of a problem with it. But it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
Be patient and pleasant like you would be with anyone. This is not you forcing the artist to do anything. But do insist on a signed agreement.
Anyone who is insulted by your insistence on signing an agreement is never, ever someone who you would want to work with. Ever.
Changes
You might want to make changes to a design. You can spell those out in the contract. Should the artist charge you for any changes? They might. So, make sure all of that is in writing. See why it’s a good idea to know pretty much what you want before you start? It could come in handy for, say, an agreement that the first three changes are free.
Working With a Cover Artist Means Payments
Don’t pay it all up front, and don’t agree to do so. If you are absolutely, flat-out broke, you should still be able to pay something, even if the artist hand waves and doesn’t want anything for their work. Be good to your conscience and at least ask if you can make a small donation to one of their three favorite charities.
Otherwise, payments should be as specified in the agreement. Are they in dollars, Euros, bitcoin, or something else? Do you pay with a check, a credit card, PayPal, or something else? When is the first payment due? What percentage of the total is due at the time? What’s the mechanism for getting a refund if things don’t work out?
If this sounds an awful lot like engaging, say, a roofer for your home, then ding ding ding! You’ve got it. You are, in essence, working with a service contractor.
Recommendations
Do you absolutely love your cover? Or do you dislike it but still think the artist is great (in other words, sometimes our visions can clash)? Then find out where and how to recommend them, whether it’s a recommendation on LinkedIn or a review on Yelp. And be sure to tell your writer friends, too!
Be good to your cover artist, and they will reward you many times over.
They are a fellow creative soul. But they express their artistry in a far different way from how you and I do.
It is like any business relationship, or it should be. Respect your cover artist, and they will help you. Don’t, and beware!
Get an Idea of What You Want Before You Start
So the last thing a cover artist wants to hear is, “Surprise me!” When they ask you how you envision your cover, you need to have an idea. One of the best ways to get such ideas is to browse Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and even your local bookstore. Look at the typical covers in your genre. Are they natural-looking? Industrial? Hand-drawn?
What are the predominant colors? Black and white? Green? Pink? Red? Something else? So are they angular, or are the shapes softer and more muted?
Consider the fonts as well. Science fiction tends to have sans serif fonts. Romances tend to have serifs and script display fonts.
Also, are there people on the covers of the books in your genre? Is it two people holding each other, or just someone’s impressively chiseled abs?
Use Care!
Now we have all heard or read the expression, don’t judge a book by its cover.
Except that it’s absolutely untrue. We do judge books by their covers. All. The. Time.
Do Your Cover Artist a Favor and Do Some Research
If the covers in your genre’s section of the bookstore are all orange, should your cover be orange, too? It’s hard to say. You want it to look like it belongs in that section, right? But you also want it to stand out. I would say, if you are a new author and you are predominantly selling online, you need to consider how your work is going to look when it’s shown with others in the genre.
Perform an Amazon or Barnes & Noble search for your genre, and for any keywords related to your plot. If your book is a children’s work about a super-ocelot named Clive (please don’t steal this work. I suddenly have a wicked plot bunny ping-ponging around my head), then you could search under children’s works and then under superheroes or animal stories, etc.
Do some in depth research because your cover is a valuable piece of your marketing.
It might even be helpful to take a screenshot, print it and then consider images which would fit in and images which would stand out.
Your Name
So, your name is probably not going to be recognizable to most people. While it is an important part of the cover, it might be better for the artist to make the title stand out more. Unless you are very famous already, it is highly likely that the cover will have the title of your book at the top and your name at the bottom.
Cover Artist Contracts!
Oh, and another thing – be sure to have a written agreement with this person. Even something relatively informal, signed by both of you, is better than nothing. But why? Because you’re exchanging money for labor. And that means, sometimes, people sue.
This is the very essence of the business side of writing. So, it’s time to pull out all the stops and be a professional about such things.
I was really just posting on Able2know, and playing around, with no plans whatsoever. Yet before I knew it, I had 4 solid posts which were the genesis of the first 3 or 4 chapters of the first book.
And I put it aside for maybe 10 years. But then I remembered—I bet there’s a story there.
So, she came back into my life.
The Past is Prologue — Backstory for Peri Martin
Coming off unsuccessful PTSD treatment, Detective Sergeant Peri (Perdita Sita Martin if you want to get technical) needs a new partner as hers has been killed. Hence, her PTSD. At the same time, we live in a society of Obolonks (vegan, intersex aliens), robots (both sapient and semi-sapient), and us.
Someone is targeting crunchy, hippie Obolonks on the Appalachian Trail. Peri needs to stop the killings.
But then she starts getting phone calls from a mysterious caller. The Appalachian Trail killings are merely a prologue. Little known to her when the story starts, something a lot worse is coming next.
Description: Peri Martin
Peri is about fifty when the story first gets going. She’s average size albeit a little short. Her PTSD treatment included hospitalization, so she gained a few pounds. She’s blonde, sardonic, and has a taste for cheap clothes from an interplanetary outlet store just called The Marketplace. This store is a lot like Sears was back in the day. Cheap and it has basically everything, with outlets all over the place.
Wait, back up. Interplanetary?
Oh, did I forget to mention that this society has people living on nearly every vaguely spherical rock in the Solar System?
Mary Stuart Masterson. Image is for reference purposes only.
But back to Peri. I see Mary Stuart Masterson‘s face. The more I learn about Masterson, the more it confirms my choice.
And I just learned she’s a lefty, which is wacky, as is her trilogy successor actress, Anna Kendrick (‘playing’ Josie James in Time Addicts)!
Smart, sassy, and troubled, this character is a flawed heroine.
Purpose/Theme/Motivation
Beyond solving the case, Peri also has to finally heal properly. She isn’t just sad at her partner’s death—she’s angry. At his killers, yes. But also at him.
She needs to stop dwelling on the past.
Quotes (from the first book, The Obolonk Murders)
The interior of the Rhombus was dimly lit, and the music was loud but incoherent. “Cops,” some large fellow bellowed, spitting on the already-dirty floor in front of them.
Peri looked at him. “We came for the music, and to see if we could meet some of the natives.”
People stopped and stared. Even the music stopped playing. “You’re lookin’ at the natives,” growled the guy who’d spat at them.
“I mean the other natives,” Peri said. “You know, the orange folks.”
A woman came over and looked her over, none too approvingly. “Ain’t no Creamsicles here, Cougar.”
“Do Obolonks ever come here?” Tommy asked.
“Like we would ever tell you,” snarled the guy who’d spat earlier.
Peri scanned the room quickly. The bar’s patrons seemed none too cooperative, and there were no Obolonks to speak of. It was the very epitome of a dead end. “Sorry to trouble you,” she said. Taking Tommy’s arm, she steered him out of there.
“Our appearance was immediately discovered,” he stated the obvious.
“Right, yeah.” She sighed. “This sorta thing used to work like a charm.”
“What did?”
“I’d get dolled up, and me and Charlie would have no problem getting intel outta people. And for God’s sake, they never used to call me a cougar.”
Relationships
Peri has a slew of relationships. These are more or less in chronological order.
Anil Deshpande
When we first see Peri, she’s already divorced from Anil and back to her maiden name. Later, she reveals their marriage ended when she discovered he was cheating on her.
Her mother, Karen, comments that she never seemed to have too much enthusiasm for the marriage.
In the prequel, her former mother-in-law, Sudarshana, works to get Peri’s engagement ring back, ostensibly to give it to Anil to give to a new love. Peri negotiates, and gets the high rise apartment in downtown Boston in trade for the ring.
Greg Shapiro
There’s nothing romantic with Greg. He’s what you would call her ‘work husband’.
Greg is funny, silly, and can match her snark for snark. But he also cares about what happens to her. As the technical/analytical side of solving the case, his help is invaluable.
I could technically also put their squad leader in here, Dennis Dolan. Dennis is another one she snarks with—but Peri knows who figuratively signs her paychecks, so she’s a bit more respectful to Dennis. A bit.
Charlie Hollis
Peri’s partner was also her lover. And so, when she sees him killed, it affects her deeply. But she’s too stubborn to get full treatment for PTSD. In a way, she prefers to suffer, feeling it’s more like proper mourning.
In addition, Charlie was married, and not officially separated from his wife, Elaine. Also, in the prequel, we see Charlie alive, and this couple is on again and off again for years. Charlie is on again and off again with everyone, it would seem. Elaine even comments that Charlie cannot seem to let go of anything.
And so Charlie is, to use a nice word for it, a jerk.
Doug Anderson
Doug does not show up in person until the prequel story. He’s kind and patient—and she doesn’t think she deserves him. At the same time, he also bores the heck out of her. They are together during a spell when she is not with Charlie.
David Shepherd (AKA Mark Ross)
The dashing head of the Orb Intelligence Agency (essentially, the future CIA) takes an interest because he finds her fun and fascinating. She’s not the kind of person who kowtows to him. And Peri is (for the most part) unimpressed by his wealth and status.
Their relationship progresses until he’s forced to go ‘full covert submersion’. The OIA erases his identity for his own safety. But he’s a part of solving the case, too. And, she needed someone after Charlie. Dave, to his credit, also helps her more fully recover. Without Dave, she most likely would not have recovered as well as she does.
Tommy McFarland (AKA Tommy 2000)
Peri’s new partner isn’t human. And a lot of things baffled him by a lot of things. But he’s a quick study, and he’s able to step up when necessary. They save each other more than once, and realize they are meant to be together.
Conflict and Turning Point
The Appalachian Trail cases turn into full-blown terrorism quickly. The group (it calls itself HEART—Humans, Earth, And Robotic Technology) is planning even more attacks. Orange blood will spill by the liter unless Peri, Dave, Tommy, and Greg can stop it.
Continuity/Easter Eggs
Apart from Greg being another Shapiro character, Peri shows up in the sequel trilogy, Time Addicts. Or, rather, her grave does. It is, after all, about 500 years in the future.
Future Plans for Peri Martin
Apart from the above-mentioned prequel story, there will be a third and final (at least, that’s the plan, kind of) trilogy in this universe. Since Tommy is close to being indestructible, he can be in it. And wherever Tommy goes, his infallible memory of Peri is sure to follow.
Peri Martin: Takeaways
I love this character. I think she’s probably one of the first truly sophisticated characters I ever created. She even precedes Untrustworthy.
Peri Martin — the wisecracking cop you want on your side.
Want More of Peri Martin and the Rest of the Obolonk Universe?
If the story of the Obolonks resonates with you, then check out my other articles about how our society turns tripartite, with humans, robots, and Obolonks.
How was third quarter 2022 for writing? So I spent third quarter 2022 mainly editing. This is a necessary part of writing! I also did some planning for NaNoWriMo.
Third Quarter 2022 Posted Works
First of all, I worked on a number of new short stories. A lot of these had been drafted on paper and so I spent some time fixing and polishing them.
Then on Wattpad I posted on the WattNaNo profile and the Star Trek Fans profile, and nowhere else.
Milestones
Also, I have written over 3.3 million words (fan fiction and wholly original fiction combined). So right now my stats on Wattpad for wholly original works are as follows:
Dinosaurs – 40 reads, 9 comments
How to NaNoWriMo – 25,401 reads, 340 comments
My Favorite Things (like kibble) – 983 reads, 133 comments
The Obolonk Murders Trilogy – so this one is all about a tripartite society. But who’s killing the aliens?
The Enigman Cave – can we find life on another planet and not screw it up? You know, like we do everything else?
The Real Hub of the Universe Trilogy – so the aliens who live among us in the 1870s and 1880s are at war. But why is that?
Mettle – so it’s all about how society goes to hell in a hand basket when the metals of the periodic table start to disappear. But then what?
Time Addicts – No One is Safe – so this one is all about what happens in the future when time travel becomes possible via narcotic.
Time Addicts – Nothing is Permanent – this is the second in this trilogy. What happens when time is tampered with and manipulated in all sorts of ways? It’s the ultimate in gaslighting, for one thing.
Time Addicts – Everything is Up For Grabs – coming in November 2021!
Prep Work
So currently, my intention, for next year’s NaNoWriMo, is to write the third trilogy in the Time Addicts/Obolonks universe. But I need to iron out the plot! So a lot of this year has been spent on that. I have no name for this one yet.
Middle-aged by our standards, smart, and driven, Carmen is a caring, creative boss. She listens to her employees, treats them well, and gets right into the trenches with them.
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