The Human Touch

I have just returned from our annual family camping trip: the opportunity to rest, fish, hike with the family, and write 12,000 words of a novel I should never have started… the usual. Being 90 days away from the release of From Ashes They Rose – Wycaan Master Book 5, also meant it was time to honor a now six-year tradition and read the rough first draft of book 6 to my sons in the forest and around the campfire.

Every morning I would drive down the mountain slope where we had pitched our tents and, at the junction, make a choice: turn right to get ice from a machine or left to buy it from a store. Each time, I turned left. On the final day of our trip, my eldest joined me and asked why I chose the longer drive each day.

“I prefer to buy the ice from a human being,” I replied. He made a joke about any consumer options purchasing from an elf – I have him well-trained.

What struck me is that I had not made a conscious choice, but I preferred the brief conversation with the cashier than the dull whirl of the ice machine. There is a certain irony here. I am reading an excellent book about online marketing – Authorpreneur in Pajamas by Geraldine Solon – and marveling at how social we can be on social media.

And yet I choose to turn left appreciating the human touch in the interaction. The Internet is amazing. Truly. But a chilled beer around the grill or campfire with family and good friends is not something that can ever be totally tweeted/snapchatted/instagrammed/etc.

The aforementioned author, Geraldine Solon, while she sung the praises of social media, made it very clear that she loves public signings and meeting her fans in person. I have met Ms. Solon on a number of occasions around the Northern California authors’ circuit. She is so vibrant and eloquent. Each time she has gone out of her way to introduce me to people I don’t know and always a deserved crowd hovers around her author’s table, from where I hear laughter and frivolity. Ms. Solon might be an expert on the topic of social media, but she also loves being with people. I am sure her considerable success is due as much to one as the other.

If Ms. Solon was buying ice while camping, I am sure she would turn left and purchase from a human being. She would probably buy herself an ice cream too ’cause she’s on vacation. And why not?

While I have your attention, From Ashes They Rose, the fifth in the Wycaan Master series, will be released in September 2015. To celebrate, Tourmaline Books have lowered the price of the award-winning, At The Walls of Galbrieth, to a mere 99 cents for the ebook. I’m not sure for how long this will remain so.

  

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and three more novels in the Wycaan Master Series: The First Decree, and Ashbar – Wycaan Master Book 3, and Sacrificial Flame – all released by Tourmaline Books. From Ashes They Rose, the fifth in the series, will be released in September 2015. The story continues.

Shalev is also the author of three social justice-themed novels including Unwanted Heroes. He swears there is a connection. More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter). Hang out with Alon on Google+

Twitter: A Tool for Writers to Create Community

After a week of twitter articles and how they can be used or prevented from using for social change, I thought I would offer a more author-directed post for the weekend. Today’s authors and aspiring authors (a few hundred A-listers notwithstanding) rely heavily on creating a social media platform, a ‘presence in the Force,’ to quote Darth Vader, who was known for his sociability across the galaxy (kind of puts world-wide web into proportion, no?).

A year ago, I wrote a coupe of posts, one of which began: “I am still struggling with how to use Twitter.” I had actually splurged $1 for a pocket-size Twitter for Dummies book at Office Depot (didn’t even write it off as a tax deduction) but never really started until December. 150 days later and I have over 10,000 followers for @alonshalevsf (and over 8,000 for @elfwriter which feed my epic fantasy blog at www.elfwriter.com).

Now I admit, I have not sat down for coffee with each of these people personally. This is only in part because i am already worried about my caffeine addicti0n. But I am having some great conversations, in a format that allows us to keep it short and tight.

Dana Lynn Smith wrote a great piece a while ago and I kept it.  The article is called Ten Great Ways Twitter Can Help You Promote Your Book and was written for the excellent Book1Blog.

Twitter is, she says, not about selling books, but provides  an excellent way to build your networks and reputation. We all know that we  sell books when people meet us, whether face-to-face or online. Here are a few of the tips that Ms. Smith recommends. To read all ten, click here.

1. Help others by sharing information, while you gain a reputation as an expert. You can post links to helpful articles, recommend resources, offer tips and discuss other books that you enjoy.
2. Stay on top of news and trends in your field or genre, and get ideas for your articles and blog by reading the tweets of the people you follow.
3. Ask for help and get instant responses – things like feedback on your book title, cover design or website. It’s amazing how helpful folks are.
4. Spread goodwill by helping your peers. Introduce people to one another, recommend other related books, or re-tweet interesting posts from people you follow.

What I like about Ms. Smith’s article is the principle: we make friends online by asking for help and helping others. This seems to be something very cozy and intimate in what is otherwise often a virtual and detached world.

I still believe in meeting over a cup of coffee to help someone who asks for your advice. But time and geographical restraints means we can reach and be reached more efficiently in the age of the Internet. We can still, however, leverage this medium to create a supportive community.

Dana Lynn Smith, by the way, is a nationally recognized book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketing Guide.

In the spirit of this article: please share your best Twitter practices in the comments below. Have a great weekend.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

Why We Read Fantasy

This week I completed the manuscript for my second fantasy novel. What began a year ago as a way to bond with my oldest son took on a whole new perspective. I had previously read Tolkien, Paolini and probably a few others, but I never considered this my genre.

Now, 180,000+ on, I am reading about fantasy writing techniques, devouring books by authors such as Terry Brooks and R.A. Salvatore, and considering getting my ears pointed (okay – but there really are people who do this cosmetic surgery).

Hey Mom, I promised no tatoos!

Whenever I tell people, especially those who know I write political fiction, about my foray into the world of fantasy, I do it in a somewhat apologetic way. Usually, I make sure to tell people that I am doing it for my son, which while true, is only part of it as my enthusiasm grows. 

The question that is on my mind these days is why do intelligent, educated adults enjoy plowing through 90,000 word tomes about elves, dwarfs and dragons? Here are some Wiki answers:

“Some fantasy readers are unhappy with their lives and think that they would be happier in another world. A place where someone who is not so successful in this world might be a hero or king in another world.”

“I like reading fantasy books because they provide me with a beneficial different point of view on world and everything. I like to think about it using the analogy to house that you may live in but you’ll never be able to understand if you don’t ever get outside and look at it from perspective.”

“You can see a lot of tiny details in fantasy books that you may somehow lose in your everyday life just because they aren’t getting enough your attention… Digest them and they’ll make your life more colorful and interesting.

A lot of fantasy is about the world we would like to see, a dream we want to pursue. Where would we be at if we didn’t dream?”

 

“Older readers might enjoy Fantasy because of its imaginative scope, and also because of the uncanny ability fantasy has to show us aspects of our own lives in an otherwise far-fetched format. People can relate to the emotions and experiences of fantasy characters, as well as mirror events in human history, through the blurred mirror of the fantasy world.”

“Fantasy is a place to escape when you no longer want to live in real life. Where you can let your imagination run free and have control over what you see and hear.

Many people like to escape the hustle and bustle of real life and be captured by a story which involves something special, unreal or different – possibly magic. People enjoy being in someone else’s shoes – someone extraordinary, so that we can look at the world through anothers eyes. You can switch off and enjoy letting your imagination run wild.”

Do you read fantasy? If so share what the attraction is for you? If you read it once in a period of your life, why then and not now?  Fascinating stuff.

Please Vote Today. Click Here.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).