The Fourth Wall—Ten Years Later

Posted on May 18, 2024 ·

This month marks the ten-year anniversary of The Fourth Wall. In honor of the occasion, I reread my debut novel for the first time since 2018. It was an illuminating experience—so much time had passed, it felt like I was reading someone else’s book. Like when you read old diary entries and remember the person who wrote them, but only from a great distance. 

From that distance, I am grateful to find that The Fourth Wall remains a book I am proud to have written. I’m indebted to WiDo Publishing for doing an outstanding job, not only with edits, but with aesthetics. Although the cover has always been gorgeous to me, now that I know a thing or two about book formatting (and all the ways it can go wrong), I am equally impressed with the book’s beautiful interior design. It was a pleasure to read.

I remember the anxieties and doubts I felt when The Fourth Wall was published. It didn’t matter that I had a traditional book contract, it didn’t matter that it had good reviews. Or maybe it did matter, just not enough. I was full of insecurities and somehow more embarrassed than proud of my achievement. Out of a sense of obligation to my publisher I did the necessary things, like media interviews and a traditional bookstore launch, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as I should have.

Yet when I look back at my younger self, it’s with fondness and understanding. I was still in my thirties then, still modest to a fault, still under the thumb of imposter syndrome before I knew what that was. Somewhere in my forties I figured things out and learned to work through the worst of my self-sabatoging tendencies.

If The Fourth Wall were published today, would my efforts to promote it look different? Definitely. Would I change the past if I could? No. I love where I’m at now. I love the restless, winding path that brought me here and the books I’ve written along the way. 

And I’m glad it all started with this one.

Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, June 2014

Tucson Festival of Books, March 2015

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Welcome, New Subscribers! I’m Glad You’re Here

Posted on May 4, 2020 ·

Congratulations to the winners of Women on Writing’s Ultimate #StayHomeandRead Book Giveaway! I’ll be mailing out signed copies of The Fourth Wall this week.

Also, a huge and heartfelt welcome to my new subscribers. I’m so glad you’re here. I blog once or twice a month, usually about writerly things, although sometimes I post book reviews too.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Fourth Wall, I have a bunch of fun posts from my blog tour back when it was first published, including the meaning behind the title, why I’m glad it was a first novel, and the ways to become a lucid dreamer.

If you’re super bummed you didn’t win a copy, stick around and I’ll let you know when my publisher runs the next Amazon giveaway so you can grab a free Kindle version.

In addition to writing books, I also love to write short fiction and creative nonfiction. Here is my latest nonfiction piece, published last month in Mothers Always Write. In this piece, I tried to capture some of the courage, resiliency, and grace of my twelve-year-old son, who is on the brink of navigating the tumultuous years of adolescence.

Are you a writer too? A fellow book lover? Let me know in the comments, and once again, welcome. 🙂

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Giveaway! Enter for a Chance to Win $200 and FREE BOOKS

Posted on April 13, 2020 ·

Image courtesy of Women on Writing

In an effort to encourage people to stay home and read, one of my favorite ezines has launched an awesome giveaway!

WOW! Women on Writing’s Ultimate #StayHomeandRead Book Giveaway begins today and runs through May 3. Three lucky winners will receive 21 books, including a signed copy of The Fourth Wall—enough reading material to last you the whole summer.

In addition, one grand prize winner will also receive a query or first five pages critique from yours truly, free entry with critique into a Women on Writing quarterly writing contest, and a $200 gift card you can use to buy MORE BOOKS anything you want.

I’m so happy to contribute to something positive that benefits readers and writers and spreads a little joy. The WOW community excels at that, and we need all we can get right now.

Read more about the giveaway here, or enter below (it’s FREE!), and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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What I Wish I’d Known about Publishing a Book

Posted on June 10, 2015 ·
Image from Flickr by Stacey Green

Image from Flickr by Stacey Green

Today marks the one-year anniversary of The Fourth Wall’s release, and boy have I learned a lot about marketing in that year. While I still feel incredibly lucky to have had a book published, I know I’ve made mistakes trying to get that book into readers’ hands. Here are some things, if given the chance, that I’d do different:

I’d focus my early efforts on getting book reviews. By early April I had an ISBN, a Goodreads page, a cover, a title, and a release date, which is all I needed to send requests to book reviewers. But I didn’t know that—I thought I needed the ARCs (advance review copies) on hand before even asking for reviews. So I waited until I had them, which was mid-May, less than a month before my publication date, and I quickly learned that wasn’t enough time for the many reviewers who only review books before they are published.

I’d make a much bigger push for preorders. I’m terribly insecure about Facebook posts blasting news about my book, so I basically gave myself an allowance of one post per news item. For example, when I received my bookmarks, I posted one picture. When I received my actual books, I posted one picture. Determined not to aggravate my friends or set myself up for ridicule, I stuck with this rule even when The Fourth Wall went on sale for preorders. And one post was not enough.

I’d hire a publicist. Seriously. Even to just help me put together a media kit and make that initial push for interviews and speaking engagements, until I’d built my confidence. I spent countless hours wringing my hands over how to put together a press kit and how and where to send it out and did it ever happen? No. I felt paralyzed by all of the choices and overwhelmed by all I didn’t know, and I’m convinced that a publicist would have been worth hiring to guide me through that.

While there’s a lot I could have done better, here are the things I did right:

The book launch party. Of course, I can’t take all the credit for this—most of it goes to Changing Hands Bookstore and the many friends and family who made the launch party a success. Bookstore events can go either way; it’s difficult to predict whether fifty people will show up, or only five (kind of like your kid’s birthday party). I told myself that if it was only five, I’d make the best of it, but the turnout was great and it was truly a magical evening.

The blog tour. Yes, they’re worth it. I think a third of my reviews are direct results of the blog tour, and The Fourth Wall got a lot of exposure with those fourteen blog posts. Also, writing posts on lucid dreaming and answering dozens of interview questions about themes, characters, and inspirations renewed my excitement for the book itself—not the publishing of it or the marketing behind it, but the ideas and dreams that inspired me to write it in the first place.

I always said yes. Although I couldn’t quite find the courage to seek out speaking opportunities, I never turned down any offer that came my way. When Phoenix New Times asked for an in-person interview, I said yes. When my son’s teacher asked me to come and speak to a class of second graders about being an author, I said yes. And when the activities director at the skilled nursing facility where I work asked me to come speak to the residents about The Fourth Wall, I said yes.

That event/signing took place yesterday by the way, and the host, Gayle, was so gracious and asked such wonderfully unique questions that I didn’t even get a chance to feel nervous. Plus, she served cake.

If you’re an author, is there anything you wish you had done differently in terms of marketing?

 

 

 

 

 

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New Beginnings

Posted on April 2, 2015 ·
Image from Flickr by AmyLovesYah

Image from Flickr by AmyLovesYah

Gabriel’s teacher recently invited me to talk to her second grade class about being an author. She had read my novel and, having particularly liked the first pages, hoped I could frame a discussion around word choice and the importance of beginnings.

I had all sorts of thoughts about how this would go. At their age I’d already fallen in love with language and kept a notebook filled with favorite words. The meanings of words mattered, of course, but even more intriguing were the sounds they made.

And when the sounds matched the meanings, like in “chime” and “thick” and “secret”? Well, that was pure magic.

So I thought I’d talk to the kids about my notebook, the excitement of discovering new language, how I’d open the dictionary to a random page, scan the possibilities, sound out syllables and make crucial choices about which gems to inscribe in my little spiral notebook (the lines more blue than green, the margin line more pink than red).

This would lead to a discussion about word choice, because authors must not only love words but love them enough to choose them wisely.

Which would lead to a discussion about the importance of beginnings.

Good plan, right? But in the end none of that happened, because the kids led the discussion. All I had to do was read the first page of The Fourth Wall, and then the students responded with a flood of questions.

They asked me how I felt writing the book at sentence level, how long it took, when I knew I wanted to be an author, and so on. And then the teacher directed them to write their own beginning, a single paragraph, with an illustration. After maybe fifteen minutes, the kids began to share their work.

Their stories varied widely. Some had magic, some had monsters. Some were cliffhangers, some complete tales. Some had detail and others were straightforward and concise.

Gabriel’s story involved a machine—complete with levers and buttons and compartments that held some sort of mysterious dye.

One girl wrote in third person about a child who wondered what two mean girls, whom she described as friends, really thought of her. While reading aloud, she accidentally switched to first-person narration and abruptly stopped. She looked confused and went to erase something on her paper, murmuring to her teacher that she’d made a mistake. Her teacher said it sounded fine, and the girl quietly finished her story.

When it was time to line up for the bell, kids kept sneaking over to talk to me. A blue-eyed towhead, who’d said the first page of my book scared her because she doesn’t like monsters, told me, “Now I want to be an author like you.”

Another girl, who is always outspoken and precocious, asked me boldly for the name of my publisher and their email address.

As you can imagine, my heart was pretty much soaring at this point. I loved hearing the kids’ stories and seeing their starry eyes and answering their surprising and sometimes adorable questions, all starting with “Miss Elizabeth?” I loved how my son held my hand firmly on the way out of the classroom. And I loved how, on the way to parent pick-up, one of the boys skipped up to me and asked me this last question of the day:

“Miss Elizabeth?”

“Yes?”

“Will you tie my shoe?”

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This Is Why We Write

Posted on March 19, 2015 ·
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Image from Flickr by creativecupcakes

On Tuesday I was treated to a presentation of The Fourth Wall by a group of 7th graders who chose the book for their quarterly language arts project.

That goes straight to the top of the list of amazing and utterly surreal moments in this author’s writing life, right up there with seeing my debut novel on bookshelves.

The kids were assigned individual and group projects; for the group project they decided to put on a talk show. One child was the talk show host, and in a series of interviews with “Marin,” “Frankie,” and “Tom,” he probed the characters with questions about each other that revealed individual strengths and weaknesses and gave insight into the plot.

Because the interviews were conducted before and after the novel’s resolution—separated by an amusing intermission—the audience could see how the characters changed and grew.

It was brilliant. The kids gave nothing away, focusing solely on the real-world aspects of the novel and leaving out the magical realism—which makes sense, as only one of these characters experiences it, and we all know Marin likes her secrets.

But Marin’s dream world is of course a vital part of the story, and the students represented this perfectly. They created a backdrop—a painting of the forest in Marin’s dreams—and displayed it on the wall behind our talk show host and his guests. So it is there all along—framing everything—yet none of the characters can see it.

Before staging the talk show, these 7th graders gave a brief overview of The Fourth Wall for the audience, including the title, tone, and theme. Their take on the theme? Letting go of the past so you can move forward.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

A huge, heart-felt “Thank you” to Lisa Jones, 6th/7th grade Aspire Language Arts teacher at Connolly Middle School in Tempe, Arizona, and to her wonderful students, for reading my book and inviting me to watch Tuesday’s performance.

Also…thanks to everyone who came out to the Tucson Festival of Books! And a big welcome to my new subscribers. This was my first time participating in a book festival, and it was a blast. We sold a few books, handed out tons of bookmarks, and discovered organic cotton candy.

Really, that’s a thing.

Here are some pictures, and congrats to R.C. who won the giveaway for my husband’s hand-crafted feather earrings!

photo 2

Tucson Book Festival

 

Click here to purchase The Fourth Wall on Kindle

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Book Sales and Royalty Statements

Posted on October 31, 2014 ·
Image from Flickr by Leo Reynolds

Image from Flickr by Leo Reynolds

“So, how are sales going?”

I get this question a lot, along with the more direct “How many books have you sold?” I wish I could tell you. Unfortunately, published authors can’t track their sales in real time.

The only indication I have of how day-to-day sales are going is watching my Amazon rankings, and I have no idea what they mean. I don’t think anyone does, really. The ranking is depicted with a line graph which sometimes spikes, which maybe reflects sales, but you can’t tell how many or where the sales came from.

Other than that, I rely on semiannual royalty statements, and even those don’t tell me much. I can see how many ebooks sold in the prior six-month period and how many books were sold via direct sales (purchased through the publisher’s website) because those sales are final. Distributor sales are different, however; those books are returnable.

For example, for my book launch party at Changing Hands Bookstore, the store purchased 70 copies of The Fourth Wall. Fifty people showed up, half of the copies sold, and the host had me sign an additional 12 copies for the shelves. So that’s 47 books; what happens to the other 13? The bookstore can return them within a certain period of time.

So for my July royalty statement, those 70 copies show as distributor sales, but I don’t get paid yet because the sales are subject to return. My January statement will reflect how many books the bookstore returned, and then I’ll get paid for the remaining sales. Make cents? See what I did there? 😉

Yes, Nielsen BookScan tracks retail print sales which Amazon reports, via Amazon Author Central, on a weekly basis. But that’s not an accurate number; not all retailers use Nielsen BookScan. Amazon estimates the number at 75%.

Anyway, I’m still trying to find an appropriate and satisfying answer to “How many books have you sold?” without burdening my well-meaning friends with the above info. I guess a good answer is this: “More than one and less than a million, but who’s counting?”

Authors, how do you respond?

Happy Halloween, everyone!

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Are Blog Tours Worth It?

Posted on September 12, 2014 ·
Image from Flickr by manoftaste.de

Image from Flickr by manoftaste.de

This summer I embarked on a national month-long book tour, meeting readers from Missouri, Wisconsin, California, Pennsylvania, and several other places. Of course, it was a virtual book tour–or blog tour–so I saved a lot on gas.

Still, blog tours aren’t cheap, and they’re more work than I ever would have guessed. Now that the tour’s over, several authors have asked me: was it worth it?

As with anything related to book promotion, the answer isn’t simple. It depends on how you measure worth. Many authors understandably measure in numbers, something I try to avoid (and wrote about here). But if you’re curious about the numbers, I tallied a few:

  • Sixteen hosts signed up to participate in the blog tour for The Fourth Wall.
  • Over 900 people entered giveaways for a copy of the book.
  • Dozens of potential readers reached out by leaving comments on blog sites, Facebook and Twitter.
  • Four of my blog hosts reviewed The Fourth Wall and posted their reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.
  • One giveaway winner has already read the book and posted her review on Amazon and Goodreads.
Not bad, right? But there were also surprise outcomes, like an on-going friendship with my tour host (I couldn’t imagine a more perfect pairing; Crystal and I had a blast).

And the fact that having to prepare blog posts about the subjects of my novel and answering pages of interview questions helped renew and focus my passion about the novel’s subjects and themes; it also helped me when it came time for an in-person interview with a local reporter.

Finally, an aspiring writer who visited the first tour stop on WOW! Women on Writing clicked over to my website, found the “classes and critiques” page, and sent an inquiry. She ended up purchasing a critique for her extraordinarily personal memoir, and I was touched and honored.

It’s never easy for a writer to share her work—it takes a great deal of bravery to commit those words to paper let alone place them in the hands of a stranger to be judged. This writer and I worked together on smoothing her essay (it didn’t take much; she’s a fantastic storyteller); I helped her craft a cover letter and she submitted her story, promising to keep me informed. That’s an outcome that can’t be measured.

Ah, but what about the biggie, you wonder. What about book sales?

It’s impossible to tally book sales in relation to the blog tour, even if I could track sales in real time, which I cannot. How would I account for the readers who added The Fourth Wall to their TBR list and purchase it months from now? Those who borrowed it on their Kindle and may later tell a friend? Or the guy researching theater terms, next year, who stumbles across one of the blog posts from the tour? There’s no way to know.

What I do know is I met some wonderful people on my blog tour and had meaningful discussions about writing, publishing, inspiration, music, and dreams (especially lucid ones). I feel like I did something to get the word out about my novel. Which feels pretty great.

And I saved a lot on gas.

Click here to visit the tour.

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Giveaway! Enter to Win Feather Earrings

Posted on August 13, 2014 ·

photo

Frankie’s handcrafted feather earrings from The Fourth Wall have become quite popular! Of course, it was my husband who made them, and I have ONE pair left to give away.

To enter the giveaway, just pop your email address into the subscription box for Elizabeth’s Newsletter. You’ll receive a confirmation email from MailChimp; once you confirm your subscription, you’ll be entered into the drawing.

The newsletter will be published twice a month beginning mid-September. It will include writerly inspiration, insights into the publishing process, and discounts on classes and critiques. Your email address is safe with me, and you can opt-out anytime, so there’s nothing to lose. But hopefully, you’ll stick around for awhile. 🙂

The newsletter subscription box should be to your right, or directly below this post. The giveaway ends Saturday at midnight, MST, and the winner will be notified on Sunday.

Go enter, and good luck!

UPDATE on August 17:
The winner is Maria D.! Thanks for entering, everyone. 😀

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Oh, What a Night

Posted on July 11, 2014 ·

Changing Hands Bookstore did a lovely job hosting the launch party for The Fourth Wall, and my friends and family made the event a HUGE success. Over fifty people showed up; there were goodies, giveaways, and some surprise guests whose appearance threatened to ruin my mascara…but I managed to keep my game face on. 😉

Read on for details, and enjoy the pictures!

Display

photo 1

My host, Brandi, was setting up when my daughter and I arrived with the cupcakes and lemonade. Brandi had a nice display table (shown above) with copies of the book and a beautiful arrangement of flowers. The flowers, I would learn later, were a gift from my childhood bestie, Megan Russo, who lives in Kansas. For those of you who have read The Fourth Wall, you may recognize her name…

photo 3

The cupcakes, made by Confection Insanity, turned out perfect. There were four dozen, each topped with a book made of marshmallow fondant. My friend, Shawna, brought donuts and coffee, and her daughter made those pretty little cherry-topped cheesecakes.

me at display

Before all the guests arrived, I stole away to the front-of-store display with Abbey. On our way back, we weaved through the aisles and checked out some groovy handbags. And that’s when I spotted some familiar faces passing by in the main aisle. I grabbed Abbey’s arm and said, “Oh my God. Your papa’s here.”

My father, who lives in central California, had texted me about half an hour earlier, wishing me luck at the launch. He and my step-mother, Oma, gave no indication they were coming, and it never crossed my mind that they would–it’s a twelve-hour drive. I stood there stunned, and then noticed they had with them a very tall, very blonde young girl.

surprise guests

That’s my niece, Makayla; I haven’t seen her since she was thirteen. Makayla is now seventeen, but she hasn’t changed much. She’s still sweet and wonderfully silly, and she still LOVES to read. She’s followed my progress on The Fourth Wall since I started writing it, and always cheered me on.

When it was time to step up to the podium, I was a little nervous. But once I started talking, the feeling disappeared. I talked for a bit about what inspired The Fourth Wall, and then I read a few passages from the novel.

mea t podium

photo 4

After the reading, I just wanted to mingle and thank everyone individually. But my host was urging me toward the signing table where people were lining up, and I didn’t want to keep them waiting. So I asked my dear friend Amy to bring me some goodies and I dashed off to the table where I would stay for the rest of the event. See the nice plate of sweets Amy brought me?

signing books 1

Why, yes, I am going to eat these cupcakes. Yep, the cheesecake too, sorry.

signing books 2

Let’s get a closer look at the sweets.

cheesecake!

While I was signing books, Brandi drew names from a jar–three people would be walking away with the handmade prizes my husband crafted for the giveaway. I’d asked Alex to replicate a pair of feather earrings from the book. He did, along with a pendant. The first name Brandi drew belonged to my friend Shawna’s younger daughter. She chose the pendant. I was glad the first prize went to this generous family who’d provided treats for everyone.

jewelry

This is one of my best friends, Tyler. She didn’t think she could make it to the launch because of her work schedule, but when she showed up just in time I was not surprised. That’s because Tyler’s always there for me; she even became an ordained minister to officiate my wedding in 2009.

tyler

And this is Tyler’s dad, Fred. He was the lucky winner of the first pair of earrings.

fred

But wait, will these earrings really look good on Fred? He’s quite a smashing fellow, but can he pull off this look? What do you think?

earrings

Um, maybe not. But no worries; before the night was through, Fred’s wife, Kim, had the silver feathers dangling from her ears, and they looked lovely on her.

My daughter, Abigail, had the task of taking pictures throughout the evening. I’d given her my iPhone and told her to get lots of shots. I realized later that she took nearly all of them from this vantage point, as my daughter never leaves my side for long. 😉 But she DID take plenty of shots; so many my phone died. She even took pictures of people taking pictures. That’s my girl.

pic of me getting pic

Okay, back to the giveaway. The third winner was my friend Cristin, and this made me really happy, because she had driven up from Tucson to come to the party. Cristin was all smiles when she collected her prize, and it was the perfect end to the giveaway.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the night. Those seven amazing ladies you see are all part of a workshop I take called Mothers Who Write. Each one of them has supported my writing efforts over the years, and they’ve shared their writing with me. That’s a very personal thing, and it can be a scary thing. But when we get together and share our stories, it always feels safe.

amy

All in all the launch party was a blast. The only leftovers we had were a handful of cupcakes. We gave those to the staff at Changing Hands Bookstore, who were gracious throughout. They even hinted that I come back in January for a very special event…but I’ll keep you posted on that.

Thanks for helping me celebrate!

photo 5

 

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