Richard Nash- Literary Savior?

Posted on May 11, 2012 by jensmithsick

Richard Nash- Literary Savior?

Richard Nash at Muse and the Marketplace

I recently attended the Muse and the Marketplace literary conference in Boston. My hope was to learn more about the publishing industry, rub shoulders with some agents, and meet more fellow authors. The event was beyond my expectations and I learned a ton. The agents however, were a bit beyond reach. People actually paid $140 for an agent to read the first 40 pages of their manuscript and give them feedback. That blew my mind along with the agents’ attitude that they were still the gatekeepers of publishing. We Indie authors know different. But this article isn’t about agents; it’s about Richard Nash, the main speaker at the conference.

Richard Nash is a leader and forward thinker in the fast changing world of publishing. He ran Soft Skull Publishing for several years than sold it to start Red Lemonade and is currently working on a new project called Small Demons. At Muse and the Marketplace Boston literary conference I saw him speak. Despite his business suit and professional demeanor he was still quite quirky, which I liked. I just don’t relate to anything that resembles normalcy.

First he started with a look back in history at a time when there were no publishers and anyone who could write was guaranteed a good living as a scribe. A contrast to today’s world where there are so many struggling authors. The number of books has increased significantly over the last few years due to self publishing but the number of readers has not. Simple economics will tell you that when the supply goes up and the demand remains the same the price will come down, hence the free and 99 cent eBook.

The New Culture of Algorithms

Today there are those who would lead you to believe that when it comes to books it’s not about content, it’s about culture. An example of culture today is the overemphasis on the highly desired Facebook ‘Like’. Nash compared the overuse of the ‘Like’ to a debased currency. Another example of culture today in the book world is the Amazon.com ‘people who bought that book also bought this book’, the unemotional unfeeling algorithm, the mathematical masterpiece that is devoid of a reader author relationship and exists only in a world of product consumer. Netflix built its longevity plan around the algorithm; realizing people would buy their product because there were a number of movies they would like to see but missed at the movie theatre. Eventually people would see all of the movies they planned to see so Netflix created ‘people who liked this movie also liked that movie’.

Will novels break the algorithm? Nash is looking at what’s in the books being written today not what the people reading books are talking about. He created a data base that logs and references the content of books- the places, food, clothing, people, music and so forth that is talked about in books. To Nash all books are connected. What does this all mean for publishing?

Publishing in the New Era

Publishing is morphing and the slush pile is ripe for reinvention. The slush pile is the ever increasing pile of query letters from hopeful authors pitching their books. Due to email and agent query data bases, agents can get hundreds of query letters a day. Regarding the slush pile Nash said, “…and what did we do? We sent you back your heart with a rejection letter attached to it with a dagger.” This hit home with me as I am a recipient of 39 rejection letters.

To explore a possible solution Nash created Red Lemonade which is a forum where authors download their work and other authors comment on it. Nash then pokes around to see what the authors are commenting on and occasionally has found work he’s wanted to publish.

Many an author dreams of the ever elusive publishing contract and for that moment when they can finally walk into a book store and see their book sitting there on the shelf. But then the author looks around to see the other twenty-five thousand other books on the shelves and the harsh reality that there are only eight people in the store. Nash believes what authors really want is love. My first thought was yeah love is cool but I really want to sell a million books. But I understood where Nash was going and next he posed a question. “How is one to be an author in a world where everyone is a writer?”

Authors in a World of Writers

I’ve pondered the question, when is an author an author and wrote about it in my blog. http://jensmithsick.com/when-is-an-author-really-an-author/ During a session at the Muse and the Market, literary agent Katherine Sand from the Freyman Literary Agency said that an author is a name on a publishing contract and otherwise you are just a writer. I thought that was harsh. So, how do you become an author in a world where everyone is a writer? Nash answered his question with the following statement, “by being a reader in a world where everyone is a writer.” Nash expanded on this by saying, network, get involved in author forums, comment on the bogs you read, write reviews for the books you read. Give love. Be a part of the world of writing and by giving the love you will receive the love. I can dig it Richard Nash. I can dig it.

Breaking the Rules of Writing in Non-Fiction

Posted on April 30, 2012 by jensmithsick

Can you break writing rules in non-fiction?

I recently attended a great writer’s workshop at Grub Street Boston called Breaking the Rules in Non-fiction. This was an encouraging day for me in a very subtle yet powerful way. I’ll explain why. I call myself an author, I’ve written and published a book, but I’ve never studied English or writing, my education focus was finance. I love writing, it fills me and I have many stories to tell.

The class focused around several examples of authors that took an unorthodox approach in their writing. My favorite was Joann Beard author of The Boys of My Youth. In a part of this book Joann writes in a style that’s called a braided essay. She weaves back and forth from childhood scenes to adults scenes and then back again to her childhood. Sometimes there are no prompts or white space for these drastic changes yet they seem to work. I was comforted by this example because I also jump around in the first chapter of my book SICK from the past, to further in the past, then back to the current. I do use white space and attempt to cue the reader but have been told by some that the first chapter is difficult to follow. Perhaps I can incorporate Joann’s example of ease of transition someday into my writing.

Another interesting example of something different is Joan Wickersham’s Suicide Index. Supposedly Joan wrote 400 pages about her father’s suicide and threw it away replacing it with a reasonable amount of pages that consist of mini stories referenced by an index of sorts. The format was interesting but the content in my opinion seemed to be pointless questioning around the suicide. I think Joan may have been lacking a good therapist. I, on the other hand, have had many therapists. I like to believe they helped in some small way.

The goal in my writing is to entertain and perhaps enlighten with my story telling. I had a recent reviewer say the following about my book SICK. “This is not a book that follows the rules of writing. You won’t find perfectly constructed sentences and a plot that moves from point A to point B in any kind of a structured line… It is written in the first person but occasionally slips to the third and once or twice to the second.” But much more importantly the reviewer also said that the book brought out emotions to the point where she laughed, giggled, and cried… absolutely compelling and worthy of reading. I would rather be able to move you than write a perfectly structured sentence. Maybe if I keep practicing I can do both some day. Full review here. http://www.parentslbb.com/books/2012/03/23/sick-by-jen-smith/#more-400

So is my writing breaking the rules in non-fiction or is it that I just don’t know the rules. But if I did know the rules would I write the way I want anyways? Probably. What about you? Are you a slave to the rules of writing or do you purposefully break the rules? Do you know other examples of authors that break the rules?

Is Truth in Non-Fiction Really Just Perception?

Posted on March 27, 2012 by jensmithsick

Is Truth in Non-Fiction Really Just Perception?

What is truth? Is truth a fact? I can look at my car and say there are four tires. That is a fact. I can look at my car and say it’s red. That is a fact. Or is it? Another person could look at my car and say that it is burgundy. Is burgundy red? Some would say yes and some would say no. So then, what is the true color of my car?

Truth really is a grey area. Recently I attended a writer’s workshop at Grub Street Boston about breaking the rules in non-fiction and a great discussion formed around this topic. At one point the instructor gave us an example of an author that took the liberty to change the number of heart attacks that happened during a particular time, in a particular state, and also the name of a bar in a journalistic piece. The author’s reasoning was that the number four sounded better than eight and Bucket of Blood, as a bar name, was cooler than the actual name of the bar.

Interestingly there was a student in the class that was fine with the number change but thought changing the name of the bar was outright wrong. I felt the opposite. Changing the name of the bar was fine but changing a statistical number was appalling to me. I found our contradicting views fascinating. Neither one of us was right nor wrong, we just had different perspectives based on our experiences with the world.

As the author of the memoir SICK, I write about the memories of my past. I do this to the best of my ability but in all honestly my memory is not the greatest especially when it comes to the time frame of events. Sometimes I’m not sure if an event happened before or after another event so I have to make my best guess. There is also the matter of perception. I’m well aware that I may perceive a past event very differently than someone else that was there. Does that mean one of us is wrong and one of us is right? The reality is that probably both of us are wrong and perceive the past event based on our personal views and experiences. That’s usually how it works in my opinion.

So is what I’m writing not the truth? I don’t think so. It’s my truth, my perception of the world as I understand it. We have a genre called creative non-fiction. This is when writers take true events and makes them more interesting by adding detail and dialog that may not necessarily be true or accurate. I get this. Then there’s the controversy over Jeff Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces that he originally claimed was a memoir but later came clean that the book contained fictionalized events. If you look at this from a business perspective, Frey couldn’t get representation when he tried to sell the book as fiction. Non-fiction is where it’s at now, it’s what sells. So Frey changed his tune and said his book was a memoir and got on Oprah and sold millions of copies. I’m not saying what he did was right but I definitely get it.

What do you think? Is there such thing as truth? Is non-fiction merely one person’s perception of the world? Is creative non-fiction ok?

SEO 101

Posted on March 22, 2012 by jensmithsick

Tips for Better Google Search Results Using SEO.

How to get your name, book, and blog posts to come up in Google searches.

When I finished my book SICK and had it edited I felt like I had really accomplished something. Of course the dream of an agent was fluttering around in my brain like a beautiful brightly colored butterfly. I proceeded to write the most interesting gripping query letter I could possibly muster up and sent it out to eighty agents. Yup, that’s an exact number I carefully logged them on an excel spreadsheet. (geek) My beautiful dreamy butterfly quickly turned into an ugly moth as the rejections flooded in. Add the bad timing of Borders closing to the fact that agents now get hundreds of submissions sometimes daily, and I realized that I didn’t stand a chance. Borders was now sending back its entire inventory to the publishers at the cost of the publishers. That’s how it works. So no one was willing to take a chance on an unknown author. (I’m not ready to ponder the possibility that I suck as an author)

I was going to get my book out there one way or another so the self publishing route was the next logical step. With book cover design and formatting lined up again I really started feeling like I had accomplished something. Little did I know the real work was just about to begin- book promotion! You can write the best literary novel of the twenty-first century and if nobody knows it’s out there nobody is going to buy it. Being a geek, as I mentioned earlier, I started reading everything I could get my hands on about book marketing. My two favorites so far that I would recommend are Mark Coker’s Book Marketing Guide which he gives away for free and the much more intense Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. The latter gets deep in the weeds of social media but in my opinion is amazingly well written, educational, and forward thinking. I am fortunate to also have the help of a friend and Google search guru Scott Wasserman of WSI Internet Marketing. http://www.wsiwikipro.com/ I’m writing this article to share some great tricks of the trade that I have learned mainly from Scott.

So the real work began. I needed a blog, a Twitter account, Facebook, Linked In, blah blah blah yatta yatta- Ahhhhh!!! And then I saw the letters SEO. What the heck is SEO? Secret Encryption Overload? Service Entry Order? Then I read it, Search Engine Optimization. Well that didn’t really help. Then I put two and two together. Remember, like I said before, you can write the best book ever and if nobody knows it’s out there no one is going to buy it. Search Engine Optimization is all the stuff you can do to help Google, and more-so the searcher, find you and your book. Here are some facts from the book Inbound Marketing. In the month of April 2009 over 13 billion searches were conducted in Google, in all other search engines combined there were roughly 22,000 searches. So Google rules the world and if your book and blog are not being found in Google you don’t exist in the search world. Another hard fact is that there are only about ten search results on a page and very few people ever bother going to the second page so you have to be in the top ten. This really isn’t as hopeless as you may think it is and I will explain why. This is where SEO comes in.

First of all, if you are an author, you have your name and book name. I’m Jen Smith SICK, that is my product. Your name and book name are your key words with perhaps another key word or two about the subject matter, for example zombies or World War II. You need to let Google know these are your key searchable words over and over and over. This is where tags come in. A tag is exactly that, a key word or words that you want Google to associate with you. The more specific the better, like your name and book name. The more general your key words, like World War II, the more search competition you will have. WordPress blog format allows the input of tags for every blog post. Do not overlook this significant and important step. I add my name and book name in the tags of every blog I post. Also try to use your key words in the content of your blog as much as possible, but please not to the point of destroying the readability of your piece. Be sure to use this option of imputing tags and be precise about tags that are specific to the post, and repetitive always adding your name and your book name.

Another easy, free, and great way to increase your chances of being pulled up by Google is a no brainer! Join Google plus! Ok I’ll admit I didn’t think of this myself despite the fact that it is a no brainer, but my brain has been compromised by a past filled with debauchery and other shady unmentionables, what’s your excuse? Anyways, think about it like this, who rules the search world? Google! So why wouldn’t Google choose to be partial to pulling up results from its own platforms? They are! Not only do I belong to Google plus, I have a share button for Google plus on my blog and I share every one of my blog posts to the Google platform by clicking the Google plus share button. The way Google rates a page has to do with sites they deem as ‘authority sites’ linking to your site. I know that’s confusing but stay with me. Think about it like this, what site do you think Google thinks has the most authority? Well Google of course! So by sharing your blog post to Google plus you are greatly increasing the chances of it coming up in a search. I just Googled myself again, Jen Smith SICK, and of the top four links, three of them were Google plus shares of my blog posts. It works!

Is any of this new information to you? Do you find it helpful?

Get better Google search results for your blog

Posted on March 9, 2012 by jensmithsick

How to get your name, book, and blog posts to come up in Google searches.

What comes up when you Google your name and your book? Anything? Try mine- Google Jen Smith SICK. I come up in eight of the top ten listings most of the time and my book and blog have only been out since mid February. How does this happen? I’m going to share with you some of the top trade secrets that have been shared with me by Scott Wasserman of WSI Internet Marketing. http://www.wsiwikipro.com/

First off have the Platinum SEO Pack plugin installed in your wordpress blog. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is free! http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/platinum-seo-pack/ When the SEO plugin is installed it is simple to use. You will be prompted to fill in additional information before publishing a new blog post. There will be a box for you to fill in the title of your article and a description. Make sure your title is brief and accurately descriptive. If your blog post is pulled up in a Google search this exact title and description will be viewed. This gives you control and the ability to write a catchy description that will hopefully cause someone to click on your link. I am a control freak and love this feature! Before my SEO enlightenment I had no idea we could control the wording around a Google search listing.

Another advantage to SEO is better URL structure. Google loves this! I have no structure in my life and kind of flip flops around from project to project day to day but that doesn’t mean my URL’s can’t have some structure! Instead of a long mish mash of letters and symbols, my URLs are now easy to read for people and Google. First is the name of my blog, the date of the post, and the name of the post. Here is a sample. http://jensmithsick.com/2012/03/01/when-is-an-author-really-an-author/

Pretty groovy don’t you think? And most importantly, don’t forget the tags. Tags are words that you choose to help Google find your page. Use distinct tags for each individual post that are relevant to that particular blog post and I always include my name and the name of my book. Google will sometimes use these tags to pull up your page. Other times Google will choose to use a section of your page’s text. The SEO will have a special box for you to include your tags. WordPress also has a box to add tags. Make sure you always fill in both boxes. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of SEO here it is. http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Shareaholics can give you an additional row of share buttons in your blog post. Put share buttons at the top and at the bottom of your post. The bottom is important for those folks who actually read entire posts before they decide to share them. WordPress does have share button options that can be utilized but Shareaholics will give you additional share buttons. In my opinion the worst thing you can do in today’s social networking world is have a great blog post and no share buttons for me to tweet it and share it on Facebook and Google plus. Nothing annoys me more and screams social network newbie!

If you can’t figure this stuff out on your own pay someone else to do it, like my friend Scott. Shop around as prices vary greatly for Web support. But hopefully, at least, this article will help you understand what you need to ask for. The next thing you need to know about Google is that they love content. The more (preferably good) content on your blog the better chances of it being pulled up so go blog your brains out!

When is an author really an author?

Posted on March 1, 2012 by jensmithsick

Just because I’ve written a book and it’s available on Amazon.com, does that mean I’m an author? I’ve labeled myself many things before, student, groupie, investment analyst, felon (not convicted), space shot, mom, but never author. In my social network obsessive plight I’ve begun interacting with other authors in forums where I am supposedly an author as well.

Recently I discovered a Facebook family called Book Junkies. I read about it some where in some article in somebody’s blog. I wish I could quote where from for you but I was so intrigued I instantly Googled Book Junkies and found the page and the option to join, swiftly leaving the blog source in the dust in classic A.D.D. style. Book Junkies is a place for Indie Authors to meet, learn about each other and support each other.

Like the good addict that I am, I went ahead and sent way more requests out than I’ll admit for people to friend me. Within moments I had a few responses. I was pleasantly shocked! These people don’t even know me and they’ll friend me? Some even posted “hello” on my wall and one asked me to like his book fan page. Then the light bulb went on! …or perhaps really just sizzled a bit from a few discombobulated brain cells. What if I message all the people friending me all at once and ask them to like my SICK book fan page? After doing this I was instantly ridiculed and informed that what I did was considered spam and that it would kill my reputation. Yikes! I apologized to the few who would still talk to me and then to the Book Junkie world with an apologetic post on the wall for all to see. Some folks were very kind and schooled me on Book Junkie Facebook ethics. I did, however, get sixteen more fan page likes.

One man who clued me in was David Cleinman. He is the author of Toys in the Attic and Principle Destiny both about strong woman. The latter based on true events- got to check these out. David also hosts an internet radio station where he often interviews authors. http://davidcleinman.com/writings/ He messaged on the Book Junkies Facebook wall that due to drop outs there were author interview opportunities. Of course I immediately filled out his lengthy interview form with high hopes. Stay tuned for the result of that. David was kind to me about my spam blunder and I am grateful to him for his gentle words.

I also met a writer from San Francisco named JD Mader, author of the books The Biker and Joe Café. I simply thanked him for friending me on Facebook and we started a conversation. He shared his blog and a couple of links to articles he’d written. Check out his blog unemployed imagination. http://www.jdmader.com/ Later I found a really fun interview of JD Mader on NcNally’s blog http://sablecity.wordpress.com/ Best format for an author interview I’ve read so far- actually read the entire interview, they are usually boring. Mader also kindly turned me on to another blog where Indie Authors can submit content. http://www.indiesunlimited.com/

So am I an author now that other authors talked to me? Will I be an author if David Cleinman decides to interview me? Will I be an author after I make a certain amount of money from my book? What do you think makes an author an author?

Tweeking on Twitter

Posted on February 26, 2012 by jensmithsick

I love Twitter! I think I’m addicted to it. Of course given my overly obsessive compulsive additive prone personality this shouldn’t be surprising. So here’s the run down on this thing they call twitter. Some folks just tweet useless nonsense or you can follow tweets around an event to get the ‘in the moment’ play by play of what’s happening. For example I followed the New York City Occupy Wall Street tweets to try to find out what their message and purpose was. It didn’t take long for me to figure out they really didn’t have one other then Wall Street is bad and the 1% suck. But this was enough and it was truly fascinating to watch how that movement organized and attained resources through social networking. But I’ve now seen Twitter in a new light. I’d never thought of it as a place for professionals of the same feather to flock together to share knowledge and gain recognition.

Fortunately I read a couple books about marketing eBooks that stressed the necessity of developing a Twitter following and most importantly for me these books also went into detail about Twitter etiquette for professionals. Yes that’s right, there is a particular etiquette if you want your peers to take you seriously. First off add value with your posts. With the fever of an addict, I comb through tweets looking for links to blog posts and articles that are informative and well written for me and my fellow Indie Authors. I can do this at a quick intense pace for a long period of time, with an intense obsession. I really get into it! And the pay off? Another follower! Oh yes there’s nothing like turning on the computer and checking my email only to be delighted and elated by three more followers! Woo Hoo! Of course you do have to screen out @Bubbles who just loves to f**k. Yes blocking bubbles immediately is imperative in order to not let your Twitter get filled up with inappropriate spam.

Another important piece of etiquette I learned from Mark Coker’s book (the guy who developed Smashwords) on eBook marketing was to not continuously talk about your book. I just gets boring. There is an author I’m following and every day she just asks you to buy her book in a little different way. Boring. I’m really glad I learned that before I started Tweeting. In order to get real followers you’ve got to give them good content. The original blog posts that I write will always be tweeted but I can also reference other folks too. This Tweet thing is like a spinning wheel. I can give it a good spin with a few new Tweets and it will keep going for a while but eventually it will slow down if I don’t jump back in and give it another spin with some good interesting content Tweets! And then maybe- another follower. I’m hooked! Tweeking on Twitter! What’s your experience? Did you get hooked immediately like me? Did you struggle?

No Complaining

Posted on February 22, 2012 by jensmithsick

So I’ve been reading Joe Vitale’s new book ‘The Awakening Course’. I’m always up for a new trick or two to help me be happy. Happiness and feeling good has been a life long endeavor for me. Drugs and alcohol used to be my only source of feeling good, ‘Better living through chemistry’ was my motto. Selecting the right mix of drugs, the right amounts, in the right order was an art form I took very seriously, until drugs completely stopped working and nearly destroyed my life- bummer. But my pursuit of happiness hasn’t stopped. Now I read self-help books, work on my recovery, and keep an open mind to any kind of new age hooped up wacked out suggestion about being happy. So in Joe’s book, not that he’s wacked out, he suggests that I make a commitment to not complain for thirty days. Well I’m a pretty positive person so I figure I can do this. It’s a lot tougher than I imagined

I was really serious about this attempt to not complain for thirty days, so I put it out there to my friends on Facebook and challenged them to call me out if they heard me complaining. Shortly after I made this deep commitment to an endeavor I was sure would heighten my awareness of my thoughts enabling me to carefully and particularly discard the negative in my brain before it was spewed out to the world, my teenage son came downstairs. The downstairs in our house is what I call ‘command central’. There are several computers, a TV, video games, and musical instruments, often with too many media outlets and screens going all at the same time. So as I’m comfortable and quietly clicking away at my lap top, my son comes in and puts on the TV, loudly, and sits at the desk and turns on the desktop.

“The TV is way too loud it’s annoying, please turn it down!” Opps, the first thing out of my mouth and it’s a complaint! He begins to play one of his war games on the desk top next to where I’m sitting and his computer obnoxiously start bellowing out noises of death. You know, Ooooos and screams of dying people coupled with the sound of their squished beaten bodies and let’s not forget the constant gun fire and explosions. I just wasn’t on the spiritual beam that day I guess, and from my mouth spewed more complaints about the sound. Yikes! What’s happening? I was able to stop myself. No more complaining, I thought to myself.

The next day I did much better but I was in a cube only interacting with technology.

Why I Wrote SICK

Posted on February 18, 2012 by jensmithsick

Why I wrote SICK.

After years of debauchery, addiction, bad choices, and confusion I found recovery and began a life consistent with someone who would be considered a productive member of society. This was painfully weird for me at first and still is a bit awkward. In pursuit of a legal means to support my son, I went back to school and attained a few degrees. The most intense being a Masters Degree in Financial Economics. Soon it was time to get a job. The idea of working was also painfully weird for me but by that time in my recovery I had seen it done by others. One of my first interviews was with Sovereign Bank. They showed me the cube in which I would be working. It was a solitary dark space with high confining walls around it. I cried all the way home.

I did find work in a reputable investment company in a cube that was a little less dark with walls a little less high. It was, however, positioned down a back cold alleyway filled with stale air. Despite this I commence to assimilate into the corporate environment working my tale off learning as much as I could as fast as I could, accomplishing a lot. My boss was a tall well connected man. Before long his deep rooted low opinion of woman was unmistakable. A smart man, his detrimental belittling and minimizing of my abilities were subtle, never saying or doing anything that could be outwardly pined as sexist. This wore on my spirit and had residual effects on how my all men colleagues treated me. Finally this culminated into my boss deciding to demote me from a salary to hourly employee without reason. He said it came down from corporate but the other two men who were my equals were not affected and remained salary. I thought to myself, no matter how much money I make for this company, and I had made a lot, I’m never going to get anywhere under this man. So I began to write.

My story is one of addiction and survival of domestic violence and abuse. Through pain I’ve grown and recovered with hope to clear a path in some small way for other women to come up behind me. This is why I choose to tell my story. While the escapades and criminal activity may be interesting to some, the real story is the little bits of awakening woven in here and there, about the insidious devastation of abuse. My desperate attempts to understand how a human being can so deeply hurt the one they say they love were sometime futile but sometimes revealing. It’s just sick.

The other day a friend of mine stuck in the cycle of abuse referenced a part of my book where I made an attempt to break the cycle. She said this gave her strength to make an attempt to break the cycle in her life. That was it. That was all I had hoped for by writing this book. Just one person was enough for me. So anything else that happens with this book is icing on the cake!

Being in recovery I have had the opportunity to work on the situation with my boss and the resentments I’ve carried. At first my thought led to questions like, how could this be happening to me? Hadn’t I been through enough? Didn’t I deserve to be treated equally and be judged on my merits? Later my work turned towards things like, where could I have stuck up for my self more. I believe we attract what we have in our lives and there was something about me that attracted one more sexist man into my life. The process of writing my book has helped me get rid of that last little bit of victim I was holding on to. Deep into my writing my boss was replaced with a women who, although only my boss for a short period of time, empowered me. The fact that she demoted my prior boss and took away all of his direct reports was nice too. Today I have a fair respectful male boss. But the truth of it all is that from my despair came the strength and determination to follow my dream of telling my story and empowering women who experience abuse.

If you’ve read my book, stay tuned, I’m busy writing the rest of the story for you. You won’t believe what happens next…

SICK now available on Smashwords!

Posted on February 16, 2012 by jensmithsick

The day has come folks! SICK has now been published on Smashwords for immediate download to your computer. See the link to the left. Stay tuned for Kindle, iBooks, and Barns and Noble.