Monthly Archives: February 2012

Going Deeper With a Series Character

Posted on by


Today’s post is brought to you by my new boxing story, “King Crush,” now available for 99¢ exclusively for Kindle. And, as a special inducement, for a limited time the first story, “Iron Hands,” is available FREE. 
Today I have a question: What do you like to see in a series character? The same “feel” over and over, or deepening and changing?
There are two schools of thought on this.
Lee Child once remarked that he loves Dom Perignon champagne and wants each bottle to be the same. He’s not looking for a different taste each time out. So it is with his Jack Reacher novels. And millions of fans are tracking right along with him.
There are other enduring series where the character remains roughly static. Phillip Marlowe didn’t change all that much until The Long Goodbye. James Bond? Not a whole lot of change going on inside 007.
At the other end of the spectrum are those characters who undergo significant transformation as the series moves along. The best contemporary example of this is, IMO, the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly. What he’s done with Bosch from book to book is nothing short of astonishing.
Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder was traipsing along as a pretty standard PI until Block made a conscious decision to kick it up a notch. He did that with Eight Million Ways to Die, a book that knocked me out. Here we have Scudder not just on a new case, but also battling his alcoholism and the existential angst of life in New York City in the early 1980s. By going deeper Block created one of the classics of the genre.
In my Mallory Caine, Zombie-at-Law series (written as K. Bennett) I have a lead character who is a zombie hungering (you’ll pardon the phrase) for change. She doesn’t want to be what she is. The just released Book 2,The Year of Eating Dangerously, begins with Mallory in the hills looking down at a motorcycle gang and thinking, Lunch.And then reflecting on her damaged soul.
Book 3, due out later this year, begins with Mallory at a ZA meeting—Zombies Anonymous. She is trying to stay off human flesh (substituting calves’ brains) but it’s not easy. And I say without hesitation that I was inspired by the above mentioned Eight Million Ways to Die.
So here’s my series about boxer Irish Jimmy Gallagher. These are short stories, and I’m going for “revealing” more of Jimmy in each one. “Iron Hands” was the intro, giving us Jimmy’s world and basic personality. Now comes “King Crush.”
The new story takes place in 1955 and revolves around an old carnival attraction they used to have in America, the carny fighter who would take on locals. If the locals stayed with him long enough, they might earn back their five bucks and some more besides. But these carny pugs knew all the dirty tricks, and it was usually the hayseeds who ended up on the canvas.
Jimmy just wants to have a good time at the carnival with his girl, Ruby, and his bulldog, Steve. He’s not looking for trouble. But sometimes trouble finds Jimmy Gallagher.
I started writing these stories because there’s something in me that wants to know Jimmy Gallagher, what makes him tick. And that’s my preference as a writer and a reader of series. I want to go a little deeper each time.
So who is your favorite series character? Is this character basically the same from book to book? Or is there significant change going on?

If you’re writing a series, do you have a plan for the development of your character over time? Or is it more a book-to-book thing?

Going Deeper With a Series Character

Posted on by


Today’s post is brought to you by my new boxing story, “King Crush,” now available for 99¢ exclusively for Kindle. And, as a special inducement, for a limited time the first story, “Iron Hands,” is available FREE. 
Today I have a question: What do you like to see in a series character? The same “feel” over and over, or deepening and changing?
There are two schools of thought on this.
Lee Child once remarked that he loves Dom Perignon champagne and wants each bottle to be the same. He’s not looking for a different taste each time out. So it is with his Jack Reacher novels. And millions of fans are tracking right along with him.
There are other enduring series where the character remains roughly static. Phillip Marlowe didn’t change all that much until The Long Goodbye. James Bond? Not a whole lot of change going on inside 007.
At the other end of the spectrum are those characters who undergo significant transformation as the series moves along. The best contemporary example of this is, IMO, the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly. What he’s done with Bosch from book to book is nothing short of astonishing.
Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder was traipsing along as a pretty standard PI until Block made a conscious decision to kick it up a notch. He did that with Eight Million Ways to Die, a book that knocked me out. Here we have Scudder not just on a new case, but also battling his alcoholism and the existential angst of life in New York City in the early 1980s. By going deeper Block created one of the classics of the genre.
In my Mallory Caine, Zombie-at-Law series (written as K. Bennett) I have a lead character who is a zombie hungering (you’ll pardon the phrase) for change. She doesn’t want to be what she is. The just released Book 2,The Year of Eating Dangerously, begins with Mallory in the hills looking down at a motorcycle gang and thinking, Lunch.And then reflecting on her damaged soul.
Book 3, due out later this year, begins with Mallory at a ZA meeting—Zombies Anonymous. She is trying to stay off human flesh (substituting calves’ brains) but it’s not easy. And I say without hesitation that I was inspired by the above mentioned Eight Million Ways to Die.
So here’s my series about boxer Irish Jimmy Gallagher. These are short stories, and I’m going for “revealing” more of Jimmy in each one. “Iron Hands” was the intro, giving us Jimmy’s world and basic personality. Now comes “King Crush.”
The new story takes place in 1955 and revolves around an old carnival attraction they used to have in America, the carny fighter who would take on locals. If the locals stayed with him long enough, they might earn back their five bucks and some more besides. But these carny pugs knew all the dirty tricks, and it was usually the hayseeds who ended up on the canvas.
Jimmy just wants to have a good time at the carnival with his girl, Ruby, and his bulldog, Steve. He’s not looking for trouble. But sometimes trouble finds Jimmy Gallagher.
I started writing these stories because there’s something in me that wants to know Jimmy Gallagher, what makes him tick. And that’s my preference as a writer and a reader of series. I want to go a little deeper each time.
So who is your favorite series character? Is this character basically the same from book to book? Or is there significant change going on?

If you’re writing a series, do you have a plan for the development of your character over time? Or is it more a book-to-book thing?

Teach Your Children

Posted on by

I’m actually encouraged about the publishing business. I don’t know how the publishing industry, as it now exists, is going to do; my guess is that it will still be here when the dust settles and the smoke clears, though it’s probably going to be a somewhat leaner. But the publishing business will still be here, and still be strong: it will be because of the authors who are now writing books aimed at children and young adults.
Reading is something you learn to love when you are young. Either your parents read to you or you encounter a teacher who opens up the library to you but you get that jones while you are young. I have yet to meet anyone who turned 30 and suddenly decided that they had to start reading for pleasure. My mom read Rudy Kazootie books to me and my dad brought home a set of the hardbound “All About” books and that was that. I started reading comic books — I got a Dick Tracy comic when I was four, somehow — and that’s all she wrote. I saw a serial adaptation of a Hardy Boys’ book — THE TOWER TREASURE — on The Mickey Mouse Club and then discovered that there were twenty-odd books (at that point, which was 1959) in the series and read all of those, and went on to read Tom Swift, Rick Brant, and Tim Holt. In one summer. What next?
Well, a year or so later I discovered Shell Scott paperbacks but what really got me rolling were books by established authors of adult fiction who also wrote for the children and Young Adult markets. We’re talking Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and the like. There weren’t many, not like there are now, but there were some. I read them and then ventured into their adult work. I haven’t stopped reading for pleasure since. But it all started with children’s books and the Young Adult market, such as it was, way back when.
We can talk about changes in publishing and e-books and physical books all that we like but if we don’t have readers then writers will be relegated to the status of the appendix. And we won’t have readers unless we grow them early. Those authors who labor in the grammar mine of the Children and Young Adult markets, regardless of genre, are the most important link in the chain of which we are a part. I am not smart enough to understand the markets, but I know enough about it to understand that there are books that will interest anyone with who is fourteen and who has a pulse. Take them to a bookstore or put them on an online book site or yes, a library, and set them loose.
Just for curiosity’s sake: how old were you when you started reading? What was the book? And how did it influence your ultimate love of literature?

Teach Your Children

Posted on by

I’m actually encouraged about the publishing business. I don’t know how the publishing industry, as it now exists, is going to do; my guess is that it will still be here when the dust settles and the smoke clears, though it’s probably going to be a somewhat leaner. But the publishing business will still be here, and still be strong: it will be because of the authors who are now writing books aimed at children and young adults.
Reading is something you learn to love when you are young. Either your parents read to you or you encounter a teacher who opens up the library to you but you get that jones while you are young. I have yet to meet anyone who turned 30 and suddenly decided that they had to start reading for pleasure. My mom read Rudy Kazootie books to me and my dad brought home a set of the hardbound “All About” books and that was that. I started reading comic books — I got a Dick Tracy comic when I was four, somehow — and that’s all she wrote. I saw a serial adaptation of a Hardy Boys’ book — THE TOWER TREASURE — on The Mickey Mouse Club and then discovered that there were twenty-odd books (at that point, which was 1959) in the series and read all of those, and went on to read Tom Swift, Rick Brant, and Tim Holt. In one summer. What next?
Well, a year or so later I discovered Shell Scott paperbacks but what really got me rolling were books by established authors of adult fiction who also wrote for the children and Young Adult markets. We’re talking Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and the like. There weren’t many, not like there are now, but there were some. I read them and then ventured into their adult work. I haven’t stopped reading for pleasure since. But it all started with children’s books and the Young Adult market, such as it was, way back when.
We can talk about changes in publishing and e-books and physical books all that we like but if we don’t have readers then writers will be relegated to the status of the appendix. And we won’t have readers unless we grow them early. Those authors who labor in the grammar mine of the Children and Young Adult markets, regardless of genre, are the most important link in the chain of which we are a part. I am not smart enough to understand the markets, but I know enough about it to understand that there are books that will interest anyone with who is fourteen and who has a pulse. Take them to a bookstore or put them on an online book site or yes, a library, and set them loose.
Just for curiosity’s sake: how old were you when you started reading? What was the book? And how did it influence your ultimate love of literature?

The Pain of Rejection

Posted on by

Ten years ago this month, my career hit rock bottom.  The wounds of 9-11 were still raw, the lingering malaise still thick.  I’d just been screwed out of a screen credit for the movie, Red Dragon (actually, I wasn’t screwed; I’d merely lost an arbitration, but when you’re living it, there’s precious little difference).  I’d been orphaned twice on Scott Free, my second book of a two-book contract with Atria, on the heels of Even Steven, on which I was likewise orphaned twice.  The publisher had lost interest in me, and they’d made it clear that they were going to ship a tiny number of books and do nothing to support them.

My book-writing career was in severe jeopardy.

I was able to keep it all in perspective, though, until I got a phone call from my film agent that no one—no one—even wanted to take a look at Scott Free, which to that point had everyone in my publishing food chain convinced that it would be an easy movie sell.  The call came in at around 6:00 pm Eastern time, and I remember Joy rubbing my shoulder as she read the body language of the call.  When I hung up, I felt like I had nothing left.  I tried to smile and shrug it off, and then she hugged me and I lost it.

I don’t cry much, but that one came from a deep dark place.

It wasn’t about how to make the mortgage payment.  It was the realization that I had all these stories inside of me that I wasn’t going to be able to tell because people who’d liked my books well enough to buy them no longer liked them enough to sell them.  It felt so . . . unfair.  Our own Mr. John Ramsey Miller took a lot of phone calls from me back then.  Thanks, John.

I make it a point not to dwell in dark places very long, so I went on to write a book called Living Wil, which I couldn’t give away, but really, that just kept me busy while I took a long look at where I was:

FACT: My bestselling books to that point had been written while I’d had a full-time job.
FACT: While “writing full time” I actually spent a lot of time hangin’ out and playing Dad.
FACT: The entertainment business makes no friggin’ sense.
FACT (and this one’s embarrassing): While I actually craved the normalcy of a Big Boy job, I resisted for fear that others would see that as an expression of failure.

When all was said and done, I reverted to one of my overarching philosophies in life—“fuck it”—and I forged ahead.  It turned out that no one was watching me as closely as I thought they were.  In fact, I was shocked to find that most of my friends who write full-time were envious of my Big Boy endeavors.

Funny what an adventure life turns out to be sometimes.

I write of this now not just because of the ten-year anniversary, but because it’s American Idol season again, and the sight of those devastated young people who’ve just found out they didn’t make the cut churns up memories.  When you want something so badly, the pain of rejection can be unbearable.  It feels like there’s no future.

But of course, there always is.  The problem is, too many of us work so hard to engineer the future that we lose sight of the fact that we’re powerless to affect it.  The best we can do is dream big and work hard and maximize opportunities. 

After ten years, you look back and realize how much better a person you are for the pain.

The Pain of Rejection

Posted on by

Ten years ago this month, my career hit rock bottom.  The wounds of 9-11 were still raw, the lingering malaise still thick.  I’d just been screwed out of a screen credit for the movie, Red Dragon (actually, I wasn’t screwed; I’d merely lost an arbitration, but when you’re living it, there’s precious little difference).  I’d been orphaned twice on Scott Free, my second book of a two-book contract with Atria, on the heels of Even Steven, on which I was likewise orphaned twice.  The publisher had lost interest in me, and they’d made it clear that they were going to ship a tiny number of books and do nothing to support them.

My book-writing career was in severe jeopardy.

I was able to keep it all in perspective, though, until I got a phone call from my film agent that no one—no one—even wanted to take a look at Scott Free, which to that point had everyone in my publishing food chain convinced that it would be an easy movie sell.  The call came in at around 6:00 pm Eastern time, and I remember Joy rubbing my shoulder as she read the body language of the call.  When I hung up, I felt like I had nothing left.  I tried to smile and shrug it off, and then she hugged me and I lost it.

I don’t cry much, but that one came from a deep dark place.

It wasn’t about how to make the mortgage payment.  It was the realization that I had all these stories inside of me that I wasn’t going to be able to tell because people who’d liked my books well enough to buy them no longer liked them enough to sell them.  It felt so . . . unfair.  Our own Mr. John Ramsey Miller took a lot of phone calls from me back then.  Thanks, John.

I make it a point not to dwell in dark places very long, so I went on to write a book called Living Wil, which I couldn’t give away, but really, that just kept me busy while I took a long look at where I was:

FACT: My bestselling books to that point had been written while I’d had a full-time job.
FACT: While “writing full time” I actually spent a lot of time hangin’ out and playing Dad.
FACT: The entertainment business makes no friggin’ sense.
FACT (and this one’s embarrassing): While I actually craved the normalcy of a Big Boy job, I resisted for fear that others would see that as an expression of failure.

When all was said and done, I reverted to one of my overarching philosophies in life—“fuck it”—and I forged ahead.  It turned out that no one was watching me as closely as I thought they were.  In fact, I was shocked to find that most of my friends who write full-time were envious of my Big Boy endeavors.

Funny what an adventure life turns out to be sometimes.

I write of this now not just because of the ten-year anniversary, but because it’s American Idol season again, and the sight of those devastated young people who’ve just found out they didn’t make the cut churns up memories.  When you want something so badly, the pain of rejection can be unbearable.  It feels like there’s no future.

But of course, there always is.  The problem is, too many of us work so hard to engineer the future that we lose sight of the fact that we’re powerless to affect it.  The best we can do is dream big and work hard and maximize opportunities. 

After ten years, you look back and realize how much better a person you are for the pain.

Oh, Sweet Irony

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon

I suppose it was inevitable once Amazon started their own publishing wing. A company that was founded on the premise that you need never set foot in a bookstore again (which expanded to never setting foot in any store, for many) has started opening…wait for it…stores. They’re sussing out their first bricks & mortar location in Seattle, where their corporate headquarters is located.
Mind you, this won’t really be a bookstore; apparently the focus will be on pricier items such as tablet computers (and, I’m guessing, their rapidly expanding Kindle line).

It’s an astonishing reversal for the company that insures there’s a UPS driver coming down my street every day, sometimes even multiple times a day.

Mind you, I don’t intend to launch a bout of Amazon bashing here–I’m as guilty as my neighbors when it comes to online ordering. I signed up to have kitty litter, toilet paper, and coconut water shipped to my door every month once I realized that it was cheaper than buying those items in the supermarket. I did the vast majority of my Christmas shopping online this year, a significant chunk of it while getting my hair cut, which is a far cry from past Decembers when I drove from store to store trying to cross everyone off my list. And most importantly for me as a writer, thanks to Amazon I consistently sell backlist copies of books that vanished from store shelves years ago.

So I’m definitely no Amazon hater. And once Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and other stores issued statements declaring that they would (understandably) refuse to stock titles from Amazon’s new publishing imprint, launching their own physical retail wing made sense.

Still, it is ironic, isn’t it? When companies like Amazon first arrived on the scene in the heady days of the dotcom boom, they loftily promised that within a decade, no one would have to leave their house for anything (fantastic news for agoraphobes; maybe not so great for the rest of us). Websites would sell everything from beds to orange juice to mouthwash and deliver it to your front door, all for less than you’d pay in a store since the overhead of rent, utilities, and payroll would be largely removed from the equation.

And lo and behold, here we are a little more than a decade later, and they were largely right. Except that there no longer are a slew of websites providing the online equivalent of roaming from store to store: instead it’s a one-stop shopping experience. Amazon has become a behemoth, the place where you can buy pretty much anything you desire and have it delivered to your front door, usually within two days. And now, after driving so many mom and pop stores out of existence, they’re backtracking and opening a place where you can get the personal touch; one-on-one interaction with a sales staff.

I have very mixed feelings about all of this. For one thing, the tech boom has spawned a modern day equivalent of the types of monopolies that held the nation at their mercy around the turn of the last century, with Amazon and Microsoft replacing Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. In some regards, aren’t Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg contemporary robber barons?

And now that so many stores that I loved have shuttered, it seems unseemly that the company that helped drive them out of existence is stepping in and taking over the shelf space they helped destroy. (For the record, I buy all of my physical books in bookstores, and I still buy as many as I did before I got my Kindle. I’ve actually found that having an eReader has increased my weekly book consumption).

But I’m also guilty of getting those deliveries every month, of using them to make my holiday shopping easier; and I’ve received the gains in sales that wouldn’t have been possible if my books were only available in print. And I have many friends whose contracts weren’t renewed, but managed to continue publishing their books independently thanks to Amazon, an outlet that wouldn’t have been available to them otherwise.
So I’m curious; what do you all think about Amazon’s latest move?

Oh, Sweet Irony

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon

I suppose it was inevitable once Amazon started their own publishing wing. A company that was founded on the premise that you need never set foot in a bookstore again (which expanded to never setting foot in any store, for many) has started opening…wait for it…stores. They’re sussing out their first bricks & mortar location in Seattle, where their corporate headquarters is located.
Mind you, this won’t really be a bookstore; apparently the focus will be on pricier items such as tablet computers (and, I’m guessing, their rapidly expanding Kindle line).

It’s an astonishing reversal for the company that insures there’s a UPS driver coming down my street every day, sometimes even multiple times a day.

Mind you, I don’t intend to launch a bout of Amazon bashing here–I’m as guilty as my neighbors when it comes to online ordering. I signed up to have kitty litter, toilet paper, and coconut water shipped to my door every month once I realized that it was cheaper than buying those items in the supermarket. I did the vast majority of my Christmas shopping online this year, a significant chunk of it while getting my hair cut, which is a far cry from past Decembers when I drove from store to store trying to cross everyone off my list. And most importantly for me as a writer, thanks to Amazon I consistently sell backlist copies of books that vanished from store shelves years ago.

So I’m definitely no Amazon hater. And once Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and other stores issued statements declaring that they would (understandably) refuse to stock titles from Amazon’s new publishing imprint, launching their own physical retail wing made sense.

Still, it is ironic, isn’t it? When companies like Amazon first arrived on the scene in the heady days of the dotcom boom, they loftily promised that within a decade, no one would have to leave their house for anything (fantastic news for agoraphobes; maybe not so great for the rest of us). Websites would sell everything from beds to orange juice to mouthwash and deliver it to your front door, all for less than you’d pay in a store since the overhead of rent, utilities, and payroll would be largely removed from the equation.

And lo and behold, here we are a little more than a decade later, and they were largely right. Except that there no longer are a slew of websites providing the online equivalent of roaming from store to store: instead it’s a one-stop shopping experience. Amazon has become a behemoth, the place where you can buy pretty much anything you desire and have it delivered to your front door, usually within two days. And now, after driving so many mom and pop stores out of existence, they’re backtracking and opening a place where you can get the personal touch; one-on-one interaction with a sales staff.

I have very mixed feelings about all of this. For one thing, the tech boom has spawned a modern day equivalent of the types of monopolies that held the nation at their mercy around the turn of the last century, with Amazon and Microsoft replacing Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. In some regards, aren’t Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg contemporary robber barons?

And now that so many stores that I loved have shuttered, it seems unseemly that the company that helped drive them out of existence is stepping in and taking over the shelf space they helped destroy. (For the record, I buy all of my physical books in bookstores, and I still buy as many as I did before I got my Kindle. I’ve actually found that having an eReader has increased my weekly book consumption).

But I’m also guilty of getting those deliveries every month, of using them to make my holiday shopping easier; and I’ve received the gains in sales that wouldn’t have been possible if my books were only available in print. And I have many friends whose contracts weren’t renewed, but managed to continue publishing their books independently thanks to Amazon, an outlet that wouldn’t have been available to them otherwise.
So I’m curious; what do you all think about Amazon’s latest move?

Pinterest

Posted on by

Here’s another promotional tool that will drive you crazy. I just learned about Pinterest, where you pin up pictures online that relate to your book, your characters, the locations in your story, your vacation in New Guinea, your restaurant meals, or your life in general. This acts as an online pinboard that other folks can view. If someone spots a photo on my board they like, they can share it. You tell what the picture means and people comment on it. At least, this is my understanding so far.

pinboard

But who owns the rights to the photos you post? What happens, for example, if I imagine a character looking like Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate: SG1? Can I just copy his photo off the Web? According to one person I asked, yes I can, if Pinterest attributes the source. In some cases, though, I’ve cut out photos from magazines of celebrities or people on society pages and scanned them into my computer because they look like my characters. Can I use these photos? I doubt it, because I don’t have the people’s permission. It seems safer to provide your own pictures.

This promises to be another time consuming promotional activity. I’d have to learn how to use the site, determine a theme for each board, and upload the photos. Do we really need more work to do? Or is this a great promotional opportunity we might be missing if we let it go? There’s always the pressure to jump on the next cart that wheels along. But hop on too many wagons, and you might fall off.

Oh, and you have to request an invitation to join this site. Then you register using your Facebook or Twitter account. This is what the site says:

How Pinterest Works
After you have created an Account (defined below) to become a Member of Pinterest, you may use the Services to create, view and follow visual collections. In order to create a visual collection, you may (i) upload images from your computer by selecting the “Add a Pin” section of the Site, (ii) use the Application to take and upload images, or (iii) install and use our “Pin It” browser toolbar to upload images, by following the instructions provided on the “About” section of the Site. Please note that your visual collections will be publicly viewable by all visitors to the Site and Application. In order to follow the visual collections of other Members, you may search for other visual collections via the Site and Application and select the option to “Follow” such Members. http://pinterest.com

Here are some tips, kindly shared by another author on one of my listserves:
http://www.authormedia.com/2012/02/01/3-ways-authors-can-use-pinterest-guilt-free/
http://www.authormedia.com/2012/02/02/set-up-your-author-pinterest-profile-in-10-easy-steps/
http://www.authorems.com/2012/pinterest/
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/how-can-pinterest-increase-your-book-sales/

So do any of you already participate in Pinterest? Or would you do it now that you’re aware of this site?

Pinterest

Posted on by

Here’s another promotional tool that will drive you crazy. I just learned about Pinterest, where you pin up pictures online that relate to your book, your characters, the locations in your story, your vacation in New Guinea, your restaurant meals, or your life in general. This acts as an online pinboard that other folks can view. If someone spots a photo on my board they like, they can share it. You tell what the picture means and people comment on it. At least, this is my understanding so far.

pinboard

But who owns the rights to the photos you post? What happens, for example, if I imagine a character looking like Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate: SG1? Can I just copy his photo off the Web? According to one person I asked, yes I can, if Pinterest attributes the source. In some cases, though, I’ve cut out photos from magazines of celebrities or people on society pages and scanned them into my computer because they look like my characters. Can I use these photos? I doubt it, because I don’t have the people’s permission. It seems safer to provide your own pictures.

This promises to be another time consuming promotional activity. I’d have to learn how to use the site, determine a theme for each board, and upload the photos. Do we really need more work to do? Or is this a great promotional opportunity we might be missing if we let it go? There’s always the pressure to jump on the next cart that wheels along. But hop on too many wagons, and you might fall off.

Oh, and you have to request an invitation to join this site. Then you register using your Facebook or Twitter account. This is what the site says:

How Pinterest Works
After you have created an Account (defined below) to become a Member of Pinterest, you may use the Services to create, view and follow visual collections. In order to create a visual collection, you may (i) upload images from your computer by selecting the “Add a Pin” section of the Site, (ii) use the Application to take and upload images, or (iii) install and use our “Pin It” browser toolbar to upload images, by following the instructions provided on the “About” section of the Site. Please note that your visual collections will be publicly viewable by all visitors to the Site and Application. In order to follow the visual collections of other Members, you may search for other visual collections via the Site and Application and select the option to “Follow” such Members. http://pinterest.com

Here are some tips, kindly shared by another author on one of my listserves:
http://www.authormedia.com/2012/02/01/3-ways-authors-can-use-pinterest-guilt-free/
http://www.authormedia.com/2012/02/02/set-up-your-author-pinterest-profile-in-10-easy-steps/
http://www.authorems.com/2012/pinterest/
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/how-can-pinterest-increase-your-book-sales/

So do any of you already participate in Pinterest? Or would you do it now that you’re aware of this site?