All right – so I am sitting here this morning having a cup of coffee before I catch the bus to go to my day job and I am picturing myself standing at the side of a deep ocean, flinging fistfuls of tiny pebbles out into the waves and watching them splash.
Dear Kindle Scout…
And as each pebble splashes down amongst the tossing waves the ripples echo and merge together and do that weird and wonderful water-dance that stone and wave and wind have done for a thousand thousand years.
In moments like this I like to imagine that somewhere off the shore of Africa a small child is going to stand with his feet in the water and his toes in the wet glorious sticky old mud and he is going to bend down and pick up a tiny sea shell and hold it to his ear and he is going my voice and he is going to say something deep and touching and poetic like – what the fuck was that???
🙂
And yet – at moments like these I remind myself that I am NOT alone on this shore as each of you folks who have gone ahead and nominated KELPIE DREAMS for Kindle Scout have each – in your very own way – thrown a stone for me and watched it splash.
Either that or you were throwing it at me and just missed.
🙂
Writers – whether or not you are going to try out for Kindle Scout or just try and find yourself a few more readers – all need to learn how to throw a stone.
You want to find yourself a good flat stone, something that sort of looks like a cross between your ear and a mussel shell. It wants to have just enough heft to it for a good hard fling, but not so weighty that it sinks. Think about something along the weight of your dog’s favorite tennis ball. Hold it like you mean to keep it, with your thumb on top and your pointing finger hooked along the edge of the stone. Stand sort of sideways like you were trying to keep your eye on the shore and the sea at the very same time. Draw your arm back with loose authority, as if you were getting set to throw a perfect sidearm pitch. Think about James Dean and Gandalf and willow wands, leaning with the morning breeze. Just sort of ease that stone out over the water, cocking your wrist and flicking it forward as you let it go. Throw out and down at the very same time – like the stone wanted to go just as far as it could go while still playing it cautiously safe. Envision that stone entering the water at a perfect twenty degree angle and make you sure you count how many times that stone skips – before it eventually strikes the forehead of that small African boy standing on the other side of the ocean WTF’ing into the warm tropical breeze.
Or something like that…
Today I was too busy writing this fine poetic blog entry – which is one part beauty and nine parts ballyhoo – but I have thoughtfully planned ahead and set up an interview over at GENRE READERÂ so that while I am futzing around and spinning my wheels and dreaming about skipping stones by the seashore SOMEBODY else is flinging stones for me.
That’s how you want to do it.
Get yourself a back-up crew.
SO – that would be the point of this whole meandering blog entry. Before you launch your Kindle Scout program make certain that you have lined up a few interviews and guest blog appearances that will go live DURING your Kindle Scout Campaign – THEN make certain that a good link to your Kindle Scout Campaign page is attached to that interview.
You have any questions I’ll be down by the sea shore, flinging lonely stones.
Yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon
(Whoops – almost forgot to throw around some bragging numbers. As of this moment I have spent 221 hours upon the Kindle Scout HOT AND TRENDING list and have enjoyed 786 page views)
YOURS IN STORYTELLING... 