Hey folks! It’s Halloween, and I know it has been a long time since I posted an update. The pandemic has been crazy for everyone, and the madness certainly hasn’t missed me. I have spent the better part of the last year and a half hiding from the world, camping out on a private farm in Central Oklahoma. Big thanks to The Pepper People! If they ever get a website up and running, I will share a link. They are really great people and they grow an amazing variety of spicy peppers. I personally cannot enjoy eating the peppers for my own personal health reasons, however I totally appreciate the work they put into their farm. And the pepper plants are beautiful! But that isn’t what I want to talk about today.
I published my first book on February 29th of 2020. I was super excited to get the ball rolling with a book tour. I had done plenty of research and put together a list of independent bookstore/ coffee shops where I had planned to attempt to get booked for signing events/tabling. Unfortunately, with the pandemic, it became apparent that traveling around and interacting with many strangers in a short period of time would be unwise. Then stores started closing.
In March of 2021, I enthusiastically scheduled myself for the vaccine. Once I had gotten 2 shots I began planning my first road trip in a long time. In May, I drove across the country to visit family and friends. Still, I was hesitant about interacting with very many people because we, as a nation, had not yet vaccinated enough people for social travel to be safe.
In May of 2021, I published my second book. The second in what will end up being a series of 3 or 4 books (I won’t really know until I get to the end of the story.) I tables a couple of times at the monthly Art Walk in Norman, Oklahoma. It provided a small increment of publicity for the books. I sold a couple of books, some paintings, some tie dyes, and some Quartz crystals I dug up during recent trips to Arkansas. I still have a somewhat permanent display of art, books & dyes living in my favorite dispensary in Norman. A big Thank You and Shout Out to the folks at The Grateful Bud. I highly recommend their professionalism and attention to the medicinal qualities of their products.
Now, in the autumn, I am back out on the road. I still haven’t attempted to try and get booked anywhere because our population seems to hesitate too much about getting vaccinated and now the Delta Variant is killing people. I recently lost a family member to this illness. I am sure many people could say the same thing. It makes me really sad, frustrated, and sometimes even angry, that so many people could be so selfish as to refuse to get vaccinated! Personal choice is one thing, but when your personal choices have such negative implications for other people, I think it's time to reevaluate your choices. I believe in science. I believe in personal freedom. Ultimately, my decision to get vaccinated was out of love for my community and my country. I consider it a self sacrifice for the greater good. I know that my opinion is not popular among some people that I have considered good friends. This is the part that makes me sad. I can no longer visit them. It is not safe to do so. I wish that they could see past their own personal space and see how important this is for everyone that we all work together to save our species.
But I digress… I decided to travel with enough stuff to table along the way. For one, I knew I would be needing the extra gas money. I have a tendency to wing it. And two, I figured that the more places I can put myself out there, the more potential books sales I may be able to generate. However, I am not confident that I will actually be able to table anywhere, because I am having trouble finding places to legally do so. I was getting frustrated and expressing this to my cousin who suggested TikTok.
I had been discussing the challenges of bootstrap marketing with my partner. She was very concerned that making myself so visible online puts me at risk. I could easily be targeted and found by someone who may not approve of my existence and would then ‘do their patriotic duty’ and ‘eliminate the enemy’ as it were. It is true that there are a lot of terrible people out there that seem to be so afraid of progressive change that they see us free-thinkers with open minds and open hearts as communist/socialist threats to the country that they hold so dear. Of course, these are the same type of people who just CANNOT GRASP the concept that ‘Antifa’ is just an abbreviation for ‘Anti-Facism’ or ‘Anti-Fascist’. And the ‘freedoms’ that they earnestly ‘fight for’ seem to me to be centered around the premise that everyone should have the freedom to be a fascist without being terrorized by the laws and rules designed to protect people.
At first, I heard her concerns, and agreed that I did not want to be targeted either. However, I have decided that I have to take risks, or I will never successfully become known as an author. Bootstrap marketing means I have to tap into whatever vein of communication that the majority of people are paying attention to. I have tried Facebook for years with little success. I have tried Instagram. I have made videos. Nothing seems to really do it. So, when my cousin began talking to me about TikTok, I decided to go ahead and try. He warned me that I would get a lot of hateful comments, and urged me to simply ignore them. He made the point that bad publicity is still publicity and it still gets my name out there.
I asked him, what should I put on this TikTok? He said ‘Anything! It doesn’t matter!” He suggested that, since I was traveling, that I do little videos along the way about my trip. So I started by sharing some cool stuff I found on the beach. Then I did a video about my tear drop trailer. Then I did a couple videos about my books. I have to say I am really surprised. I have already gotten more views and likes in less than a week that I had accumulated in 10 years of maintaining my Abstract Perspectives page on Facebook!
I don’t do very well with small electronic devices. I can handle my camera just fine. I can call and text people on my phone. But when I try to do much more with my phone, I just get frustrated because nothing ever works the way I want it to. I do so much better with paper maps and using an actual computer to go on the internet. I know my video quality on TikTok is not great. I don’t care. And I suspect that the viewers who have liked my video and started my profile don’t care either. It's raw. It's real. And it's a chance for y’all to get to know me better. My hope is that when you see me and watch my videos, it will make you more interested in reading my stories. So if you do the TikTok thing, please check me out. Just look up Abstract Perspectives! Follow me! Share my videos with anyone whom you think would enjoy them! I will be posting more from my month-long road trip as the month progresses.
I published my first book on February 29th of 2020. I was super excited to get the ball rolling with a book tour. I had done plenty of research and put together a list of independent bookstore/ coffee shops where I had planned to attempt to get booked for signing events/tabling. Unfortunately, with the pandemic, it became apparent that traveling around and interacting with many strangers in a short period of time would be unwise. Then stores started closing.
In March of 2021, I enthusiastically scheduled myself for the vaccine. Once I had gotten 2 shots I began planning my first road trip in a long time. In May, I drove across the country to visit family and friends. Still, I was hesitant about interacting with very many people because we, as a nation, had not yet vaccinated enough people for social travel to be safe.
In May of 2021, I published my second book. The second in what will end up being a series of 3 or 4 books (I won’t really know until I get to the end of the story.) I tables a couple of times at the monthly Art Walk in Norman, Oklahoma. It provided a small increment of publicity for the books. I sold a couple of books, some paintings, some tie dyes, and some Quartz crystals I dug up during recent trips to Arkansas. I still have a somewhat permanent display of art, books & dyes living in my favorite dispensary in Norman. A big Thank You and Shout Out to the folks at The Grateful Bud. I highly recommend their professionalism and attention to the medicinal qualities of their products.
Now, in the autumn, I am back out on the road. I still haven’t attempted to try and get booked anywhere because our population seems to hesitate too much about getting vaccinated and now the Delta Variant is killing people. I recently lost a family member to this illness. I am sure many people could say the same thing. It makes me really sad, frustrated, and sometimes even angry, that so many people could be so selfish as to refuse to get vaccinated! Personal choice is one thing, but when your personal choices have such negative implications for other people, I think it's time to reevaluate your choices. I believe in science. I believe in personal freedom. Ultimately, my decision to get vaccinated was out of love for my community and my country. I consider it a self sacrifice for the greater good. I know that my opinion is not popular among some people that I have considered good friends. This is the part that makes me sad. I can no longer visit them. It is not safe to do so. I wish that they could see past their own personal space and see how important this is for everyone that we all work together to save our species.
But I digress… I decided to travel with enough stuff to table along the way. For one, I knew I would be needing the extra gas money. I have a tendency to wing it. And two, I figured that the more places I can put myself out there, the more potential books sales I may be able to generate. However, I am not confident that I will actually be able to table anywhere, because I am having trouble finding places to legally do so. I was getting frustrated and expressing this to my cousin who suggested TikTok.
I had been discussing the challenges of bootstrap marketing with my partner. She was very concerned that making myself so visible online puts me at risk. I could easily be targeted and found by someone who may not approve of my existence and would then ‘do their patriotic duty’ and ‘eliminate the enemy’ as it were. It is true that there are a lot of terrible people out there that seem to be so afraid of progressive change that they see us free-thinkers with open minds and open hearts as communist/socialist threats to the country that they hold so dear. Of course, these are the same type of people who just CANNOT GRASP the concept that ‘Antifa’ is just an abbreviation for ‘Anti-Facism’ or ‘Anti-Fascist’. And the ‘freedoms’ that they earnestly ‘fight for’ seem to me to be centered around the premise that everyone should have the freedom to be a fascist without being terrorized by the laws and rules designed to protect people.
At first, I heard her concerns, and agreed that I did not want to be targeted either. However, I have decided that I have to take risks, or I will never successfully become known as an author. Bootstrap marketing means I have to tap into whatever vein of communication that the majority of people are paying attention to. I have tried Facebook for years with little success. I have tried Instagram. I have made videos. Nothing seems to really do it. So, when my cousin began talking to me about TikTok, I decided to go ahead and try. He warned me that I would get a lot of hateful comments, and urged me to simply ignore them. He made the point that bad publicity is still publicity and it still gets my name out there.
I asked him, what should I put on this TikTok? He said ‘Anything! It doesn’t matter!” He suggested that, since I was traveling, that I do little videos along the way about my trip. So I started by sharing some cool stuff I found on the beach. Then I did a video about my tear drop trailer. Then I did a couple videos about my books. I have to say I am really surprised. I have already gotten more views and likes in less than a week that I had accumulated in 10 years of maintaining my Abstract Perspectives page on Facebook!
I don’t do very well with small electronic devices. I can handle my camera just fine. I can call and text people on my phone. But when I try to do much more with my phone, I just get frustrated because nothing ever works the way I want it to. I do so much better with paper maps and using an actual computer to go on the internet. I know my video quality on TikTok is not great. I don’t care. And I suspect that the viewers who have liked my video and started my profile don’t care either. It's raw. It's real. And it's a chance for y’all to get to know me better. My hope is that when you see me and watch my videos, it will make you more interested in reading my stories. So if you do the TikTok thing, please check me out. Just look up Abstract Perspectives! Follow me! Share my videos with anyone whom you think would enjoy them! I will be posting more from my month-long road trip as the month progresses.