Metrics and meaning: how do you measure success?

My giveaway closed on Sunday after one month with 676 people requesting A Deconstructed Heart. I did not have time to really promote the giveaway, so I’m very pleased with the results. I also saw a large increase in the number of people putting my title on their to-read shelf; if even a small number of them mosey on over to give my book a second look, I will be happy indeed.

I started to think about what constitutes success in the modest aspirations of a self-published author. I have not written a Dan Brown page-turner, or a dystopian novel that channels the zeitgeist of a generation, or a magical series that delights adults and children alike. There will be no tsunami of sales or selection to Oprah’s Book Club. There will only be small conversations about my book taking place in disparate places, a flowering and fading in different parts of the country (and sometimes, different parts of the world) as someone new bends back the cover of my book–or clicks on the title page in their Kindle–for the first time. That is a limited but gratifying marker of success.

Revenue from sales is a wonderful validation, but it does not necessarily quantify an author’s achievement–just ask Dave Eggers, who gave an honest and rather disheartening breakdown of his income from sales of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a New York Times bestseller, in the preface. Yet, his was definitely the “it” book for a while and launched him in the publishing world with a bang. 

Reviews, as I have mentioned before in previous posts, tell authors that they are doing something right. Personally, I am greedy for these, especially for the feedback that makes me feel as if the reader “got it,” and perhaps, even more, when she or he sheds new light on my writing for me. It is a gift to be read by a reader who is engaged, thoughtful and passionate. That reader is someone with whom I would love to share every book that means something to me. I am honored that A Deconstructed Heart has been chosen for three book clubs next month (two in Illinois and one in Canada), and I am very excited to attend one in person: the DesiLit Book Club at The Book Cellar in Chicago on June 3.

There is also quantifiable success evidenced in the metrics for my work–the numbers continue to grow at a modest rate: sales, reviews (Amazon & Goodreads), blog appearances, and selections to Goodreads shelves (380 to-date for A Deconstructed Heart).

I am delighted to be where I am today with my book and short stories, but I keep turning over the question of when it is that I will feel that I have achieved success with my work. Yet, I must realize that I am always moving the goal posts: by continually sharing my writing with more readers and reviewers in every way I can, there is no limit or end point to the life of my book. This, too, is success: a victory over the tendency in me to rest on my laurels (a wonderful euphemism, that).

I think Flaubert hit it on the head, when he noted that, above all, success is self-mastery : “The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.“

Onward.

Shifting sands

Sand Dunes (Photo credit: David Stanley)

I’ve been away from my blog for a few weeks, startled by a recent change in the landscape that surrounds me. I’ve been reflecting on the nature of tragedy, both on the public shared level and in the private space, and I found that I was short of words to share with you via my blog, or with myself, in the stories I have been spinning.

Writing is a healing tool, but I find it is more powerful when employed at a distance, after allowing oneself to live in the raw moment. It is essential to blunder, to understand that we do not have control of the overarching narrative that is our own life, before we attempt to shape and mold an interpretation of existence that pleases us in our stories. For myself at least, anything else would be an attempt to escape feeling, and that strategy always comes back to bite me.

I have been affectionately accused of being cruel to my characters in The Purana Qila Stories, by throwing obstacles in the path of their happiness. If I picked up the thread of my tales now, I would be tempted to give my good (fictional) friends the happy endings they deserve, but my writing would probably be unsound and dishonest. I believe in the exhortation of Ernest Hemingway: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”

For now, I will content myself with the true sentences crafted by other authors and the distilled, clear truth of poetry, none more so than the haiku. Here’s one from the master, Basho:

Now the swinging bridge

is quieted

with creepers…

Like our tendrilled life

Giving it away

I have taken a little time out of blogging over the past two weeks, but I have been working hard to get the word out about my books in different venues.

I’m currently running a giveaway for A Deconstructed Heart on Goodreads. It is a great way to drive up exposure for authors. So far, 173 people have signed up and the majority of them have added A Deconstructed Heart to their to-read lists, and I’m only in the 5th day of a month-long drive. I will be sending out two signed copies to the winners in either the UK or the US in mid-May.

It’s my first giveaway and I have to say I am enjoying the process. I did my research and learned some valuable tips before I waded in: I started my giveaway a few days after enrolling my book to take advantage of a surge of interest on the first day of the giveaway. I made sure my start and end dates did not coincide with the end of the month/national holidays. I emphasized that the copies would be autographed with my chicken scratch (because apparently that is desirable.)

I’m also continuing to give out copies to gather reviews: in the next day or so, I will send a few copies of my book to a nascent book club in Canada for the Masala Mommas blog. Last week I sent a copy to the Printers Row Journal, the Books section of the Chicago Tribune, for review. Fingers crossed on both counts.

In the meantime, my book has been chosen for two book clubs in the next few months. I feel very honored to be invited to provoke and/or participate in the conversations about A Deconstructed Heart, and I hope to come away having learned something new about it from different readers’ perspectives.

My heart is telling me to lose myself in a story again, however, and I’m beginning to feel writer’s withdrawal. I feel good about what I’ve been able to do in the last few weeks, but my first love is calling. I have three more stories in mind for The Purana Qila Stories, and then I will take a deep breath and explore options for another novel. I can’t wait.

Where the conversations never stop…

My promotion for A Deconstructed Heart wraps up in a few hours. It has been a fun and eventful week; heavily promoting my book brought me into a round of delightful conversations with readers and fellow authors. Many of my favorite moments were on Twitter: I received a gracious tweet from a sculptor and fellow author in England who thanked me for sharing the book and told me how much she was enjoying it. I had a meaningful exchange with an author about writing about England and deciding, as readers, at what point we give up on a book that has not made a connection with us. I had a lot of fun with the lively ladies at the Thirty Mommy blog, who had chosen A Deconstructed Heart for their book club of the month. It was fun to chat with them in real-time, having cross conversations with multiple people from various cultures. We discussed the role my character Amal plays with regards to being a caretaker for her uncle, Mirza, and how many of us have taken on unexpected family responsibilities in our lives.

I come away from this week with two thoughts: firstly, how art created in isolation ultimately calls for a shared experience, a human connection at the most fundamental level, and is a panacea for the ills of disconnection in modern life. You may not like the art, you may disagree with it, but hopefully, at the very least it has been thought-provoking and engaged you on some level. The only manner in which art can fail is when it has not succeeded in forming a connection with the reader/viewer/beholder.

Secondly, I was struck this week by how the internet, Twitter in particular, reminded me of what I loved about Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: in his book, every child born at midnight at the time of India’s Partition is given two magical gifts, the first is unique to that child: it might be strength, or the ability to become invisible… the second is the ability to connect telepathically with all other children born at that moment in history… to meet in the rooms of each others’ minds and hang out together. Twitter was that room for me this week.

Here’s to many more conversations about the human experience sparked by a book, a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music. We need that connection because we need one another. As Desmond Tutu said: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.“

A Deconstructed Heart is free for the Kindle, 2/27-3/31

I’m sending my baby out into the wide world again, but this time with a new marketing strategy. The free promotion is over the next five days, which I plan to follow up with a placement as a Hot Title at the World Literary Cafe. On April 10, I go big with an ad at the Frugal EReader. I’m interested to see how this layered marketing approach works.

In the meantime, I’m pleased to see that A Deconstructed Heart has garnered some fantastic reviews from The Kindle Book Review and eBook Review Gal.

Here’s a choice excerpt from the latter’s website, which Susan Barton also kindly placed on my Amazon site:

“Let me start by saying that I loved A Deconstructed Heart! It was a sweetly poetic, easy read. Shaheen Ashraf-Ahmed’s writing style has a soothing, melodic quality that invites readers to be drawn into her stories easily. I was hooked from the beginning and immediately found myself looking forward to what would happen next. I would highly recommend A Deconstructed Heart be put on anyone’s must read list.”

If you get a chance to read A Deconstructed Heart, please add your own reviews. I look forward to hearing from you.

Related articles

• The Kindle Book Review: a review of A Deconstructed Heart that brought tears to my eyes… (coinsinthewell.wordpress.com)
• A Deconstructed Heart reviewed at Books Are Cool (coinsinthewell.wordpress.com)

 

The Kindle Book Review: a review of A Deconstructed Heart that brought tears to my eyes…

Every now and then a reviewer totally ‘gets’ it. This is evidenced, not by a five star review or a thumbs up from the cheering section populated by friends and family, but by a deep and thoughtful analysis from an individual who is knowledgeable about the genre in which you write. When you write literary fiction, these reviewers are like pearls and their words validate your stubborn conviction to write what you believe in.

I was honored to get one such thoughtful review by Leila Smith from The Kindle Book Review (Top 1000 Reviewer) on Amazon US and UK and at her blog, www.literaryleila.wordpress.com.

If you have read A Deconstructed Heart and agree with her, please like her review on Amazon. If you haven’t read the book… well, what are you waiting for? I know I could not come up with a better argument to persuade you.

Discoverability for the new author…

English: Ancient Volpaia map (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I took a webinar the other day about marketing new books and the one takeaway for me was the idea that the tablet will eventually be the most popular medium for reading ebooks. Not the e-reader. I thought that made perfect sense, since so much of what we do these days is on our smart phones/tablets. As much as I love my Kindle, I realized it was time to branch out. I took two of my works out of Kindle Select (after the three-month exclusion period was up) and published them on Smashwords. It’s another new learning experience for me, figuring out how to format for a different publishing platform, but this self-publishing business has definitely sharpened my ability to take the initiative. That is certainly a valuable gift. I hope I am always open to learning something new.

I’m not sure what the move to Smashwords will do for my sales; right now, it feels as if I’ve dropped my books like stones into a lake. However, another great piece of advice I got from a marketing expert was to try something new every day. Publishing on another platform is just another way of realizing my goal to reach more readers: today, I sent a stack of print books of A Deconstructed Heart to a book review party in Connecticut and I reached out to five literary review blogs in the hopes of spreading the word; one reviewer has already replied to say I’m in his queue.

I think in about three years I’ll be a whole lot smarter and have this process down. Stick around with me, and you’ll be able to say that you saw it happen.

For now, you can see The Well-Tended Garden and The Dust Beneath Her Feet at Smashwords:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/295826

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/296919

The Well-Tended Garden: the story that wrote its own ending

I have taken a hiatus from social media for the past ten days to knuckle down to publishing my next story from The Purana Qila Stories series. I had delayed it for reasons that were not clear to myself until today, when I realized what was missing. I revised my ending and restructured the story, impelled by a logic that I could not even articulate to myself, but which just felt right.

When I wrote the last sentence, there was a sense of relief that comes with a story that has righted itself, like that moment of ease you get riding a bike, when gravity, motion, weight and direction work together to get you where you want to go, and that infernal front wheel stops wobbling. It is undoubtedly odd that the creative process is mystifying even to the writer. It has always made me feel slightly sheepish, as if I cannot fully take credit for my own writing (I have felt this as a child), because it comes from I know not where; this can also be nerve-wracking, because if I don’t understand fully where it came from in the first place, there is always that fear that I will not be able to summon it again. But then, I sit down to write, and the words take over. It is as if my subconscious is merrily conversing with the world, and leaving my conscious being out of it, as if to say “You wouldn’t understand, just stay out of the way.”

I think this is an explanation as to why there have been many times I have not been able to admire the artist, but have loved his/her work, as if the creative self has a whole different personality that speaks to me, when its owner may be a boor. I’m thinking of some early 20th century chauvinistic British poets, in particular, who were cads to their wives and drank themselves into the grave but wrote poetry that could make you weep.

The creative process and the fundamental schism at its heart are eternally glorified by Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: The Creation of Adam. One Being (God) is passing the spark of life/inspiration into the other (Adam), but it is worth noting that their outstretched fingers do not touch. There is a vast, insurmountable distance between Creator and created captured in that small blank space.

What inspires you, and what surprises you about your own writing/art creation? Do you feel in control at all times, or does the creative process lead you? Do you fully live your art, or is it something you nurture in the hidden depths of you, that people who know you rarely glimpse? Do you like who you are when you write? Do you like who you are when you don’t?

“My Mother’s Sari” guest post

I was invited to guest post at Rachelle’s Window and I wrote a piece about my mother, the first storyteller in my life, and how memories of her childhood inspired my writing. When my mother talks about those early days of hardship, she radiates so much happiness, that I always had the impression that there was something magical about those times. I feel the sense of community she had in those days, and the joy that could be found in the small things. These were times of poverty and tragedy in India, both on a national and personal level, but my mother taught me about facing adversity cheerfully. I can’t always emulate her, but I recognize the value of the gift she has given. I also learned how education and survival were inextricably linked in her life, another lesson I have taken to heart and tried to share with my own children.

I hope you will stop by and read “My Mother’s Sari.” When I first started my blog, I wrote about why I had called it “Coins in the Well” (you can find that post in the archives). My mother is a practical kind of person and not given to rhetorical flights of fancy–she would probably giggle with embarrassment if she were reading this–but she is a well of inspiration to me.

A Deconstructed Heart reviewed at Books Are Cool

I’m honored that Stephanie over at Booksarecool.com posted a great review of my book at her blog. Please check it out if you have a moment. Stephanie is an editor, so I was particularly chuffed that she thought A Deconstructed Heart is “a very professional product.” All that tearing my hair out over fixing typos and reformatting did not go unnoticed!