A couple of weeks ago, I told you about a publishing strategy that was new to me: writing on smart phones. I got a little side tracked ranting about the story written on a smart phone that’s being published in the US, but I thought the strategy was definitely an interesting one. For people who have crazy busy jobs and still have the urge to create, it seems ideal. It was no surprise to me to find out cell phone novels originated in Japan where they are crazy busy from midschool on (at least according to anime).
Today’s strategy is much more of a long game than phone novels, but it has a higher payout: becoming a politician.
I’m surprised I didn’t see the political road before. Every election I want to run for office because no politician knows how to run the education system. The simple fact is politicians are more often lawyers and never educators. It doesn’t matter what side is in office, none of them have a clue.
But I’m getting sidetracked. Julie even bought me a book about campaigning, which I’m sure will be used as research for a novel, but now I may use it to run for office since it seems like an awesome route to a book deal.
The idea came to me when I was watching Alpha House, a show about four senators sharing a house in DC. At the end of the second season, some are hoping to hang on to their seats while others are being rocketed to presidential contenders. Two of them talk about writing books and one quickly lands a deal. When I looked up the reality of the situation, publishers seem to love politicians. Just this year, NY Governor Cuomo signed a book deal, and Senator Ted Cruz from Texas signed a book deal for 1.5 million dollars. His deal beat out the record held by Sarah Palin at 1.25 million. These aren’t even presidents or former presidents.
It’s clear I need to run for Governor of NM and use the election to push my romance books. If nothing else, I think the attention could land me on the Colbert Report even when he takes over from David Letterman. Erotic Romance Author Runs for Office. But Colbert is a huge LotR fan, so maybe it would be better to publish my fantasy books and push those when I run for office. My secret goal for several years has been to become a popular enough author to get invited onto his show. Man, I don’t believe I didn’t think of this before.
Of course, it takes huge amounts of money to run for office so I need to sell a lot before I can run…
Anyway, my word count for the week is zero again, but I did work. I read through my next novel to be published and sent it off to my editor. Now I have to prep myself for it’s return. I also interviewed a former bank manager for a character. Does anyone know a former sniper I could interview? I’m totally serious. If you do, please email me: melinda@enchantedspark.com. Otherwise I will just have to watch Top Shot again. Not quite the same, but fun.
How many words did you write this week? Please let me know! And what political office would you run for?
I wrote 1700 words, but I’m pretty happy as I wrote a flash fiction fairy tale piece inspired by your blog this week. I’ll let you know how it does when I send it out. I would never run for office. Politicians are mostly liars and I prize honesty above everything else, well, next to a sense of humor anyway.
This week I focused on editing at the beginning and writing at the end. I edited the first chapter and part of the second, and added about 2500 words on my sci-fi sequel. I also wrote about 800 on a non-fiction article.
I don’t know anything about politics, so I have no idea what I’d run for. I admire your passion, Melinda, and I like your point that most governing the education system are lawyers not educators. Something doesn’t seem right about that.
Melinda, you should totally run for office. It would make for a fascinating story. I would love to see more real people run for office. Most of the politicians in office seem like career politicians. How can it be that they have so much power, get such awesome benefits, that people are so captivated with them, yet oodles of people hate them too? It’s just weird.
I’m fascinated by the idea of writing a whole book on a phone. I do write a good bit on my phone and before that on my iPad (which is old, but I still use it occasionally). But I can type a lot faster on my computer. The phone is almost always with me though, and it’s harder to find time to sit at my computer and write. I have apps that sync between the phone, iPad, and (kind of) with the computer too. There are definitely ways of making it work. I’m trying to write more efficiently using my phone. I may check out some keyboard apps or connecting my phone to a bluetooth keyboard to see if that would help.
I’ve clocked in at about 800 words this week. I’m trying for more, but there’ so much other stuff I’m trying to get done that it’s been a challenge. I’m still trying though!
Hooray! Looks like everyone had a decent writing week. Thanks to all of you for posting!
@Deb I love your idea of getting a Bluetooth keyboard for your phone. I’m so behind. I just got my first Bluetooth device so I can listen to music on my phone through a little speaker in my car.