September 9th... R.O.I. Questions

R.O.I. is not a very loud spelling out of a French monarch's title. It's Return On Investment, and I'm starting to wonder about mine.

What exactly is the value of my time?
Would my time be better spent writing the next novel? Yes. Indubitably.

Now, thinking about my time, I wonder how impressive to the world it is when an author maintains an online calendar, and publishes when every radio appearance, blog, booksigning (scratch that), chat, and other "event" takes place.

I don't consider my participation in a chat to be much of an event. This is a good thing! Last night, I went to a writerspace chat, and spent virtually an hour almost all alone apart from one visitor looking for my good friend and admired colleague, Emily Bryan.

I wrote a lot, not being one to let the side down, in case anyone turned up expecting me to be there. Eventually, thanks to an email from my friend Jacquie Rogers, I discovered that I was on the right site but in the wrong chat room. That reminds me of a football game I saw recently where a bright,spanking new brick stadium with retractable roof had been built right beside the open, darkened, coliseum style stadium.

Whatever! The next first Monday after the first Tuesday next month, when the next writerspace chat for Leisure and Lovespell takes place, I won't be in the "Green Room" and my book (Knight's Fork) will be on bookstore shelves. So, if I had to make an embarrassing mistake, this was a good time to do it.

I blogged a bit on Sunday, followed some leads discovered a list of book sites I've never heard of before:

Bookhitch (I think books are sold there, but you can list your novels)
Bookgarden
Book Roast
Stumbleupon has book groups now!
BookCrossing
Book Obsessed
Book Crazy....

I spent a lot of Monday working on Bookmarks. You can develop them online on Vistaprint, all it takes is time. My first attempt came through with the backside of the bookmark upside down. I'm using them anyway. I don't think people read the backs!

So, I rectified that, and corrected a few over-compressed words... and added another lovely quote from a very generous reviewer (the SciFiGuy) and one from Brenna Lyons of The Lyons' Den.

Today, I hosted my monthly "Crazy Tuesday" radio show. It was about animals and a Pet Pictures contest.

Among the characters trotted out to meet me was Pretty Bottom, a proud porcupine; Christopher-the-Assassin, a cat; Nova the cowardly dog who once overcame his fear to chase a bear... which reminds me of the cartoon "Courage"; a parakeet named Jubilee who likes Bonnie Tyler and The Randy Rogers Band; Miz Fuzz the cat with her own boom box; Foutchie the foot fairy; an exotic bird that throws seeds; Socrates the wise --and wise-cracking mule who believes that sterility improves the masculine mind and ability to cogitate; a pet chicken of a Warrior Trainer; Guinevere the skunk; a terrifying cat who takes his toys to water but can't make them drink; some extremely smart ravens; and a deliriously happy guinea pig.

Anon.

Rowena Cherry