Being a Good Hostess (#promotion #guests #networking)

This past week at Beyond Romance was a bit unusual. I hosted outside guests five days in a row. Normally, I like to alternate my personal content with guest content. However, I’m not rigid about scheduling the blog, and last week, a lot of my fellow authors asked for promo help.

Actually I enjoy playing hostess. I get to meet new colleagues, who often become friends. Not infrequently I have the chance to learn about books I might want to read. Hopefully, people who follow my blog feel the same way. Many of my guests run contests or giveaways—my guidelines explicitly encourage guests to do this — so readers may get a concrete reward for visiting.

Of course, having a guest relieves me of the work of penning an original post, too... sometimes, when my schedule gets really tight, that’s a blessing. However, setting up a guest post can actually take more time than putting together one of my own. Although I have pretty clear instructions, not every guest follows them. That means more work for me, in terms of reformatting and editing. Then there’s the not-uncommon “last minute” phenomenon. Authors with new releases frequently don’t have their buy links until the eleventh hour. That means I have to set up the post, schedule it, then go back to edit it just before, or even after, the post goes live.

I’ve even had guest who didn’t get their cover images until the day before their release! (Glad I don’t work with their publishers!)

The most important reason for hosting guests, though, is what I call “Writer’s Karma”. In other words, what goes around comes around. If I can help another author (especially someone who’s just getting started in the game), I’m adding a bit to the positive energy in the world of publishing. And ultimately, I’ll get benefits, further down the road, when some other colleague does me a good turn.

I know how hard it can be to write these days. You scream at the top of your lungs, trying to get noticed. You suffer from one-star reviews and trolls. It can be a lonely, frustrating business.

Having friends, a network of people you can reach out to when you need promo help, beta reads, advice or just a virtual shoulder to cry on, really helps. Every time I host a fellow author, I’m strengthening the bonds in that network.

So I’ll continue to host guests, even though it cuts down on the amount of exposure I give my own work here at the blog. (Anyway, I’m sure readers would get bored with nothing but “Buy my books!”)

Furthermore, if you’re an author, and you’d like to come by and visit, just contact me by email at lisabet [at] lisabetsarai [dot] com.

My readers and I are both looking forward to meeting you!

Dark Beginning, Bright Future (#marriage #love #karma)

I fell in love with my husband while my mother was dying. That sounds heartless and morbid, doesn't it? But it wasn't like that at all.

We'd met six months before, at a conference. I lived in California; he was based in Massachusetts where I'd grown up. We'd corresponded and talked on the phone, but it didn't seem all that likely that our relationship had much future, given the geographic barriers.

When my mom's leukemia resurfaced after a year's remission, I took a leave of absence from my job so that I could be with her on the east coast. For nearly a month, I visited the hospital every day. Aside from her disease, she was incredibly healthy, and it took a painfully long time for her to die.

When I wasn't at her bedside, I spent the time with K. He somehow knew exactly how to deal with me. If I needed to talk out my fears and my sorrows, he'd let me. If he thought I needed distraction, he'd provide it. He drove me back and forth to the hospital. He took me out to dinner. He let me cry on his shoulder.

Away from my home, my work and my friends, I felt lost and depressed. I worried about my job – my first serious employment since leaving graduate school. I had nightmares about my mother. K handled it all. I was incredibly grateful for his support. I suppose at some level he had ulterior motives, but honestly, I don't know whether I would have made it through those dark days without him at my side.

When my mom finally let go and passed on, he helped my siblings and I make the arrangements, and accompanied me the funeral. Only later did I realize what that cost him. My mother had converted to Catholicism. For reasons buried in his own history, K. has an allergy to organized Christianity. Normally, he won't set foot in a church. However, he made an exception, so that he could be at my side, quietly offering me his love and his strength.

A day or two after the funeral, I returned to California. I was seriously concerned that I might be fired. But K. and I both knew that our relationship had changed. A month later I came east for the winter holidays and then he and I drove cross-country together, in the first of what would become many journeys. We count our time together from the day we left Massachusetts and headed west.

Good, decent men? I certainly found one, or rather, he found me. That was more than thirty years ago. He's proved himself again and again. A few years ago, when I had hip replacement surgery, the poor guy had to take on almost all the household responsibilities. He hardly complained.

I must have really good karma, to have hooked up with this man. Other women apparently feel the same way I do about him – he's not particularly good looking but he never fails the charm members of the fairer sex. I almost feel embarrassed by my good fortune.

Maybe that's why I have some trouble writing male characters who are self-centered, lazy, manipulative or cruel. I've heard so many tales of woe from my girlfriends – but it's hard for me to identify.

My guy is solid gold.