To Andy: The Month of Blogging Is Over

And what have we learned?

That I need to do more blogging on Doctor Who!

No wait, that's not it.

That I need to send my resumes to more libraries!

No, that has nothing to do with the blogging.

That I need to do more blogging on Doctor Who!

No... wait, I've been here before... Oh no... One of those aliens is blogging with me!  NOOOO!  RUNN!!!

Seeking Karmic Balance Between Job Hunting And Saving Turtles

Having spent more than two years now job hunting for librarian or computer/desktop help, I've long ago gotten to the frazzled psyche of a man who looks at an Application form and says aloud "Oh no.  Not again."

There's something... soul-crushing with filling out an application for employment.  There's the hassles of creating not just one resume but a series of resumes to cover every possible contingency that is out there... but now you've got to fill out a form that's asking for the information all over again.

So I was at an office this morning.  I dropped off my resume at a table at the St. Pete Job Fair last week, and the company called for me to come in and fill out an application (and apparently a face interview to follow it).  And I was sitting there, doing my best to fill out yet another application form...

...and I started getting one of those headaches.  The kind of headache that tells me "what the hell am I doing?"  The doubt that a long-time unemployed person gets after getting rejected and ignored long enough to haunt you.

And I panicked.

This is the absolutely worst thing to be doing when a job interview is on the line.  Panicking.  At that moment I knew the whole effort was going to be a waste, that I wasn't going to be any good for the interview.  I crossed out some of the personal info I already put on the form, handed the clipboard back in, apologized for wasting time and left.  Kicking myself mentally the whole way out.

This is what two years plus of job hunting does to you.  I try.  I do my best to get in the mindset when I go into job fairs, and interviews, and shipping resumes to hiring workplaces.  But the second that Doubt hits you...

The drive home was troubled.  That headache was still with me.  I took a scenic route home, looping around to get to a grocery store (needed milk, after all).  The road I took is undergoing construction, so the lanes are down to two (one each direction).  At one spot, the cars in front of me start swerving funny.  And then I quickly see why.

A turtle was crossing the road.

This is Florida.  This is occupational hazard to driving down here.  Lots of roads through wooded areas with nearby lakes.  Lots of places for turtles to live and grow.  And sad to say, turtles get the urge to wander from time to time.

And our roadways are not designed with turtle-safe passages underneath them.  Nor any turtle-level barricades to discourage them from passing the road.

To the cruel and disheartened, let me tell you: driving over a turtle is a bad thing.  Especially to me.  I've read Terry Prachett's Small Gods for one thing.  I have some inkling of the concept of spirit guides, animal totems, etc.  And turtles are a very spiritual animal.

Years ago, when I first coped with depression down in South Florida (was on Zoloft at the time), there was a day driving to work where I rescued a turtle off a major roadway... and I felt damn good the whole day.  It's not a day I've forgotten: it's been one of the few days I ever felt good.  Emphasis on ever.

I am not driving over a turtle.  I owe them.

I got out of the car, with the drivers in the cars stuck behind me sticking their heads out yelling about what the hell was going on.  I shouted back "I'm not driving over turtles" and focused my effort on picking up the little guy as he was scrambling across the road.

Turtle lifting is tricky.  You don't want to drop them, and they do wiggle a lot.  The turtle you see just wants to cross the road from Point A to Point Wherever the Turtle Thinks There's Turtle Happiness.  So to him, getting lifted off the road and floating through the air makes no sense.  Those stubby little turtle legs keep kicking in a walking motion.  I finally got my fingers safely under his shell and carried him over into the dirt in the direction he was going.  I made sure he'd be safe by carrying him a few more yards to the side than was necessary, in case the turtle changed his mind (Oh God. I hope not).  By then the drivers saw I was turtle rescuing and waved back to me that they understood the situation.  Got back in the car and kept driving in my own path.  I know the turtle and I will not cross paths again...

So that's been my day so far right now.  I screwed up a job interview and I saved a turtle off a busy road.  I wonder how the Karmic balance on that works out.

What Else Do Libraries Want From Reference Librarians?

The toughest part of job-hunting these last two years has been tweaking my resume to try and highlight what exactly my expertise and skills are.

And coping with the feeling that I'm still missing the magic phrase that would make a library HR job-hunter go "Hola, this guy has mad skills!"

I mean, I spell out that:

• I've got years, 14 years and then some, working the reference and public service desk, answering questions, pointing people to the best resources, getting them to the research they seek;
• I've got years, just as long, working with computers - from the heady days of CD-ROM readers (I can still remember the time it took to switch disks locked into special case holders) - into the first citation-only online databases and from there into full-text articles and now into PDF print-quality journal pages.  And not just researching them with Boolean search methods but with every Advanced limiter command prompt known to database managers.

And that's just with being a reference librarian.  Past that, I've got additional skills with collection management, shelf management (and weeding of dated materials), subject headings and cataloging keywords, and even some skill checking books out and handling overdue fines.  If there's been anything a librarian has to do, I've done it.  I've even been a branch manager (granted, that only lasted a year before my immediate supervisor found me wanting and suggested I get demoted to just reference librarian... yeah, you're not supposed to mention the "negative things" but hell, it happened and I've got to explain it sooner or later).

And still, I feel I'm missing something.

Anyone out there reading this blog have any suggestions on what I need to say on my resume to impress the libraries out there hiring?  Because in this job market, I'm up against one of the tightest markets for librarians ever as every state out there is facing massive budget cuts (and libraries are the easiest target for politicians everywhere... )

Asking Xlibris To Lower the Cost of My Book...

...I kind of got the feeling when I called the publisher a few days ago to lower the price of the ebook version of Last of the Grapefruit Wars from $5.99 to $2.99 that I was pulling teeth from a very upset lion.

I think the conflict came from the fact that the publisher is one of those mainstream Print-on-Demand services.  Cutting the price in half seems like cutting half the money they'd be getting from selling that book.

Problem is, no one has been buying that many copies of my book (I'd say about two ebook purchases in the last year...) anyway.  And I think the price of it at over 5 bucks was part of the problem.

The book itself is pretty small in terms of page count (in ebook version it's under 100 pages): calling it slim is being polite.  But nobody is going to be buying a thin volume at over 5 bucks... when there are thicker-page-count novels going for less.

With the advent of direct publishing in ebook format, there is now a glut of self-published authors selling directly to the market.  And as they don't have to share (much) with a mainstream publisher with the profits, those authors can set their price any way they see fit.  And a lot of them are selling at 2.99 per ebook.  So I might as well drop the price of Grapefruit Wars to that level as well.

It makes basic sense.  If the demand is low, lower the value on what you have on supply to encourage people shopping for bargains.  You just can't go too low to hamper the costs of producing said supply (this is where you get that economics chart of the supply-and-demand X crossing).  Considering I paid Xlibris good money to have the short story anthology made available to direct-retail purchases, I think the costs of supply have been covered.  Now it's just selling the damn thing (and marketing with Xlibris is another issue altogether)...

Still, I NEED to deal with advertising that ebook and let people know it is for 2.99 now...

Things I Should Be Doing In Terms Of Writing

1) There's a story challenge to write for an all-dialogue short story.

2) There's that Jar of the Atlantic short that's been on the docket for 11 years.

3) There's the NaNoWriMo novel that's got 2 months to complete before the prize discount on getting a free copy printed by CreateSpace runs out.

4) The next Writers Association meeting in Wesley Chapel is the same day as Free Comic Book Day (May 7th)!  Damn.  The Wesley Chapel B&N better have comic book giveaways!

Witty Librarian and the CafePress of Doom

I've been meddling in the affairs of shoppers by creating more items with Witty Librarian quote-age and Logo over at the Witty Librarian Shelf of Stuff on CafePress.

So... if you know any librarians with truckloads of money to spare...  uh, lemme rephrase that.  If you know anybody with truckloads of money to spare who wants to purchase gifts to librarians, send them my way.  :-)

Negotiations For A Cover Artist

It helps to be a comic book fan and to follow links on DeviantArt to those artists who take commissions... ;-)