Writers in the Storm

by Piper Bayard
of Bayard & Holmes

I write with a partner who is a 47-yr veteran of Intelligence Community field operations. My friends know to unplug their Alexas and their Smart TVs when I’m in a room. Sometimes, I even ask them to turn off their phones and put them alongside mine in their microwave oven before a conversation continues.

This is not because I talk about classified information. I don’t. It’s also not because I’m particularly interesting. I’m not. It’s because I know who does think I’m interesting and how they can use the mundane information of my day.

Today, we will only look at spying on the part of corporations and governments. For information about hackers and their criminal activities, see my earlier WITS article, “Hacking: It Isn’t Just for Thrillers Anymore.” 

So which of our devices can be used to spy on us?

In short, all of them. If it has a mic and/or a camera and connects to the internet, it can be and likely is being used by someone to listen to everything we say and watch everything we do within the field of reception.

Writing Tip: For our characters who are undercover or in hiding, this means they either hide in plain sight with plastic surgery and false identities, or they must be very isolated to be genuinely off the grid. It is not enough that they don’t carry their own electronics or use credit cards. Cameras and mics are ubiquitous in our daily lives, and they are all watching and listening in. With facial recognition software, our characters are not likely to be able to hide in society for very long.

Voice-Activated Devices

Smart TVs, Alexa, Siri, and all other voice-activated electronics are created specifically to listen for and respond to commands.

Think of those devices as entire teams of marketing specialists and hostile government spies sitting in our living rooms with us, and they never sleep or go away unless we unplug them and/or toss them in the garbage at the curb.

Devices often come with manufacturer statements saying that they only collect “voice data” for the purpose of recognizing and responding to commands. However, for the device to determine whether we are issuing a command, all detectable sounds are collected and transmitted to an unnamed third-party vendor.

Companies that sell electronics do not release information about that third-party vendor. That anonymous third-party vendor owns and maintains the computer hardware that runs the programs that collect and sort through everything that is said to determine if anyone is giving a command to the device.

That third-party vendor could be a corporation, it could be Russia , it could be the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), or it could be skeevy Uncle Fred with the servers in his bathroom.

These devices also usually come with language stating that the company does not sell the voice data they collect to third parties. Keep in mind that “voice data,” as it pertains to the device, might only include legitimate commands. So what does the company do with all of the rest of the data collected that does not fall under the definition of voice data?

I’m seeing plots here. How about you?

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More importantly, even if in some alternate universe corporations can be trusted, what do the third party vendors do with our data?

They can and likely do sell our data to marketing firms, governments foreign and domestic, private individuals, organized crime, or all of the above. The firms, corporations, governments foreign and domestic, and people who purchase our data can then do whatever they please with it.

In addition to the third-party vendors that collect all of our singing in the shower, there is the fact that the electronics are made somewhere.

That somewhere is inevitably the PRC. Communist China. West Taiwan. Xi Jinping’s Hundred Acre Wood.

Virtually every electronic device that is produced today is assembled in the PRC. It is simply assumed by those in the computer industry that both corporations and governments that come in contact with electronic components during the course of their production will attempt to design in what are called “back doors.” Back doors allow those corporations and governments to access devices without having to expend the energy of hacking.

In other words, the PRC installs back doors or at least attempts to install them into all of the electronic devices it assembles. The PRC does this specifically to spy on the West as part of its Thousand Grains of Sand intelligence-gathering program described below.

Electronics corporations, Western governments, and most people under the age of twenty-five know this, but, hey, cheap stuff and convenience, right?

Phones

Phones are especially convenient for governments and corporations to use to collect information.

They can use phones to locate and track people, collect conversations on and around the phone, and watch people through the phone cameras. Software can be embedded in phones by apps or at public WiFi locations. Phones also send signals that talk to other electronic devices around us.

For example, phone conversations are regularly intercepted by such things as the IMSI-catchers, or “stingrays,” that police use to hijack cell phone connections to spy on people. Stingrays mimic wireless cell towers and “force” all surrounding cell phones and mobile devices to connect to it.

 Their use is widespread across America. It’s an easy bet that the Department of Homeland Security has perfected the art. The legality of such unwarranted police surveillance practices is still being debated in the courts.

Also, the PRC, Russia (and any other nation that can afford the surveillance infrastructure) collect all of the phone conversations in and around Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and other major Western cities.

Those nations are not concerned with any legality. However, we do not know how efficiently they can actually sort through all of that data.

Apps & Terms of Use Agreements

Phone apps exponentially increase the spying capabilities of corporations, particularly in the realm of geo-location. These apps are used for the physical tracking of individuals for the purpose of generating filthy lucre.

Such companies as Google, Facebook, and Verizon capture their users' locations and sell the data to marketing corporations. This is actually all completely legal, as people agree to this tracking in the terms of the operating system, application, and telecom company when they agree to “terms” during the installation or start-up process.

Keep in mind that when we agree to those terms of service that allow these companies to do such complete surveillance on us, we have no idea what they will do with the information they glean. They might only sell it to marketing companies, who then sell it to whomever they please. They likely also sell that information to governments both domestic and foreign, which use it.

And computers?

They have mics. They have cameras. They connect to the internet. They were made in China, or at least they were assembled there. All of those corporate terms of service are the same for tracking your online movements. I’m sure you can do the math.

But . . . Why? We’re just not that interesting.

The primary reasons to collect, store, and transmit our data from our electronic devices, aside from the criminal activities of hackers, are marketing and espionage.

Marketing

Notice how we can have a conversation about Bragg’s Organic Vinegar in the range of an electronic device, and an ad for Bragg’s pops up on our computer? That is not a coincidence.

Companies have agreements with each other to share information about users for targeted marketing. In other words, our phone company collects the voice data and shares it with our internet carrier, which shares it with marketing corporations, which share Bragg’s with us.

A more direct connection is when the same company provides us with both phone service and internet service. Whatever is said on the phone almost immediately translates into ads all over the computer because all of the middle players are cut out of the process.

Then there is the marketing power that comes from location-tracking technologies made possible by phones. Location-tracking technologies follow people through stores using the apps on phones.

Stores can tell if someone put on makeup, tried on clothes, stood staring at their favorite cookies for ten minutes, etc. Marketing experts have no scruples when it comes to collecting our data and turning it into money.

See “Retailers Can Track Your Movements Inside Their stores. Here’s How.”

Your data, or shall I say your data, is the pay dirt of the computer age. It is worth more than gold, oil, or lithium. Keep in mind, too, that any data collected for marketing purposes can be used for more nefarious purposes as well.

Espionage

Many governments, such as the PRC, are hostile to the rest of the world, and particularly to Western governments.

The PRC is one of the most dedicated and most successful governments that practices electronic espionage, and it does so by being the world’s manufacturer of electronic devices.

The Chinese approach to espionage, known as the Thousand Grains of Sand, is different from that of the Western world and other countries.

While the Chinese have professional intelligence services like other countries, what’s different is that the entire Chinese population also has a legal duty to spy for the PRC, from fishermen (see Key Moments in Espionage), to business people, to tourists, to teachers, to students, to nannies and maids.

The Chinese government wants to collect all of the millions of “grains of sand” that it can glean from listening to and watching people around the world, either through human interaction or through electronics.

Why We Absolutely Are So Interesting

These are only a few of the reasons the PRC and other foreign governments want to spy on us in our everyday lives:

• To hunt down and keep tabs on expatriates
• To monitor trends in society for the purpose of improving subversion efforts
• To improve training of deep-cover agents
• To improve language skills for social media agents
• To better design propaganda efforts in foreign countries
• To identify blackmail targets
• To compile information on important foreigners for the purposes of subversion

I can personally attest to the effectiveness of the PRC’s campaign to listen in on the average American. As a decades-long student of political propaganda, I have seen the Chinese go from being blunt objects to precision tools in their online social media accounts, mastering the language, slang, and word sequencing of their targets to the point that experts have to stop and think twice to pick out the spies.

That is why each and every one of us is far more interesting to foreign governments than we realize.

So in short, if it is an electronic device with a mic and/or a camera, and it connects to the internet, it is spying on us, most likely for the purposes of marketing or espionage.

Any questions? Please put them in the comments below, or just say them out loud or type them into your computer, and we will ask our favorite hackers to pull it off the PRC “third party vendors” to answer them for you. (Kidding! Sort of. . .)

About Piper

Piper Bayard is an author and a recovering attorney with a college degree or two. She is also a belly dancer and a former hospice volunteer. She has been working daily with her good friend Jay Holmes for the past decade, learning about foreign affairs, espionage history, and field techniques for the purpose of writing fiction and nonfiction. She currently pens espionage nonfiction and international spy thrillers with Jay Holmes, as well as post-apocalyptic fiction of her own.

Jay Holmes is a 47-year veteran of field espionage operations with experience spanning from the Cold War fight against the Soviets, the East Germans, and the various terrorist organizations they sponsored to the present Global War on Terror. He is unwilling to admit to much more than that. Piper is the public face of their partnership.

In Spycraft: Essentials:

Bayard & Holmes share information on espionage history, organizations, firearms of spycraft, tradecraft techniques, honey pots, sleeper agents, the most common foibles of spy fiction, and the personalities and personal challenges of the men and women behind the myths.

Though crafted with advice and specific tips for writers, Spycraft: Essentials is for anyone who wants to learn more about the inner workings of the Shadow World.

by Colleen M. Story

When I was a young child, my adoptive father committed suicide.

Wow. I’ve never written that before.

But I have written a new novel (The Beached Ones) that explores, among other things, suicide, from the point of view of both the victims and their families.

I never expected to write such a novel. I fell into it “from the side,” you might say, when a movie that ended with a suicide plagued my thoughts for weeks.

I didn’t ask myself “why” this story stuck with me. I just accepted that it did, and gradually, it sowed the germ for a new story in my mind.

I pursued that story over a period of many years, and only when I’d completed a couple of drafts did I realize that:

• Yes, the story had been inspired in part by the movie
• But it had also come from my past real-life experience

Almost every writer has some sort of trauma (or more than one) lingering in their past. Maybe you've already written about it. But if you haven't and you're thinking of doing so, ask yourself these three questions first.

1. Are You Ready to Write About It?

Writing is incredibly therapeutic. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), “For years, practitioners have used logs, questionnaires, journals and other writing forms to help people heal from stresses and traumas.”

Research supports this practice. In a 2019 study, scientists asked participants who had reported experiencing trauma in the past year to engage in a six-week writing program. The results showed that the program helped them:

• increase resilience
• decrease depressive symptoms
• reduce perceived stress
• limit rumination

If you’re compelled to write about past trauma, by all means, do so, as it may help you. But if you’re thinking of making a story out of it, think twice.

My adopted father’s suicide occurred when I was a young child. I didn’t start writing The Beached Ones until I was in my 40s. Plenty of time had passed. The wound was no longer fresh. I was able to approach the story from a novelist’s point of view. That helped me to be successful in writing it.

If you’re too close to the trauma, you may have difficulty writing about it objectively. We writers have to have empathy for all of our characters, including the “bad guys.” We also must create a solid story structure and plot to entertain and intrigue our readers—something that requires a clear head.

Writing about the event “as it happened” typically doesn’t translate well into a story. So ask yourself if you’re ready. Have you processed your difficult emotions? Have you healed from the event? Can you look at it objectively?

Only then should you start writing for the purpose of publishing. Before that, use your writing to heal.

2. Can You Handle the Emotional Consequences?

While writing The Beached Ones, I experienced some powerful emotions. Of course, we writers usually do become involved with our characters and feel what they feel. But as I wrote, I found myself haunted by what had happened in my real life.

I started wondering anew about the details. I went to bed ruminating over it, recalling the moment my mom came in to tell my brother and me the news. Memories of that time floated in and out of my consciousness like snippets of dreams.

I had to have more answers. I talked to my mom about it. She was kind enough to get me copies of old newspaper clippings from my hometown paper. It was helpful to see the event recorded in black and white. It chased away the shadows and helped me face reality once more.

You too may experience some difficult emotions when writing about past trauma. You can’t really “prepare” for it, but knowing that it may happen can help. Think about who you might call when you need to. Who could support you through this type of experience?

Then consider anything else you may need, such as more information. Perhaps you too will want to do some research to paste some plain facts over the wound.

Then make sure you’re ready to handle whatever may bubble up as you’re writing before you start. You’ll need to be strong.

3. Can You Bring Your Reader Hope?

Most traumas are dark and difficult. Certainly, suicide isn't uplifting—but according to my editor, my novel is.

When she told me that, I was honored. On a subconscious level, it’s what I wanted to do: offer readers hope. 

On one hand, you’ve suffered a trauma. At least a small part of you is probably writing about it as a way to heal. That means you may have to go to some dark places in your story. But you need more than darkness to make a novel succeed. The question is: how will you find your way back to the light?

Readers often come to books for more than entertainment (though that’s usually the first thing they look for). They long for a sense of belonging, a sign that they’re not alone in how they feel or what they’ve endured in life. They may pick up your book hoping that what they find there will help soothe their fears or bring them a certain level of peace.

If you’re too close to your trauma—or you haven’t yet found a way to understand what happened—you may not be able to find your way out of that dark place. The trail usually begins with empathy for all parties involved: the victims and the perpetrators. Then it travels through pain and suffering to forgiveness, justice, atonement, or in a tragedy, despair, and death.

I’m not saying you have to have a happy ending. But your main character will have to go through a significant change to create a successful arc. One option is to have your character find the light in some way. Readers will celebrate with him. The other is to allow him to descend into darkness, which may leave your reader there, too.

Whatever you choose, the important thing is not to forget about the reader. In the end, your novel is saying something about human nature and experience. Make sure that what it says is what you intend to say, and what you want to offer your reader.

Make sure that it’s something you’ll be proud to leave behind.

Do you write books that include trauma? Why or why not? If you do, what do you find to be the most difficult thing about tackling these topics?

Note: The Beached Ones is forthcoming from CamCat books in June 2022. Get your FREE excerpt here, or preorder now! (Buy links and book trailer here.)

About Colleen

Colleen M. Story is a novelist, freelance writer, writing coach, and speaker with over 20 years in the creative writing industry. Her latest release, The Beached Ones, is forthcoming from CamCat Books in June 2022. Her novel, Loreena's Gift, was a Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Book of the Year Awards winner, among others.

Colleen has written three books to help writers succeed. Your Writing Matters is the most recent, and helps writers overcome self-doubt and determine once and for all where writing fits in their lives. Other titles include Writer Get Noticed and Overwhelmed Writer Rescue. You can find free chapters of these books here.

Find more at her author website (colleenmstory.com) or connect with her on Twitter (@colleen_m_story) and LinkedIn.

by Penny Sansevieri

Book marketing strategies change a bit when you’re promoting an older title, so it’s important to keep your marketing plans separate for your new releases and your backlist.

But that means something can be done to spike book sales on this older title!

10 Strategies to Reignite an Older Title

Whether it’s a single book or your entire backlist, here’s a quick rundown of marketing strategies that can help you revive and reignite a book that no longer falls in that “new release” window.

#1 Do a Cover Update

If your book is more than a year old and not selling well, re-do the cover. Find a professional cover designer that has a strong portfolio in your genre and get their help.

Related reading: Book Covers 101: Updating Your Cover

#2 Do a Goodreads Giveaway

Get yourself set up and commit to networking with the winners and build your presence on the site.

Related video: Allessandra Torre's video on promoting your book with Goodreads

#3 Do a Limited-Time Discount Promotion

Go as low as you can go for 2 or 3 days (fewer days creates urgency) and submit the book to sites that are dedicated to promoting Kindle deals.

#4 Run BookBub Ads

Because BookBub ads are so visual, this will work especially well with a new cover. When using book marketing strategies like this, be smart about running your ads to target those who are most likely to resonate with your book, regardless of its pub date.

Related reading [with video]: Tutorial: How to Use BookBub Ads to Promote Any Book

#5 Create a Book Bundle

If your older title is part of a series, bundle the first two titles to create a new product. If you write non-fiction and cover the same topic you can do a bundle as well!

#6 Build Book Marketing Strategies Around Current Events

If there is something in the news cycle related to your book or industry — speak up! Pitch yourself to online influencers for guest pieces or interviews. Get really active on social so you show up for trending topics. Definitely plan a dedicated blog post. Consider whether or not you can provide value by releasing a special newsletter.

Related reading: 30+ Bite-Sized Ideas for Book Marketing

#7 Run New Amazon Ads

Amazon ads are easy to create and won’t break your budget if you’re paying attention!

Related reading: Beginner's Guide to Rocking Amazon Ads

#8 Update Your Amazon Page

Changing up your subtitles and descriptions can really make a difference for drawing in new, interested buyers.

Related reading: Monopolize Your Indie Author Real Estate

#9 Change Up Your Categories and Keywords

It’s amazing how much more exposure you can get on Amazon by using the right categories and keywords.

Related reading: Using Amazon Categories to Sell More Books

#10 Don’t Stop Pitching for Reviews

Of all the book marketing strategies, this is one that’s frequently neglected. Be sure to use your email list and social media to remind people to post a review after reading the book. Remember, a book with 20 reviews is more likely to keep selling than a book with only 3 reviews.

Related reading: Help Your Readers Write Good Reviews and Building Street Teams

What strategies have you used to reboot an older title? Do you have any questions for Penny? Please share them with us down in the comments!

About Penny

Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a bestselling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is an Adjunct Professor teaching Self-Publishing for NYU. She was named one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine. 

Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most innovative Amazon visibility campaigns as well offering national media pitching, online book marketing, author events, and other strategies designed to build the author/book visibility.

She is the author of 18 books, including "How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon," "Revise and Re-Release Your Book", "5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors," and the newly-released “From Book to Bestseller.”

AME has had dozens of books on top bestseller lists, including those of the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal. 

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, visit www.amarketingexpert.com.