Publetariat

Top Ten Tips For Editing Your Own Book

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This post, from Gary Smailes, originally appeared on the BubbleCow website on 7/29/09. In it, he runs down some of the most common missteps authors make in writing fiction, along with remedies for each. In that sense, it’s not a list of tips for editing, so much as a list of tips for writing well in the first place.

Editing your own book can be a stressful and for many writers, a frankly daunting task. At BubbleCow we help writers tackle the problem of editing their own work on a daily basis.

Here’s a collection of the top ten tips for editing your own book as suggested by our editors:

 

1. Be consistent

Writing a book is a long process that often spans over years. During this period it is easy for writers to lose track of some of the minor plot details. However, it is vital that a writer makes every effort to maintain consistency throughout the writing process. The problem is that readers will notice mistakes. If you tell your readers that a character has blue eyes in the opening chapter, and then six chapters later you say they are green, the reader will remember.

Our tip is to use character reference sheets. These are simply lists of the key aspects for all of your characters. On these sheets you should record all the key facts – age, description, eye colour etc. Also include any details that might be important such as relationships with other characters, home address and other details you develop. One additional tip is to get into the habit of updating your sheets as you build the characters.

2. Use simple grammar

Not all writers are grammar experts. In fact the reality is that many writers struggle with grammar. Our tip is to keep it simple. The correct use of the period (full stop) and comma will get you out of most tough spots. Learning the rules of the correct use of the apostrophe is also crucial, as is the grammar of speech. However, beyond this you are getting onto dangerous ground. If you are unsure of the correct usage of the semi-colon, then don’t use it (even if Microsoft word insists otherwise).

3. Formatting

Consistent formatting is an important, but often overlooked, part of editing. By this we are talking about titles, subtitles, indenting, text font etc. In fact you need to pay attention to anything that appears on the page. One way to get around inconsistencies is to use the ‘style’ function of your word processing package. Another way is to simply pay attention each time you start a new section, type in a header or change font. Being aware is half the battle.

4. Narrative arc

Your story needs to have a clear start, middle and end. We are all aware of this but it doesn’t always come across in writer’s work. Our tip is to read your work with the three phase structure in mind. Can you pin point the three sections of your book clearly?

Here’s a couple of sites that explain the narrative arc well: here and here.

5. Tense usage

When talking to our editors the issue of tense was highlighted as a common problem. The switching of tenses (past to present/present to past) is something that happens to all writers. It is for this reason that you must pay particular attention to this problem. This is one of those things that readers tend to spot. This blog postmight help.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes tips #6-10, on BubbleCow.

Book Promotion Campaign Elements

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This article, from Rick Frishman, originally appeared on Beneath the Cover on 1/23/09.

Not every element that follows may work for every book or platform, but the ones listed below are good cornerstones.

Media List

Your media list includes the names of those who will receive a copy of the sale version of the book. It will include those who received review copies of your book plus national media outlets and local media in your area, the areas you plan to visit, and those where you have special contacts.

To find sources, go to the library and leaf through Cision’s publications, such as Cision’s MediaSource. Although you can pay for the same information on the Internet, at libraries, it’s free. However, the information may be dated because media people move frequently. Your best bet is to do your initial research at the library and collect a bunch of names and contact information. Then call or check websites to verify what you found and to get the most current information.

Also check the Harrison guides, Radio-TV Interview Report for national broadcast media information. Call media outlets and ask who you should send your material to. Try to get an actual person’s name, not simply an e-mail address to “info@.”

Internet Marketing

When people hear about you or your book, they go to the Internet to get more information. They Google you, read about you, and visit your Web site; they look for your book on Amazon.com. So, as an author, it’s essential to have a strong Internet presence.

  1. The first step in your Internet marketing plan is to put up a memorable website, a site that people love to visit and will tell others about. You website must be great-looking and reflective of the impression you want to convey. For example, you may want it to appear authoritative, lighthearted, elegant, colorful, hip, scholarly, or goofy. Or it could have a theme related to your book or your area of expertise. Your site must also be up-to-date and easy and intuitive to use, and all links must work.
     
  2. Register your site with all the major search engines under your name, your book’s name, and every conceivable variation of them. That way, when people misspell your name and don’t get your book’s title exactly right, they will still get to your site.
     
  3. Include in your website everything that’s in your media kit. Your site should allow visitors to read a sample chapter, order your book, enter into exchanges with you, and view your upcoming events and appearances. It should link to other complementary sites and to your strategic partners. Your site must have a press room with the latest articles on you and your book.
     
  4. In addition to your site, you can start your own blog, newsletter, or e-zine.

Numerous firms such as FSBAssociates.com (Fauzia Burke) and PromoteABookmedia.com can be hired to handle your Internet book-marketing campaigns. These firms can be invaluable because they know all the components that can be included in your campaign. They can create an Internet campaign that may include creating a website for the book, sending your book to relevant websites, and sending it to blogs. These firms have lists of Internet book reviewers; will syndicate your content on the Web; or will set up chats, downloads, newsgroups, and mailing lists.

Read the rest of the article on Beneath the Cover to learn about the Amazon blast, newspaper and radio releases, and media training.

Why Hasn't Story Itself Changed With The Web?

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This post, from Jeremiah Tolbert, originally appeared on his blog on 5/19/09.

The structure and nature of short stories haven’t really changed in the digital age, as far as I can tell.  They’re still told the same way mostly, same perspectives, in roughly the same amount of time ( around 3-7000 words). 

E-zines are for the most part  straight forward adaptations of the print magazine format, to varying degrees.  PDF magazines are identical to print magazines, except they’re read on a screen instead of on paper, or even printed off by some. E-zines like Strange Horizons make use of basic hypertext features, but the stories themselves do not take advantage of of any of those features except in rare occasions.

Flash fiction, or stories under 500 words, has seen a boom online, with electronic magazines such as Brain Harvestspecializing in them exclusively.   Personally, I don’t find such short stories very satisfying very often, despite my involvement with the Daily Cabal, (which you should check out if you do like flash fiction).  I don’t think I’ve ever written a really successful flash fiction story.   I would argue that flash fiction is even less popular than regular short fiction, which is pretty unpopular in the first place.

 

You might think that the internet would lend itself to shorter stories, on the assumption that the internet has shortened our attention spans.  I don’t really believe that. I think we have mostly the same attention spans we did before the web began to dominate our entertainment time, but we’re a lot better about evaluating content quickly to determine if it’s worth our attention.  Scanning is the new reading of the 21st Century.

Early on in the web days, there was a lot more experimentation with the idea of hypertext fiction, which in my experience is basically a glorified “Choose Your Own Adventure” (CYOA) made with links rather than “turn to page X” instructions.   I’d argue that for “choose your own adventure” stories, the web is a better format than print, but– choose your own adventure stories were just a relatively crude form of interactive storytelling, and video games are a more evolved form of the same thing.  CYOA  books are not printed in nearly the same quantities as they were when I was a kid in the 80s.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise of video games has corresponded with the fall of CYOA books. Wikipedia’s article on CYOA references a company called Chooseco that purchased the rights to the original CYOA books, but when I tried to visit the site for said company, all I found was a GoDaddy redirect. I think it’s fairly safe to say that the Choose Your Own Adventure format is effectively played out.

Stories told in an e-mail-like format are really no different from the epistolary format, which has been around since the letter itself.   Wikipedia puts the first epistolary novel appearing in 1485 or so.   Over 500 years old.  So the e-mail format nothing much new, just a slightly different take.  The language might be a bit different, but that same back-and-forth exists, generally written in alternating or single-thread first person present or past-tense.

Some have experimented with Twitter and its 140 character limit.  “Twitter zines” like Thaumatrope publish these stories regularly.  I wrote a serialized story in the twitter format, using the nature of Twitter itself as an aspect of the story, called #futurejer, to what I think was probably varying degrees of success.  Ultimately was the form of story changed by this?  Not very much, I suspect.  It’s just an extremely serialized tale, probably.

Read the rest of the post on Jeremiah Tolbert’s blog.

How to Write Tight – Self-Editing Tips to Make Your Manuscript Ready for Publication

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This post, from Suzanne Lieurance, originally appeared on the Writers In The Sky e-zine on 7/24/09.

As writers, we hear it all the time. We need to "write tight," which just means we need to trim all the flab from our manuscripts and make every word count.

Here are some self-editing tips that will help you "write tight" and take your manuscripts from flabby to fit for publication in no time!

1. Avoid a lot of back story – information about the POV character’s history and background. Weave all this into the story instead of loading the manuscript down with too many sentences or paragraphs of straight narrative before the action begins.

2. Simplify your sentences wherever possible. Watch for redundant or unnecessary phrases. As writers, we need to "show, not tell" as often as possible. Yet, some writers tend to show and then tell the same information, which is redundant. Watch out for this in your manuscripts. Also, look for the redundant phrases below and others like them.

Stand up = stand
Sit down = sit
Turned back = turned
Turned around = turned
He thought to himself = He thought.
She shrugged her shoulders = she shrugged
She whispered softly = she whispered
He nodded his head = he nodded

3. Avoid adverbs for the most part. Use strong, descriptive verbs instead.

Flabby: She smiled slightly at the photographer.

Fit: She grinned at the photographer.

4. Avoid using the same word over and over in a paragraph. Go back and reread each sentence. Have you repeated the same word several times within a single sentence or paragraph? If so, substitute another word with the same meaning.

5. Don’t overuse names. Beginning writers tend to have the characters address each other by name too often. When you speak to a friend, you don’t constantly say his name. Don’t have your characters do this either. It doesn’t ring true, and it draws the reader OUT of the story.
 

Read the rest of the post, which includes tips #6-15, on Writers In The Sky.

Writing A Book For Self Publication

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This post, from Morris Rosenthal, originally appeared on his Self Publishing 2.0 blog on 7/26/09.

There’s a big difference between self publishing a book because you can’t land a contract from a trade publisher and writing a book for self publication. A book that no acquisitions editor is willing to pay you an advance for is probably a bad gamble from a commercial standpoint, no matter how well written and polished it may be. But the business of writing for self publication doesn’t stop with choosing a subject for which there’s an audience, be it weight loss or teenage vampire romance. It’s just as important to match your writing and production capabilities to the business model you choose.

A simple example would be my collection of computer titles. Since I use Lightning Source to do my printing on demand, and since color POD is still too expensive for producing books with reasonable cover prices, I chose from the inception to write books that didn’t require photographic illustrations. That may sound simple, but I can assure you that books related to computer hardware have always been published with heavy photo illustration. In some instances, like a step-by-step book for building PCs, those photographs are very useful, but more often than not they are filler to bulk up the page count for a higher cover price. So back in 2003, I developed an approach for troubleshooting computer hardware based on black and white flowcharts, and I even turned the lack of photographs into a selling point in the promotional book video I wrote about a few months ago.

A more general example is simply writing lean books. Trade publishers love bulking up books to achieve wider spines for shelf visibility (thicker paper stock is also common for low page count books) and the perception of higher value which allows higher cover prices. More subtle reasons include the perception of higher value for competitive purposes, and the belief that bulk equates with quality, especially in nonfiction and reference type titles. After all, if the reader is simply overwhelmed by the amount of material in the book, they are more likely to blame themselves for failing to understand the subject than to blame to author for failing to explain it. For trade publishers ordering large offset runs, the incremental page count has limited impact on the final cost of the book, the more important cost is performing the editorial and production process on the larger number of pages. When you’re writing for self publication, especially if you are using print on demand, the printing cost rises far more rapidly than your ability to raise the cover price while keeping the book competitive with similar titles.

As a self publisher, you have 100% control over what you write, and that includes the ability to make changes during the editorial process. I can’t tell you how many self publishers I’ve corresponded with who were planning to follow my print on demand model, but who changed to short run offset at the last minute because they couldn’t leave out a beautiful color photograph that they referred to in the text or an accompanying DVD of photographs, audio or video. My advice to make a minor edit in the text and leave out the spoiler falls on deaf ears. Authors who have never written or published a book become married to the notion that the "something extra", the color, the DVD, the odd shaped book, adds value that will make their book sell. In my experience, the "something extra" wouldn’t help sales even at the same price point, much less when it doubles the cost to the customer.
 

Read the rest of the post on Morris Rosenthal’s Self Publishing 2.0 blog.

We Are All Writers Now

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This article, from Anne Trubek, originally appeared on The Economist’s More Intelligent Life site on 6/26/09.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook: these outlets are supposedly cheapening language and tarnishing our time. But the fact is we are all reading and writing much more than we used to, writes Anne Trubek …

The chattering classes have become silent, tapping their views on increasingly smaller devices. And tapping they are: the screeds are everywhere, decrying the decline of smart writing, intelligent thought and proper grammar. Critics bemoan blogging as the province of the amateurism. Journalists rue the loose ethics and shoddy fact-checking of citizen journalists. Many save their most profound scorn for the newest forms of social media. Facebook and Twitter are heaped with derision for being insipid, time-sucking, sad testaments to our literary degradation. This view is often summed up with a disdainful question: “Do we really care about what you ate for lunch?”

Forget that most of the pundits lambasting Facebook and Twitter are familiar with these devices because they use them regularly. Forget that no one is being manacled to computers and forced to read stupid prose (instead of, say, reading Proust in bed). What many professional writers are overlooking in these laments is that the rise of amateur writers means more people are writing and reading. We are commenting on blog posts, forwarding links and composing status updates. We are seeking out communities based on written words.

Go back 20, 30 years and you will find all of us doing more talking than writing. We rued literacy levels and worried over whether all this phone-yakking and television-watching spelled the end of writing.

Few make that claim today. I would hazard that, with more than 200m people on Facebook and even more with home internet access, we are all writing more than we would have ten years ago. Those who would never write letters (too slow and anachronistic) or postcards (too twee) now send missives with abandon, from long thoughtful memos to brief and clever quips about evening plans. And if we subscribe to the theory that the most effective way to improve one’s writing is by practicing—by writing more, and ideally for an audience—then our writing skills must be getting better.

Take the “25 Things About Me” meme that raged around Facebook a few months
ago. This time-waster, as many saw it, is precisely the kind of brainstorming exercise I used to assign to my freshman writing students decades ago. I asked undergraduates to do free-writing, as we called it, because most entered my classroom with little writing experience beyond formal, assigned essays. They only wrote when they were instructed to, and the results were often arch and unclear, with ideas kept at arms length. Students saw writing as alien and intimidating–a source of anxiety. Few had experience with writing as a form of self-expression. So when I stood in front of a classroom and told students to write quickly about themselves, without worrying about grammar or punctuation or evaluation—”just to loosen up,” I would say—I was asking them to do something new. Most found the experience refreshing, and their papers improved.

Today those freewriting exercises are redundant. After all, hundreds of thousands of people wrote “25 Things About Me” for fun. My students compose e-mails, texts, status updates and tweets "about seven hours a day," one sophomore told me. (She also says no one really talks to each other anymore). They enter my classroom more comfortable with writing–better writers, that is–and we can skip those first steps.

Read the rest of the article on More Intelligent Life.

Giving A Reading: Some Thoughts On Presenting Your Work

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This post, from Kimberly Davis, originally appeared on her Kim’s Craft Blog on 7/5/09. In it, Ms. Davis offers some sound advice for giving an effective live reading. While Ms. Davis is addressing live readings before an audience specifically, the guidance given here is equally useful when creating an audiobook or podcast.

If you are a writer, sooner or later you are going to be asked to get up and read your work before a live audience. If there is a more anxiety-producing moment in the life of an aspiring writer, then I don’t know what it is. Even for a more seasoned writer, having to get up and present your work can be a challenge.

Yesterday I participated in the reading up here at the Summer Writers Conference at Skidmore College. Previously, I had done two Faculty Readings this spring at the Cambridge Center, and yet I still found myself getting nervous and struggling a bit. Some of this was the material. The poems I was reading are at the difficult end of the scale, depending as they do on speed, tone and some athletic line-breaks. Also it was a different (and larger) audience than I was used to, and I hadn’t rehearsed beforehand. At the end of the reading, I found myself making a mental list of "what to do next time"–which I thought I would share.

Slow Down:  I was struck yesterday by how many of the writers read too quickly. There were a lot of writers on the program, and so everyone was laboring under some rather strict time limitations. This is not unusual. At most readings, you will be presenting alongside other writers, and you will be given some sort of time allotment. The trick is to pick something you KNOW will fit within the time you have so you don’t have to rush. There is nothing that ruins a reading like speeding through your carefully selected words.

Read Like You Mean It: By the time you get up to read your work, you are probably going to be sick of it. Whether you are reading poetry or prose, chances are good that by the time you present it to an audience, you’ll have revised it a thousand times, and a lot of the emotion will have gone out of it for you. You’ll now see all the changes you’ve made, the things you still don’t like about the piece, the places where you’re going to have trouble reading it. But that’s not what the audience wants to hear.

What you need to present to your audience is the original emotional energy that made you write the piece in the first place, six months or six years ago. Somehow you need to find your way back into the feelings behind the piece, so that you can communicate them to the audience. I don’t think this is an easy thing for a writer to do. Most of us are not natural performers by nature. If we were, we would have gone to acting school, right?

Still, at a reading we are in essence being asked to "act out" our poems and stories–and to lead the audience through them. The way I like to think of this is that–when we read a poem or story–it becomes a "lived experience," so that as you read, you need to be aware of this and leave enough time and space in your voice and tone for the audience to experience each emotional turn and shift that you take them through.  

Read the rest of the post on Kim’s Craft Blog.

Interview With Indie Author Alan Baxter

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Alan Baxter is the author of the supernatural thrillers RealmShift and MageSign, and also a regular contributor to Publetariat.

Why have you elected to go indie with your books?

My first book was almost published traditionally but fell over at the eleventh hour. Rather than go through the whole submission process again I decided to self-publish it and see what happened while I got on with the next book. I therefore discovered the joys of indie publishing and haven’t looked back.

You’re very active in terms of author platform; which strategies do you feel have paid off, and which have not?

By far the most important thing is to have a website that acts as a hub of all my online and promotional activity. My website is both a blog and a place where people can read all kinds of examples of my writing – I have short stories, flash fiction and a serial novella there, as well as the first three chapters of both novels, RealmShift and MageSign. That gives people something to do there, and I regularly update the fiction pages. When I get anything published in magazines or online I post links and reprint the stories on my site when the publishing rights expire. I blog as often as possible about all things writing and publishing related, not just my own writing. All these things give people a reason to come back and learn more.

That website then becomes the central station of my online presence and all the other things like Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and so on are linked to it. That’s what works for me.

Many indie authors view corporate giant Amazon with a mixture of suspicion and contempt, but you’ve been a very outspoken supporter. Why?

Amazon gives indie authors something they’ve never had before – the chance to put their books in the same place as every other book from every other publisher. That’s unprecedented exposure. Amazon certainly have their quirks and there’s a lot about them that I’d change given the chance, but there’s simply no denying that the opportunities that Amazon presents to indies far outweigh any niggles in their professional practices.

Having published both in print and ebook editions, do you find your ebooks selling more, less, or in about the same numbers as your print editions?

Currently my books are selling better on Kindle than any other format, but it fluctuates. I think ebooks are certainly going to become mainstream very soon (if they aren’t already!) and will probably begin to account for the bulk of indie author sales. But there will always be people that love the physical book and POD means that the physical book will always be available. I’ve already had readers that have told me that they originally read my books as ebooks, but then went and bought trade paperbacks to have them on the shelves at home. One format holds up the other it seems.

You’re an Englishman who’s now settled in Australia; are the two cultures very different in terms of writing and writer communities?

English and Australian culture is very similar. If anything, Australia is more influenced by American culture than Britain is, but otherwise they’re pretty interchangeable. The same applies to writers and writing communities. Sadly, Australia suffers from one of the things that makes it so great. There are only around 20 million people in Australia, which is why we have so much space and so much natural beauty, but it also makes us a bit of a backwater when it comes to publishing and sales. Compared to somewhere like the US with around 300 million people, no one is really interested in building up their presence in Australia – we don’t even have an Amazon.com.au for example. As an indie author, that causes problems, but time is slowly seeing some changes and I’m optimistic for the future. And I also love our wide open land, so I’m not in a hurry to see us have a population like the US or Europe!

In a nutshell, what are your books, RealmShift and MageSign, about?

RealmShift follows the trials of a powerful immortal by the name of Isiah. Isiah is tasked with trying to keep some level of balance between all the gods and beliefs of people. In this instance he has to track down a murdering blood mage by the name of Samuel Harrigan. Isiah needs Samuel to complete a task he began – if Samuel fails to fulfill his destiny it will have ramifications on a global scale. The trouble is, Sam has reneged on a deal with Devil and has gone into hiding, so Isiah has to keep the Devil at bay while he tracks down Samuel and convinces him to finish what he started.

MageSign is the sequel to RealmShift and sees Isiah trying to find and bring down Samuel Harrigan’s mentor, a man known only as the Sorcerer. Isiah is keen to make sure that no new prodigies like Samuel are moulded, but his investigations lead him to discover that the Sorcerer has far more followers than he ever expected and an audacious plan that will change the world if Isiah can’t stop it.

Both books are rollicking dark fantasy thrillers with lots of magic and action, demons, gods, monsters and all that good stuff. You can learn a lot more about them, as well as read reviews and excerpts on my website.

The covers for the books are very attractive. Did you design them yourself, or hire a cover artist?

I’m lucky that I have some ability with Photoshop and a decent eye for design, so I did them myself. I heartily recommend hiring a cover artist if you don’t have the skills though – people really do judge a book by its cover. I’m glad you think my covers are good!

Do you have plans to continue the series? Why or why not?

I originally wrote RealmShift as a standalone novel. During the writing I came up with the idea for MageSign and it was something that I really wanted to explore, so I wrote that too. It turned out to be better than RealmShift in many ways and I’m very proud of both books. I don’t really have any plans to continue with another Isiah book, but a lot of people have asked me if I am. In fact, several people have insisted that I do! I’ll only write another one if a really good idea comes to me – I won’t just churn out another for the sake of it. In the meantime I’m working on a new novel, completely unrelated to RealmShift or MageSign. There may be an occasional cameo or two though.

You’re also a Kung Fu instructor. How does the discipline instilled by this martial art inform your work, or work habits, as an author?

Well, I write good fight scenes! I’ve often been complimented on the fight scenes in my writing and have been invited to present a workshop on writing and the martial arts at Conflux this year (Australia’s biggest speculative fiction convention) which is very exciting. Otherwise, I suppose that I see the path of martial arts and the path of writing as very similar in one particular way – when you study martial arts for a long time (nearly 30 years in my case) you realise that the more you learn, the more you have to learn. No matter how good you get, you’ll never stop learning or improving. The same can be said of writing – the more I write, the more I realise how much better a writer I can become. And just like martial arts, where you have to practice every day to maintain and improve your skills, a writer has to write every day for the same reasons.

Alan Baxter is the author of the dark fantasy thrillers RealmShift and MageSign. Both books are available from indie publisher Blade Red Press through Amazon.com (print & Kindle editions), Amazon.co.uk (print editions), and Smashwords.com (multiple ebook formats). Learn more about the author, read Alan’s blog and read lots of free short fiction, a novella and the first three chapters of both RealmShift and MageSign at Alan’s website.

Beware The Writing Masterclass

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This article, from AL Kennedy, originally appeared on the Guardian UK Books Blog on 7/7/09.

Workshops are a delicate business, and calling them masterclasses is unlikely to improve them.

Workshops – I’ve mentioned them briefly in this blog before, but they are currently much on my mind. Increasingly such things are being called Masterclasses, which sound much more impressive and buzzy and vaguely as if they’ll involve an opportunity to be in an airless hotel function suite with a minor deity. I’ve been giving workshops – and now Masterclasses – in prose fiction for a period of time I will not mention for fear of feeling wrinkled and reflecting that I had a bloody cheek to try telling anyone anything for at least the first decade. Then again, giving workshops to people who can’t yet write while you can’t yet write either, is a traditional way for nascent writers to earn their crusts. And it means we can meet people we didn’t make up, and learn, and consider overviews, and be near the process in others and see how lovely it is and how a person can light up when all goes well and a penny drops and so forth …

Of course, having no time of my own and not being the sociable type, I rarely do anything that involves a bunch of strangers and a flipchart, unless I’m the one inhaling the delicious marker pen fumes. But, only last night, I was reflecting with a chum on a masterclass I attended which did absolutely make me reassess how I run my workshops.

First, let us think of the horrible temptations within the workshop scenario. There you are, alone with a largely or wholly compliant roomful of people who offer themselves up to your help, perhaps harbouring a curiosity about the writing life (such as that which fuels this very blog) and perhaps also a touching belief that there is a Golden Key that will make all well and effect immediate change in their putative vocation.

The workshop leader’s power can be huge, given that writing is so intimate. Although the scale is tiny, the possibilities for wrongness and corruption can be appallingly extensive: ideas can be mocked, weaklings can be bullied, tired or apprehensive participants can actively encourage the tutor to blather on about his or her self at revolting length and offer all the worst sorts of admiration. The nervous and self-critical (many good writers are both) may not express needs which therefore go unfulfilled, or problems which therefore continue to fester unexamined. Participants may have no idea what to expect and could be fobbed off with any old nonsense.

With the best will in the world it’s difficult to describe a mental process to someone usefully without requiring at least a tiny bit that they think like you – when they should ideally think like themselves, only more so – and that’s without mentioning the possibilities of technical failures, the restraints of time pressure and the intrusion of acts of God (I once ran a workshop during which a shrew ran up a participant’s leg. Things ended badly for the shrew, much to everyone’s dismay, including the owner of the leg).

Read the rest of the article on the Guardian UK Books Blog.

Finding Promotional Hooks for Novels

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This is a cross-posting of an entry that originally appeared on the Book Marketing Maven blog on 7/10/09.

In many ways, fiction is more challenging to market than nonfiction. Novelists must think creatively to apply the marketing tactics commonly used for nonfiction books.

Fiction authors need to find promotional "hooks" within their books. It might be the profession or hobby of the main character in a novel, or the town or historical era where the story is set, or some aspect of  the book that relates to current news or events.

The key is to market to "like-minded people" or people who have an interest in some specific aspect of the story.

If one of the main characters is a horse trainer, then horse lovers are a natural target market. A story involving corporate scandal could be tied to today’s headlines. Southerners identify with novels set in the South. If the story line involves a particular health condition or ethnic group, that could be a hook. A book that’s set during the civil rights movement will appeal to people who are interested in that topic or era.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller has done an excellent job of marketing her Vietnam-era novel, Mrs. Lieutenant, to military audiences. Can you think of other examples of promotional hooks for fiction?

Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer, specializes in developing book marketing plans for nonfiction books and helping authors learn to promote their books online. She is the author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides. Dana has a degree in marketing and 15 years of publishing experience. Read her complete bio here.

Why Do Pynchon, Ballard And Wallace Provoke Such Online Loyalty?

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This article, from Louis Goddard, originally appeared on The Times Online UK site on 7/11/09.

Louis Goddard wonders what turns some writers into internet cults.

Out in the farthest reaches of the internet, mediated only by e-mail and a rudimentary code of interpretive etiquette, five men are discussing the first page of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. Not the uncharacteristically straightforward first sentence (“Later than usual one summer morning . . .”), nor even the title page, but the dedication and publishing information —the dates, addresses and typographical notes that most readers skip on their way to the fictional meat. “There’s no dedication in V or The Crying of Lot 49,” one reader remarks. Gravity’s Rainbow is dedicated to Richard Farina and Against the Day is dedicated to the light in the darkness and Thelonious Sphere Monk.” This is the beginning of a Pynchon-L “group read”, and a beginning in every sense of the word.

Pynchon-L, the Thomas Pynchon discussion forum, was set up more than 15 years ago and still runs on the same basic system. As Jules Siegel puts it in Lineland, his bizarre account of this literary fringe group: “You join a list by subscribing to it. Members send their thoughts by e-mail to a central computer and all those messages go out to everyone subscribed to the list. To get off the list, you unsubscribe.” It’s a simple arrangement, but one that has survived the social networking revolution and the ultra-plurality of the blogosphere.

In fact, it feels strangely appropriate in the case of an author such as Pynchon who, in a 1984 piece for The New York Times, set out the case for a particular sort of enlightened Luddism. While his sprawling novels are sometimes said to have anticipated the speed and hyperconnectivity of the internet, it’s a lot easier to imagine the infamous recluse sending a few anonymous e-mails than, say, updating his Twitter feed.

Despite the list’s sizeable academic membership, it remains open to anyone with an e-mail address and maintains an eclectic standard of discussion — topics range from rigorous, line-by-line exegesis to vaguely relevant news stories.

The jewels in the electronic crown are the list’s “group reads”. Situated somewhere between the common or garden book group meeting and the academic symposium, these readings often take months to complete — sections of the book in question, usually about 50 pages long, are assigned to volunteers, each of whom then takes his or her turn to make a virtual presentation and to lead the discussion as the group rolls along. As a method of collaborative criticism the group read is innovative and exciting, and it works. Having organised painstakingly meticulous expeditions through the best part of Pynchon’s oeuvre, the list has built up a considerable body of interpretive knowledge, much of which has been translated into the pages of the Pynchon Wiki project, a Wikipedia-esque attempt to create open and hyperlinked guides to all six of the author’s major works.

Pynchon isn’t the only author to have been graced by such digital scrutiny — since 1996 waste.org has also played host to Wallace-L, a discussion group dedicated to the work of the late David Foster Wallace. When Wallace died in September last year Wallace-L was one of the first places to know, and the following few days received a flood of personal remembrances from fans, friends and former students, all more true and moving than any of the newspaper obituaries. This is not to say that these obituaries weren’t taken into account — on the contrary, list members spent weeks collecting every scrap of media coverage, fragments shored against Wallace’s already formidable reputation. And as everyone else looked over at the brick on their bookshelves and thought “I really must read that some time”, the members of Wallace-L began their third in-depth group read of Infinite Jest.

Read the rest of the article on The Times Online UK.

Alan Chin Interviews Edward C. Patterson in the Examiner

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Alan Chin interviewed me for the Examiner in conjunction with the release of my new novel, Look Away Silence. I would like to invite you all to visit the site and give it a read:

http://tinyurl.com/mp793n

Edward C. Patterson

Look Away Silence is schedule for release on July 24th, but is already available for the Amazon kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002HRER5S

NonFiction Books From Antellus

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ANTELLUS – Science Fantasy Adventure and Nonfiction Books
http://www.antellus.com – based in Sherman Oaks, California

NONFICTION books currently in print and ebook formats: http://www.antellus.com/book/NonFictionBooks.html
We are offering a summer discount of 25% off on ebooks available through Smashwords. Please visit our website to find out how to order.

A BOOK OF FIVE RINGS: A Practical Guide to Strategy by Miyamoto Musashi; A Modern Translation for the 21st Century Compiled and Illustrated by Theresa M. Moore (Rev. Ed.); (Antellus cat. no. 9310901) 6" x 9" paperback, 96 pgs; list price $11.95/ ebook $4.99. A retranslation of the original five books written by the most famous ronin and kensei (sword saint) of them all, with a biography and essays on the history and traditions which formed the background of his life and the basis for modern kendo as it is practiced today; and a black and white gallery of his art and also art by other artists celebrating his life and legend.

PRINCIPLES OF SELF-PUBLISHING: How To Publish and Market A BOOK On a Shoestring Budget (Rev. Ed.); (Antellus cat. no. 9310902) 6" x 9" paperback, 132 pgs; list price $12.95/ ebook $4.99.
A handy primer about the world of book publishing, marketing and selling, including the bookkeeping procedures and other information to make the virgin author or publisher ready to solve any problem. This little green book will be your constant companion in your quest to be published. In addition to books, this guide will help you produce, market and sell any product using the same principles. With illustrations, appendixes and lists of valuable resources.

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Antellus is an independent publisher of quality science fantasy adventure and nonfiction books on related subjects.

The Children of The Dragon series of SF/vampire books

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ANTELLUS – Science Fantasy Adventure and Nonfiction Books
http://www.antellus.com
based in Sherman Oaks, California

FICTION books currently available in print and ebook formats:
We are offering a summer discount of 25% off on ebooks available through Smashwords. Please visit our website to find out how to order.

The Children of The Dragon series by author Theresa M. Moore is a chronicle of the Xosan, living vampires from the planet Antellus who were human but transformed by a dragon’s blood. They are stories of science fiction, fact and fantasy, myth and history, tragedy and triumph; linked together by the theme of the vampire as hero. These books are rated for YA to adult readers and contain blood violence and some adult content.

7 books are currently in print (by Antellus catalog number) http://www.antellus.com/book/ChildrenofTheDragon.html :
Destiny’s Forge 9310701 – 324 pgs list price $18.95/ ebook $4.99.
To Taste The Dragon’s Blood 9310702 – 216 pgs list price $15.95/ ebook $4.99
NAGRASANTI; An Illustrated Anthology 9310703 – 500 pgs list price $26.95 PRINT ONLY
Red Dragon 9310704 – 134 pgs list price $12.95/ ebook $4.99
The Queen’s Marksman 9310705 – 136 pgs list price $12.95/ ebook $4.99
The Black Witch 9310706 – 116 pgs list price $12.95/ ebook $4.99
VIRUS 9310707 – 100 pgs list price $11.95/ ebook $4.99

Also in print and ebook formats:
Saxon & Hampstead Investigations, Ltd. casebook 1: THE MYSTERY OF CRANEWOOD MANOR http://www.antellus.com/book/Fiction.html
(Antellus cat. no. 9310801) 6" x 9" paperback, 84 pgs, list price $9.95/ ebook $3.99.

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Antellus is an independent publisher of quality science fantasy adventure and nonfiction books on related subjects.

Antellus to Drop Kindle Ebooks From Its Fall Line-Up

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Antellus – Science Fantasy Adventure and Nonfiction Books
http://www.antellus.com

Antellus to Drop Kindle Ebooks From Its Fall Line-Up

Antellus, an independent publisher and seller of science fantasy adventure and nonfiction books on related subjects, has opted to avoid using Amazon as a retailer of its ebooks.

In the wake of several deeply disturbing announcements regarding the sale and redaction of various Kindle e-books, in which Amazon finally revealed its service agreement which states that the e-books bought are actually leased, and that it can yank the cord at any time without notice; we are no longer going to publish Kindle e-books for the future. The full expectation of our customers that the books they place on their Kindle library are theirs to read and enjoy as long as they own a Kindle has been violated, and in some cases grossly mistated and misrepresented. Amazon’s arbitrary removal of titles without cause and without the permission of Kindle owners will permanently damage any future relationship they hold with Amazon. Antellus will continue to offer e-books directly for sale and through its partner sellers.

"Due to recent complaints on the part of both consumers and suppliers to Amazon, we are concerned with the way Amazon does its business," author and CEO Theresa M. Moore said. "In many cases, the complaints illustrate that a great deal of fraud and waste occurs in the company’s daily transactions, and Amazon’s relaxed attitude and sometimes refusal to resolve consumer complaints makes us question whether they really are a solid marketplace to rely on. We value quality as well as good customer access, and Amazon appears either unable or unwilling to meet our standards in terms of customer service."

For more information about Antellus and the author, visit our web site: http://www.antellus.com.