Publetariat

John Yunker and his wife Midge Raymond are both authors. They decided to make a single book trailer to promote both of their books, and they decided to make it funny. As John explains:

This video was born out of two challenges I had been facing since I published my novel The Tourist Trail — how to create a book trailer that was fun to watch and how to cure myself of my obsession with Amazon sales rank. My wife Midge is a published writer (Forgetting English) and she too knows what it’s like to spend way too much time on Amazon.

We filmed the video over a long weekend using an iPhone. The editing took quite a bit longer. The good news is that the trailer has really taken off — and not just among writers. And now we’re planning to do another one. Anything to keep us from actually writing.

Unfortunately, I’m still a little too obsessed with my sales rank.

PS: Here are the web sites of our books:
www.TheTouristTrail.com
www.MidgeRaymond.com

 

Everything, be it a novel, a movie, or a television show has to have some kind of plot to move it forward. No plot, to forward motion. No forward motion, nobody enjoys it. But how do you know what’s a good plot and what’s not. As a reader or viewer, you instinctively know what’s a good plot. It’s the thing that makes you want to tell your friends and family what a great <insert media name here> it was.

However, as a writer, plot is often a critter harder to nail down than a whack-a-mole. As Kristen Lamb puts it, a good story is all about structure. She compares it to architecture: do it right and it’s safe; do it wrong and risk fatal mistakes. Fortunately putting it together the right way is simple, if you follow her six guidelines on structure.

1. Scene and Sequel: scene is the tangible thing that’s happening, while sequel is the emotional thread connecting the scenes.

2. Three Act Structure: everything has a beginning, middle and end. Putting the story in its correct sequence makes for a good read.

3. Introducing the Opposition: your antagonist should be introduced as close to the beginning as possible, the first chapter being the best place, and must seem unstoppable.

4. Test Your Idea Before You Begin: does it follow the LOCK system? (Lead Objective Conflict Knockout)

5. The Log-line: can you boil it all down to one sentence?

6. Simply Primitive: keep the plot simple by using Maslow’s hierarchy, the lower on the pyramid the better.

I highly recommend reading each of these posts for a better understanding of each part of structure, then apply what you’ve learned to the next great novel, movie, or television show you enjoy. You’ll not only know why you just can’t wait to tell everyone what a great thing it was, but you’ll know how to do it yourself on The Road to Writing.

Update: Kristen is continuing her series on structure. Be sure to subscribe to her blog for more on what makes structure work.

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

I am currently reading several books on publishing. I bought Damn, Why Didn’t I Write That on Saturday and was through the whole thing in 24 hours. That book has some good information on how to choose subjects for a book that might have some sales potential. Yesterday I went to the local library and, looking through the new books, found several on publishing. One of these was the indie author guide, which led me to this site. I am about half way through that book, and it has some good information on how the self publishing game works. I had to look up some formatting information online, however, as I use Open Office, not Word.

I will be looking around this site in the coming days and seeing what I can learn. Feel free to drop me a line.

This guest post, by April L. Hamilton, originally appeared on Alan Baxter’s The Word on 1/2/11.

My new publishing series continues today with a post from April Hamilton called “How Meaningful A Metric Is Your Book’s Amazon Sales Rank?”, which is, obviously, all about the sales rank on Amazon. It makes for some pretty interesting reading. Check the links is April’s bio at the end, as there’s some good stuff in there. All yours, April:

How Meaningful A Metric Is Your Book’s Amazon Sales Rank?

Ah yes, the Amazon Sales Rank: that addictive bit of eye candy that can lift an author’s spirits into the stratosphere one day and hurl him down onto the rocks the next. In all likelihood neither reaction is truly justified, because a book’s Amazon Sales Rank is a temporary, relative thing, and does not mean what many authors think it does. If you want to get to the bottom of what your book’s ASR means, you might start by thinking about what the ASR does not mean.

First, it does not reflect a cumulative sales count. Let’s say Amazon has 1 million titles listed for sale on its site—it actually lists many more than that, but let’s keep the math simple. Let’s further say that Amazon opened its virtual doors exactly one year ago today, and your book is currently ranked #500,000. It would seem logical to assume the book that has sold the fewest copies over the past year would be ranked #1,000,000, the one that has sold the most copies would be ranked #1, and yours, ranked at #500,000, has sold exactly 499,000 fewer copies than #1 and 499,000 copies more than #1,000,000. But this is not true at all. Your book’s ASR is based on a much more complex algorithm that’s considered a trade secret by Amazon.

Second, your book’s ASR is not a dynamic line such as one might see on a sales chart, moving reliably upward each time a copy sells, and just as reliably downward when others’ books are selling and yours is not. ASR is recalculated hourly, and only includes titles that actually had sales activity during the hour in question, or were ranked within the top 100 in any category during that hour. This is how it’s possible for your book’s ASR to sometimes be higher than that of multi-million-selling books by authors along the lines of JK Rowling and Stephen King; if neither of them sold any copies in a given hour when you sold 2 copies of your book, your book’s rank will be higher than theirs’ for that hour. Your book is only being ranked relative to the performance of a small subset of all the books being offered for sale by Amazon.com.

 

Read the rest of the post on Alan Baxter‘s The Word. 

This article, by Carla King, originally appeared on the PBS Mediashift blog on 12/29/10.

For over a decade I’ve been speaking at conferences about self-publishing to audiences of dejected, rejected authors. There was always a stigma associated with self-publishing, with many people considering it lower quality vanity press.

But this year, new faces appeared in the crowd: agents, editors, and publishers eager to understand self-publishing. Why? Self-publishing books has finally reached the mainstream, with enough success stories to make it a legitimate part of the publishing world.

Here’s more about this and other trends in 2010, plus some crystal-ball gazing into what’s coming in 2011.

1. Self-publishing lost its stigma
   In today’s tight traditional publishing market, agents, editors, and publishers are now encouraging authors to test market their book by self-publishing. Yay! Self-publishing has finally lost its stigma. So if you’ve been dissed by agents in the past, 2011 might be your year to try again. Alan Rinzler is a longtime acquiring and developmental editor at major publishing houses and an independent editor with private clients. "Literary agents have been the missing link for self-published writers trying to break through into mainstream publishing," he states in Literary agents open the door to self-published writers. "But new attitudes are taking hold, especially among younger up-and-coming literary agents."
    
2. Ease of tech attracts traditionally published authors to go indie
   Technology companies have been wholly responsible for providing tools that let authors easily publish in print and on e-reading devices. "Many of our indie e-book authors are outselling, outmarketing and outpublishing the traditional publishers," says Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, who in 2010 helped indie authors publish and distribute over 20,000 e-books. "Self-published authors are finally gaining much-deserved respect, not only from the industry, but from readers as well." Coker adds that the 60-80% earnings from the retail price of their books "has caused many traditionally published authors to go indie." I like a core group of proven e-book creation and distribution solutions, but keep looking to technology companies and partnerships. Just a few to note are Issuu, BookBrewer, and Monocle with its associated Bookish reader.

Read the rest of the article, which includes 8 more bullet points, on Mediashift.

Andalusian Horses by Doreen Haggard

2010 was a watershed year for indie authorship, and 2011 looks to be even better. Indie authors and small imprints, your hard work, dedication and patience are finally paying off. The stigma attached to self-publishing is all but gone, and it’s largely due to your commitment to excellence. Congratulations on countless jobs well done. To those who have yet to publish: fear not, for the trails have been blazed, the tools and resources are at your disposal, and the world is your oyster!    

Publetariat staff will be off Friday 12/31/10 through Sunday 1/2/11 in observance of the New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day holidays. No new content will be posted to the front page of the site until the evening of Monday 1/3/11 at 6pm PST, but site members can still post to their blogs and use the Publetariat Forum in the meantime. We wish you a safe and happy holiday weekend, and will see you next year!  No need to click through – this is the end of the post. 

Publetariat staff will be taking Wednesday, 12/23 through Sunday, 12/26 off for the Christmas holiday. No new content will be posted to the front page of the site until the evening of Monday, 12/27 at 6pm PST (our usual posting time), but members can still post to their blogs and the Publetariat Forum in the meantime. We here at Publetariat wish all of you a safe and happy holiday weekend.

And Now, The Update…

I’m going to share some fairly personal financial information here, but I think everyone who’s donated deserves to know how the funds are being spent. I’ve already shared enough that we’re pretty much past the point of what’s usually considered polite conversation anyway.

Thanks to the outpouring of support and generosity from Publetariat’s audience, friends of its audience, and friends of friends of its audience, plus some help from my sister, I’ve been able to make a mortgage payment, pay the past due utility bills, make a payment toward my outstanding medical bill from the surgery, and make a payment toward my outstanding attorney fees. I’m still two months in arrears on the mortgage, but the bank tells me they can’t "accelerate" the mortage and move into foreclosure proceedings unless I’m at least three months in arrears.

I still need to get completely current on the loan as soon as possible, being in default is trashing my newly-single credit rating (I became legally single December 17), but at least there’s no fear of losing the house entirely if I can keep making a mortgage payment each month from this point forward. I’m also trying to get a mortgage modification, but it takes a long time—it seems to be a two steps forward, one step back process—and the bank doesn’t stop its collection efforts while processing modification requests. I’m now setting aside incoming funds toward next month’s mortgage payment and utility bills. The wolves are at bay, at least temporarily.

***

I’ve been a writer pretty much my entire life, yet I find myself at a loss for words to express the gratitude I feel. Many times during this past year I’ve felt isolated, hopeless and fearful. I’m an optimist by nature, but I haven’t been myself for a very long time. When the person you’ve loved for 20 years, whom you thought would always love you back and be there for you, abandons you just when you need him most, it tends to make you doubt everything you thought you knew about the world and the people in it.

My belief that people are essentially and generally good is restored, as is my hope for the future, and it’s all thanks to all of you. Whether you’ve donated, offered me freelance work, helped to spread the word about my plight, or just sent a kind note of support, you have pulled me back from the edge and helped me back to the light. You have made what I expected to be the worst holiday season of my life the best, and most meaningful, instead.

THANK YOU, SO MUCH. THANK YOU.
 

I’ve been thinking long and hard why I haven’t been able to write creatively (or editorially) for the past several months. I refuse to use the term “writer’s block;” it is just not a term. For the time that I’m not writing, I can’t call myself a writer, so “writer’s block” doesn’t apply.

[Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

I keep saying that when I get another job, one that doesn’t suck the life out of me, that I’ll be in a better position to free up that part of my brain that enables me to write creatively. But I don’t know if that is true, so I can’t set my expectations there or else I’m headed for disappointment. And I need that like I need an addiction to crack.

At least for the time being, it’s hard to concentrate on a fictional narrative, given this all-encompassing “holiday spirit” we are all supposed to be engaged in this time of year. Why is it that in a time of giving we are so obsessed with what we don’t have?

What I do have is what will enable me to clear my head and write, because that is what gives me the fulfillment I crave as a writer. I don’t know that the old adage of poor, hungry, alcoholic, tormented artists empirically applies. Good narrative writing requires a lot of things and discontentment isn’t necessarily one of them (or else every depressed person would have an equal shot at being the next great author).

What a good writer does need is confidence and gratification in her writing. We can’t write with the objective of getting external validation, in which all too often we get wrapped up. Independent publishing is more than just doing it on your own — it’s about making all of the details of a writing career your own, answering to no one, and making the right judgments in how to go forward. Or not.

My inspiration for writing fiction comes from having the bandwidth to notice small details and insights in the course of my days–a ladybug crawling up the curtains, the dust on a ceiling fan, a veiled comment. It’s when I don’t have that bandwidth devoted to noticing and cataloging those details that I can’t seem to write. I’m not Agatha Christie so my stories don’t involve complex twists in plots. The stories I am most successful writing involve complex characters with specific traits, involved in compelling yet often mundane situations.

So I need to free up my bandwidth to enable those insights. I am clogged up with resentment (for my boss who lied about my compensation package), commuting details (like leaving at a specific time to allow delays in the downtown 4 Express subway), kid details (oh shit I have to bake cookies for my kid’s school xmas party on Thursday), grownup details (Chase bank is a lying, cheating, manipulative bank that holds my first and second mortgage and if I don’t call them out with a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency they won’t issue a new escrow statement with a cancelled gap flood insurance policy). And more shit like that.

I have to somehow find a better way of dealing with all of those shit details, compartmentalize them, in such a way that I can still write. I’m letting them clog up my life. It’s like what practicing Kundalini Yoga is like, when the instructors teach you to unblock all the blockages, whatever the hell that means.

Somehow I have to do that. Somehow.

I’ve been thinking about moving into a full-time freelance/independent author career a lot recently. The question that keeps coming up, though, is, “am I willing to give my all?” Being self-employed means independence — at a price. That price can be financial security. Being your own boss can be great, but unless you’re ready to face what it takes to be independently employed, you might be better off sticking with your day job for a while.

So what does it take? Planning. You don’t necessarily need to be debt free, according to Michelle Goodman, author of My So Called Freelance Life, but you do need a plan or you’ll spend your time hopping from one unsatisfying gig to another rather than living your dream. Michelle’s common sense, down-to-earth advice is to forget writing down lofty ideas and “think tangible, realistic, bite-size pieces.” Having a goal to write the next bestseller is a great ambition, but how are you going to get there? That’s your plan.

For instance, my goal is to become fully self-employed by a certain date. To get to that goal I’ve written down three steps: 1) finish my WsIP, 2) submit articles to Constant Content and other freelance web sites, and 3) monetize my blog once I move it to its new domain. I will break down each of those steps into monthly, weekly and daily steps. After writing those down, its only a matter of working my plan… and perhaps rewarding myself for a job well-done. Although accomplishing a goal should be its own reward, it never hurts to dangle a carrot in front of yourself. (I plan on going out for a nice lobster dinner. )

Beyond setting down a series of steps on how you will reach your ultimate writing goal, you’ll need to assess your financial status. One of the best resources I’ve found in helping you figure out just what your financial state looks like is The Money Book. It’s a no-nonsense approach to looking at past financial blunders and realizing there is a better way to handle your money — a way that includes saving for those inevitable emergencies on a fluctuating income.

If you’re over your head in debt, you may need to keep your day job while working on becoming a full-time independent author. J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly took his steps into the world of self-employment in stages, cutting back the time he spent at the box factory a little at a time after all his debt, except his mortgage, was paid off. At the moment, that’s my plan as well: pay off everything except the largest debts before leaping into being a full-time freelance/independent author.

Living your dream is possible, but having a solid plan before you drop the safety net can mean the difference between succes and failure on The Road to Writing.

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

If writers that read my blog are interested when I went back to the NaNoWriMo site, I found there are two more free 50,000 word contests like the November one. If you have time and want to try writing a book in a month before November check out the June and September contests. You should be able to Google search the contests.

In April comes April’s Script Frenzy if you want to write a play.

January is Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. I don’t think I can place with my entry but I get a free proof from Create Space where I get most of my books published so I will work on an entry for this contest.

All of these contests are watched by publishing companies and agents. What can be better a free contest that leads to being discovered.

Another 1500 word short story contest was offered by Authonomy website. I didn’t get the email until this last week and the deadline was yesterday. The subject was about a pet or any other animal you have encountered. I am a member of that site so I entered the contest. When I think of short stories idea I write the stories and store them on a disk so I’m prepared.

There will be ten winners picked by author Julia Romp and her son George. Ms. Romp has just published a non fiction book A Friend Like Ben. She will be giving a signed copy to each of the winners.

Happy Writing

This post, by Mary W. Walters, originally appeared on her The Militant Writer site on 3/18/10.

When I was a new writer, I read a lot about how other writers wrote, and I became deluded into thinking that I could calculate how long it would take me to complete a writing project.

My reasoning went like this: if I wrote 500 words per day, I would be able to complete a short story in about ten days. If I upped the total to 1,000 words per day, I could finish a novel in 60 to 100 days, depending on the length of the novel. Those word goals seemed fairly modest to me, even a bit cushy: hadn’t I just been reading about writers who set themselves to write 5,000 words a day—and did it?

I got out my calculator and started pressing buttons. I reasoned that if I took a weekend off from time to time, and a week or two for vacation every year, I could still complete about a hundred novels and several collections of short stories by the time my 80th birthday rolled around. All I needed was the will power and fortitude to actually get the work done—and I was sure I had those in abundance. (I always feel that way before I start a project.)

It was then that I first faced what have come to think of as the “Four Fails” of trying to write the last draft first.

The first of these Fails occurred when I started my next novel. (It was my third, the first that would be published. My first and second novels had been abandoned part-way through, perhaps because they had failed to write themselves fast enough.)

I set out on the first day to write my 1,000 words, my schedule in hand and my determination firm. But I found I could not think of which 1,000 words to put down first—or, in fact, which one word to put down first. I told myself it was natural to feel this hesitation: with the schedule I’d set myself, a lot relied on the first word. The rest of the story had to ride effortlessly and smoothly on its back.

I dithered for days and weeks, growing increasingly discouraged as hour after hour passed away in fingernail-gnawing page-staring. My discouragement was laced with panic: if I kept dawdling this way, I might get no more than 90 or so books written before I hit my dotage.

 

Read the rest of the post on Mary W. Walters‘ The Militant Writer.

It’s been a little while since I’ve put a post together that speaks to the writer’s unique condition. I certainly haven’t spent much time thinking about it only than some occasion passing thoughts jotted down in my journal. At a certain point, there is this auto-pilot mode that slips over you when you’re a working writer. It doesn’t leave much time for really stopping to "smell the roses" or to take some time to be introspective about what it is that you’re doing. That’s changed for me lately, but I haven’t had the time to sit here and reflect as I write something about being a writer.

Lately, I’ve been having a bit of a mental conversation with myself. It ends up beginning with the question, "Am I a writer," or alternatively, "Are you a writer?" The mean is the same as are the questions and the deeper significance of it all. Maybe I get too introspective about this. I think the reason for this latest episode has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve published my first official book. While it is a co-authored effort, it is still an important milestone. I’ve said that before and I say it here now.

Any author would agree with that. Also, I’m sure many authors find that once they’ve published one, they’re chomping at the bit to do another. I know that I am ready for the next foray into authorship. More and more, this idea brings me back to my interest in fiction. I’ve already written a fantasy novel but am currently shopping around to editors/agents/publishers. Each book that I do has its own concerns and constraints. There are hopes and dreams attached to these projects. Right now I’m co-authoring a novel with a good friend of mine. It’s certainly fun to be writing fiction again,.

You would think the previous paragraph I just wrote would be enough evidence, but it seems I crave more…more validation I think. Oh, the author and his ego. It’s somewhat amusing to admit that much. It’s part of that inner conversation, I think. (You know what I’m talking about, right authors?)

I think it is about reassurances. At each milestone, I may stop and ponder. I’ll again ask myself the same question. Am I a writer? Obviously, the answer is yes..yes, I am a writer. I like author better, of course. There is a difference to me. That distinction may be a factor to that leads me to that question, that conversation.

I’m still freelancing. In fact, I’m doing better now as far as workload is concerned. (I have my friend Debbie Dragon to thank for that one.) I’ve been writing quite a bit today, but it’s been for clients, most of  whom will claim ownership or at least leave the content uncredited so that poor ego of mine doesn’t get a proper pat on the head.

There is this chemical reaction in the brain when one sees their name on the cover of a book. Sure, I’m not doctor, it is more a guttural sensation than anything else. Yet, it’s there nonetheless. It is far better than what I’m currently doing as freelance writer. My mental conversation rushes through all of these steps in an instant. After it is through, I kind of sit quietly.

You know what though: I love it. I love writing. It’s the only thing I want to do while I’m inhabiting this planet. Time will tell, as it does with most things. Thanks for following along.

 

This is a cross-posting from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.

With this post, we welcome author LJ Sellers as a Publetariat Contributor.

I did some research into the top five providers of email newsletter/contact services and decided to share the information. They all offer design and list management tools, a sign-up function for your website, and usually a free trial. The pricing doesn’t vary much, but there are important differences in services. Three offer a pay-as-you-go option for people like me with small lists who plan to use the service infrequently, and only two offer RSS services. Here’s a brief guide:

Vertical Response

• monthly plan or pay as you go
• PAYG: .015 per email for lists under 1000 ($7.50 for 500)
• monthly: $10 per month for 500 or less
• discounts on monthly plans if you buy 6 or 12 months at a time
• free trial (first 100 emails free)
• tracking, segmentation, and ROI reporting
• free customer support
• offers surveys and direct-mail postcards

Constant Contact

• monthly plan only, no pay as you go
• monthly plan: $15 for 500 or fewer
• free 60-day trial
• lots of customer support/phone, e-mail, library, videos
• reporting details (who opened, what links clicked)
• direct download from Microsoft outlook

iContact

• $9.95 month for 500 or fewer
• 15-day free trial
• RSS features for blogs
• offers survey services/features
• offers lots of e-mail marketing information

Vista Print

• $14.99 a month for 500 or fewer
• also offers per-mail options (.03 per-email for 500 or fewer)
• one-month free trial
• reporting tools
• set-up limited to Internet Explorer or FireFox browsers
• can be integrated with Vista Print website (if you have one)

Mail Chimp

• monthly plan or pay as you go
• monthly plan: $10 for 500 or fewer
• PAYG: .03 per email for small batches (uses a prepaid credit system)
• RSS to email list
• no call center phone support
• offers Mail Chimp Expert, service that will do all the work for you
• lots of marketing tools: segmentation, analytics (many of which I don’t understand)

I decided to go with Vertical Response because I need a pay-as-you-go option for infrequent mailings. Vista Print offers that option, but it’s more expensive, and Mail Chimp (will little customer support) is not for beginners like me. If you know what you’re doing and need RSS feeds, then Mail Chimp is probably a great option. Vertical Response also had direct-mail post cards, which I might use someday, and also has a good reputation in the writing community.

What service do you use? Are you happy with it?

Some good news for authors today who use Amazon’s Author Central service. Authors will now be able to view Nielsen BookScan‘s weekly geographic sales data for their books through their Author Central account.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that authors who use Amazon’s Author Central service (http://authorcentral.amazon.com) can now view Nielsen BookScan’s weekly geographic sales data for their print books for free. Author Central is a free service provided by Amazon that helps authors promote their books and reach more readers. Also announced today, Author Central has added a feature that shows authors past history on the Amazon bestsellers rank for their books.

 

This is a cross-posting from Mick Rooney‘s POD, Self-Publishing and Independendent Publishing.