Publetariat

This article, by Christopher R. Edgar, originally appeared on his Purpose Power Coaching site on 2/11/09.

 

One of the most liberating realizations I’ve had in my life is that I’m not responsible for my ideas.  In other words, I can do very little to make myself become creative, except for keeping my mind open to receiving insights, and writing them down as they come up.  In this post, I’ll talk about how I came to this perspective, and how it can give us more peace and productivity in our work.

 

This perspective dawned on me when I noticed my best ideas came to me while I was meditating.  After each meditation session—even short, ten-minute ones—I’d find myself frantically scurrying to the keyboard to type up the inspiration that struck.  This became so effective for me that I started a practice I call “staccato meditation,” where I meditate for five minutes for each half-hour of work.  Writing proceeds so fluidly, I’ve found, when I work that way.

 

When this became clear, I noticed my experience was at odds with the conventional wisdom on creativity.  Inspiration will arise, the common belief goes, if you keep your nose to the grindstone—the more time you spend in front of the computer, or wherever you do your work, the more likely you are to have a breakthrough idea.  But that wasn’t how it seemed to work for me—instead, my imagination operated best when I stopped writing, sat quietly and just breathed.

 

Another thing I started to notice was that creativity arises suddenly and without warning.  It’s not as if inspiration strikes at predictable times of day, or your left eyelid starts twitching madly to signal incoming ideas—you can never quite tell when they’re going to pop up.  In short, creativity didn’t seem like something I could predict or control—at most, it was something I could stay open to through meditation, as if I were planting a lightning rod and waiting for a bolt to strike it.

 

The Surprising Implications

 

When I had these realizations, I got to thinking.  If what I experienced is true for everyone—if we aren’t actually responsible for our ideas—why do we have a habit in our culture of putting famous creative people on a pedestal?

 

If I’m right about how creativity works, that means the well-known artists, writers, musicians and so on in our society didn’t really come up with the ideas that brought them fame—at best, they were just really good at transcribing and organizing the inspiration that struck them.  Some artists recognize this themselves—look, for example, at J.K. Rowling’s statement that Harry Potter “just strolled into my head fully formed.”  Our habit of treating these people like gods seems a bit silly from this perspective.

 

I also thought of how invested my ego can get in my creative projects.  For example, when I’m working on a book or article, I sometimes find myself imagining that I’m telling others “yes, that’s right, that’s my work,” and feeling special.  The downside is that, when my ego gets wrapped up in a project, I waste time obsessing over whether my ideas will look clever enough to my audience.  I’ll bet that, if you’re a writer, you can relate.

 

If it’s true that I’m not responsible for my ideas, I recognized, I don’t have to endure the suffering that comes with seeking ego gratification through my work.  It makes no sense for me to invest my ego in my projects, because the ideas at the core of my writing aren’t even “mine.”  In other words, if I’m not responsible for the ideas I put on the page, it’s misguided for me to take credit for them, or beat myself up if they don’t seem good enough.

 

A “Productivity Anti-Hack” If I Ever Saw One

 

The greatest gift that came with this realization was a new sense of freedom in my work.  When my ego became invested in a project, my work proceeded slowly and painfully.  After all, in that frame of mind, my self-worth was, in a sense, riding on how my work would be received—of course I second-guessed myself and suffered from “analysis paralysis.”

 

But when I acknowledged I wasn’t responsible for the ideas in my writing—all I was really doing was transcribing them and showing them to the world—I understood that my value as a human being had no relationship to what I wrote.  How could it, if the ideas weren’t even mine?  As it no longer seemed like my writing could “make or break me” as a person, there was no need to endlessly second-guess my work.  Words flowed most easily and naturally when I recognized my lack of responsibility for my creativity.

 

Read the rest of the article on Chris’s site.

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This post, by Jim Cox, Editor In Chief of the Midwest Book Review, originally appeared on that site. Note that these tips are also applicable to individual authors. What follows are a wealth of specific hands-on suggestions from a host of small press publishers on promoting and marketing small press titles which I gleaned from the now defunct PMA e-mail list when it served as a premier source of "how to" information for its members. — Jim Cox

1. When arranging book signings, ask store for a list of media contacts, and when talking to media, ask for names of their favorite book stores! — Kathy Guttman

2. Include a separate "review form" with every book you ship. This way your customers are encouraged to send in reviews, which are GREAT for your ad copy. — Scott Bilker

3. Consider setting up a book signing in a local grocery store! To be sure, grocery stores get more foot traffic than book stores. (this may work best for regional or local books. It can depend on the book and the market. ) I once signed 300 copies of a book in 4 hours in a small town local grocery. Not all chain grocery stores will let you do this… depends on the town, the store, etc. But… I’ve seen it work well! — Rod Colvin

4. Don’t be afraid to contact radio stations that have already interviewed you to see if they’d be interested in doing another interview. I have been coming up with interview ideas that go along with the season; for example, my "Top 10 Funny Kid Christmas stories." I have contacted stations that had me on last spring and summer, and most have wanted me to be on again. The interviews are short; only 5-10 minutes. In February I will call back with my "Top 10 List of Funny Kid Stories Involving Love." Then it will be Easter stories, Mother’s Day stories, etc. Many self-publishers can invent some kind of seasonal twist for their books. — Grace Housholder

5. When you have a radio or TV gig organized — call the bookstores in that area tell them when they order 20 copies, you will plug them on the air. — Alvin G. Donovan

6. Offer a free information sheet for anyone that calls your 800# and requests it. I have a new two-sided piece. One side has "Ten Tips for a Better Adoption Trip" and the other "Preparing Siblings that Stay at Home." The tips were culled from my very successful international adoption travel planning workshops. Of course, those that call in for the tip sheets can (hopefully) be converted into sales. — Mary Petertyl

7. Mary, I tried offering a free tip sheet to a TV show audience in hopes that requests would turn into book sales. (Subject was romance.) I got 125 requests and spent $60 just in postage ($.48 Canadian.), after spending 4 straight hours answering and returning phone calls, and writing down addresses. Only two people bought books ($40 total); the rest were just after a freebie. A second mailing brought zero orders.

Now I SELL tip sheets (I have 20+) at $2 each which also covers postage. My most successful is my Writer’s Fortune Cookie Predictions: 42 separately folded messages from a bossy oracle to overcome Writer’s Block. My brochure/order info rides for free. Most are multiple orders which often result in follow-up orders for published articles ($4-$6), special reports ($6-$8), and manuals ($8-$20). I’ve learned that unless I attach a dollar value to my creativity/knowledge it doesn’t seem to be appreciated. It might be better to offer a free tip sheet as a prize only to those who call in with a question or story and talk to you on air. The rest of the listeners can order theirs by mailing you $2. If they’re really keen on the topic they’ll send $2. Just my experience; hope yours is better. — Andrea Reynolds

8. Talk to a new publisher — one-on-one/person-to-person every month, you’ll become invigorated and marketing will begin to take place through some sort of contagious osmosis type process, or if you don’t like that one write an article for a local paper about local small presses (including yours) in your region, state, city. — Steve Semken

9. When you call a bookstore to ask questions or arrange signings they may want to transfer your call. Before they do, find out where you are being transferred. Ask nicely, "To whom will I be speaking?" That way if they screw up and send you to the wrong extension, you’ll know the name of the person you were supposed to speak to and can get back on track again without too much fuss. — Tara Calishain

10. For those of you who have never found out who is linking to your site. This is an easy way to find out the good and the bad. Here’s how: Go to the Alta Vista search engine (Publetariat Editor note: Google works too). Input your URL (Web site address). Alta Vista will then search and report back all the sites it is linked from. For those of you who have embarked on link campaigns, you may be fairly astounded. I was. — Paul J. Krupin

11. Don’t take out display ads in major newspapers. A few weeks ago, my friend took out an ad in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune Book Review section (to the tune of $2142). Six books sold. And his name is recognizable around Chicago. He’s the founder of Oil Express Lube shops, Entrepreneur Hall of Fame, multimillionaire, you name it. These ads don’t cover their costs. — Raimonda Mikatavage

12. I have an author getting 20 to 30 hits a week on her information Web page. I had her add some e-mail hot buttons to the page where a person could ask the author questions about the subject, they don’t have to order. We get early reader feedback, and gather e-mail addresses to approach when her book is ready. I do this on the Web page for my book. — Welmon "Rusty" Walker, Jr.

13. Make yourself newsworthy and seek out media attention as often as appropriate (GuestFinder is a big help with this, by the way). Do a lot of speaking, live and on radio — and promote your appearances. Help others and they will help you. And finally, remember to have fun! — Shel Horowitz

14. When you are doing a book talk or signing leave postcards of your book announcing the date and time you will talk at the bookstore cashier a week or two before the event so they can be put in all bookstore transactions or just picked up for anyone interested. — Pam Terry

15. When you send books to a bookstore send a press release to the newspaper in their town with a short cover letter mentioning that the book(s) are available at (bookstore). — Sue Robishaw

These are just the first 15 in a list of 42 tips…read the rest of the article at Midwest Book Review.

how does a self publishing company
do the marketing for a book? especially to an audience in several foreign countries?

Editor’s note: when writing historical fiction, research is crucial. In this essay, author Heidi M. Thomas shares just some of the research she did to bring her novel, Cowgirl Dreams, to life.

Cowgirls: Empowered Women

The first cowgirls, like my grandmother in Montana, helped on their family ranches out of necessity. At an early age they learned to ride horses, rope cattle, and stay in the saddle atop an untamed bucking bronco. They competed with the men in those early ranch gatherings and continued to do so at the organized roundup events.

In 1885, Annie Oakley, a diminutive sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, paved the way for other women to be recognized in the rodeo arena. Two years later, Bertha Kaepernick was allowed to enter a horse race in Cheyenne’s Frontier Days only because the arena was so muddy the cowboys refused to participate. To entertain the crowd, she was coerced into riding a bucking horse. Despite the terrible conditions, she managed to stay in the saddle, and put the men to shame. She continued to compete and often beat such legendary cowboys as Ben Corbett and Hoot Gibson.

Following in Bertha’s footsteps years later, Prairie Rose Henderson of Wyoming forced the Cheyenne organizers to allow her to ride. She went on to become one of the most flamboyant cowgirls of the era, dressing in bright colors, sequins and ostrich plumes over bloomers.

Lucille Mulhall, whose father, Colonel Zack Mulhall, ran a Wild West Show, was described in a 1900 New York World article as “only ninety pounds, can break a bronc, lasso and brand a steer, and shoot a coyote at 500 yards. She can also play Chopin, quote Browning, and make mayonnaise.” Both Teddy Roosevelt and Will Rogers have been credited with giving Lucille the title “cowgirl”. She also went on to appear in silent films.

Between 1885 and 1935, many women proudly wore that title and competed with men, riding thesame broncs, steers and bulls. They also roped and bull-dogged alongside their male counterparts. The list includes Marie Gibson, Alice and Margie Greenough, Fox Hastings (one of the few women bulldoggers), Tad Lucas, Vera McGinnis (who shocked the public by wearing pants), Bonnie McCarrol, Florence Randolph, Ruth Roach, Fanny Sperry Steele, Mabel Strickland, Lorena Trickey (infamous for stabbing her lover to death with a pocket knife), Margie Wright, and many others.

Rodeo, today a competitive sport with college scholarships, developed from the everyday world of cattle ranching. Its roots and many terms stem from the Spanish conquistadors of the 1700s. The first rodeos began in the mid-1800s with informal contests held among working cowboys to see who could ride the meanest bronc or rope a steer the fastest.

A hundred years ago bronc busting didn’t have the life-saving luxury of a buzzer going off after eight seconds. Cowboys rode until they were bucked off or the horse gave up, whichever came first. Some of those rides lasted up to twenty minutes. Events later became more organized when cowboys drove thousands of cattle and horses to town in the yearly round-up, usually around July 4th. By 1920, rodeos regularly featured three cowgirl events-ladies’ bronc riding, trick riding, and at rodeos with a race track, cowgirls’ relay racing. To score in the saddle bronc event, women had to stay on board eight seconds (the men rode ten) and they were allowed to ride with two reins, although they could opt to use one as the men did.

The time limit changed to eight seconds for men and six seconds for women during the 1950s. This is the kind of life Nettie, the heroine of my book, Cowgirl Dreams, lived and aspired to.

Heidi M. Thomas is a creative writing instructor, freelance editor and manuscript consultant. Learn more about Heidi, her books and services on her site.

I’ve just won first prize in the H E Bates shorts story competition!! Although I‘ve been short listed a few times in various comps and even came second a few times, this is the first time I have ever won a short story contest, so I’m pretty much over the moon about it. The details are at http://litnorthants.wordpress.com/news/ although you can’t read my story ‘The Handprint Child’ there. The collection will be published this year and as far as I know that will be the only way to see the winning entries, but I’ll post more about that when I know.

With most of us suffering from email overload these days, it’s important to think carefully about the frequency and format of your broadcast emails.

Online marketing experts advise communicating with your list frequently, so people don’t forget you. On the other hand, sending too much email is the quickest way to motivate people to click the "unsubscribe" button. I’ve unsubscribed from a number of lists because I got two or three promotional emails a week from them.

Also consider the length of your ezine. I receive several ezines that contain a lot of great information, but they are so long that I usually skip over them in my in-box, thinking I just don’t have time to read them right now. Sometimes I get back to these ezines later, but often I end up deleting them unread. If you send a weekly ezine, it’s especially important to keep it short and easily digestible. In my own ezine, I always have more story ideas than I have space for, so I use that extra content on my blog.

With most of us suffering from email overload these days, it’s important to think carefully about the frequency and format of your broadcast emails.

Online marketing experts advise communicating with your list frequently, so people don’t forget you. On the other hand, sending too much email is the quickest way to motivate people to click the “unsubscribe” button. I’ve unsubscribed from a number of lists because I got two or three promotional emails a week from them.

Also consider the length of your ezine. I receive several ezines that contain a lot of great information, but they are so long that I usually skip over them in my in-box, thinking I just don’t have time to read them right now. Sometimes I get back to these ezines later, but often I end up deleting them unread.

If you send a weekly ezine, it’s especially important to keep it short and easily digestible. In my own ezine, I always have more story ideas than I have space for, so I use that extra content on my blog.

Hello! I am in the process of getting everything set up with Lightning Source and starting my own Publishing Company. I am going to republish my book “Sleepy Town,” as it was meant to be published. I am also in the process of accepting submissions from authors who might be interested in what I have to offer.

Check it out at www.sleepytownpress.weebly.com and give me some feedback that will be a help to me. I will appreciate it.

People like us need to leave our mark on the Publishing World.

Okay, not all the marbles, but this is for the finals. We are now in the week of semi-finals. There are 13 stories going into the print anthology, mine is one of them, YAY!

So now it’s the semi-finals. Please vote for my story, “A Safer Life” Here:

Vote For A SAFER LIFE HERE

At the finals it’ll go to judge’s decisions, so it’s totally out of my hands and your hands there, but first I gotta get there!

Thanks!

One of the most important things your book has is its cover. The simple notion of "don’t judge a book by its cover" is simply preposterous, especially in an age where attention is fleeting and the most important thing you can do when marketing a product is to get someone to notice what you’re selling in the first place.

For this reason, when you create your book, you had better well give your cover as much attention and care as you gave the creation of your entire work in the first place. After all, if you can’t grab someone’s attention, they’re never going to get to read the brilliant words you put down on paper (well, paper in the olden days).

When deciding on cover art, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is "is this something I should be doing on my own?" If you don’t have any skills with Photoshop, Illustrator, Paint.net, Gimp, or any of the other professional image manipulation tools, then I recommend you stop now and consult a profssional graphic designer. It’s going to be money well-spent, and in many instance you can find someone to help with your artwork for "free" by giving them credit in your book (this can work especially well when working with a talented designer who really needs some legitimate projects to put into his or her portfolio).

If you do have some design skills, then now is the time to put them to work. One of the most important things to remember is that cover design is the first impression any potential reader is likely to have of your book. Even in instances where they are seeing a review, it is very likely that this review will be accompanied by a cover shot of your book – and if that cover shot doesn’t grab the reader’s attention it’s pretty unlikely they’re going to read the review (unless the review is written by someone the reader greatly admires, or you’re graced with the ultimate headline). That said, your cover needs to match the subject matter and potential audience of your book.

For the cover of my debut novel, The Trouble With Being God, I took a look at what the essence of the story was, and what I considered to be one the key scene of the book. Since the story is an exploration of the devolution of mind, and the key scene (in this instance, the climax) involves the frantic writing of a message in the narrator’s own blood (it’s a thriller/horror book), it was pretty clear to me what I had to do: take on the essence of that character and scene and represent it as the essence of the book itself.

To do this, I kept things fairly simple. The writing was done with a bucket of red paint and a piece of posterboard – with a little added touch of a rosary I picked up from a local shop. My wife took a series of pictures as I continued to write the title of the book and add additional spatters of blood.

Once this was all done I took the photos to the computer, determined which one was the ideal for the cover, and imported it to Photoshop. Several iterations of changes to contrast and color levels later, I had the core of the cover. The rest of the artwork was done through flattery.

I’ve read thousands of books over the years, and have several dozens within easy reach, some of which I admire greatly. In my opinion, if something has been done right in the past, there’s no reason to reinvent it. So for the remainder of my cover art I looked at the books that I felt most closely matched the feeling I was attempting to construe, as well as those that I felt held the most artistic merit and used them as templates for my own. That said, there are a few key items I highly recommend including in your cover art:

• A synopsis with an attention-grabbing lead
• Quotes from readers or authors (I chose readers, because I wanted to connect at a personal level)
• An author photo and bio (again, to connect at a personal level)
• Suggested Retail Price
• A link to your website
• Space for your ISBN or other barcodes

For me, all of these items were included and created using Photoshop Elements. It’s available for a very reasonable price (I paid less than $150 USD for a package of it and Adobe Premiere Elements, which I used for my book trailer) and can do most of the bits you are going to require for a mid-level project such as this.

If you’re looking to do the project for even less money, however, I recommend you check out Paint.net. Be sure that you export at at least 300 DPI (Dots-Per-Inch), and that you save everything you can in layers. These are obviously simple things to remember if you’re familiar with art creation, but if you’re not you’re going to hate yourself later for not doing so. You’re also going to have to make sure you leave room for a bleed. (Basically extend your artwork farther than where you expect the artwork to end, but don’t include anything important there, as this is where the "cuts" will happen – and you don’t want to leave a potential for white edges).

Details aside, the most important thing to remember is that you’re cover is the first impression anyone is going to have of your work. It’s worth doing right, and it isn’t that difficult to do once you know what you’re doing. But if you’re not already familiar with the parts of the process, it is also something worth considering sending to a professional. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should – and just because its something usually left to a "professional" doesn’t mean you can’t do it yourself. Give it a shot, see what you can come up with, and share it with others. You’ll know when you’ve come across the right one.

After all, it’s the visual representation of your baby. You wouldn’t want a less than flattering picture in your wallet for when you want to show her off.

You can get a free, PDF copy of my IndieAuthor Guide to Editing on my site—no registration required, no strings attached. Enjoy!
http://www.aprillhamilton.com/iaguides.html#IAGFree