Think

Opinion pieces offering commentary on various aspects of book culture, publishing and self-publishing.

Quick Link: Why Fiction Authors Benefit from Indie Publishing

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Today’s offering goes straight to Publetariat’s roots. has an updated view on indie publishing and gives a realistic idea of what to expect. To find out some interesting facts and learn if indie publishing is for you, head on over to Digital Book World and read this great article.

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Why Fiction Authors Benefit from Indie Publishing

Help Yourself Key Shows Self Improvement OnlineMarch 22, 2016
By: Tammy Davies

Expert publishing blog opinions are solely those of the blogger and not necessarily endorsed by DBW.

Independent publishing has changed the way authors look at the industry, with many questioning whether it’s worthwhile to play the waiting game and pray for the payoff from a traditional publisher, or instead take their fate into their own hands. There are clearly benefits and pitfalls to either choice. What authors need to seriously consider when they make this decision, though, is whether or not they are willing to put in the time and effort to make it work.

Indie publishing is a tough job. Authors aren’t just the ones who write the book. They also have to be savvy enough to hit the right target readers online. They have to build a strong online presence. They have to be able to commit a significant amount of time to finding creative ways to make the sale. And they also have to be willing to invest money in a good editor, ebook conversion service, and cover design, all of which combined can run in the area of $1,500. The reality of all the legwork and cost can be disenchanting.

The factors that breed this disenchantment, however, are exactly what make traditional publishing so enticing. There are reports of authors getting massive advances—upward of $100,000—when they’ve never even published before. What author wouldn’t want that kind of advance? Unfortunately, most of these types of reports are inaccurate and not written by people actually involved in the transaction. The reality is, most traditional publishers offer new authors an advance of about $5,000. In a few cases, some may receive up to $10,000. These contracts also typically only pay out five percent of the sales to new authors, and the agent often takes 15 percent of that profit.

The realities can be even further discouraging for fiction authors.

Read the full post on Digital Book World

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Quick Links: Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book

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Getting your facts straight in your story is more important than ever. Everyone is an instant expert since checking out information is as easy as googling on your phone. You know if someone finds an error, it will find it’s way onto your reviews. This makes storytelling much harder for authors and highlights how important it is to make sure you research your story details.  Thankfully K.M. Weiland at Helping Writers Become Authors has a great article on researching facts. What’s your favorite research tip?

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Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book

April 10, 2016

Who What Why When Where Signpost Showing Confusion Brainstorming And Researchby K.M. Weiland

I’m starting to get paranoid. It happens with every book I write. I reach the end of the first draft, start tying off loose ends on the first round of edits, and prepare to send the book to my first round of beta readers. That’s when I inevitably start asking myself panicked questions about the accuracy of of my novel research.

Maybe these self-directed questions will sound familiar:

  • What if my novel research isn’t good enough?
  • What if I put a street on the wrong side of the city?
  • What if I’ve got the dialect all wrong?
  • What if I’ve included a glaring anachronism?

The book I’m currently at work on—my historical superhero saga Wayfarer—is set in London during the Regency era (think Jane Austen). In many ways, it has been the most difficult of all the historical novels I’ve written, primarily because it takes place in such a popular period. I had some leeway in writing about the medieval Crusades (for one thing, the language is so different, perfect accuracy isn’t desired much less demanded) and the American west (where legend has taken over fact in so many areas).

But the Regency period? Put a chapeau-bras out of place, and fanatical readers will know it.

Never mind that the book is also set in London, which means correctly portraying a city I’ve never visited.

And don’t get me started on the language. Unlike the Middle Ages, 1820 isn’t so far away that the language of the period isn’t still decipherable to modern ears. What that means, of course, is every word choice must be filtered through not just the demands of British English, but also the question: Did that word even exist back then?

Cue the paranoia.

The Two Sides to Novel Research: Accuracy and Authenticity

There are two good reasons for any author to indulge in this paranoia over “the facts” in a novel (whether it’s historical or not).

Reason #1 to Panic: Your Readers Are Smarter Than You

Scary thought, ain’t it? Now granted, not all of them are going to be smarter (aka, better read on your subject than are you). But I guarantee there will be a lot of them. No matter how conscientious you are in your research about Roman sewer systems or stamp collecting, there will always be someone who knows something you don’t. And if that person happens to read your book, they may well call you out on your mistakes.

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors

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Quick Link: Writer vs Storyteller

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Are you a writer who is also a storyteller or a storyteller who happens to be a writer. Normally these questions give me a headache, because life is messy and I don’t fit in one or the other category. When I write, I am a pantser with an outline. After reading the post on Writer Unboxed by , I am most definitely a storyteller. Well, maybe I am a writer. Head on over and check the article out and let us know which you are.

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Writer vs Storyteller

open book of family storyby Jo Eberhardt

There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of essays and articles online attempting to differentiate between writers who tell stories and storytellers who write books. Many people will say that it doesn’t matter; that it’s all semantics. Which led me to wonder…. is it?

As polarising controversies go, it’s not a very big one. I mean, it doesn’t rate up there with “Pantser vs. Plotter” or “Literature vs. Genre” or “Self Pub vs. Trad. Pub” or whatever the cool kids are arguing about these days. Nonetheless, it’s a topic that comes up from time to time.

What are writers and storytellers?

Chances are, when you read the title of this essay, one of those terms resonated with you. Maybe you consider yourself a writer. Maybe you consider yourself a storyteller. Maybe you consider yourself both. Or neither. But before we start talking about the difference between them, what do the terms even mean?

Writer
Let’s move past the simple definition of “a writer writes” and look at what the title of writer actually means. Without going all dictionary-phile on you, let’s define a writer as someone whose purpose is to write books, poems, stories, or articles. A writer is someone for whom the art of writing is paramount — grammar, word use, punctuation, etc — and knowledge of that craft is used to record stories, be they fact or fiction, through the media of written words.

Storyteller
We can define a storyteller as someone whose purpose is to tell stories, whether they be fact or fiction, for the purpose of entertainment and/or illumination. A storyteller is someone for whom the art of storytelling is paramount — character, tension, climax, personal growth, etc. — and knowledge of that craft is used to tell stories through whatever medium will best reach their intended audience. Which, in the modern day, is often writing.

But it’s not that simple…

Read the full post on Writer Unboxed

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Quick Link: Create Your Own ‘Fine Writing’ Machine (15 Original Ways) Editor (How to change cliches and improve your writing!)

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The Writer’s Village host John Yeoman has some great ways of banishing cliches and bland metaphors while improving the quality of your writing.

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Create Your Own ‘Fine Writing’ Machine (15 Original Ways)

Friday, April 8, 2016
by John Yeoman
Do little lambs frolic in your heart? (Then best see a doctor straightaway.)

Does the day smile at you? Or has the month come in like thunder? Do little lambs frolic in your heart? (Then best see a doctor straightaway.)

If you’ve ever felt those sentiments you’re on the slippery slope to writing Literature. And that way madness lies. Before long, you’ll be shaking your head like a bottle every morning to check if there’s still a brain in it.

Metaphor can become addictive.

Like a Thai chef with chili, you’ll put it in everything. As I just did.

But why not?

Figures of speech – like rhetorical questions – were once the bright plumage of literature, in the days when little distinction was made between poetry and prose. (The rot set in around the 1660s when England’s Royal Society banned the use of metaphor in scientific papers. Money was saved on printer’s ink but there’s no poetry in S = k log W.)

Today, we eschew all grace notes, along with any word that might seem difficult, like ‘eschew’.

Why? When writing fiction, we must focus on the story not the author, so we’re told. Pretty writing throws the reader out of the tale. “How well s/he writes,” we breathe. And we’ve lost the plot.

So what?

There’s room for both kinds of fiction. One says “look at my work (and pretend the author is invisible)”. The other preens “Look at me.”

Nowadays, the former style prevails, and it’s a shame. I see no harm in ‘look at me’ fiction, if the author’s an interesting person. Is our presence not intrinsic in our work? Yes. Would The Four Seasons be the same without Vivaldi? No.

Modern novelists have lost the music. Let’s bring it back.

Introducing…

Yeoman’s Metaphor Machine: 15 Artful Ways To Make Your Story Sing.

Step one: Create A Simple Figure.

Think of a clichéd simile. ‘He was as strong as an ox.’ (Every cliché was innovative in its time.)

Contract it to a metaphor. ‘He was an ox.’

Trim it to its essence then expand it. ‘The ox glared at me.’

That’s elegant. But we can finesse it. And have fun. Here are at least fifteen further ways to create original figures of speech, starting with a term as simple as an ox:

Read the full post on Writer’s Village

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Quick Link: Why You Need To Brand Yourself As An Author, And Exactly How To Do It

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Branding and marketing. Ugh! Writing can be an introverts dream, but if you want success you have to be able to deal with both marketing and branding. What is the difference? Stephen King has a brand. You know what to expect when you see a title with his name underneath. Marketing is what you do to promote yourself.  At Standout Books, has a great post about both. Oh and “bête noire” means something you don’t like doing. I had to look it up.

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Why You Need To Brand Yourself As An Author, And Exactly How To Do It

by Robert Wood

Branding is the bête noire of the modern author, an often frightening necessity that can mean the difference between worldwide recognition and total obscurity. It’s an aspect of business that has grown more and more important as social media has become the norm, and the days where it was a possible route to success rather than an outright necessity have ended.

If you think that all sounds a bit gloomy, you’re not alone. This is the attitude with which most authors approach their branding and marketing. Cultural norms can take a long time to catch up to economic realities, and many authors long for a time when they didn’t need to deal with the marketing side of publication. It can feel like a difficult job that you shouldn’t have to do, but there is another way to look at it.

Building a brand doesn’t have to be an awful task, in fact it can be an incredibly creative endeavor. Not only that, but it can put you in total control of your financial future. There are a lot of advantages to establishing your own brand, but this is perhaps the most immediate: you become the boss.

How brands work

A brand is more than a mark of quality; it’s a simple, direct expression of the many things customers can expect from a product. Eugene Yiga put it fantastically when he said:

Broadly speaking, a brand is a set of hooks the mind uses to organize its experience of a commercial offering.

These ‘hooks’ are the concepts that customers associate with your brand, and they’re surprisingly varied. Stephen King has one of the strongest, most effective author brands in the world; the hooks on which readers hang his work include ‘high quality’ and ‘horror’, but also include less definable features such as his individual style and the specific feelings readers experience when they engage with his work.

Read the full post on Standout Books

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Quick Link: 5 Common Writing Fears and How to Overcome Them

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So what is your biggest writing fear? Mine is common, I struggle with believing in my writing and myself. So taking over Publetariat for April was a good step for me. I knew how much the site meant to April, and how much I had enjoyed it. This is a labor of love that helped me push through the fear.  goes through some of the common fears writers face and how to get through them on Live Write Breath. Do you have a fear you have conquered? Let us know!

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5 Common Writing Fears and How to Overcome Them

Janalyn Voigt

5 Common Writing Fears: Writing Creativity Killers, Part 1

Frustrated man with hands on faceIf you’ve been writing for any length of time, you’ve probably figured out that having a writing career is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to bare your soul in a manuscript, only to face the possibility of rejection and criticism.  And then, there are the inner writing fears. What if you fail? What if you succeed? What if______. As a writer, you’re creative enough to fill in the blank.

With writing fears, the very thing that is your strength becomes your downfall–your imagination. It may comfort you to know that, at one time or another, most writers have felt the fears listed below. In fact, writing fear is so common, I put it first in this series on writing creativity killers.I come at this from the perspective of someone who had to overcome both fear of failure and fear of success in my writing career and who has faced all five writing fears covered in this post.

Fear of Failure

You want to write your book, send that proposal, ask to guest post, but somehow you never quite get around to it. Something holds you back. Your writing dream is so important you’re afraid to even try to attain it. What if you fail? That will mean you aren’t the writer you thought you were.

I know from agents and editors at writing conferences that only a small percentage of writers invited to submit will ever do so.  The odds seem overwhelming. The bookstore shelves are already full of books, so who would want yours, anyway? If you don’t try, you won’t have to fail.

Ah, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you could have succeeded. Don’t let a lack of self-confidence hold you back. Here are some ways to boost your self-esteem as a writer:

Read the full post on Live Write Breath

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Quick Link: This is Why Your Books Aren’t Selling: 4 Ways To Improve Now

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Happy Friday! Today’s post has Rachel Thompson aka BadRedhead Media giving some tough love on why your book isn’t selling. There is some really good marketing advice and encouragement. When do you decide if it is time to give up?

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This is Why Your Books Aren’t Selling: 4 Ways To Improve Now

Frustrated writerBy Rachel Thompson

Your Books Aren’t Selling

“My sales are awful, and I’ve done everything. I give up.” 

I heard this from three authors this week, and it’s not an uncommon sentiment right now. As an imprint director, book manager and book marketing consultant, my first questions are always:

  • What do you mean by everything?
  • How do you define “awful?”
  • What do you mean by ‘giving up?’

Let’s deconstruct four ways to improve on that!

1) What Is ‘Everything’ RE: Book Marketing?

Your definition of ‘everything’ and my definition are probably quite different. When I asked one of these authors what he’d done, he said he’d:

  • placed a few Facebook ads,
  • sent out a bunch of tweets during his free days,
  • placed a FreeBooksy promo (cost: $45). That’s about it.

To me, that’s barely scraping the bare minimum of ‘hardly anything,’ but in his mind, that’s more than he’d ever done! When I asked him what he had achieved in his marketing plan, he replied: what marketing plan?

Read the full post on BadRedhead Media

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Quick Link: 5 Questions New Writers Ask

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You don’t have to be a new writer to appreciate ‘s article on 5 Questions New Writers Ask over at The Write Practice. So if you are a curious new writer looking for answers, or a seasoned professional who likes to help others head on over and check Monica’s post out. Do you have any questions about writing or publishing you would like answered? Let us know in the comments!

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5 Questions New Writers Ask

Question mark signby Monica M. Clark

The other day I met a woman who wanted to be a writer. We were at a birthday dinner, where our mutual friend mentioned that I was working on getting a novel published. The woman immediately peppered me with writing questions (and fears), and I actually had some answers (and words of encouragement).

Common Writing Questions

I thought, why not share what I said with all of you?

1. How do you find time to write?

I don’t always find time to write. However, I was able to accomplish the task of completing a draft of a novel by writing every day for about six months. Many people write in the morning, but I chose to write at night because a) I hate waking up early b) I tend to feel more inspired at night, and c) I don’t have to stop writing if I don’t want to.

Of course there were days that I missed, but that was after daily writing had become a habit. I also didn’t chastise myself for it when it happened—I just tried to write twice as many pages the next day, and then let it go.

After the six months, I took a break and then started revising regularly. It was hard work, but I didn’t feel the need to place the same daily requirements on myself during this phase. I was excited to make my novel better!

2. How did you even start writing a novel?

Read the full post on The Write Practice

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Quick Link: How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

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Scott Reintgen, (@Scott_Thought) at Fiction University gives an in depth discussion on what makes a great antagonist.  Every story needs a problem for your main character to deal with, usually involving conflict. A great antagonist not only will help tell your tale, but will showcase your main character and allow them to evolve.  As one of my t-shirts says “every great story needs a great villain.”

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How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Tuesday, March 22

By Scott Reintgen, @Scott_Thought

Two angry men with crumpled paperPart of the How They Do It Series

Great antagonists make great stories, but not every bad guy is the “bad guy” of a tale. Sometimes it’s all a matter of perspective, and what gets in the way ultimately makes you stronger. Visiting the lecture hall today is Scott Reintgen (It’s pronounced Rankin) to share some thoughts on how antagonists work with a story’s conflict to produce delightful results. Today is actually his wedding anniversary, so congratulations to Scott and his wife, and best wishes to happy couple.

Scott was always a back-row dreamer. As early as kindergarten, teachers noticed his tendency to stare out of classroom windows and disappear to more interesting elsewheres. Convinced he would one day be a writer, Scott spent most of college and graduate school investing in the world of literature. This eventually led to a career teaching English and Creative Writing in North Carolina. He strongly believes that every student who steps into his classroom has the right to see themselves, vibrant and victorious and on the page. It’s his hope to encourage a future full of diverse writers. As he’s fond of reminding his students, “You have a story to tell and you’re the only one who can tell it.”

As for his own writing, Scott continues to follow in the footsteps of his favorite authors. It was Tolkien who once wrote, “The fairy gold (too often) turns to withered leaves when it is brought away. All I can ask is that you, knowing all these things, will receive my withered leaves, as a token at least that my hand once held a little of the gold.” And Scott hopes his books are a trail of withered leaves that might lead readers to the bright elsewheres through which he constantly finds himself wandering.

He currently lives in North Carolina with his wife, Katie, and family. His novel The Black Hole of Broken Things comes out in 2017 by Crown Children’s.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Take it away Scott…  

One of the most universal truths in life? Things are against you.

Life is full of conflict. There are things that are trying to stop you, people that are trying to stop you, and sometimes even you are trying to stop you. Stories are no different. When you read a great book, you expect there to be some serious conflict. In fact, my students have voted conflict as the number one answer to, “What makes a good story?” three years in a row now.

So if conflict is expected and important, how we write our antagonists becomes central to writing a good story with a good protagonist. I use a pretty simple method for keeping up with my antagonists. It’s the same one I teach to my students. It’s called the threefold method.

Read the full post on Fiction University

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Quick Link: 5 Horrible Mistakes Self Published Authors Make in 2016

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Are you guilty of any of these five mistakes brought to us by on the BooksGoSocial site? Number 5 is mine, I definitely need to work on that one.  I would add one. Daily, I see authors not spending enough time on covers and good book descriptions. You spent so much time writing your story, it hurts to see people not spending the same time and effort on the items that will get them readers! Got any tips to help the rest of us? Or is there a pet peeve you see other self publishing authors do? Let us know!

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5 Horrible Mistakes Self Published Authors Make in 2016

by Laurence O’Bryan

Off Target Shows To Miscalculate SkillSelf publishing is a golden opportunity. For the first time in history authors can reach readers without going through the traditional publishing system. Ebook sales growth over the next few years will provide real opportunities for writers who get it right. One analyst is predicting 93% ebook sales growth between now and 2020.

But many self published authors are making horrible, beginner-type-mistakes, which will cripple their book sales. Here’s my take on these mistakes:

1. Not getting outside help. Writers can’t generally be editors, cover designers and marketing experts, as well as being writers. Not if they want to do these jobs well. And asking a relative or close friend to do these jobs for you is probably worse than doing it yourself. Your judgement typically goes out the window when someone close to you does something for you. If you won’t spend money on getting experts your sales will be poor. I know there are occasional exceptions to this, but they only prove the rule.
2. Having unrealistic expectations. Most books, up to ten years ago, sold hundreds of copies. Only 1 in 300 traditionally published books, which got good editing, covers and marketing support, became bestsellers in the past. Publishing became a giant game of throw-it-up and see-what-sticks. With printed books it became ever growing and almost criminally wasteful, when you consider the dirty secret that most of the books you see in book stores are destined to be pulped. Now that game is in decline. If you do get editing, covers and marketing right, you might expect reasonable sales, but publishing is always a gamble, so never risk more than you can afford to lose. Great books don’t always sell well. And Print on Demand is way better than ordering books to store in a front room and then a back room – forever.
Read the full post on BooksGoSocial

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Quick Link: Diversity Is About Inclusion, Not Exclusion

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With the recent discussions about the Oscars (#OscarsSoWhite), especially trending on social media, this article from discussing race and publishing is relevant. Over at Indies United, she brings up some really good points in a well written, thoughtful manner. As always, let us know what you think in the comments. Do you feel there are issues with race in publishing?

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Diversity Is About Inclusion, Not Exclusion

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A recent incident at my writers’ group sparked the idea for my post today. A writer submitted a piece where he offered no description of characters that exposed their race. However, the things he chose to write about the characters did make people wonder what race some of the characters were. The main character was a white man married to a black woman, and there were subtle hints — particularly around hair care — of the race of the wife, but nothing explicit. He’d done this on purpose, with the idea that he wanted the reader to imagine the characters to be however they wanted them to be. One of the ladies there, Pam, asked, “Why? Why would you want to be less specific about them? I’ve never heard a good reason for doing this?”

And I totally agreed with her. People motivated by the good intentions of not promoting stereotypes and being inclusive can, by failing to provide certain descriptions, end up with the exact opposite of inclusivity. I can only assume some of the impetus of this comes from Martin Luther King’s most famous oration, the “I Have a Dream” speech. People get in their head the notion that a “colorblind” society is literal, rather than figurative. The idea of judging people based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin is exactly that. It is a notion based on the idea that we see their skin color — no matter what it may be — and we don’t make any assumptions based on that. We wait until they open their mouths and speak before we judge them to be fools or geniuses (or somewhere in between).

The idea of literally making characters colorless is problematic when your book is set in the real world. Despite King’s dreams, we do not live in a colorblind society. We live in a society where color is an issue in everyday interactions. Pretending it’s not in any sort of real-life settings (be they historical or contemporary), just isn’t very realistic. Now, if your book is set in some type of fantastical or futuristic world that doesn’t have the current world’s hang-ups, then fine.

Read the full post on Indies United

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Inner Conflict in Fiction

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Having depth in your characters makes them more believable and having them face conflict makes them more interesting.  At Live Write Breathe, Janalyn Voigt gives us examples of conflict that will help you develop your characters and then throws in a little psychology too. Check out the whole series!

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Inner Conflict in Fiction

Inner Conflict in Fiction (Conflict in Fiction, Making it Real Series, Part 4)

Comforting patientUnderstanding the dynamics of inner conflict in psychology can help you create believable characters who tap into emotions common to us all.  Portraying inner conflict believably in fiction requires that we understand its ways and means. In this article, we’ll cover the four models of inner conflict in psychology, with examples from my own writing.

This post is a continuation of “Tap the Psychology of Conflict in Your Fiction,” which I recommend reading first.

1. Choosing Between Two Positive Outcomes

Your character needs to choose between two equal desires that are mutually exclusive, resulting in tension. The stronger the opposing desires and more serious the consequences, the harder the struggle.  Giving your character traits that deepen the conflict will make it even more compelling. ‘You can’t eat your cake and eat it, too’ is an expression that perfectly frames this sort of problem. In psychology, this is called the approach-approach conflict.

Example

Such a dilemma arises in DawnSinger (Tales of Faeraven, book 1) because the hero, Kai, who has sworn to protect the High Queen of Faeraven, will be freed from his pledge at her death. Since that event seems imminent, both Kai’s parents press him not to bow his knee to the heir of Faeraven who will take over the high throne at his mother’s death but to take over the responsibilities of heir to their kingdom in the absence of his missing older brother. The consequences of refusing them are that his parent’s kingdom is likely to be absorbed into a neighboring one.

The new High King will be an untried youth, and Kai’s loyalty to the High Queen, love of the life he leads in her service, and drive to fulfill his duty, sometimes at the expense of relationships, makes this a gut-wrenching decision for him.

Read the full post on Live Write Breathe

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Quick Link: Ten Ways to Enjoy Networking With Other Writers (However Shy You Are)

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Social groups are something that I have to work at, and to see me you might not know how hard I struggle meeting people for the first time. If you are like me,  Ali over at Aliventures feels our pain and gives us her insight on how to manage meeting other writers while being an introvert. My go to is #6 in her tips. I always try and prepare questions to ask people, because if they are talking about themselves, I don’t have to talk. ; ) What are your tips?

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Female teenager covering her mouthTen Ways to Enjoy Networking With Other Writers (However Shy You Are)

Monday, February 29, 2016

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I don’t think I’ve ever come across a writer who was a full-on extrovert. Most of us tend towards the introvert end of the spectrum. And many of us struggle with networking.

Let’s face it, anyone who wants to spend lots of time alone with their thoughts, and who prefers to communicate those thoughts by words on a page (or screen), is going to find social interaction at least occasionally challenging.

I’m certainly no exception. While I’m not painfully shy, I’m not a naturally outgoing person. I feel awkward about meeting new people and striking up conversations.

I get on OK with more structured situations, like speaking in front of an audience, but I find more casual one-on-one chit chat with strangers a bit of a challenge.

When I do get out and about to meet other writers, I find it enjoyable, but also tiring: I need time alone to recover.

And yet – I want to get to know lots of fellow writers! It’s great fun, and really encouraging, to chat to other people who love what I love. It’s also useful to know people to pass clients on to, people who might beta-read for me, and so on.

A quick note on “networking”: I know the word “networking” can seem cold, like you’re playing some sort of numbers game. (I think for us Brits, it can also feel a bit American.) To me, networking just means getting to know people who you can help, and people who might want to help you in return. It’s not about amassing a collection of business cards, or “working the room”.

#1: Understand You’re Normal

Read the full post on Aliventures

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Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes.

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  took a picture of his foot and created a “best selling” book out of it. He gives the details over at Observer.com. In the post Categories, keywords, Amazon, and you. How to get the most out of your choices. I discussed the way to optimize your choices on Amazon to get your book the best rankings. Brent obviously took this to an extreme and managed to get his foot a best selling listing. While this tactic did work, I have to disagree with Brent a little bit. He got three friends to buy and rate his book, and there is nothing stopping anyone else from doing this, but readers are smarter than that. I doubt that he could make any sales or legitimately rank. Yes there are bad people out there trying to scam the system, but Amazon keeps on knocking them down and readers are pickier that that. Would we be better off as a whole if people didn’t try and game the system? Yes.  Should people ignore the “best selling” marker? No, it is just one more piece of information, among a bunch of other pieces of information that readers use to choose titles. Read the article and let us know what you think. 

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Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes.

By • 02/23/16 10:00am

open blank book and puzzles conceptI would like to tell you about the biggest lie in book publishing. It appears in the biographies and social media profiles of almost every working “author” today. It’s the word “best seller.”

This isn’t about how The New York Times list is biased (though it is). This isn’t about how authors buy their way onto various national best-seller lists by buying their own books in bulk (though they do). No, this is about the far more insidious title of “Amazon Bestseller”—and how it’s complete and utter nonsense.

Here’s what happened in the book industry over the last few years: As Amazon has become the big dog in the book world, the “Amazon Bestseller” status has come to be synonymous with being an actual bestseller. This is not true, and I can prove it.

*****

Last week, I put up a fake book on Amazon. I took a photo of my foot, uploaded to Amazon, and in a matter of hours, had achieved  “No. 1 Best Seller” status, complete with the orange banner and everything.

How many copies did I need to sell be able to call up my mother and celebrate my newfound authorial achievements? Three. Yes, a total of three copies to become a best-selling author. And I bought two of those copies myself!

The reason people aspire to call themselves “bestselling author” is because it dramatically increases your credibility and “personal brand.” It can establish you as a thought leader. You’re able to show that you not only wrote a book, but that the market has judged it to be better than other books out there. It’s a status symbol, one of that cashes in on the prestige of one of man’s oldest past-times. At last, I had acquired this coveted title for myself.

Read the full post on Observer.com

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Writing 101: Let’s Talk Dialogue

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Working on my dialog was my Nanowrimo 2015 focus, beyond writing the 50k words of course. I applaud every author that can manage dialog. After a while I start going a little crazy because how many times had I used the word “said”. Kaitlin Hillerich address “said” fatigue among other important dialog points in her article on Inks And Quills. What are your strategies for dealing with dialog?

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Writing 101: Let’s Talk Dialogue

"I think we should sell everything and invest in racing llamas."
“I think we should sell everything and invest in racing llamas.”

~ Kaitlin Hillerich

Dialogue is a tricky little beast when you’re a new writer. From punctuation to making it sound realistic, there’s a lot that can go wrong. When done well, dialogue can be a true delight for the reader and make a story shine. But mess it up and, well…it can really put a damper on things.

Today, we’re going to look at some dialogue basics to get you started off on the right track. If you’re confused about punctuation, speech tags, or the difference between spoken and written dialogue fear not–keep reading and we’ll tackle them together!

Behind on the Writing 101 series? Click to catch up! Part 1 (The Fundamentals of Story), Part 2 (Writing Term Glossary), Part 3 (Creating a Successful Hero & Villain), and Part 4 (Unraveling Tension, Conflict, and Your Plot).

What is Dialogue?

Dialogue is the spoken words between two or more characters, which is signaled with quotation ” ” marks. Most of your story will consist of dialogue. Dialogue not only moves your story along, but it also helps reveal who your characters are.

However, dialogue in fiction is not the same as dialogue in real life. When we write dialogue for a story we are actually creating an artistic imitation of real speech.

Why? Because no one would want to read real-life dialogue. In real speech, people stammer, um and uh, talk over and interrupt each other, get distracted, forget what they were going to say, bring up random stuff, chit chat about the weather… Trust me, no one wants to read that! It would be a mess.

To really see the difference between real and written dialogue, take a look at this piece of dialogue I’ve transcribed from an interview with Doctor Who actor David Tennant:

Read the full post on Inks And Quills

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