Opinion pieces offering commentary on various aspects of book culture, publishing and self-publishing.
Please read the full post on TheBookSeller website.
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Today’s post is by Lorraine Berry, from the Literary Hub website, on December 4, 2015. In her article, Lorraine examines the realistic views on the class system within the literary community. This is something can be expanded to cover the divide between “self-published” vs. “traditionally published” authors as well. While the self publishing world is making great strides, how much does having connections and opportunities help with getting a contract and attention with a publishing house?
One of the things I was taught as an elementary school student in Illinois was that America differed from Europe in that it was founded as, and has remained, a classless society. These days, if politicians such as Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders bring up the disparities among the classes in America, they are accused by their political opponents of conjuring up class 
consciousness in order to foment class warfare. Unfortunately, of course, Obama and Sanders are right, and my schoolteachers were wrong. And while class disparity manifests in all sectors of society, for those who seek careers in literature, class differences have a huge impact on who gets hired and who gets published. This, in turn has a real effect on the portrayal of class in literature, and in media depictions of the writer’s life.
In the past few years, countless essays, articles, charts, graphs, and surveys have been published making the case for greater gender and ethnic diversity in the literary world, that our literature might present back to us a truer accounting of the society in which we actually live. There remains a long way to go but we have slowly come to understand that by publishing more writers of color, by increasing the number of women’s bylines, by being more inclusive, we will increase the quality of our collective storytelling.
But very little has been explicitly articulated about the exclusion of the great American underclass, that perpetually poor group on the bottom tier of society that includes all races/genders/creeds. And as we winnow out opportunities for art about poverty, we lose so much potential for change.
One doesn’t learn to be a writer in college and then graduate with the same opportunities as everyone else. When it comes to looking for a job, or having the time to write, social stratification determines who gets the internships, and by extension who gets to forge the connections that help one find an agent, or get a job with a publishing house.
A colleague and I have the same argument at least twice a year, usually at registration time when he bumps into me in the office and complains to me about our students’ unwillingness to go after off-campus internships. Most of his scorn is directed at students who only want to do an on-campus internship, during the semester, rather than taking an internship over winter or summer breaks.
And, given that the college where I teach is a four-hour drive from New York City, he is brutal when discussing the failure of the students to feed at the Golden Corral of publishing internships that is Manhattan. And so, each semester, I have to remind him of the reality of our students’ lives. I start with the fact that NYC internships often pay at most a token salary of perhaps a thousand dollars per month. Apartment rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn cost more per month than that highest token salary, and even if you can find a sharing sublet for summer and live on Ramen, rice, and mac-n-cheese, most of our students must spend summer working as many hours as they can so that they can get by working part-time during the school year. A summer internship that has a negative impact on summer savings is out of reach for any student not supplemented in some way. Some students luck out because a relative lives in one of the boroughs and is willing to house them, but once again, while it’s not a guarantee of money, it is still the accident of having a relative live within commuting distance of New York City.
Read the full post on the Literary Hub website
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Today’s post is by Richard Feloni, off of the Independent website, on November 30, 2015. In the article, Richard reviews linguist Steven Pinker‘s “The Sense of Style” and the most commonly misused words and phrases, some of which you will find in the recent post Quick Hacks for the Top Misused Words.
Whether you’re trying to sound sophisticated or simply repeating what you’ve heard, word fails are all too common and can make smart people sound dumb.
In his latest book, “The Sense of Style,” Harvard cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker explores the most common words and phrases that people stumble over.
The book is like a modern version of Strunk and White’s classic “The Elements of Style,” but one based on linguistics and updated for the 21st century.
Since there is no definitive body governing the rules of the English language like there is for the French language, for example, matters of style and grammar have always remained relatively debatable. Pinker’s rules and preferences are no different, but the majority of the words and phrases he identifies are agreed upon and can help your writing and speaking.
We’ve highlighted the most common mistakes according to Pinker using examples directly from his book along with some of our own.
Here are the main ones to look out for:
• Adverse means detrimental and does not mean averse or disinclined.
Correct: “There were adverse effects.” / “I’m not averse to doing that.”
• Appraise means to ascertain the value of and does not mean to apprise or to inform.
Correct: “I appraised the jewels.” / “I apprised him of the situation.”
• As far as means the same as but cannot be used the same way as as for.
Correct: “As far as the money is concerned …” / As for the money …
• Begs the question means assumes what it should be proving and does not mean raises the question.
Correct: “When I asked the dealer why I should pay more for the German car, he said I would be getting ‘German quality,’ but that just begs the question.”
• Bemused means bewildered and does not mean amused.
Correct: The unnecessarily complex plot left me bemused. / The silly comedy amused me.
Read the full post on the Independent website
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It is the beginning of December and for those of us who NaNoWriMo’d that means we have made it to the end! Congratulations to those who met the goal of 50K words or beyond. To any of you who did not quite make it, this is truly one of those times when you get props for making the attempt and better luck next year.
The rush of counting down those last words or those last steps until you make your goal is addicting. Being done is wonderful! Then there is the temptation to rush to send it to an editor or god forbid trying to publish it. But the most important thing to do next is
Stop.
Take a breather. Go do something else. Connect with family. Binge watch a show. Clean. Sleep! Anything but what you were doing. Don’t be stingy, give yourself enough time for a real breather. The manuscript or project will still be there, just like you left it. Except now you have fresh eyes and clear mind to look at your work again.
After you have given yourself a break, there is one more step that you should do. This is one I pull from my experience as a software engineer and the software life cycle. This is how you get more out of your hard work.
Evaluate the performance. What does that mean, especially with writing? With software you are usually evaluating the performance of the application, but you are also evaluating the whole process of development. With writing you are not evaluating the words, but your writing process.
Take time to look back at what you have accomplished. Did you meet your goal? What worked well? What do you need to improve? By taking a moment to be introspective and review your efforts you can greatly improve your work and yourself.
For example, this is my eighth year of doing NaNoWriMo and I did make the 50K goal. I have one year I did not complete the required words, so every year I do manage to make it is a pat on the back. Looking back after a breather, I find that my storytelling has grown immensely, with a depth of character that surprised me. I am now inspired to continue to work on this story due to that success.
This introspection also showed me that I need to grow in two areas. I still struggle with having dialogue that flows. Moving forward I will be looking for articles and help in that area. I also need to improve my work/life balance because to be honest I did most of my words in the last three days. It is nice to know that if my life depended on it, I can whip out 15k words in a day but I don’t want to do that again. But now I know what to spend my time focusing on to grow as a writer.
We often push ourselves or get caught up in the moment and rush to the next whatever. But by stopping and giving our brains a chance to rest, then looking at our work and ourselves we actually improve more so than by just pushing forward blindly.
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
Today’s post is by Robert Bevan, off the site Caverns and Creatures on November 28, 2015. Warning, cuss words ahead!
Earlier this week, a writer friend of mine shared one of my blog posts on his timeline. Incidentally, this was the same post that first caught the attention of Phil Elmore. It got someone else’s attention this time. Here’s a comment someone left on that Facebook post.
That one like was from me. I knew then what this week’s blog post was going to be about.
And so I embarked on a mission to discover what it is about “bad” language that gets people so riled up. Here’s what I found…
What’s lazier than parroting some bullshit your high school English teacher told you fifteen years ago, and trying to pass that off as some kind of intellectual argument?
As many times as I’ve seen or heard this argument raised, I’ve never seen anyone show a specific example of what they’re talking about, then provide a suggestion on how it might be improved.
“Fuck that. I’d rather just call you lazy.”
I’m afraid that won’t do, Mr. GoGettter. In order to drive this point home, I’m afraid a single example isn’t enough. You’re going to need to provide enough examples to establish a pattern, and demonstrate that profanity can be singled out as the sole source of laziness.
Otherwise, you’re just talking out of your fat, lazy ass.
This is complete and utter horseshit. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean.
Every time you write a word or a sentence, you are rejecting an infinite number of words or sentences you could have used in its place. There are no true synonyms. Every word or combination of words carries its own connotations in a given context. As a writer, it’s your job to choose the words and combinations of words which most closely paint a picture in the reader’s mind. If some of those words happen to be the ones which society has arbitrarily deemed “bad”, so be it.
By the logic of this argument, you could say the same thing about any word in any sentence ever written.
In the recently released Critical Failures IV: The Phantom Pinas, a character says, “Randy, you already done shit in the chili.”
This wasn’t the result of me crapping out the first thing that popped into my head and saying “Fuck it. That’s good enough.” There are other ways I could have had this character express that Randy had been the catalyst of a situation which was now beyond his control. Hell, I could have said that very thing, but it wouldn’t have been true to the character. She isn’t the type to say “catalyst of a situation.”
I could have gone with, “Randy, you already done scrambled that egg.”, but I felt the phrase I chose instead more accurately reflected the character’s personality and upbringing.
Comparing those two metaphors, “shit in the chili” is objectively more creative, because “You can’t unscramble an egg” is a much more known saying. This would still be the case if the word “shit” were replaced with “poop” or “defecate”, which tells us that the vulgarity of the word “shit” is not a means with which to measure the writer’s creativity. And your inability to come up with a competent counter-argument lends credit to the writer’s intelligence.
Read the full post on Caverns and Creatures.
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Today’s post is quick video from author Alan Moore with some great advice to unpublished authors and honestly authors in general. I love his accent <3.
[quote]If you write everyday, then you are a writer[/quote]
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
Have you ever googled your own name? You should. It is interesting to see what comes up. If you are an author what shows up when a fan or agent searches for you is pretty important. If you write, you need an author site.
Why an author site instead of a book site? With the focus on you as an author, instead of the individual book, you have room to grow. Each book can have its own landing page or subdomain under your author site. Fans want to get to know the author behind their favorite books. Read on for the reasons why you need your own author site.
Of course creating an author website is not the end, you will need to set aside time for updates and maintenance. Updated content keeps the search engines happy. While this sounds like a lot of work, a good author site will be a solid foundation for your overall market strategy and it can be a load of fun too. In future articles, we will dive deeper in the process of creating an author website: how to create one, what you need on your author website, more on social media, and tools and tricks to help.
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
Today’s post by J.H. Moncrieff, off of her site J.H. Moncrieff Tales of Terror and Suspense. Since I am way behind on my NaNoWriMo numbers, I especially feel her. Writers are people who have stories in them that want to be told. Sometimes they get written into text, sometimes they don’t.
Usually I limit myself to one writing-related post per month.
But something has been irritating the living hell out of me for years, and the more time that passes, the angrier I get.
So, lest I morph into some female version of The Incredible Hulk, I’ll expel that rage here, as a semi-productive rant. Because if I can stop just one person from saying this, it will be fury well spent.
Ready to hear the most destructive thing writers say to each other? Here it is…
“Writers write.”
Seems simple. How on earth could anyone feel like a sack of mucus drowned by pond scum after hearing those two words? Let me explain.
From the time we pick up our crayons and scrawl a story rather than a picture, we identify with the word writer. It’s not just what we do–for many of us, it becomes who we are. And if you’re a writer, you’re probably also by turns highly sensitive, insecure, and self-loathing.
So you’re a writer. It’s not just what you do; it’s who you are. And then you read a blog post, or some “How to Write Kewl Stuff” book, or perhaps an ill-thought Tweet.
“Writers write.”
And it makes you feel like absolute crap.
Read the full post on J.H. Moncrieff Tales of Terror and Suspense.
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Today’s post by Randy Ingermanson – “the Snowflake Guy” originally appeared on his site, Advanced Fiction Writing. Need to learn how to structure a scene or just a refresher, then this article is for you!
Having trouble making the scenes in your novel work their magic? In this article, I’ll show you how to write the “perfect” scene.
Maybe you think it’s impossible to write the perfect scene. After all, who can choose every word perfectly, every thought, every sentence, every paragraph? What does perfection mean, anyway?
Honestly, I don’t know. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Style is a matter of taste.
But structure is pretty well understood. Maybe you can’t write the perfectly styled scene. But you can write the perfectly structured scene. And that’s a whale of a lot better than writing a badly structured scene.
A scene has two levels of structure, and only two. They are:
This may seem obvious, but by the end of this article, I hope to convince you that it’s terribly profound. If you then want to fling large quantities of cash at me in gratitude, please don’t. I’d really rather have a check. With plenty of zeroes. I am going to steal insights from Dwight Swain’s book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. This is quite simply the finest book ever written on how to write fiction. If you don’t have this book, you are robbing yourself blind. I will be giving you the high points in this article, but there is really no substitute for reading the book and digesting it.
Before we begin, we need to understand how we keep score. How do we know what perfection is? The answer is based on understanding your reader’s motivation for reading.
Your reader is reading your fiction because you provide him or her with a powerful emotional experience. If you’re writing a romance, you must create in your reader the illusion that she is falling in love herself. If you’re writing a thriller, you must create in your reader the illusion that he is in mortal danger and has only the tiniest chance of saving his life (and all of humanity). If you’re writing a fantasy, you must create in your reader the illusion that she is actually in another world where all is different and wonderful and magical. And so on for all the other genres.
If you fail to create these emotions in your reader, then you have failed. If you create these emotions in your reader, then you have succeeded. The better you create the desired emotional experience in your reader, the better your fiction. Perfection in writing comes when you have created the fullest possible emotional experience for your reader.
Read the full post on Advanced Fiction Writing.
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Today’s post by originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on November 4, 2015. He has some really good points about using social media.
If you’ve got a book scheduled for release, whether it’s traditionally published or indie-published, the onus is on you to promote it. Here are some helpful strategies for making a big splash by using social media to build buzz before your book comes out.
1. Start early
It’s never too early to get your name and face out there. This gives you time to find your groove, make mistakes, and grow your social media following so that when you finally have news about your book, there will be an audience to hear it.
2. Explore social media
Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Pinterest? Goodreads? You can’t do them all. Start experimenting to see what works for you. If you started early, you’ve got time.
3. Post
Get creative, think out of the box. If you write historical fiction, post pictures of period clothing, dirty words from your époque, recipes from the era. If you write romance, update the public on the whereabouts of Fabio, post pictures of your favorite cover model. Review romantic comedies. If you write detective fiction, post a recipe for your character’s signature cocktail, or a diagram with the parts of a gun. Young adult (YA)? Post funny YouTube videos. Science fiction or fantasy? Announce and review cons. You get the idea.
Every tenth time, post book news—signing with an agent, book contracts, cover reveals, release dates, book giveaways, early reviews, announcement about pre-sales. People will endure your self-promotion because they like your other posts—kind of like a fundraising drive on public radio.
4. Use Facebook
It ain’t what it used to be, but it still rules across every age group. Last January, Facebook began sending out fewer and fewer posts to the people who like our pages, hoping we all would pay money to boost those posts to reach our followers. Also, posts from liked pages are now shuttled out of our “news stream” into a “page stream.” Here’s a simple trick to help circumvent that.
a. Post the following message on your Facebook page.
“When you like this page, remember to:
* Hover over the LIKED button.
* Click GET NOTIFICATIONS.
* Click SEE FIRST.
b. Pin that post to the top of your page. Followers who use this setting will be notified when you post.
Remember, you aren’t limited to your own Facebook page for promotion. Join existing community pages with members from your target audience. Find pages with a high number of engaged followers (lots of comments and likes). Every time you post, your name is out there. Mention your book when it’s polite to do so. It’s rude to over promote and it can backfire. Make sure you obey the rules.
Always put key words in the “topics” box on the “About” section of your Facebook page to make it more searchable.
5. Build relationships
Respond to everyone who comments with a like or a word. Check often so you can hide offensive posts. I’ve had Facebook followers duke it out over the pros and cons of corsets, so don’t underestimate the potential for conflicts.
Read the full post on Writer’s Digest.
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I know I am guilty of some of these. Please be aware that this is not the deep cuts of grammar rules and there are always exceptions. English is such a messy language! However, these tips will help you the majority of time.
Adverse means the results are not good, while averse means unwilling.
Example: I am averse to trying nuclear weapons on the giant hypnotoad as the effects might be adverse.
Affect is a verb implying action or change. Effect is usually a noun. When you affect something it produces an effect.
Example: The electricity from the power lines is affecting the giant hypnotoad! It has produced the effect of making the hypnotoad grow larger!
Ensure vs InsureEnsure means to make sure something happens. Insure is what you do when you purchase insurance.
Example: We need to ensure that the giant hypnotoad does as little damage as possible. I hope the people whose houses it has destroyed were insured.
Every day is an adverb while everyday is an adjective that means common. Put the word single between the words every and day in the sentence, and if the sentence still makes sense then you should use two words.
Example: I am tired of getting up every day and finding new monsters attacking our town!
I am tired of getting up every single day and finding new monsters attacking our town! Correct.
Example: Monsters attacking our town has become an every day occurrence!
Monsters attacking our town has become an every single day occurrence! Incorrect.
Monsters attacking our town has become an everyday occurrence! Correct.
If the subject is plural then you use fewer. If the subject is singular you use less.
Example: We have less chance of fighting the giant hypnotoad, now that we have fewer guns.
Farther* always refers to distance. Further relates to amount or time.
Example: We need to move everyone farther away from the giant hypnotoad, and then we can further discuss the plans to end this menace.
It’s is the contraction form of “it is” while its is the possessive pronoun. Replace the word in a sentence with “It is” and see if that makes sense.
Example: It’s a giant hypnotoad, coming to destroy Metropolis!
It is a giant hypnotoad, coming to destroy Metropolis! Correct.
Example: That giant hypnotoad has its own reality show!
That giant hypnotoad has it is own reality show! Incorrect.
That giant hypnotoad has its own reality show! Correct.
Lose is a verb and means to misplace or to suffer a loss. Loose means something that is not tight.
Example: We have too much to lose if we don’t beat the giant hypnotoad. So get that bolt loose so we can fix the laser cannon.
To decide between me and I, change the sentence to having one person and try the words out.
Example: Pat yelled for Chris and I to watch out!
Pat yelled for I to watch out! Incorrect.
Pat yelled for me to watch out! Correct.
Pat yelled for Chris and me to watch out! Correct.
Example: Chris and I dived to the side to avoid the fireball!
Me dived to the side to avoid the fireball! Incorrect.
I dived to the side to avoid the fireball! Correct.
Myself is a reflective pronoun and always the object of a sentence. So if you are talking about yourself (another reflective pronoun) then myself can be used. The other way to test when to use myself is to swap myself out with me and see if works.
Example: If someone knows how to deal with the giant hypnotoad, please contact Pat, Chris, or myself.
Simplified the sentence would read:
Please contact myself. Incorrect.
Please contact I. Incorrect.
Please contact me. Correct.
If someone knows how to deal with the giant purple hypnotoad, please contact Pat, Chris, or me. Correct.
Than is used to compare two different items. Then has a variety of uses. Use than to compare and then any other time.
Example: We are better off using flamethrowers than guns on the giant hypnotoad, as bullets bounce off its skin. Then we better get a move on, before it does any more damage.
Their is when you are talking about more than one person or something they have. There is a location, and they’re is the contraction form of they are.
Example: Pat and Chris are over there, with their nets. They’re going to try and catch the giant hypnotoad.
Pat and Chris are over there, with their nets. They are going to try and catch the giant hypnotoad.
You’re is the contraction form of you are while your is a possessive pronoun. Replace the word with you are and see if the sentence still makes sense.
Example: Your car is rolling down that hill right into the giant purple hypnotoad!
You are car is rolling down that hill into the giant purple hypnotoad! Incorrect.
Your car is rolling down that hill into the giant purple hypnotoad! Correct.
Example: Your going to get a reward for saving the city!
You are going to get a reward for saving the city! Correct.
You’re are going to get a reward for saving the city! Correct.
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
Today’s post by Rebecca Onion originally appeared on Slate on October 27, 2015. What do you think, are we all repeating the same plots over and over again?
In his 1919 manual for screenwriters, Ten Million Photoplay Plots, Wycliff Aber Hill provided this taxonomy of possible types of dramatic “situations,” first running them down in outline form, then describing each more completely and offering possible variations. Hill, who published more than one aid to struggling “scenarists,” positioned himself as an authority on the types of stories that would work well onscreen.
Advertising Hill’s book in a 1922 issue of the Scenario Bulletin Digest (“A Magazine of Information and Instruction for the Photoplaywright”), the manual’s publisher, the Feature Photodrama Company, offered hope to screenwriters feeling stuck for inspiration who might be willing to send away for the volume:
A few hours’ study of this remarkable treatise ought to make it an easy matter to find a cure for your “sick script”; to inject new “pep” and suspense into your story or safely carry it past a “blind alley”; it gives you all the possible information an inspiring [sic] scenarist may require.
As General Manager for Windwalker Media and an independent author service provider, I keep seeing the same mistakes that derail new authors. Here are a few of the biggest ones that I have encountered, out of a lot of love and a little tongue in cheek.
Perhaps in your heart you know you are the next undiscovered J.K. Rowling, but the fact is she spent many years working her craft and perfecting it before being discovered. Your manuscript is competing against approximately 1,000 new books each day, in the United States alone. You may write it but if you want anyone to read it, you need to make it about your reader and not about you.
Nope.
Not even close. Or as my wise old granny used to say, if it sounds too good to be true then they are trying to sell you something. You can make a living as a writer, but it takes time, hard work, and patience. It is a job, just like any other job.
The best time to start planning is before you even write one word.
Why are you writing? What is the goal? To make money or to be famous – see above. The best reason is because writing is your passion and you have a story that wants to be told. Understanding why you need to write, will help you figure out some of the next steps.
Who is your target reader? Write for them, not you, in their language.
This is also when you start to put together a marketing plan. By doing a little work ahead of time, you will save yourself many hours of frustration.
Killing this myth will save you so much trouble down the road.
How are you going to distribute your book? EBooks, print, print on demand? Combination? If you plan on just publishing an eBook, then you might be able to get away with a clean and well formatted MS Word document. However, print and print on demand will require someone who knows how to set up your manuscript per the requirements for the company printing your book.
What is your target genre? If you want to succeed and stand out from the 1000 of books you need to find your niche and promote that. Don’t be a romance writer. Instead be an Edwardian period piece romance that specializes in clean Christian bodice rippers. Writing a historical novel? Specify and be an expert in crooked New York politicians in the early 1800s. By finding your niche, you are also finding the people who are going to want to read your book, and help your rankings.
Do you want to try self-publishing or find an agent go the traditional route. Depending on what you choose, your approach will be different. There are many articles that can describe the benefits and disadvantages of both. Perhaps you will try one path and then switch over. The point is to know ahead of time what your options are.
How are you going to market your book? This is the perfect time to start thinking and to start marketing, before you are ready to publish. Good marketing takes time, much longer than you realize. Think of the worst pushiest salesperson you have ever dealt with. Don’t be them. Social media is a great tool but should only be a part of your marketing plan. Start a blog, build friendships, and solve problems. Build real connections over time, and then when the time comes to promote your book, you will have some solid cheerleaders in your corner.
Self-editing – If you go on Amazon and look at the number one reason for lost stars, it will be because someone tried to self-edit. After having spent so much time staring at the pages during the writing process, you will miss errors. Typos, grammatical errors, bad sentence structures all upset readers. Upset readers leave bad reviews, which don’t go away. By the way, there are two types of editors, content editors for proof reading and grammar errors and developmental editors which help you make your story flow better. Both are worth every penny.
Design my own book cover – This sounds easy, open up MS Paint, add the title and your name in different fancy fonts, throw in a piece of clip art and voila! Ok, maybe you know the difference between san serif and serif fonts and how they should be used, but it is really easy to tell when someone does their own artwork. If you don’t care enough to invest in your story, why should customers care to read it?
A good cover design will complement your story. This is often the first thing that a customer will see, and it needs to give them information about your book at a glance. A professional will make sure the cover work well as a thumbnail.
Do my own layout – If you are going to offer your book in print, then know there are so many little details that go into making a print book great. Pictures are managed completely differently between an eBook and print book. Alternating headers, gutters, font choices, and a variety of other important details are all items that a professional will handle and that all add up to a quality product.
Have my cousin do the work – The same thing goes for asking a friend or a relative to do any work for you. Unless they are a professional and you are paying them the same rate as any other job, don’t. They might not have the heart to tell you the truth or the skill set needed, so it isn’t worth your reputation. Hire a professional, there are very reasonably priced ones out there.
If you have gotten a customer to read your book description, congratulations! It means they are interested in your book and this is your opportunity to really impress them. Start with a one or two sentence summary and then expand with a couple of paragraphs below that lets the reader know more detail about your book. Include any awards or quotes promoting your book. Don’t blow it with typos, run on sentences AND QUIT YELLING AT EVERYONE WITH BOLDED ALLCAPS!
Every part of building your final product will take longer than you expect, especially if you want to produce a quality book that people will want to read. Don’t use this as an excuse to cut corners, but as motivation to plan ahead! Most decent editors and eBook creators are booked for weeks in advanced, if not months.
It takes about 50 reviews for Amazon’s algorithm to really start noticing your title and rise in rankings. Customers prefer books that already have reviews, so they can get some idea of the quality of the book. Getting the first few reviews can be painful, especially if you just sit there and wait.
If you have started your marketing and building of relationships before now, then you can offer copies of your book for honest reviews. Don’t be tempted to cheat and pay for reviews. Amazon especially is cracking down on purchased reviews and if your book can’t stand on its own merit, then the paid reviews won’t help you anyway.
This list isn’t meant to discourage you, in fact the hope is to empower you to avoid some of the mistakes that will slow your success down.
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
This post by originally appeared on Lifehacker. We all knew this anyways, but it is nice to have your views supported by science!
Everyone should write—not just professional writers.
You might say it’s easy for me to say that because I’m a writer. A singer can just as easily say, “Well, I believe that everyone should learn to sing.” But, out of all the creative means of expressions available to human beings, none intrinsically champions critical thinking, enhances creativity and improves clarity of thought quite like writing. Writing makes us smarter.
Here are some reasons (backed by science) why that is so:
This is perhaps one of the most beautiful things about writing. In her book, Why We Write, curator Meredith Maran interviewed writers on why they write. Nearly all of them gave self-serving reasons, but there was a delightful, recurring motive of why people write: Writing provides a pocket of time in the present moment to reflect, digest and think deeply.
Joan Didion, author of Play It as It Lays said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”
Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City explained, “I write to explain myself to myself. It’s a way of processing my disasters, sorting out the messiness of life to lend symmetry and meaning to it.”
It’s not uncommon for one to think they have totally grasped a concept until they write it down and realize there are aspects of the concept they hadn’t quite thought about.
Writing, then, is a way to organize our thoughts. It allows us to reflect and helps us gain new insights and achieve new perspectives. You think more deeply when you write, and that helps you see things more clearly.
This post by originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 10/27/15.
November is almost here, which means two things: 1) You’re going to be seeing a lot of mustaches and 2) it’s time to start preparing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
Over the coming weeks, with the help of my friend and author Kevin Kaiser, I’m going to offer some tips on how to prepare for and accomplish the NaNoWriMo goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Let’s get this started with this guest post from Kevin on outlining your story before the November 1 start date.
It’s an age-old debate: Should writers meticulously outline a story before beginning or should they simply sit down at the keyboard and start typing, blindly trusting that the characters will reveal what should happen next?
Like most things in life, I believe it’s both/and, not either/or. Even the most fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writer has a general idea of where things are going, if only in her head. But what is a NaNoWriMo participant supposed to do? After all, thirty days goes by quickly.
About 250,000 people began NaNoWriMo last year, according to the Office of Letters and Light, the non-profit behind the writing program. Only about 33,000 people actually finished the challenge and put 50,000 words to paper—that’s just 14 out of 100 people!
NaNoWriMo is about finishing, and not creating the next great American novel. It’s about proving to yourself that you can lay down at least 1,600 words per day for a whole month even if they’re a spectacular mess.
I wonder how many of the 86% that didn’t finish spent so much time overthinking their story that they simply didn’t write it. In the case of NaNo, do not allow perfectionism or fear creep in and paralyze you.