Publetariat is observing the New Year’s Day holiday, and knocking off work early for New Year’s Eve. We will resume our usual posting schedule tomorrow at 6pm PST. The site will remain online and registered members can still access the forum and post to their blogs between now and then.
(No need to click through – this is the end of the post!)
I’ve said many, many times here that reviews are the lifeblood of an author’s career. And reviews can mean literal reviews, posted at places like Amazon, Goodreads and so on, as well as reviews in newspapers and on dedicated reader blogs. But reviews can also refer to readers simply talking about a book they enjoyed with friends, family and colleagues. That may lead to those people buying the book, so it works just like reviews are supposed to. But not all reviews are created equal.
In essence, any review is valuable. Even if you didn’t like a book and you give it a bad review and a low star rating, it’s still useful to potential readers and it may lead a different reader to think, “Well, the problems that person had with the book don’t sound like problems to me, so I’ll give it a go.” And besides, you can’t please all the people all the time, so a good spread of reviews and ratings shows honesty and means we don’t start to suspect that Auntie Mabel and the Sockpuppets are the only people reviewing the book.
For example, American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a book universally recognised by readers and awards alike as being quite excellent. But not everyone likes it. On Amazon it has a 4-star average rating, but that includes 92 1-star reviews. (I’d be ecstatic with 92 reviews of any kind, but that book has over a thousand in total!) Anyway, my point is that not all reviews are going to be good ones and giving a one or two star review is fine. If you’re reviewing the book.
Wondering what I’m talking about? Look at this fucking idiot:
In case you can’t read that, it says:
Taming a Seahorse was good. However, Monday I purchased another Spencer book, and it took sooooooooooooo long to get to my Kindle, I was 20 pages into another book………………..
And the idiot gives the book a 1-star review. I’ve deliberately blurred the name, as I’m not here to witch hunt. It’s just one of many reviews I’ve seen that are like this. This “reviewer” is directly damaging the author’s career by reducing their rating average for reasons that are nothing to do with the author or the book and for things over which the author has no control. The “reviewer” even says they thought the book was good, but they’re giving it a one star review because the Whispernet service was slow delivering a completely different novel by the same author. The degree of stupid here is staggering. What the fuck did the author do to deserve this one star review, exactly?
It’s just petty hollering because the person wanted to have a moan about something publicly and arbitrarily tacked that whinge onto one of Parker’s books. If anything, they should have simply complained to Amazon directly (which, admittedly, is like trying to water a garden bed by pissing on the roof).
This is not an isolated, or even uncommon, incident. These fuckknuckles are everywhere. There are even blogs set up to collect all the reviews that are small nuggets of human idiocy distilled into illiterate paragraphs. This is one of my favourite examples of blogs like that, but I can never get past a few entries before the red mist of rage descends: http://leasthelpful.com/ Seriously, it starts off quite funny for the first one or two, then I begin to despair at the stupid, then, after half a dozen or so, I just want to go out and block the blow hole of a dolphin until it drowns. Then hit stupid people with the dead dolphin.
Reviews are awesome and anyone who takes time to review a book is a fantastic person who will be rewarded with cookies and whisky. But only people who review the book. If you’re using a review and slamming an author’s work in order to whinge about postage times, delivery networks, the fact that your dog shat in your bed (which you deserved, by the way) or anything else, then you’re a broken, stupid person and you should have your internet privileges revoked. Please, won’t someone think of the authors?
This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s Warrior Scribe.
This post, by Jane Friedman, originally appeared on her blog on 12/29/12.
Note: I wrote the following article for Writer’s Digest magazine last year (July/August 2011) about how to get published; I’ve lightly updated it for distribution here. If you’re interested in more advice about how to get traditionally published, consider my online class with Writer’s Digest on Jan. 3, or read my comprehensive post on the topic.
Don’t you wish someone could tell you how close you are to getting traditionally published? Don’t you wish someone could say, “If you just keep at it for three more years, you’re certain to make it!”
Or, even if it would be heartbreaking, wouldn’t it be nice to be told that you’re wasting your time, so that you can move on, try another tack (like self-publishing), or perhaps even change course entirely to produce some other creative work?
I’ve counseled thousands of writers over the years, and even if it’s not possible for me to read their work, I can usually say something definitive about what their next steps should be. I often see when they’re wasting their time. No matter where you are in your own publishing path, you should periodically take stock of where you’re headed, and revise as necessary.
Let’s start with four common time-wasting behaviors. You may be guilty of one or more. Most writers have been guilty of the first.
Let’s be honest. We all secretly hope that some editor or agent will read our work, drop everything, and call us to say: This is a work of genius! YOU are a genius!
Few writers give up on this dream entirely, but to increase the chances of this happening, you have to give each manuscript everything you’ve got, with nothing held back. Too many writers save their best effort for some future work, as if they were going to run out of good material.
You can’t operate like that.
Every single piece of greatness must go into your current project. Be confident that your well is going to be refilled. Make your book better than you ever thought possible—that’s what it needs to compete. It can’t be good.
“Good” gets rejected. Your work has to be the best. How do you know when it’s ready, when it’s your best? I like how Writer’s Digest editor and author Chuck Sambuchino answers this question at writing conferences: “If you think the story has a problem, it does—and any story with a problem is not ready.”
It’s common for a new writer who doesn’t know any better to send off his manuscript without realizing how much work is left to do. But experienced writers are usually most guilty of sending out work that is not ready. Stop wasting your time.
There are many reasons writers choose to self-publish, but the most common one is the inability to land an agent or a traditional publisher.
Fortunately, it’s more viable than ever for a writer to be successful without a traditional publisher or agent. However, when writers chase self-publishing as an alternative to traditional publishing, they often have a nasty surprise in store:
No one is listening. They don’t have an audience.
Bowker reports that in 2011, more than 148,000 new print books were self-published, and more than 87,000 e-books were self-published. (See more about the report here.) Since Bowker only counts books that have ISBNs, that means thousands more titles go uncounted, since Amazon doesn’t require an ISBN for authors to publish through the Kindle Direct Publishing program.
If your goal is to bring your work successfully to the marketplace, it’s a waste of time to self-publish that work, regardless of format, if you haven’t yet cultivated an audience for it, or can’t market and promote it effectively through your network. Doing so will not likely harm your career in the long run, but it won’t move it forward, either.
Read the rest of the post on Jane Friedman’s blog.
This post, by Beth Barany, originally appeared on her Writer’s Fun Zone blog.
Many authors wonder how to get more visibility for their books. One way to do this is to run a blog tour. If you discover that you like blogging, and would like to build excitement about a new release or re-release, running a blog tour can help you build visibility to a new audience and make more sales.
What is a blog tour?
Instead of going from bookstore to bookstore and town to town, you go from blog to blog, ideally within a concentrated period. Keep in mind there are no rules. I’ve run tours that involve one stop a week for 12 weeks, and 30 stops within a month, or 10 stops in two weeks. The trick to designing a blog tour is what kinds of time do you want to invest. If you have lots of time, do a 30-day tour. If you don’t have much time or are busy during the week, you can organize a tour of 1 stop per week, like I did last summer when I launched my YA fantasy, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer. You can see the schedule for that tour here: http://www.writersfunzone.com/blog/beth-barany-novelist/blog-tour/
Benefits of a Blog Tour
Other Important Elements of a Blog Tour
It’s true that like anything you do in marketing your book you need to make decisions about your blog tour. In my experience of running blog tours for novelists, here are the things to decide before you run your tour:
Time Period:
Decide how many days, what days of the week (weekends or not; holidays or not) you want to run the tour. Also, know that it take 6-8 weeks to prepare an extensive tour, though only 1-2 weeks for a short tour.
Blogger Types:
There are many kinds of bloggers who love, love, love to read and review books, and host writers on their sites. A special breed of bloggers exist and call themselves “book bloggers.” they each have favorite kinds of genre to review, with their own rules about what they will feature or not. In addition to book bloggers, search out experts in your field and subject matter expertise, including bloggers who focus on such topics as writing, freelancing, mommy-entrepreneur sites, independent publishing, etc. Also, it’s important to pick bloggers that have a big reach to your audience. One way to see if the blogger has a big reach is to use www.alexa.com, provider of free, global web metrics.To find book bloggers and other appropriate bloggers, Twitter is a great resource. I’ve compiled many book bloggers in this list here: http://twitter.com/Beth_Barany/book-reviewers.
Giveaways:
I think it builds buzz and excitement to offer a grand prize giveaway that relates to your book. For example, my client YA fantasy author Wendy D. Walter is offering a hand-painted gnome and signed copy of her novel as a grand prize for her blog tour that started the beginning of December 2012. Her YA fantasy features gnomes, among other fantastical creatures, and Wendy is an artist. I’ve noticed that when you offer a prize not associated with your book you attract lots of prize hounds. While nice for increasing your numbers on social media and mailing lists, these people are probably not potential fans or readers.To manage your Grand Prize giveaway, use Rafflecopter.com: A cool tool for having people enter into your giveaway and to randomly pick your grand prize. Hats off to those savvy software developers for creating this free tool.I also recommend giving away an ebook or physical book at every blog stop. Ask people to comment or answer a question relevant to the blog topic. This helps weed out those prize hounds who just want anything free, and helps focus on those people who want something free AND are your potential readers and fans.
Writing:
Read the rest of the post on Writer’s Fun Zone.
This post, by Jane Lebak, originally appeared on the Querytracker blog.
If your New Year’s resolution will be to join a writing group, you’ll want to learn from my horrible (and sometimes hilarious) experiences. I’ve belonged to writing groups since age twelve, but I didn’t start classifying their subspecies until I became the only member of a once-thriving group.
If you’re thinking of joining or starting a writing group, it’s best to have your focus in mind right from the beginning. The basic commonality is that writing groups in general consist of writers.
(Don’t you already feel enlightened? Well read on!)
Because that’s pretty much where the commonality ends. Let’s check out three distinct species of writing groups.
The first species is what I’d consider a support group. The focus is social: the writers gather to gripe about writing. They will perhaps come up with an organized topic of the day, but for the most part this group is about the snacks, the sharing, the complaining, and some exchange of advice. Its function is primarily to meet other writers and to get out of the house.
Some of the topics you’ll see covered here are how much rejection sucks, how hard it is to get things published, why is that particular crap in the bookstore when yours isn’t, what you think of the recent election, and whether there’s really a problem with that genetically-altered corn. You may also hear about places to search for markets.
If this group is online, then expect to read dozens of posts about everything under the sun, and whenever someone complains that the group is too cluttered, someone is sure to respond, “But we’re writers — this is what we do!” My first online group was of this variety, and I loved it. I learned a metric crapton about everything you can imagine, including some tidbits about writing.
My once-thriving group was also a social/support group type. Sixty local writers would gather, always with coffee and muffins, and sometimes they’d share a paragraph or two, maybe a poem or a letter to the editor, and everyone would tell them how lovely it was and suggest changing a comma in the second line. Someone might give a brief talk, at about the depth of an article in a writing magazine. There was a break in the middle so we could chat.
Read the rest of the post on the Querytracker blog.
Hi,
My name is John.
I’ve written quite a few newspaper columns and, now, a book.
I’d love to hear feedback on it – good, bad or otherwise.
This is my first foray into this branch of writing. Until not very long ago I was in sales (hated it) but then the economy changed drastically and, as a result, so did my career!
I like my new line of work – a lot…
If you’re up for taking a look at my book – Online Dating Sucks… but it’s how I fell in love – you can find it here on Amazon: (paste this link into your browser)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZYYDVE
Amazon will give you a free look – most of the first chapter anyway. I’d love to hear what you all think!
-John
This year Loretta and I had just about the entirety of both families over for Christmas.
It was fun greeting them all as they came up the driveway. Everyone was waving and smiling, and as they got out hugs and kisses abounded. While most were carrying wrapped packages – I noticed that what Mom had in her hands was a large, brown paper bag.
I knew immediately what it contained.
For as long as I can remember my neighbor from the house next to the one I grew up in has been giving me a bag of persimmons this time of year – every year. That fact is more amazing when you understand that, not only do I not live next to him anymore, neither does anyone in my family.
My parents sold that house years ago.
And yet my old neighbor, remembering that I love persimmons, picks a bag for me every year and sees that it gets to my mom – who then sees that it gets to me. And every year I mean to sit down and write him and his wife a nice thank you note.
You know, I don’t think I’ve written one yet.
I mean I deeply appreciate what he does – I really enjoy those persimmons – but I cannot seem to write the man a letter of gratitude. It’s not like I don’t know his street number (I read it on his garage most days between 1973 and 1982). And it’s not like I don’t have the time (especially since he has the time to fill a bag for me every year).
I think the reason is this: I’ve become a little complacent about the whole deal. Not terribly so, mind you. I do still swing by my old neighborhood every now and again – and when I do I stop in to say hello, chat him up, and thank him for sending persimmons. But I think I’m taking the old boy just a little bit for granted. Isn’t it weird how we can do that? Take something that was once new and come to see it as normal – even commonplace.
Sort of like that whole voting deal from a while back.
You remember the election about a month and a half ago? You recall what happened, right? The Republican candidate – this fellow from Massachusetts – got run out of town pretty handily by the sitting sheriff. It wasn’t predicted to go down that way, but now that it has it seems like that was normal – but at the time it was kind of exceptional.
Stunning defeat might be slightly overstating the thing, but not my much.
What that defeat capped was sort of a disavowal of the course that some more vocal factions within the Republican Party had taken over the last few years – most notably the Tea Party.
You know, the Tea Party has been more than a little assailed over the past year (trust me, I was among the assailers) and as strongly as I disagreed with them on most points, I also feel their pain.
I know where these people come from – I have an idea what caused them to adopt the beliefs they came to hold. Our country has weathered some very hard times recently – very hard. The housing market crashed, which led the economy to crash. Many of these people owned houses that became worth nothing near what was paid for them. At the same time lots of these folks lost their jobs as the economy stayed sour. That left a whole lot of people in the position of owing more on a house than it was worth, with no real way to pay for it.
That is a deeply frustrating place to be.
So what do you do if you find yourself in that position? Change the housing market? No, you don’t possess the power to do that. Grow the economy so that you can find work? You don’t have the power to do that either. And when people are not in control of their situations – when they feel powerless – well, that’s about the best recipe for frustration and anger.
So what do they do with their anger? They vent it – because anger has to be vented. To not vent it is to invite more frustration and anger. And where can it be vented, I mean in a way that could eventually affect its underlying causes?
In the voting booth, that’s where.
We had – still have – some angry people who were deeply frustrated. People who were raised on the American Dream. Who were told get the job, buy the house, follow the rules, and everything would turn out OK. But it didn’t turn out OK. They lost their jobs, and their health care, and their houses. And, sometimes, their self-respect.
And when you get people in that mindset they want answers – and they want change – and they want those things now. So when some blowhard politico rides into town and tells you that he or she can change things so they’re back like they were before they went to hell in a hand basket, you’re tempted to believe them. At the very least you kind of want them to be right, right?
Didn’t it seem like just about everybody in the Republican Primaries was leading at some point or other? I take that to mean that people were frustrated – and though they may not have known which way to turn, they still knew they wanted to turn. It was almost like watching Karl Rove implode on Fox News during election night coverage – everything was going wrong, all at once, and there didn’t seem like a way to make things right.
But we’re through the election now – the reach of the Tea Party seems to be lessening as people start to see a brighter future. The economy is starting to come back – housing is beginning to show signs of a recovery – and people are letting go of the panic that had them feeling they had nowhere to turn.
You know, it’s tempting to vilify certain factions of the Republican Party now that it appears their influence is dissipating. I don’t mean those politicos who took advantage of a nation when it was down, I mean people – good, everyday people – who were trying to follow the rules and do the right things and make a good life for themselves and their families.
I would tell you that, based on what I know of my old neighbor (he’s a former police officer and small business owner) his politics are probably decidedly right of mine.
But you want to know how important that is at this moment?
Far less important than me writing him a nice note to tell him how much I’ve appreciated him all these years.
This post, by James Moushon, originally appeared on The Self-Publishing Review.
I have a Free Book Promotion coming up and I keep hearing the George Strait song ‘Give it Away’ playing in my ears. (Now you know where I get some of the inspirations for my posts). It was time for me to do some research and talk to several successful authors on how to do this and what their experiences were in giving their books away.
Free books have been a custom in traditional paper books for as long as book reviews have been written. They came with the territory. They were sent directly to a person or an agent. The reader/customer rarely got their hands on a freebie unless they went to the Library.
The Internet has changed all that. The ebook has altered the way we read, distribute and market books. It has increased the competition between authors and retailers and publishers, all at the speed of light. Now one of the most important things for an author is to create an interest in his book with friends and followers online.
One of the methods of choice is a Free Book Promotion.
I’ll start off with ten steps we all should write down and follow if we are going to give our books away.
1. Start several weeks in advance. First, select the dates and the period of time you want to run your promotion. There is some wisdom used here. The experts say do the promotion for 2 or 3 days in the middle of the week but not at the start of the month. Give yourself enough lead time so you can get everything together.
2. Get your book and site information together in an easy place to work with. I use a Word document to manage mine.
That includes your book description, the ASIN and ISBN numbers, your cover, the Amazon buy link and any other link that relates to your book. This should include links to reviews and blogs.
3. Made sure all your support group’s information is updated with the latest book information plus all your author profiles are up to date.
4. Next, go to the Amazon promotion manager and schedule your Free Book Promotion.
Review the Amazon Free Promotion Rules before you start. If this blog had more space, I would recommend this step before I published the book but that is a whole different topic.
Basically, you need to be enrolled in the KDP Select program. You have 5 days to offer your book free every 3 months and you must have exclusive rights for the primary content of the book and Amazon has the exclusive rights to the sales. If you got all of the above, you’re good to go.
5. I recommend you set up a day to day schedule (at least a 2 week schedule) and decide what you are going to offer free and when? Your book? Giveaway product? A Bonus book? Remember not all things can be done at once and you well run out of time if you’re not careful.
6. Start drafting your tweets and your Facebook communications. This is something you can start way ahead of time. Your are going to post them often. Variety is a good thing here. If you just keep sending the same tweet at your followers, they will start skipping over them like some of the other noise out there.
Here is a sample of two that I created for my upcoming Free promotion. This will give some idea anyway of what I am talking about. Notice I have put the number of characters in brackets after the post. When I get down to tweet time, I know right where I’m at with Twitter.
**********
Read the rest of the post on The Self-Publishing Review.
This post, by Keith Cronin, originally appeared on Writer Unboxed on 12/11/12.
I write this hoping that there will actually BE a new year. After all, there are those who maintain that the world is ending not just soon, but specifically tomorrow. They base this belief on an ancient Mayan calendar (which some have observed bears more than a striking resemblance to the top of a gigantic Oreo cookie).
But on the off chance that the Mayans got it wrong – which could be a simple matter of the slip of some poor stonemason’s chisel – I’m going to hold on to my characteristic glass-half-full attitude, and put forth some ideas on how you might want to approach next year – or at least whatever portion of the year remains before our cosmic Oreo is completely consumed.
I’m big on new year’s resolutions. I don’t know why, since I’ll admit I’m not that great at actually following through on them. But I think there’s something strangely satisfying in the act of at least making the list, of attempting to get our ducks in a row to face our next trip around the sun. It gives us a general direction to follow, before life presents us with the inevitable fork (or other piece of cutlery) in the road. It’s sentimental, I know, but I really do like entering each new year with the mindset of starting fresh, of picking something to focus on and saying, “THIS is the thing I’m going to do this year.”
And I think this can be a particularly helpful exercise for writers. Why? Because being a writer is hard. We face many obstacles and distractions. So I thought I’d try to help carve through some of them, by offering ten items for you to consider adding to your own Post-Mayan-Apocalypse To-Do List (or, PMATDL). Let’s begin.
I know, this is pretty basic. But haven’t most of us lamented at some time or other that we simply don’t have time to read? That’s not good. In fact, it’s a showstopper. As Stephen King puts it:
Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
But Stephen doesn’t just scold us. In his book On Writing, from which the above quote is drawn, King points out that if we always keep a book handy, there are plenty of opportunities to read, as long as we learn to take satisfaction “in small sips as well as in long swallows.” Whether you’re a fan of King’s fiction or not, it’s hard to argue with his logic.
I noted above that being a writer is hard. Yeah, but here’s the thing. So is being a plumber. Or a brain surgeon. Or just about anything other than being a Jersey Shore cast member. Nobody’s got it totally easy, and – more important – nobody really wants to hear how hard your life is, particularly when it comes to being a writer. After all, this is something you volunteered for, not something you’re being forced to do (even if you’re the type who considers writing to be your “calling”).
On top of that, don’t forget that the people you’re complaining to are also your potential readers. Who wants to buy a book from a big old crybaby? Do you really want that to be your platform? (Keith pauses to make a mental note to add “Stop saying that godawful word platform” to his own list of new year’s resolutions.) But the most compelling reason to complain less is that it gives you more time to write.
If you’re not already doing this, put this at the top of your list. We’ve all heard the horror stories, and it’s way too easy to assume that those terrible things only happen to other people. Sorry, but it’s all too likely that there’s some nasty computer gremlin out there with your name on his list, and he’s coming to get you. Be ready.
And it’s so easy, there’s really no excuse. I’m a big fan of Carbonite, which has been a lifesaver to me and my family multiple times over the years. But there are other solutions out there. Look for the ones that back up your data automatically without requiring you to remember to do anything – this eliminates both the hassle and the excuses.
Don’t put your hard work at risk, folks. Back it up. Do it now – I’ll wait.
Read the rest of the post on Writer Unboxed.
Publetariat editorial staff are off from now through Christmas. We will resume our normal posting schedule at 6pm PST on Wednesday, 12/26. In the meantime, users can still access their blogs, all the usual site content and the forum. Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating!
No need to click through, this is the end of the post
Publetariat staff are off this week in observation of Christmas. We will resume our regular posting schedule the evening of Sunday, 12/28/14. In the meantime, in what has become a holiday tradition here at Publetariat, we again reprint this contribution from Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through my draft
Were examples of my inattention to craft
My characters all hung about without care,
In hopes that a plot point soon would be there.
My family were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of red herrings danced in my head.
The dog on its blanket, and the cat in my lap
Had just settled themselves for a long winter’s nap.
When on my computer there showed a blue screen!
(And if you use a PC, then you know what that means.)
Away to the cell phone I flew like a flash;
I dialed tech support and broke out in a rash.
The sales pitch that played while on hold I waited
Ensured my tech guy would be roundly berated.
That is, if he ever should come on the line.
And for this, per minute, it’s one-ninety-nine!
“Good evening,” he said, in a Punjab accent,
“I am happy to help you, and my name is Kent.”
More rapid than the Concorde was his troubleshoot,
I was back up and running, after one last reboot!
“Now Gaiman! Now, Atwood! Now, Cheever and Austen!
Salinger! O’Connor! Shakespeare and Augusten (Burroughs)!
Don’t withhold your wisdom! Upon me, bestow it!
Inspire me! Show me how best not to blow it!”
To their books I turned for some worthy advice;
I was pumped to return to my work in a trice.
So across clacking keyboard my fingers they flew,
With a speed and a passion—and no typos, too.
Hour after hour, the prose kept on flowing,
Though I had no idea where my story was going.
“But write it, I must!” I decided right then.
I resolved to see this project through to the end.
At one a.m. the second act came together,
At two I knew this book was better than ever!
My hero had purpose, my plot had no slack.
I cut my “B” story and never looked back!
I got up to make coffee at quarter to three;
Curses! My spouse left no Starbucks for me!
With instant crystals I’d have to make do.
Cripes! He used all of the half and half, too!
“I could add some Kahlua,” I told myself.
“There’s a big, honking bottle right there on the shelf.”
So I added a splash. And then a splash more.
At five, I finally came to on the floor.
With more Kahlua than coffee in the cup nearby,
An idea for the third act I wanted to try.
Werewolves! In high school! And vampires, as well!
It worked for that Meyer chick, my book’s a sure sell!
I tied up the plot in a neat little a bow,
With the arrival of aliens, and giant worms from below.
Defeated were foes of the Earth and the sky,
And thousands of townsfolk did not have to die.
With the Kahlua bottle all but drained,
I turned to do the last bit of work that remained.
To this one tradition, I was happy to bend.
Two carriage returns, all in caps: THE END.
To Facebook I sprang, to announce I was through.
From thence, on to Twitter, and MySpace too.
But lo, I exclaimed as my face met the sun,
“Twenty-four days late, my NaNoWriMo is done!”
This post, by Karen Rought, originally appeared on her The Midnight Novelist blog.
I recently admitted to some of my online friends that my exposure to fan-fiction was fairly limited. Once they learned that I hadn’t read some of the “classics,” and after some stunned silence and a lot of “omg omg omg,” they gently nudged me down the right path, with the promise to take me under their wings.
The first one they had me read was called The Shoebox Project. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a novel-length Harry Potter fic about the Marauders – James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter. The fic basically shows us what kind of relationship those four friends had with each other, how they got mixed up in the Order of the Phoenix, and what happened that made Peter betray his best friends to the Dark Lord.
If you’re interested, you can go to this website and read the fic for yourself. It’s extremely well written, and the characters pop out of the page at you, fully-formed and in color. It’s also an easy read, but be warned that, although it falls in line with Rowling’s books, you may be surprised by what happens in the story. Many fans consider this to be something of the official un-official backstory to the Marauders.
All that aside, it really got me thinking. Why does fan-fiction work so well? Why do people spend hundreds of hours writing it? Why do hundreds of thousands of people read it? Why is fan-fiction becoming more and more popular amongst those who enjoy reading books and watching television/movies?
And, most importantly, what can we learn from it as writers?
ONE. Fan-fiction isn’t afraid to break the rules
One of the drawbacks to immersing yourself in fan-fiction is that it’s not always well-written. That’s certainly a problem, but I’ve found plenty of fan-fiction that was poorly written that I couldn’t put down. And I’ve read plenty of published works without a single typo that put me to sleep each time I cracked them open.
The thing with fic is this: it isn’t afraid to break the rules. It doesn’t have to worry about critique partners and editors and agents and publishing houses. The authors of the fic aren’t always aware of the rules, of when to use a semi-colon or even what “syntax” means. And they don’t care. And sometimes this works really well.
The best example I can give is the dialogue in Shoebox. An editor probably would’ve thrown the entire MS in the trash if he took a single look at it. But it works so well for the story. So well. There are whole paragraphs full of run-on or half-formed sentences. And the entire book is written like that. But it’s used to convey the nervousness and doubt and excitement of the characters. And it’s so realistic. Most of the time if you read dialogue out from a book, it’s a little too perfect. It doesn’t sound natural. And although this dialogue is chopped up and crazy, it sounds exactly how a 17 year old boy would talk. It’s perfect.
TWO. Fan-fiction doesn’t do anything more than simply write a good story.
The previous point logically leads into this second one. The writers aren’t worried about making everything perfect. They’re not worried about pitches and query letters and trying to land an agent. They just want to write a good story.
There’s a lot of freedom in fan-fiction. Sometimes that’s a bad thing. Sometimes people get carried away. But sometimes, when the planets align and the wind blows in just the right direction, sometimes this is a very, very good thing.
When you’re not worrying about anything other than the story, your story comes alive. It’s not weighed down with doubt. There’s no worry about it needing to impress someone. Whenever we write and edit knowing that we’re eventually going to pitch this story to an agent, there’s that nagging feeling of did I do everything in my power to make this as perfect as possible? And sometimes that’s what makes it so imperfect. Readers can often tell when the writer places every word carefully, rather than just letting the story develop on its own.
I liken it to those Hollywood stars with the perfect hair, the perfect clothes, the perfect makeup, the perfect smile. It’s nice, they’re pretty to look at it, and you do kind of envy it. But it’s not natural. You know they’re putting on a show, and at the end of the day you’d much rather surround yourself with real people.
THREE. Fan-fiction gives us what we want.
Read the rest of the post on The Midnight Novelist.
NOTE: The first draft of The Weekend Book Marketing Makeover is HERE! Check it out.
So, the other day we asked if you would take a minute to fill out our quick survey, hoping we would get a few responses to help guide the direction of a free product we’re creating just for our indie friends.
Almost 70 responses later (and I promise, we read every single one!) we’re completely blown away and totally humbled. Thank you!
The time has come.
I’ve made you wait (patiently) for my secrets long enough.
Now, those two secrets might seem obvious (and even a bit unsatisfying) on the surface, but trust me when I tell you that these two keys have turned around my entire writing career.
Just like you, I was terrified that this whole self-publishing experience would turn out to be a waste of time that would yield zero sales and heaps of embarrassment.
Worse, I feared my only chance at success was to march through every website and social media outlet tooting my own horn like a one-man-band (a task that introverts such as myself would consider less desirable than death by firing squad).
With a focus for my marketing plan, the pieces began to fall into place. With each guest blog published, new mailing list sign-up and book sold, my reservoir of motivation grew.
Once I was motivated to keep making incremental improvements in my book marketing, I found it much easier to make time in my schedule to work on it.
Not a lot of time — just 20 or 30 minute segments here and there, much like the small chunks of time I find to go to the gym two or three times a week or watch my favorite TV show (New Girl, for the record).
Yeah, I still had to make sacrifices to come up with that time, but that was okay because I knew it wouldn’t be a pointless exercise. As long as it yielded a positive result (even if that result was just a valuable lesson for fine tuning my overall plan) it was worth the time spent.
To make back your financial investment in self-publishing (and make a profit), experience steady growth with each new book released, and eventually crack Amazon’s Top 100 in your genre, you need a plan.
When we asked you to tell us what book marketing tool we could create to help you, we got a variety of responses (two of my favorites: an author scrapbook for cataloging your inspirations and a dating guide for authors), including:
We’re going to satisfy all those wishes with a (totally free, but very valuable) makeover guide that will get you excited about marketing your book, eliminate that sleazy feeling, and debunk the marketing myths that are holding you back.
We will reform your book marketing attitude and direction, helping you gain those all-important traits of motivation and focus…in just one weekend!
We’re putting the guide together, but it’s soaking up a lot of time.
I don’t mind doing this for our author friends — you absolutely deserve it! — but I want to be sure this will really help you; that The Weekend Book Marketing Makeover is something you definitely want.
If you want a free copy of the Weekend Book Marketing Makeover, let me know by leaving a comment [on the original post].
If I can get 100 comments* by Monday, Toni and I will kick into high gear and release the guide next week.
Holy Cannoli, you guys are amazing! Less than 24 hours later, we’ve already surpassed our goal. We still want to hear from you, though: why do you want this book? How can Toni and I make the makeover truly beneficial and valuable?
If not, no worries — there’s still tons of gifts to wrap and blog posts to write. We won’t bring it up again!
* This would be the most comments we’ve ever gotten on a post, meaning…if you know someone else who could be helped by this guide, please spread the word!
This is a reprint from the Duolit blog.
This post, by Diane Morrow, originally appeared on her One Year of Writing and Healing blog. It is reprinted here in full per the blog’s Creative Commons licensing terms, and seems especially appropriate at this time, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.
There’s a story by Anton Chekhov entitled, simply, “Grief”–also sometimes called “Misery”–which speaks beautifully, I think, to what grief may require–and to how the process of writing might contribute to the healing of grief. Not so much the erasure of grief. And not, certainly, the erasure of memories. But the healing of grief.
I’ve included a brief piece about this story below. I’ve also included links to a brief summary of the research on writing about grief, several writing ideas, and a list of resources–both books and websites.
I. The Chekhov Story
When the story begins a cab-driver waits at twilight in the snow for a fare. His son has died the previous week. He waits a long time in the snow, and then finally—a passenger. As the evening wears on, the cab-driver attempts conversation with three different passengers. Three different times he attempts to tell his story—what has happened with his son. Each of the three interrupts him. One closes his eyes to stop the story. One informs him that we all must die. One simply gets out of the sleigh. Still later, the cab-driver attempts to stop and speak with a house-porter, but the house-porter tells him to drive on.
There’s so much that the cab-driver needs to tell. Chekhov writes:
One must tell it slowly and carefully; how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. One must describe every detail of the funeral, and the journey to the hospital to fetch the defunct’s clothes. His daughter Anissia remained in the village—one must talk about her too. Was it nothing he had to tell? Surely the listener would gasp and sigh, and sympathize with him?
The details must be told. And then—that gasp—that sigh—from the listener.
At the end of the day the cab-driver returns to the stables. He begins to speak to his horse:
Now let’s say you had a foal, you were that foal’s mother, and suddenly, let’s say, that foal went and left you to live after him. It would be sad, wouldn’t it?
The horse munches his hay and breathes his warm breath—and does not interrupt him. And that is how the story ends—with the cab-driver telling his story, finally, to his horse.
Perhaps what grief requires, as much as anything, is that the process not be interrupted. That it find a time and a place in which to unfold–with a companion (when possible) and without (too much) interruption. And, perhaps, at least for some of us, writing can play a role in this process.
Writing as a companion that does not interrupt? Writing as a prelude to telling the story to a companion?
II. Research on Writing About Grief
An Introduction to the Research on Writing About Grief
III. Advice about Writing to Heal Grief
A Word of Caution About Writing and Healing /a>
IV. Writing ideas for Healing Grief
V. Resources for Writing to Heal Grief
Here I’m including brief pieces I’ve written on selected books and websites that can offer company in the healing of grief. (This list is a work in progress and I plan to continue adding to this list.)
On Broken Vessels. A collection of essays by Andre Dubus.
On When Things Fall Apart. A collection of brief essays by the Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron.
On Grief, Loss and Recovery. A website.
On Writing the Heartache. A Website
This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective Blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.
I’ve been thinking about doing some rewiring lately. Not in my house, but in my brain: my writer’s brain. It seems to have gone a bit wonky.
Because I’ve realized that being a good writer isn’t just about grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Plot arcs are crucial, but they don’t mean a damned thing if your own story is out-of-whack. Writing is about being in the right place emotionally, not just on paper, but in your head.
So in doing my rewiring, I’ve identified some short-circuit issues—places where I seem to be getting in my own way, where a fuse or two got tripped. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Comparing Myself to Other Authors
I don’t do this as often as I once did (not really), but occasionally, I find myself slipping down that slope. It’s a bad one. Here’s me reading a book. It goes something like this:
Me: (First chapter) “Damn, what an awesome passage.”
Me: (Fifth chapter) “Damn, the dude can write.”
Me: (Tenth chapter) “Oh, Damn….”
Me: (Midbook) “Oh Sh#*… I’ll never be this good,”
Me: (End of book) “Ohgoodlord. I seriously suck.”
Coveting thy author: bad move. It’s a prescription for failure. It’s a trap, a self-imposed esteem ambush. Even worse, it’s the fastest way to kill inspiration and creativity. I can’t compare myself to other writers because quite simply, I am not That Writer.
Worrying About Numbers
I’ve decided to decide that numbers don’t matter—not in the overall scheme of things; or at least in the little one, that worrying about them doesn’t do a damned bit of good. Worry all you want, but whether you do or not, numbers are still going to happen. They’re a unit of measure, not a way of life. Sales rankings, book units, word count, my age, my checking account balance: all unhealthy obsessions. Life matters. Numbers don’t.
Forgetting Why I Write
I still do this. Sometimes (he said, grudgingly) . I get so caught up in deadlines, book deals, sales, and everything else that writing isn’t about, that I forget why I do it in the first place. And then I remember the times when none of those things existed, when it was just me and the written word, and the more I do, the more I realize, those were the best days of my life. It’s so easy to get caught up in the business of writing instead of the passion that drives it.
Not Trusting My Process
The moment I’m about to give up–when I’m chewing the ends off pencils, throwing things, and doing the primal scream–is always the exact moment before I make my biggest breakthrough, when the most amazing things happen. I’ve come to accept that this is part of my process. It’s how I roll. I can’t change it, so I’m going to learn to live with it and accept that I have to go There before I can get Here (even if it sort of sucks sometimes).
All Work and No Play:
That’s me.
I’m the first to admit it. All do is write. I don’t mind that all I do is write, because I love being a writer—but still, it feels like all I ever do is write. And it feels unbalanced. And unhealthy. And it feels like I have no life outside of writing. So my goal this year is to make time away from writing (After my deadline, of course–just in case Thomas & Mercer is reading this). To take Caleb to the beach more often and to simply enjoy. To live more. Writing is my passion, but my passion can’t thrive in a vacuum; I have to feed it with living.
Fear of Failure
‘Nuff said.
How about you? Got any bad wires that need fixing? Here’s the place to come clean. Promise, I won’t tell 😉