What Is Steampunk?

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This post is from Steampunk.com.

 

This is a good question that is difficult to answer.

 

 

To me, Steampunk has always been first and foremost a literary genre, or least a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that includes social or technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam) usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion against parts of it (the punk). Unfortunately, it is a poorly defined subgenre, with plenty of disagreement about what is and is not included. For example, steampunk stories may:

– Take place in the Victorian era but include advanced machines based on 19th century technology (e.g. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling);

– Include the supernatural as well (e.g. The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger);

– Include the supernatural and forego the technology (e.g. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, one of the works that inspired the term ‘steampunk’);

– Include the advanced machines, but take place later than the Victorian period, thereby assuming that the predomination by electricity and petroleum never happens (e.g. The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling); or

– Take place in an another world altogether, but featuring Victorian-like technology (e.g. Mainspring by Jay Lake).

“It’s sort of Victorian-industrial, but with more whimsy and fewer orphans.”

– Caitlin Kittredge

There are probably plenty of other combinations I’ve forgotten, but that’s steampunk as a genre in a nutshell. Steampunk has also cross-pollinated its way into other genres, so there is steampunk romance, steampunk erotica, and steampunk young adult fiction. I haven’t spotted any steampunk picture books yet, but I won’t be surprised when I do.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on Steampunk.com. 

Call Me Chicken

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This post, by Gayle Carline, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

One thing all fiction writers must do is build tension in their stories. No matter the genre, the main character must have a goal and be thwarted at every turn from achieving that goal. The cop wants to catch the serial killer, but is given false leads. The sleuth opens a cabinet that holds an important clue, but is conked over the head with a teapot. The handsome cowboy is set to ask out the cute barmaid, but is told by her psycho-stalker roommate that she’s a lesbian.

It’s always something.

One of the things I have to do is put my P.I. in dangerous situations. I don’t like danger myself. I don’t walk down dark alleys, don’t snoop around where I’m not wanted, and have never been in a physical fight, unless you count the time my mare bit me and I smacked her with the hose. I don’t even open other people’s medicine cabinets when I’m visiting, unless I’m looking for dental floss to dig out that piece of overcooked brisket wedged in my molar.

Honest, that’s all I’m looking for.

If I made a horror movie, it would last exactly five minutes. When I heard the weird noise outside, I would not go out looking for the source, carrying a candle and wearing a negligee. For one thing I don’t own a negligee. What I would do is call 911, turn on all the lights, gather every weapon and sharp object in the house and barricade myself in the back bedroom. And… credits roll (police sirens in the background).

So putting Peri in the line of fire is not easy for me. I like Peri. I don’t want her to be injured or killed. But I’ve read armchair detective stories and I’m just not as interested in the action if the main character is not in the thick of things. Secondary characters in danger don’t get me as involved as when it’s happening to the protagonist. So Peri must go where I don’t want to tread.

Apart from my own fear, I confess, when I begin to write a scene where Peri is going down the dark alley or snooping around, I am actually afraid that the scene is going to get out of my control and Peri will be boxed into a corner with no escape. I have written plenty of scenes where I want them to go in one direction and my characters revolt and march off the opposite way. What if the danger doesn’t go the way I plan? What if the villain is a step ahead of her and she walks into an ambush?

I know what you’re thinking: just rewrite the scene. (Okay, you’re probably thinking I’m loony as a Toon, too, but let’s leave that for another post.)  

I’d like to think I can rewrite the scene, but I can’t. I mean, I can, but the original version will haunt me. All the time that I spend revising that chapter so that she gets a phone call just before she opens the door, which delays her enough to figure out that she’s being set up, I’m still thinking: nice dream but I know she really walked straight into that gunfire. 

So when I begin an action scene, I decide on the outcome first. Is Peri left unconscious? If she gets shot, where? Once I know how she will survive, then I imagine rewinding the scene and playing it backward, so to speak. This way, I can direct the action from the start so it ends my way.

After all, I can’t depend on my characters to do it for me.

So, writers, how do you thrust your characters into the line of fire? And readers, how much do you trust an author to take you to that edge without driving you over it?

Am I a “Real” Author If I Only Publish Ebooks?

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This post, by Jim Edwards, originally appeared on Dvorah Lansky‘s Book Marketing Made Easy.

For some authors this is a real concern. They write books to gain credibility and readership as much or more than they do to make money. Being perceived by others as a “real” author is very important to them, and for good reason. However, the world of “books” has changed dramatically in the last decade. What made you a “real” author just a few short years ago may not represent what can actually make you a legitimate author today.

What is a book?

A book is a unique publication with a beginning, middle and end aimed at a specific target audience. Length can range anywhere from a few dozen pages to over a thousand. Readers can enjoy real books either in physical (print) format, or in electronic format on any of the hundreds-of-millions of ebook readers, iPads, and computers in the world. Real authors publish their work as ebooks and don’t even think twice about it.

What counts as a “published” author?

In the “old” days, a published author had a traditional publishing house and everything that went along with that (including tying up your rights for eternity, doing all your own marketing, and earning a pittance on each sale). NOW, a published author is someone who has their book for sale where people can find it and buy it (online or offline).

Amazon Changed The Game

I got my first taste that the world of publishing had changed in the late 1990’s when I was still selling real estate. I’d written and self-published a book about how to sell your house yourself, and was using it to help build my business. A home seller in the area told me “Selling Your Home Alone” wasn’t a real book, not because I didn’t have a publisher, but because she couldn’t find it for sale on Amazon!

 

Read the rest of the post on Book Marketing Made Easy.

The Smartest Thing In Publishing Is To Be Flexible

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This post, by Kassia Krozser, originally appeared on the fortykey publishing blog on 11/5/12.

The only certain thing in publishing nowadays is that everything moves really fast. If you should describe the actual situation with three adjectives, which ones would you pick and why?

I’m not so great with adjectives, but here are three words I think describe the current state of publishing:

 

Uncertain. Nobody knows what the next year will bring, much less the next ten years. In 2007, people were brushing off digital as "less than 1% of our business". Or, it wasn’t something that needed serious attention. Today, trade publishers (U.S., particularly) are seeing approximately 20% of their business coming from digital sales. The thing is, the changes in the print/digital selling mix are uneven.

On top of that, *nobody* really knows how big the digital marketplace is. If you poke around outside traditional publishing, you know self-publishing is seeing huge gains. But what only gets attention is a small portion of that self-publishing market. Beyond the stories that make the headlines (or invite scoffs and skepticism among certain ranks of publishing insiders), there is a a massive marketplace. Now maybe most of those people aren’t making a fortune, but they are disrupting traditional publishing channels.

Exciting. Technology is making it possible for us to reimagine storytelling. It’s also allowing us to get books and other things we read (the list is so long) into the hands of more people than ever before. Right now, I am particularly interested in how innovation plays out in the world of education. The State of California is making a huge push toward open source digital textbooks. This is going to encourage new entrants into the marketplace, and, if history holds true, they won’t be thinking of textbooks in the same way established players do.

Entrenched. One major problem I see across all types of traditional publishers is a desire to maintain business as usual. This is completely understandable — this digital thing is so new, so uncertain, and, frankly, the print model is still working very, very well for most publishers. But, as you note, everything moves really fast these days, and if anyone is stuck in the mode of "that’s how we’ve always done it", they will be left behind.

That sounds harsh, but the publishing industry (as we know it) doesn’t control "publishing" the way it once did. Or maybe it never did, but it seemed that way. Either way, there are smart innovators out there ready and able to fill voids left by publishers who are too busy standing in place to take advantage of how this market is changing every day.

Could you point out an example of innovation in publishing that is worth to look at in the next future?

 

Read the rest of the post on the fortykey publishing blog.

More Thoughts On Libraries And Ebook Lending

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files on 10/31/12.

On Thursday of this week, I’ll be at the Charleston Conference appearing in a conversation organized by Anthony Watkinson that includes me and Peter Brantley. Brantley and Watkinson both have extensive backgrounds in the library and academic worlds, which are the milieux of most attendees at this conference. I don’t. I am being brought in as a representative of the trade publishing community. Watkinson believes that “the changes in the consumer area will break through into academic publishing and librarianship.” I am not so sure of that.

 

I am imagining that what creates interest, and concern, among all librarians about trade publishing has been the well-publicized tentativeness of trade publishers to serve the public libraries with ebooks in the relaxed and unconcerned manner with which they have historically been happy to sell them printed books. Big publishers have expressed their discomfort with ebook library lending in a variety of ways. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, up to this writing, have declined to make ebooks available to libraries at all. HarperCollins instituted a 26-loan limit for ebooks with libraries a little over a year ago. They received apparently widespread — certainly loud — criticism when they announced the policy, but it seems now to have been accepted. Penguin and Hachette delivered ebooks for lending and then stopped. Now both are putting toes back in the water with experiments. And Random House raised their prices substantially for ebooks delivered to libraries for lending.

So, six for six, the major publishers have struggled publicly to establish a policy for ebook availability in libraries.

The concern, as I’m sure my conversation-mate Peter Brantley will point out, extends to what rights libraries have when they obtain ebooks. I’ve expressed my belief before that all ebook transactions are actually use-licenses for a transfer of computer code, not “sales” in the sense that we buy physical books. When Random House declared the opposite in the last fortnight — that they believed they sold their ebooks to libraries — it only took Brantley a wee bit of investigation to find that Random House’s definition of “sale” didn’t line up with his.

Of course, his doesn’t line up with mine. I believe (he’ll correct me on stage in Charleston, if not in the comments section here, if I’m wrong) Brantley accepts the one-file-transferred, one-loan-at-a-time limitation that has been part of the standard terms for libraries since OverDrive pioneered this distribution over a decade ago. That control enabled ebook practices to imitate print practices (except for the “books wear out” part, which Harper was addressing with its cap on loans). Without it, one ebook file transfer would be all that a library — or worse, a library system — would need of any ebook to satisfy any level of demand. The acceptance on all sides of that limitation says clearly to me, without resort to any other information or logic, that there is an agreement — a license — that the library recipient of an ebook file accepts in order to obtain it.

People who spend a lot of time with libraries and library patrons are quite certain that the patrons who borrow books and ebooks often also buy books and ebooks. (Library Journal offers patron data that supports that idea.) Although library services are many-faceted and not primarily designed to serve as marketing arms for publishers, the libraries themselves see the ways in which they aid discovery by their patrons.

And they also see the patrons that couldn’t afford to buy the books or ebooks they borrow and therefore wouldn’t and couldn’t read them if they weren’t available in the library. Since these patrons become part of a book’s word-of-mouth network by virtue of being able to read it, it looks like this behavior by publishers is not only anti-poor and anti-public, but also counter to the interests of the author and the publisher itself. (In fact, most publishers acknowledge the importance of libraries to the viability and marketing of the midlist although that, until very recently, was adequately addressed with print alone.)

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

Publetariat Observes Veterans Day

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Publetariat’s staff is off in observance of Veterans Day, which is a national holiday here in the United States and is also observed in some other countries as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. No new content will be posted to the site until 6pm PST on Monday, 11/12/11, when we will resume our normal editorial schedule. Members can still post to their own Publetariat blogs, and the forum will remain open, but new registrations, moderated comments and contact form messages will not be processed during this break.

(no need to click through – this is the end of the post)

Want To Be Read 100 Years From Now? Here’s How.

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This post, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, originally appeared on her The Business Rusch.

 

So, you want to be an artist. You want to be one of those writers everyone has read, even though you’re long dead. You want your work in libraries, on bookstore shelves, and in digital format. You want professors to assign your work, or kids to sneak that “crap” that everyone decries but everyone loves.

There are two very simple ways to do this:

 

 

1. Write a lot of good stories. Not beautiful words. Good stories. Remember, fiction gets translated into a variety of languages, and in those languages, your original words get lost. Only stories get translated, stories with great characters, great plots, and unforgettable moments. I wrote a lot about this over the summer. Start with my post titled, “Perfection.”

2. Establish Your Estate Long Before You Die. Your copyrights will outlive you. That’s how they’re designed. If you don’t know what I mean by this, then get yourself a copy of The Copyright Handbook, and start reading it now. You don’t sell fiction; you license copyright. Learn what that means, and learn how it will impact your estate, your heirs, and your legacy.

You’d be surprised how much of the entertainment news you consume is about estates. You’d be surprised how much of the books, movies, games, and television you consume exists because someone handled an estate well or someone handled it poorly.

Or didn’t have an estate at all.

Don’t be like our friend Bill Trojan who, long before he died, would say about his (considerable) estate, “I don’t care what you do with it. I’ll be dead.”

My husband Dean Wesley Smith fought Bill for years to get a will, because Bill had some very collectible books and extremely rare pulp magazines, things that had only one or two copies left in existence. Dean thought it a crime for those copies to die with Bill, and badgered Bill into getting a will.

Bill finally executed one, an annoyingly inadequate one, that caused us a lot of legal problems just to get validated. Dean blogged about this entire saga (including the legal issues) earlier this year. If you want a scare story about estates and what you might leave your heirs with, read this.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on The Business Rusch.

When Bad Ideas Sabotage Killer Concepts

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This post, by Larry Brooks, originally appeared on his Storyfix site. 

Also known as, “The Attack of the Whopper Coincidences.”

Or, “Four Plot Points and a Funeral.”

Or, “Dancing with the Deus ex Machina.” 

A good story is very much like a romance.  Not terms of genre – what you’re about to read applies to all genres – but in the sense that the relationship between concept and execution, as well as writer and reader, is a love story.  

It’s about initial attraction and chemistry.  Gratification, fascination, and soon, a deeper meaning and purpose. 

It always starts out so… well.

Then, ultimately, it becomes about something else, too.  Like, living together.  The pursuit of harmony.  Always the intention, rarely the case.  Because the deeper you go, the harder it gets.  The deeper you go together, the more it relies on work instead of the hormones that got you into this.

And that’s where the wheels come off in many stories.  But you don’t see these stories… because they don’t get published.  Not matter how sexy the original idea.

There are so many ways to mess up a great idea.

The first is to actually try to turn an idea into a story… before you turn it into a compelling concept.  Maybe your idea arrived fully cooked as a viable concept, but that rarely happens (which begs the question, can you tell the difference?). 

You can plan or you can pants, but the search for story is an inevitable part of the romance between you and your original idea.  Skip that courtship phase and you’re likely to end up with a broken heart.

A story is never built on a single idea. 

Launched, perhaps, but the ensuing exposition is nothing if not a series of subsequent and subordinated narrative ideas – decisions – along the way. 

Each one is a chance to make or break the whole dramatic enchilada.  Thus…

The second realm of story death comes with the inevitable challenge of making those ideas work.  It’s a qualitative thing, the very essence of art (and you thought art was the sum of all those pretty sentences)… the difference between superstar authors and the rest of us.

This is where so many writers trip up, falling victim to the siren song of the original idea (which, you soon realize, was only in it for the money from that first sizzling glance across a crowded room…).

The mechanics of exposition can kill your concept.

Because this is where writers get desperate.  They are in a corner (one into which they have written themselves) and they know it… so they jump the shark.  They change lanes from credible to unlikely, from necessary to eye rolling.

Happens all the time.  I know this because I read unpublished stories for a living.  And I’m here to tell you, it’s a deal killer.

An effective story needs to change along the way to the climax.

It needs to evolve.  Hidden things need to be unearthed.  Old assumptions need to be overturned.  Surprises need a door through which to enter the narrative.  

Your hero needs to discover things.  Find out stuff. 

This is the machine of your story.  The backbone of dramatic exposition.  Every story is a machine, and it is the concept that defines the scope of what the machine needs to accomplish along the way. 

Each story beat is a connection, a weight-bearing moment of forward-motion. 

And too often, writers make those connections using the prize from a Crackerjack box or a page from an old comic book instead of a finely calibrated fire-forged, finely milled, ingenious steel bolt welded solidly, logically into place. 

 

Read the rest of the post on Storyfix.

25 Twitter Accounts to Help You Get Published

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This post originally appeared on Online Education Database (OEDB).

We here at the ol’ Online Education Database can’t promise that following these Twitter feeds by periodicals, bloggers, agents, editors, and writers will score you a coveted publishing contract. But we can promise that you’ll more than likely find at least one of them extremely useful when researching the five Ws (and one H) of getting your name out there as an author. And if these don’t work, chances are they link up to a microblog that does. And if that doesn’t work, then the blame probably sits with you.

 

  1. Writer’s Digest:

    One of the best routinely released resources for authors provides updated information about the state of the publishing industry, generating ideas, self-editing, and everything else they need to know.

  2. Publishers Weekly:

    Follow this absolutely essential Twitter feed for all the latest news and trends regarding the publishing world; after all, knowing how it works is half the battle (Disclaimer: It might be a little more or a little less than half).

  3. GalleyCat:

    Media Bistro’s GalleyCat blog (and, of course, accompanying Twitter) focuses on delivering the headlining stories about publishing today and tomorrow. Also probably the next day and the day after that.

  4. Carole Blake:

    She didn’t write THE book on how to get published, but this literary agent wrote A book on how to get published. Head to her Twitter for expert advice regarding the writing and submission process.

  5. Kevin Smokler:

    Publishing and other media collide in one illuminating resource for writers and wannabe writers trying to make it in the business as it transitions fully into the digital age.

  6. Victoria Strauss:

    As the co-founder of Writer Beware, this veteran writer knows what her fellow artists need to look out for to prevent being preyed upon by publishing scams.

  7. SPR:

    The Self-Publishing Review posts up advice, reviews, and other resources devoted to helping writers launch their careers autonomously.

  8. New Pages:

    New Pages catalogs literary journals looking for submissions, so it would behoove every short-form writer out there to check them out regularly and see what new opportunities pop up.

  9. FreelanceWritingJobs:

    Like the name says, this is one of the top resources where writers head to find themselves some gigs to launch their careers. It might not be about publishing what they want, but it still provides links to numerous opportunities as well as advice.

  10. Writers Write:

    Another fully fab resource where writers turn to for advice and publishing news as well as information about what relevant jobs are currently available around the United States.

 

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 15 more Twitter accounts for writers and authors to follow, on OEDB.

Non-Writing Spouses

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This post, by Kaitlin Ward, originally appeared on YA Highway.

If you’re here reading this blog, odds are high that writing is a major part of your life. For many of us, writing is a thing we do whenever possible, something that makes us happy, that we love, that is a massive, important part of our lives.

But writing might not be something that matters to the people we marry (or date). Every couple has at least some interests that don’t overlap, and that’s okay. It’s good, really. You need things that are just for you, whether it’s writing or something else. But sometimes it can be weird when your spouse just cannot fathom how writing could possibly be fun, and when you want them to be able to be part of this thing that matters so much to you. As a person whose spouse is completely uninterested in writing–and in fiction in general–I have navigated these waters, so I thought that I would share some things I have learned.


1. It’s okay that they don’t care about writing–or even reading. Really, it is. Unless they have an actual interest, there’s no reason to try to force them to understand the wonder that is writing. They have their own hobbies, and it doesn’t lessen their quality as a partner if they don’t care about active sentences and the beauty of a carefully crafted book.



2. You don’t have to tell them everything about your writing, but you should tell them something. I don’t remember exactly when I told my husband that writing was something I did a lot, but I know it was fairly early in our relationship. I couldn’t exactly hide the dozens of notebooks that I have always had in storage bins, drawers, and all over the floor. But the point is, even if they can’t relate to it, your significant other should know about the things that you love, especially a hobby as time consuming and (often) emotionally trying as writing.



3. They will listen if you need them to.

 

Read the rest of the post on YA Highway.

The 5 Essentials Of A Powerful Book Introduction

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Introduction

Your book’s introduction is a quick way for you, the author, to explain how your book is going to help the reader. This explanation is what will make your introduction a powerful sales tool for you to use to hook the reader into buying your book and reading it. Buyers of your book don’t care why you wrote this book. They just want to know how your book can help them improve their life. Your book’s introduction gives you an opportunity to convince the buyer that your book is the best one out there that can help them. To do this you should include the following five parts in your book’s introduction.

1. The Hook – Why Should They Buy Your Book?

Answer this question properly, and you will sell more books. Here you must compel your potential buyer to read more of your book, so they will want to buy it. To do this you must grab the reader’s attention. Grab them with a telling snipped from your book, or a shocking news headline, or dramatic facts and statistics, or a famous quote. What are their concerns or challenges that your book will help them solve? Put yourself into their shoes, and explain why they should buy your book.

2. The Connection – Describe Your Reader’s Problem

Here you must make an emotional connection with your reader. You wrote the book, so you must really understand the challenges, problems, and risks, etc., that have caused your audience to seek out your book. Why is your audience having these issues? Why haven’t they been able to solve them? Why are these issues so hard to fix or solve? Explain to your audience why and how you know about these questions. Convince them that you are the one with the answers and that you want to share this information with them.

3. The Benefits – How Will Your Book Help The Reader?

The benefits to the reader are what will sell your book, so include several of your most important benefits. The reader is only considering buying your book and reading it because of the benefits that the reader will gain. Include some general benefits, and several specific benefits to reading your book. Keep explaining why they should buy your book. For example, “You will learn how to . . .”; Discover ways to . . .”; "You will improve your . . .".

4. The Format – What Will Happen In The Coming Chapters?

Here you will give the reader a quick idea about how your book is arranged. Your book’s table of contents has already given the reader a quick glimpse of how your book is arranged and what it will discuss. But here you will tell the reader about some of the other features that are not reflected in the table of contents. For example, tell the reader about the side-bars, tips, facts, stories, interviews, quotes, pictures, diagrams, appendix, etc., that you use to illustrate or enhance your chapters.

5. The Invitation – Entice The Reader To Read On

This is the conclusion to your introduction. Just like in a standard conclusion to an essay, quickly summarize what you have been saying in your introduction. Then close the paragraph quickly and enthusiastically with a very short invitation to turn the page and keep reading your book.  For example, “Turn the page and let’s get started”; “Onto chapter one”; “Let’s get started”; “Turn the page and let our journey begin”.

Conclusion

If you don’t use these simple sections in your book’s introduction, you may never achieve the level of sales that you and your book deserve. On the other hand, write a simple and straight-forward introduction with these five sections, and readers will want to buy your book.

This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com

 

The Preface: Share Your Inner Passion And Inspiration For Better Book Sales

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What Is The Purpose Of The Preface?

The book preface (PREF-iss, not PRE-face) is a short explanation about why you wrote your book. The book introduction, on the other hand, is all about the benefits the reader will get from reading your book. The preface is about you, and the introduction is about the reader. But never forget, both should be written by the book’s author, and that both must show your passion and thereby make an emotional connection with the reader. In contrast to the preface and introduction, the book’s foreword is not written by the book’s author. It is written by a guest author, generally a person that is well know within a certain industry, that can bring third-party credibility to you, the book’s author.

What Is The Structure Of The Preface?

The preface discusses the story of how your book came into being, or how the idea for your book was developed by you, the author. In order to be a successful marketing tool, it must be written to show your passion for the subject matter, and your inspiration for writing the book. Here is your chance to infect the reader with your passion for the topic you have written about. Show the reader that you are a kindred spirit and have a passion in common. Here your aim is to make the readers empathize with you and identify your genuineness in writing the book. Answer questions such as “How was the concept of the book born?”; “How did you think of writing the book?”; “What are you trying to achieve by writing this book?”; “What are your qualifications to write this book?”; “What other books have you written?” The explanation to these questions can be autobiographical. You can tell the background, the context, and the circumstances in which brought you to write this book. The bottom line must be, “Why did you write this book?”. Be very clear and honest about this. And always write in the first-person, and in a friendly manner. Also, use your own voice when writing this way, and speak directly to your audience.

How Do I Close The Preface?

The main body of the preface is followed by a statement of thanks and acknowledgments to people who were helpful to the author during the writing of the book. If the list of acknowledgements is too long, a separate section should be created just for the acknowledgements. Alternatively, some authors use both sections within the same book, and use the acknowledgements page for the most special contributions – and the lesser contributors are kept in the preface. Another alternative that some authors use it to combine the preface and the introduction into one section and label it as the introduction. And finally, the book preface is  signed by the book’s author, along with the date and place of writing. Fini.

 

This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com

 

 

Questions To Ask Yourself Before Writing Your Book’s Introduction

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Introduction

Your book’s introduction is a quick way for you, the author, to explain how your book is going to help the reader. This explanation is what will make your introduction a powerful sales tool for you to use to hook the reader into buying your book and reading it. You must understand that buyers of your book don’t care why you wrote this book. They just want to know how your book can help them improve their life. Your book’s introduction gives you an opportunity to convince the buyer that your book is the best one out there that can help them. To do this you should include the following five parts in your book’s introduction.

1. The Hook – Why Should They Buy Your Book?

Answer this question properly, and you will sell more books. Here you must compel your potential buyer to read more of your book, so they will want to buy it. To do this you must grab the reader’s attention. Grab them with a telling snipped from your book, or a shocking news headline, or dramatic facts and statistics, or a famous quote. What are their concerns or challenges that your book will help them solve? Put yourself into their shoes, and explain why they should buy your book.

2. The Connection – Describe Your Reader’s Problem

Here you must make an emotional connection with your reader. You wrote the book, so you must really understand the challenges, problems, and risks, etc., that have caused your audience to seek out your book. Why is your audience having these issues? Why haven’t they been able to solve them? Why are these issues so hard to fix or solve? Explain to your audience why and how you know about these questions. Convince them that you are the one with the answers and that you want to share this information with them.

3. The Benefits – How Will Your Book Help The Reader?

The benefits to the reader are what will sell your book, so include several of your most important benefits. The reader is only considering buying your book and reading it because of the benefits that the reader will gain. Include some general benefits, and several specific benefits to reading your book. Keep explaining why they should buy your book. For example, “You will learn how to . . .”; Discover ways to . . .”; “You will improve your . . .”.

4. The Format – What Will Happen In The Coming Chapters?

Here you will give the reader a quick idea about how your book is arranged. Your book’s table of contents has already given the reader a quick glimpse of how your book is arranged and what it will discuss. But here you will tell the reader about some of the other features that are not reflected in the table of contents. For example, tell the reader about the side-bars, tips, facts, stories, interviews, quotes, pictures, diagrams, appendix, etc., that you use to illustrate or enhance your chapters.

5. The Invitation – Entice The Reader To Read On

This is the conclusion to your introduction. Just like in a standard conclusion to an essay, quickly summarize what you have been saying in your introduction. Then close the paragraph quickly and enthusiastically with a very short invitation to turn the page and keep reading your book.  For example, “Turn the page and let’s get started”; “Onto chapter one”; “Let’s get started”; “Turn the page and let our journey begin”.

Conclusion

If you don’t use these simple sections in your book’s introduction, you may never achieve the level of sales that you and your book deserve. On the other hand, write a simple and straight-forward introduction with these five sections, and readers will want to buy your book.

 

This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com

 

 

 

5 Ways To Get Your First Draft Material Out Of Your Head And Onto The Page

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This month, thousands of people will write 50,000 words, but these will not be fully formed books, for this is an outpouring of first draft creative material and that is a hugely important distinction.

First draft material is allowed to be crap, and often is and it’s meant to be so.

So don’t worry! A perfect sentence does not appear fully formed on the page, and it is not followed by another one, and another, to create a perfect story in one go. That’s not how writing works – but it is the myth of writing which we must dispel.

“Writing is rewriting,” as the great Michael Crichton said. Remember that, and then go write 50,000 words of first draft material that you can shape into something marvelous later.

So how do you get your first draft material from your head onto the page? Here are some of my tips.

(1) Set a word count goal

This is why NaNoWriMo works so well for people, as you have to write around 1700 words per day in order to ‘win’. Many pro-authors, like Stephen King, have a goal of 2000 per day, even birthdays and Christmas.

If you don’t have some kind of goal, you won’t achieve anything. I really believe that. It also breaks the work down into manageable chunks.

For a full length novel, say 80,000 words @2000 words per day = 40 days of consistent writing

For a novella, say 30,000 words @2000 words per day = 15 days of consistent writing

Of course, you have the editing process after that, but you can’t edit a blank page. So set your word count goal, and get writing.

[Personally, I always use word count goals in the first draft writing phase, but I don’t do that many fiction words every day of the year.]

(2) Write Or Die

write or die This awesome software at WriteOrDie.com is a way to burst through the internal editor that snipes at you as you write a load of crap in your first draft phase.

The software allows you to set a goal in time or word count. I started with 20 minutes, and then you have to keep typing or it will play some psycho violin music, or the screen will start turning red, or in kamikaze mode, your words start disappearing. At the end of the session when you reach your goal, trumpets sound and you can save the text.

I highly recommend this if you are struggling. This is how I wrote 20,000 words in my first NaNoWriMo and created the core of Pentecost. Maybe 2000 words survived the culling/editing but you have to write a lot of crap to shape it into something good (at least when you’re starting out anyway!)

(3) Scrivener

project targets

Scrivener Project Targets

I wax lyrical about Scrivener all the time, but it has some cool productivity tools. You can set Project Targets, so 50,000 words for example, and you can also set Session Targets, so mine is set at 2000 words. Every time you sit down to write, you can have those targets floating by your work and the progress bar moves so you can see how its going. Very motivating.

I also like to put as many scenes in as possible before I start writing, so I have somewhere to start each day. So right now, I have 11 one-line scene descriptions that I can fill in as I go along. I will change them, add to them etc but it means that whenever I sit down for a writing session, I can start filling in the blanks if I don’t know what else to do.

There’s also a Compose mode so you can fill the whole screen with a blank piece of paper. Keeps you focused:)

(4) Set a timer for focus sessions, and use Freedom or other software to turn the internet off

As part of my daily productivity tools, I set my (iphone) timer for 90 minutes and then I write, or edit, or work on a specific project for that long. But you can start with 10 mins or 15 or whatever you can manage.

The important thing is not to get distracted in that time, and DO NOT check the internet or twitter or your email or make a cup of tea or anything. You can use software like Freedom to stop you accessing the ‘net if you really can’t resist without help.

(5) Get up really early and work while your brain is still half asleep

sunriseWhen I wrote my first novel, Pentecost, while working full time, I used to get up at 5am and write for an hour before work.

Johnny B. Truant recently did this to write 2 novellas in 2 months (although he started at 4am some days – ouch.)

I think the early morning helps because your brain isn’t polluted by everything that has happened in the day, and your internal editor is still asleep. However, this totally depends on whether you’re a night-owl and your family situation etc etc … so find your own groove, but the point is, you need to schedule some time that you don’t have normally to get stuff done.

[Here’s another productivity tip. I got rid of the TV nearly 5 years ago, about the time that I started writing, blogging and changing my life – there’s some correlation there!]

Trust the process of emergence

I heard this in an interview with Brene Brown on Jonathan Fields’ Goodlife Project, and it is totally true.

Even if you plot your books, sometimes you won’t know what is coming until the words appear on the page. Something happens when you commit to the page, to the word count goal and you write through the frustration and the annoyance and the self-criticism.

Creativity emerges. Ideas emerge. Original thought emerges.

Something happens – but only if you trust emergence.

You can see the process work itself through by checking out the journey of my first novel. It starts in NaNoWriMo 2009 with my first draft material and ends with 40,000 books sold nearly 2 years later. The core idea completely changed :)   but I hope it will encourage you to see that first drafts are just the beginning.

If you don’t force yourself to get the first draft material down, you will never have anything to work with. So fight resistance and get it done.

How do you get your first draft material written? Please leave a comment below. 

 

Image top: Bigstock Shakespeare, Flickr CC Sunrise by Pilottage 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

NaNoWriMo Fail

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This post, by Carolyn Jewel, originally appeared on Girlfriends Book Club.

 

Every year for the last several years, I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and failed.

 

 

 

In case you don’t know, NaNoWriMo occurs during the month of November and participants all have the single goal of writing 50,000 words. That’s about 1,600 words a day.

My friend Rachel Herron (Check out her website at YarnAGoGo.com) sold her NaNoWriMo novel, by the way. She’s a wonderful writer.  So am I, I swear! but I remain a NaNoWriMoFa.  

I even failed the two years I was invigorated, inspired, and pumped up by attending talks by NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty. He spoke at my Uni when I was in grad school, and a few years later, at my RWA chapter. He’s an inspiring speaker, so if you ever get the chance to hear him, GO!

I have copious excuses, of course. Some of them are lame and some of them are really good.  When I was in grad school, my son was quite young, I was working full time, and I was under contract for more books. I was quite busy and I had my schedule worked out to the point where every moment was spoken for. There was no wiggle room for adding stuff. 

A couple of years I was writing a book anyway, but when November hit, both times I was in the Deleting Crap Phase and I ended up with negative word count. And a way better book by the end of December when I was in the Writing Way Better Stuff phase.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on Girlfriends Book Club.