EWF Presentation: On Responding To Reviews And Social Media Etiquette

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This past weekend I had the honour of presenting at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, down in Melbourne. As ever, it was an inspiring and entertaining weekend, and it continues on for the next week. All the details here.

The panel I was involved with was all about Post Publication; what to do and what to expect after you’ve got that elusive first publication. I spoke a bit about how to respond (or not) to criticism of your work and a little bit about social media etiquette. As ever when I present, I strayed a bit from the script. I learned long ago that I’m not much good at sticking to the presentation I write and I tend to get distracted and freestyle my way to the end. But I think I pretty much covered all the stuff I’d planned to talk about.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

I thought it might be worthwhile to post my presentation here, as a recap for those at the festival and as something hopefully useful for everyone else. Bear in mind that this isn’t an actual article, but more a series of points as reference for verbal delivery, so it’ll be a bit choppy. I’ve tidied it up a bit into a more coherent (I hope) blog post. I hope you find it interesting.

EWF 2012 Presentation

I’m going to talk about making the right noises. Or, more importantly, not making the wrong noises.

So you’re published and you should be very proud of yourself for many reasons, not least of which being that you had the guts to put your work out there in the public eye.

Where it will be judged.

Where you will be judged.

So what are you going to do about that?

Nothing.

That, at least, is your default position.

If you think about saying something in response to someone’s critique of your work, stop and think. Double think. Do you want what you say to be out there forever, and forever gilding your career. Because it will be. Even if you delete it, it’s cached. And people will have shared it.

It’s a given these days that if you’re published in any form, it behoves you and your publisher if you have a social media presence.

Right now, you don’t have to have an online presence, but it benefits you enormously if you do. I would argue that before long a writer will have to have an online presence.

The reason we need that is primarily due to noise.

I’m loathe to use the often-touted term author platform, because I think that carries all kinds of unnecessary connotations, so I’m just going to refer to it from here on as “the presence”.

I’m a horror writer, among other things, so standing up here to talking a room full of people about The Presence amuses me.

There are various social areas of engagement: micro- and macro-arenas, if you like. This here, a room of people, is actually a micro-arena of social engagement.

You could conceivably interact with pretty much every one here over the course of a day or two, in small group conversations, the occasional one on one chat in a queue, perhaps an awkward, strangely polite few words beside each other at urinals or adjoining cubicles. It’s not intimate – well, the urinal thing might be, but overall, this event is not especially intimate, but it is micro.

This is where things have changed. This used to be the macro-arena. An event like this over several days or even weeks, used to be the biggest interaction a person could have. Not any more.

Now we have the internet.

Something like today, this event, has become a micro-arena because the mother of all macro-arenas now exists.

The thing about this relatively new super-macro-arena of social engagement is that it’s hectic. You want The Presence, your presence, to be there, because if you have your work out in the world, you need people to know about it and the internet is brilliant for that..

But getting noticed in that digital maelstrom is like trying to have a civilised chat at a heavy metal gig. And you need to make the right noise. Don’t be noticed for the wrong reasons.

There’s an old Chinese proverb – The empty vessel makes the most noise.

The usual example is a jar of beans. If there are only a few beans in it and you shake it around, it makes a huge racket.

Fill it to the brim with beans, shake it and it’s pretty much silent.

Of course, the point here is that you achieve through quality content – being a full jar – and you get noticed that way, rather than only having a few beans and shaking your jar as loudly as you can.

Sadly, the internet often favours those with few beans and a vigorous shaking arm.

We all have to play in that sandpit. And it can get pretty crappy in there.

While we’re busily filling our jar with beans and trying to make people notice it, all the other people out there will be judging us and our work.

And not everyone will like our stuff and through the unfiltered ease of the internet, they’ll tell us so.

I’m sure you’ve all seen someone immolate their career in a furnace of righteous outrage when they get a bad review, thereby getting noticed by making all the wrong noises. If you haven’t, you will now, because you’ll go looking for it. There’s plenty to choose from. (Edit: There’s a small one right here at The Word.)

And so, when you and your work are judged online:

DO NOTHING!

Here’s a freebie for you. Got a notebook? Write this down. The only response you should ever give to anyone who reviews your work, if you give any response at all, is this:

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and review my work.

That’s it. Nothing else.

If they called you a talentless hack whose work should be used in high school as an example of how not to write, you respond:

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and review my work.

That’s if you respond at all. You don’t have to. You can simply let everyone else do the talking. Of course, if they’re nice to you, you can thank them for that, though again, you don’t have to.

But you must never respond negatively. Never try to defend your work or get drawn into an argument with someone over their review.

It’s their opinion and they’re entitled to it, even if they’re clearly a brain dead slug who wouldn’t recognise quality literature if it rolled them in salt.

Never get caught up in shitfights about opinion.

Engage with social media, use The Presence to draw attention to your stuff, but don’t always and only talk about your work. If you’re constantly on the hard sell, people will quickly tire of your used car salesman persona and ignore you. Talk about all kinds of stuff, engage and interact, but never negatively, and occasionally mention your work among all that.

If you try to present yourself as something you’re not, if you act like a dick, regardless of how good your work might be, people won’t want to work with you or read you.

It’s just like real life. Act online like you would face to face and you’re off to a pretty good start. Unless you actually are a dick, of course. There’s no help for you then.

My philosophy when it comes to social media engagement is four simple points, and I’ll wrap this up with them:

• Be yourself;
• Don’t be a dick;
• Promote the good stuff;
• Ignore the crap and the negative.

Keep working on filling your jar with beans and doing your best to make sure people know about it, without constantly beating them over the cyber-head with it.

Everything else takes care of itself.

 

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Dear Indie Booksellers: Please Take Your Eyes Off Your Classmate's Paper And Focus On Your Own Work

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Dear Indie Booksellers:

Whether your operation is brick and mortar, strictly online, or a combo plate of both, you have an important role to fill in the communities you serve. It makes me sad to see shop after shop shuttered, and I miss the ones I used to frequent. So please, know that as both an author and a consumer, I want you to not only survive, but to thrive.

But many of you, those whose daily operational thoughts and actions are totally dominated by fear of being driven out of business by Amazon and the few big chains that are still in operation, need some tough love. As you read this, bear that thought in mind: I’m tough because I love.

Also bear in mind, as you feel the blood rushing to your face and your jaw clenching in anger while you read, there are some distinct advantages to being a small, indie outfit (as you probably know better than I do), and there are indie booksellers that are doing just fine without so much as a glance in Amazon’s direction; I will get to that by the end of this post, too. Okay, deep breath; here goes.

Please stop obsessing about, and badmouthing, Amazon and the chains. It’s no more attractive to retail customers than attack ads are to voters.

Please stop badmouthing consumers who shop at Amazon and the chains. Most consumers will buy some things from Amazon and the chains, and other things from smaller outfits. There’s no better way to ensure they’ll start buying everything from Amazon and the chains than to insult them.

Please stop trying to base your marketing and community outreach plans on guilting the public into believing their Amazon and chain purchases are leading to the destruction of reading culture as we know it. Nobody wants to be bullied or guilted into a purchase, consumers know they have a right to make the best choice for themselves based on their specific priorities, and they hold that right pretty dear.

Know that you cannot possibly compete with Amazon or the chains on price; you will almost never win with consumers for whom price is the ultimate, or only factor in a buying decision. But also know: this is not a bad thing. Those consumers were never going to be good customers for you anyway.

Know that if your bookshop is generalist, carrying a smattering of current release books in all the most popular genres and a bit of merch on the side, with few exceptions (e.g. captive audience shops like those in airports), you cannot possibly compete with Amazon or the chains on selection. They have massive, distributed networks of gargantuan warehouses stacked to the rafters with nothing but variety.

Please do not argue that you can order any of the same books one can find on Amazon or through the big chains, because we live in an age of pathological convenience and instant gratification. Most consumers who have already made the trek to the store are annoyed if they must leave empty-handed. Now granted, it’s not like in pioneer days when Pa would take the wagon into town for supplies on a weeklong trip that could very well end in death on the way there or back. But consumer expectations and demands have changed.

A consumer who can click his mouse twice to order the same item, at a lower price, and often with no shipping expense and two day delivery, isn’t often inclined to wait around in your shop for a few extra minutes while you fill out an order form, then wait a few extra days for your supplier to get the item into the mail and a few more days on top of that for book-rate delivery. Faced with the same choice a few times in a row, it won’t be long before the customer stops bothering to come into your shop at all.

But also know: this too, is not necessarily bad for you. Consumers for whom convenience is the thing were never going to be good customers for you anyway, you’re better off without them.

In the great retail deli counter of booksellers, you’re prosciutto; please stop trying to be bologna.

Look around: bologna’s cheap and plentiful, you can even buy it at 7-11 and some gas stations. But people who have a taste for prosciutto know it costs more than bologna and isn’t as easy to find. Prosciutto lovers are also generally willing to pay a premium for the best quality, and will typically feel the same way about buying other, related items, like cheese and wine. Figuratively speaking, prosciutto lovers are the customers you want, and they want you right back. Does the high-end deli or wine shop try to compete directly with 7-11? Of course not. The high-end place doesn’t even deign to acknowledge the existence of 7-11, because it doesn’t consider itself to be in direct competition with 7-11. Neither should you consider yourselves to be in direct competition with Amazon or the chains.

Do, and offer, what the 400-pound gorillas can’t: passion and specialized knowledge not only of the products you carry, but the communities you serve. I’ve noticed that most of the successful, healthy indie retailers in any community I’ve ever called home have one thing in common: they specialize, and whatever it is they specialize in, everyone from the store owner right down to the stock boy is an absolute geek about it.

While all of the stores I’m about to talk about are brick-and-mortar with an adjunct website, strictly online indie booksellers can mimic many of their winning strategies. Where a brick and mortar store has an author reading, you can have an author chat or post an interview. Where the brick and mortar store has an in-store book club meeting every week, you can have an online book club. Where the brick and mortar store staff can wax eloquent on areas of expertise to customers in the store, you can post your specialized knowledge and analysis online, in a blog.

Dark Delicacies, a Burbank bookshop, specializes in all things gothic, horror and supernatural. It’s the go-to shop for books, knick-knacks, toys, author readings, and even some clothing and accessory items that fit that description. If you’re looking for a onesie with a zombie on it, this is the place to go. It’s a fun shop to visit, and filled with so many enticing items that it’s near impossible for fans of this type of fare to walk out without buying something. And if you want to know anything about horror/goth books, horror/goth movies, goth art, goth style, dark music or the like, the staff’s near-encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm can’t be beat. Sure, you can find many of the same items on Amazon at a lower price, but nobody goes to Dark Delicacies for the prices. Burbank is an entertainment biz mecca and it borders on the North Hollywood Art community, so Dark Delicacies is smack in the middle of its target demographic: unconventional people with unconventional tastes. No Amazon or monster chain store can cater so effectively to a specific market sector.

Hennessy & Ingalls Art & Architecture Bookstore in Santa Monica does for art and architecture books and related merch what Dark Delicacies does for goth and horror. The thing about art and architecture books is, they’re generally in a larger format and more expensive than other types of books, will often have special features that don’t come across in a screenshot, and it’s hard to make a purchase decision without actually being able to look at them in person first. Santa Monica is an upscale community that’s home to a lot of entertainment types (actors, directors, etc.), so while H & I certainly doesn’t want to gouge its customers, it doesn’t have to worry much about setting price points high enough to earn a decent profit on each sale. It’s become a real destination for students and lovers of art and architecture, well worth the drive for those not in the immediate area, and it serves its clientele very well.

Mrs. Nelson’s Toy and Book Shop, located not far from my own neck of the woods, caters to schools, parents, and teachers in particular. Its selection of toys is easily dwarfed by a Toys R Us, but every toy in Mrs. Nelson’s is educational, and many of them are hand-crafted imports and award winners. Its selection of childrens’ and young adult books is likewise outgunned by Amazon and online chain booksellers, but that doesn’t matter. Just like at H&I, many of the books at Mrs. Nelson’s are large format picture books, popup books, and books that incorporate some kind of craft or game activity; these are all types of books you generally want to check out in person before making a purchase decision. The young adult selection at Mrs. Nelson’s is always better than that at any local brick-and-mortar chain store, as is Mrs. Nelson’s selection of books for teachers.

But here again, it’s the friendly, enthusiastic staff that puts Mrs. Nelson’s head and shoulders above any mere chain store or Amazon. If your kid has to do a book report on a biography, just tell the friendly staffer at Mrs. Nelson’s what grade your child is in, what her reading level is, and what her interests are, and you’ll be directed to a variety of choices that not only meet the requirements of the assignment, but any of which your child will actually enjoy reading. Any time an entire grade level at a local school is going to be reading some classic or other, Mrs. Nelson’s hears about it well in advance from its teacher and school administrator connections and will have plenty of copies on hand when they’re needed.

Mrs. Nelson’s has a calendar jam-packed with events and talks for kids, parents and teachers, some free and some fee-based (like the craft workshops), but probably the best events of all are the live readings from authors of beloved childrens’ books. The authors are always gracious enough to stick around afterward, signing books and meeting the kids who so love their work, and in cases where the author is also an illustrator, you can often find signed prints of illustrations from their books available for sale at these events. I’ve picked up a signed print from David Shannon’s wonderful "No, David!" at a reading there.

Nothing at Mrs. Nelson’s is cheap, either in terms of construction or pricetag. But I and plenty of other locals are happy to pay a little more for the higher quality and true community involvement on offer there.

So you see, it can be done, and it can be done well. I’m not saying it’s a simple thing to switch from a generalist store to a specialty shop, but I guess I am saying your survival may well depend on it. I want you to succeed, truly. I want a community dotted with Mrs. Nelson’s, Dark Delicacies and Hennessey & Ingalls, and I think plenty of other people do, too.

 

This is a cross-posting from Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Why Isn't My Book Selling?

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This post, by Cherie Burbach, originally appeared on Working Writers on 5/16/12.

It’s a question I get asked a lot: “Why isn’t my book selling?” This question isn’t reserved for the author who is clueless about marketing. I’ve been asked this by savvy authors, even business people who can’t seem to figure out the system for selling.

Sometimes the reasons why a book isn’t selling are easy: the cover is poor, the content is not edited or the topic is unappealing. But in most cases that I’ve seen, you need to dig deeper. So, overlooking the obvious, let’s go a step further because the mysteries of selling might be a lot easier to fix than you think.

1. Start Early: In many cases starting early means earlier than you think. Often, I see authors beginning their campaigns a month prior to book launch. If you do that, keep in mind that your results won’t show up for months (and months), often it takes up to six months to see anything you seed start to grow. That’s partially why marketing people will encourage you to start early because it can take so long to see results.

2. Limited availability: Having a book that can only be purchased off of your website isn’t a great way to promote a title. You want to make sure that the book is where your consumer is: on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even if you aren’t stocked on a bookstore shelf, you want to be sure that someone can order it. Limit your book availability and you limit your success. If you don’t give your consumer enough places to get your book, they will probably get someone else’s title instead. Don’t let your marketing serve the competition better than it serves you.

3. The rule of seven: You need to be everywhere. A lot. But what does that mean, exactly? It means that your reader (or potential reader) needs to see your book in a lot of different places. Have you asked yourself how many ways you are marketing the book? Are you active in any social media? Do you participate in blogs? Are you getting reviews? Think of the seven ways or access points that you need for your book to gain traction with the audience. Seven seems to be the magic number for many marketing people so go with that, use it as a goal. Your book should have access points in seven different areas. With so much out there begging for your readers’ attention you want to be sure that your book is getting an equal amount of attention.

 

Read the rest of the post on Working Writers.

Unconscionability

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This post, by JA Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 5/23/12.

Unconscionability (also known as unconscientious dealings) is a term used in contract law to describe a defense against the enforcement of a contract based on the presence of terms that are excessively unfair to one party. Typically, such a contract is held to be unenforceable because the consideration offered is lacking or is so obviously inadequate that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract.

If you read this blog, you know where I’m going with this. I’m going to point out some of the more one-sided, onerous terms in a standard publishing contract. And make no mistake–these are practically universal, and for the most part, non-negotiable.

For decades, the only way to get widespread distribution was to sign with a publisher. Writers had no choice. You either accepted the terms, or your book stayed in a file cabinet.

Now, I’m not a lawyer, and nothing in this blog post can or should be taken as legal advice. I’m just someone who has signed publishing contracts and gotten taken advantage of. If any of my interpretations are wrong, I welcome thoughts from those who know better.

Let’s start with one of the most obvious, and despicable, clauses, the Grant of Rights.

Author grants and assigns to Publisher the sole and exclusive rights to the Material throughout the Territory during the entire term of the copyright and any renewals and extensions thereof.

In other words, this contract is for the life of the author, plus 70 years after her death, plus renewals and extensions.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of any contract that extends beyond the life of the person who signed it. I would guess that my heirs would be bound to this contract, and potentially their heirs as well.

Does that seem a bit one-sided? Perhaps a smidgen unfair to the author?

"Territory" refers to where in the world the publisher is allowed to exploit these rights. In several of my contracts, Territory encompasses the entire world.

I don’t consider that unfair, especially if a publisher pays extra for these territories. But none of my contracts have clauses that say I get those rights back if the publisher doesn’t exploit them after a certain length of time.

So the publisher can have French or Japanese or Urdu rights for my lifetime plus 70 years, and might never do anything with them. But I can’t do anything with them, either.

Subsidiary rights follow a similar pattern. According to this contract I’m citing, the Publisher has the exclusive rights to:

    * Periodical or newspaper before and following publication
    * Publication of condensations, abridgments, and in anthologies
    * Book club publication
    * Direct sale and mail order
    * Braille

How many of these rights have they exploited?

    * ZERO

Why does this seem to me like a selfish child who has too many toys, but refuses to let you play with any of them, even though he won’t ever use them himself?

Joint accounting, or basketing, is another clause many authors (me included) got saddled with.

 

Read the rest of the post on A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

25 Reasons You Should Quit Writing

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This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 5/22/12.

Time for my annual, “Nope, you shouldn’t be writing, quit now, run away, go on, shoo” post. This time, in the form of the “25 things” lists that all you crazy cats and kittens seem to love so much.

1. It’s Really Hard

OMG YOU GUYS. Writing? It’s hard. It’s like, you have to sit there? And you have to make stuff up? For a living? And there’s all this… typing involved. You know what’s easier? Being an adult Baby Huey. Diaper-swaddled. Able to just pee where you sit. Your food liquified into a nutrient slurry and fed to you via a tube pushed through the grate of your giant human hamster cage. Okay, I kid, I kid. Writing actually is work. Intellectually and emotionally. You actually have to sit, day in and day out, and trudge through the mire of your own word count. Quit now. Save yourself from pulling a mental hammy.

[Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

 

2. You Probably Don’t Have Time

Writing takes time you do not possess. You’ve got that day job and those kids and, hey, let’s not forget your 37th replay of the entire Mass Effect series. Your time is all buttoned up in a starchy little shirt. Sure, Stephen King carved out his first novel one handwritten line at a time in between moments at his factory job, but if I recall, that didn’t pay off for him. (He should’ve just stayed working at that factory. Uh, hello, have you ever heard of medical benefits, Stevie? A pension? Lunch breaks? Duh.) Besides, eventually you’re just going to die anyway. Time won’t matter and it’s not like they’re gonna let you read your own books in hell. Better to quit now. Free up some time for drinking and masturbation. Er, I mean, “parenting.”

3. You May Have To Write A Whole Lot

Recently it came out that for writers to survive, they might have to buckle down and write more. Well, that’s just a cockamamie doo-doo bomb is what it is. That means writers might need to write — *checks some math, fiddles with an abacus, doodles a bunch of dongs in the margin* — more than 250 words a day?! Whoa. Whoa. Slow your roll, slave driver! I mean, it’s not like writing is fun. It’s an endless Sisyphean dick-punch is what it is. (See, Sisyphus carried an old CRT television up a dusty knoll, and when he got to the top, a faun punched him in the dick and knocked him back down the hill. That’s Greek history, son.) Write more? Eeeesh. Better to complain about it, instead. Or, better still: quit.

4. I Bet You’re Not That Good

I’ve seen your work. C’mon. C’mon. This is just between us, now. It’s not that good, is it? Lots of spelling errors. Commas breeding like ringworm in the petri dish that is a hobo’s crotch. All the structure of an upended bucket of donkey vomit. The last time an agent looked at your work, she sent it back wrapped around a hand grenade. So, you’ll do what so many other mediocre, untested, unwilling-to-work-to-improve writers have done: you self-publish, joining the throngs of the well-below-average with your ill-kerned Microsoft Paint cover and your 50,000 words of medical waste. Why do that to the world? Have mercy!

5. Hell, Maybe You’re Too Good

Alternately, you might be too talented. Your works are literary masterpieces, as if Raymond Carver, James Joyce and Don DeLillo contributed their authorial seed and poured it on the earth where it grew the tree that would one day be slaughtered to provide the paper for your magnum opus. And meanwhile, someone goes and writes porny Twilight fan-fiction and gets a billion-dollar book deal thanks to the tepid BDSM fantasies of housewives everywhere. You’re just too good for this. As you seem unwilling to write the S&M fan-fic version of The Hunger Games for a seven-figure-deal… well. This way to the great egress!

6. Ugh, Learning, Ptoo, Ptoo

“All you have to do to be a writer is read and write,” they said. Which seems true of anything, of course — “All you have to do to be a sculptor is look at sculptures and sculpt some stuff,” or, “All you have to do to be a nuclear physicist is read signs at a nuclear power plant and do a shitload of nuclear physics.” But then you went and read books and blogs and Playboy magazine articles and the backs of countless cereal boxes and then you tried writing and oh snap it turns out you still have more to learn. And learning is yucky. Ew, gross. Dirty, dirty learning. Not fun. Takes effort. Bleah.

7. Finish Him, Fatality

“I’m writing a novel,” you say. And they ask you, “Oh, is this the same one you were writing last year? And the year before that? And the year before that?” And you say, “No, those were different ones. I decided that–” And at this point you make up some excuse about publishing trends or writer’s block or The Muse, but it all adds up to the same thing: you’re not very good at finishing what you start. Your life is littered with the dessicated corpses of countless incomplete manuscripts, characters whose lives are woefully cut short by your +7 Axe of Apathy. You’re so good at not finishing, embrace this skill and quit.

8. Rejection Will Make You A Sad Koala

You will be buried in the heaps and mounds of rejection. And it’s never nice, never fun. Sometimes you’ll get the cold and dispassionate form rejection slips with a list of checkboxes. Sometimes you’ll get the really mean, really personal ones that stab for your heart with a sharpened toothbrush shiv (I once got a rejection slip early in my career from author and then-editor Thomas Monteleone that pretty much… savaged me rectally). Rejection will ruin your day. And, if you do get published, bad reviews will haunt you the same way. Did you know that every time I get a one-star review for Blackbirds, my eczema flairs up? I get all scaly and itchy and then I’m forced to fight Spider-Man as my supervillain persona, “The Rash-o-man.” (My comic book is told from multiple perspectives!) Anyway. Point is, rejections and reviews hurt. Don’t thrust your chin out so it can get punched. Hide in your attic and eat Cheetos, instead.

9. You Don’t Want It Bad Enough

You have to want this writing thing really bad. Sure, the saying goes that “everybody has a novel in them,” but thank fuck most of those people are too lazy to surgically extract said novel. I’ll just leave this one to the wisdom of Ron Swanson: “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”

10. Writing Really Cuts Into Your Internet Addiction

The Internet is like a… delightful hole you fall into, a Wonderland of porn and memes and tweets and porn and hate and cats and porn. I’m always wishing I had more time to just drunkenly fumble around the Internet, feeling its greasy curves and exploring its hidden flesh-knolls, but all this damn writing keeps getting in the way. “Oh, god, if I didn’t have this stupid book to write I’d be tweeting scathing witticisms and scouring the web for free ‘people-dressed-up-as-trees-and-flowers-and-pollinating-one-another’ porn.” (If people who dress up as animals and do it are called “furries,” what are people who dress up like plants? “Leafies?” “Greenos?”) Anyway. Quit now. Free up your time.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 15 more reasons, on terribleminds.

Everybody in Hollywood Needs an eBook Strategy

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files blog on 5/14/12.

As a result of spending my college days at UCLA, I had a handful of contacts in the Hollywood community when I came back East to live in 1969. When I started becoming familiar with New York publishing in the 1970s, I found myself, on occasion, shopping movie or TV tie-in projects. Armed with a script and a release plan, one could make the rounds of editors at the mass-market houses that had been assigned specific responsibility for this kind of acquisition.

At the time I was doing this kind of thing 30 or 35 years ago and more, the book business was growing wary of tie-ins to TV movies. They didn’t have the same promotional life as theatrical releases, even in those days when about one-third of the country was watching any network broadcast. Films that ran in movie theaters were definitely preferred as desirable book properties.

In the decades since then, the link between Hollywood and New York publishing has not exactly been severed, but it certainly hasn’t strengthened. One agent I spoke to told me that interest from Hollywood can definitely help raise the profile of a book project being peddled in New York, but the same agent agreed that the tie-in sale, where a script is novelized to just take advantage of the exposure the title and story will get through the movie, is all but dead.

Another agent, one with strong Hollywood connections through his office, had a slightly different point of view. He says it is still “humbling” to see how much being tied to a movie or TV show (“or even radio”) can “move the needle” on a book sale.

To the extent that the agent who believes in the power of Hollywood exposure to move books is right, the relative reduction in interest by New York publishers only increases the opportunity for Hollywood entities who exploit publishing through ebooks (and judicious and selective use of print) on their own.

(I recall two specific deals from my past relevant to this post. In around 1977 or 1978 I sold the book tie-in rights to a TV movie called “Cotton Candy”, which was produced by Ron Howard. In 1985, I sold the rights to two books to tie into the third “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie: one was a novelization of the first three films and the other a heavily-illustrated “making of…” book. I’d say the “Cotton Candy” deal today couldn’t possibly happen and “Nightmare”, which went to a major publisher, would be a real long shot.)

New York’s interest in Hollywood-originated content was, of course, centered on big properties. Hollywood’s enthusiasm about getting a book deal was often not very great. It didn’t add a ton of revenue (big publishing money for a big movie was small money to the movie producer) and the “promotion” done by publishers was trivial compared to what the movie studios did for the film.

In fact, there were often rights issues that got in the way. Even if the screenwriter had conceded the tie-in rights to sell the script, the studio might still be required to get clearances on the novelization, which would be a nuisance for a book project that often had annoyingly tight deadlines and not much benefit. If the screenwriter had held the tie-in rights and was the one selling to the publisher, it could become a bureaucratic nightmare to get art and logos from the film, which would be controlled by the studio, to promote the book.

New York’s incentives were often too limited to interest Hollywood. Hollywood’s unpredictability on things as basic as release dates, as well as the diminishing likelihood over time that any particular movie property would enjoy enough theatrical success to give real legs to the tie-in book, made systematic efforts unproductive for publishers. There haven’t been dedicated tie-in editors for decades.

But digital publishing changes many things. The relationship between Hollywood and the book business, because of the changes brought on by ebooks, will almost certainly be one of them.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

The Myth of Writer's Block

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This post, by Mark David Gerson, originally appeared on his site on 11/16/11.

It seems a good time to reprint this piece, which offers practical tips and guidance for sailing through and past whatever is getting in your way and back into creative flow. (If you’d prefer a video version of this piece, click here.)
 
Do you have other experiences of writer’s block or tips to get the other side of it? Please share them in the comments, [here].
 
You don’t have to experience writer’s block. Ever.

 
 
You don’t have to sweat over the blank page. You don’t have to chew your pencil (or fingernails) to the nub. You don’t have to wonder where the next word is coming from.
 
Writer’s block is a myth — not because you won’t ever feel stuck but because there’s no reason for you ever to stay stuck.
 
Do you wonder where your next breath is coming from? Unless you suffer from some sort of lung disease, you rarely think about your breath. You assume it will come and it does. One breath and then another…and then another.
 
It comes because you let it, because you don’t get in its way, because you’re not thinking about it or worrying about it.
 
Words can be like that, too.
 
If you trust in your story, in its inherent wisdom, the words always come. The words always come because they’re already there. They’re there because, in some sense, your story already exists.
 
It exists in the same invisible realm in which your dreams, visions and ideas exist. And if you believe in that existence, if you trust in that existence, if you know deep in your heart that your story is already present and smarter than you are, you will never lack the words your story needs for its expression.
 
By the way, I use the word "story" in its broadest sense, to encompass all that you would write — fiction or nonfiction, novel or screenplay, short story or poem. Everything you write, everything you experience, everything you share: It’s all story.
 
So how do you get to that place where the story’s words flow as effortlessly as your breath?
 

Read the rest of the post on Mark David Gerson’s site.

List of works, Work in progress, Keeping in touch…keeli

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I’m now a member of publestariat.com and looking forward to making new friends and hearing your news and comments. I’m doing my first sign-in and looking around. 🙂

JackieJGriffey

Cut the Clutter and Streamline Your Writing, Part III

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

In Part I of this series, I gave some tips and examples for streamlining your writing to make your message more accessible and compelling. In Part II, we saw some specific examples of words and phrases to cut or reduce, to write more powerfully.

Here, we continue to explore ways to cut out the deadwood by avoiding repetitions and convoluted phrasing and going for clear, concise writing. Remember, it’s about direct communication and carrying your reader along with the story. Don’t muddle your message with a lot of extra words that just clutter up the sentence and hamper the free flow of ideas.

Avoid repetitions and redundancies in all their forms: two words meaning the same thing; saying something in five or six words when you can express it with one or two; and phrases or sentences that keep saying the same thing over and over in different ways.
 

Redundant Phrases. Avoid this kind of “repetitive redundancy”:

Repetitive phrase:                 Concise equivalent:

basic fundamentals                 fundamentals

honest truth                             truth

future plans                             plans

regular routine                         routine

past history                              history

final outcome                          outcome

extremely unique                     unique

repeat again                             repeat

totally unanimous                    unanimous

sudden impulse                       impulse

unexpected surprise                surprise

overused cliché                       cliché

What’s the problem? It’s obvious — the only kind of truth is honest truth, an impulse is sudden, repeat means to do something again, a surprise is by nature unexpected, and so on.

Cut out the deadwood, words that restate what is obvious by the rest of the sentence, words that just repeat what you’ve already said, words that are just adding clutter to your sentence. For example, the phrases in brackets are redundant here:

We passed an abandoned house [that nobody lived in] on a deserted street [with no one around].

At this [point in] time, [the truth is that] complaints are increasing [in number], but I don’t see that as a problem [to be solved].

Cluttering your sentences with too many unnecessary words can subliminally irritate your reader. Here a few examples of this “little word pile-up” tendency:

Instead of:                              Use:

in spite of the fact that            although

as a result of                            because

came in contact with                met

at this point in time                  now

during the time that                 while

he is a man who                        he

make use of                              use

with reference to                      about

Here are some examples, altered and disguised from my fiction editing, of trimming excess words:

Before: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night telling everybody that he was going to find the bastard that ratted on him.

After: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night about finding the bastard that ratted on him.

Before: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. She hesitated for only a moment at the top in order to jam the hand gun she was holding into her waistband and give her time to figure out where to run.

After: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. At the top, she stopped to jam the gun into her waistband and figure out where to run.

Finally, avoid convoluted phrasing and leave out unnecessary little details that just serve to distract the reader, who wonders for an instant why they’re there and if they’re significant:

Before: He had arrived at the coffee machine and was punching the buttons on its front with an outstretched index finger when a voice from behind him broke him away from his thoughts.

After: He was punching the buttons on the coffee machine when a voice behind him broke into his thoughts.

In the first example, we have way too much minute detail. What else would he be punching the buttons with besides his finger? And we don’t need to know which finger or that it’s outstretched. Everybody does it pretty much the same. Avoid having minute details like this that just clutter up your prose.

Before: The officer was indicating with a hand gesture a door that was behind and off to the right of McKay. Angular snarl stuck to his face, he swung his head around to look in the direction the other officer was pointing.

After: The officer gestured to a door behind McKay. Snarling, he turned to look behind him.

Before: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective walked in the direction of the station’s front desk with a purposeful, nearly aggressive, gait.  He shoved himself bodily through the swinging door and locked eye contact with the uniformed officer on reception duty.
 
After: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective marched toward the front desk. He slammed through the swinging door and glared at the officer on reception duty.

Copyright © Jodie Renner, May 2012

Also, see my article entitled “Clear, Concise, Powerful Nonfiction Writing.”

Next: Resist the Urge to Explain (RUE), and One Plus One Equals One-Half

Jodie Renner is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, mysteries, and other crime fiction, as well as YA and historical fiction. Jodie’s craft of fiction articles appear here every second Monday, and on four other blogs once a month. For more info on Jodie’s editing services, check out her website.

Traditional Publishing And Self-Publishing Are Not Mutually Exclusive

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I’m getting a little weary of the hype that seems to suggest authors must either choose traditional or self-publishing, and that in no way could the two ever come together.

I also don’t like the polemic that has set authors against each other depending on how they choose to publish. I know this is an emotional topic and people have many different experiences of publishing in its myriad forms, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there and also see what you are thinking on the topic.

The choice of how to publish must be made per book.

I believe in the empowerment of the author to choose what is right for their book, and their business.

I also believe in the empowerment of the publisher to choose what is right for their business.

Some books are commercial enough that a publisher will pick it up because they believe it can make money for them. Some publishers may publish books because of love, not money but the bills still have to be paid.

Of course there are lots of great books that didn’t get picked up by the industry and many authors who feel disempowered by this rejection. Some authors have had bad experiences and have a justified grudge. But some books are just not right for traditional publishers at the time they were queried. The brilliant thing these days is that those books can be independently published by the author and do fantastically well. The author is empowered to publish.

But that doesn’t mean people should stop querying or aiming for a traditional deal if they want to.

I was on a panel on Radio Litopia the other night, discussing the London Book Fair and the launch of the Alliance of Independent Authors. In the chat room, it was suggested that all successful indies just wanted a book deal, and if they took it, they were somehow crossing a line. That they were betraying the indie ideal and proving that the establishment is all anybody wants.

But this clearly isn’t true either. There are successful indies accepting book deals, but they are plenty of authors leaving traditional to go indie, but who are not getting reported on.

So I think authors need to be empowered to consider their choices per book.

Is this book something a traditional publisher might be interested in?
Is this book something I want to relinquish control of?
Is this a project I prefer to have creative direction on?

Because most authors write more than one book.

Let’s face it. There’s so much creativity in all of us, and we have years of creation and publication ahead.

I am currently writing my 3rd novel in the ARKANE series, Exodus, and I have ideas for several stand-alone as well as more in this series. My current fiction is probably commercial enough for the traditional market, so I may decide to query it, although I am very happy with my indie sales so far.

I am also working on a re-release of my non-fiction book, How To Love Your Job…Or Get A New One (out in May). There is no way I would query that. Firstly because it is from my heart and the book I needed to write four years ago to change my life. The rewrite contains everything I have learned since then. Also, it’s not commercial enough for them and so wouldn’t be worth it. I believe in the book but I definitely want it to be published on my terms.

Lots of books written means lots of choice.

There are authors already managing the hybrid model.

Joe Konrath is always talked about as an example. He has books with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer as well as his own indie books. Barry Eisler is another famous example, but I’d like to call out several other great authors who are rocking the hybrid model.

CJ Lyons has 16 novels and over the years has been with four different publishers for various books but after looking at her options, she decided to publish some books independently including some from her back-list that she had the rights back for. In September 2011 she hit the New York Times bestseller list with an indie book, Blind Faith, which was then sold to Minotaur. However, she continues to publish indie books, including recent success Bloodstained, currently rocking the Kindle charts at #60 overall as I write. [If you want to learn from CJ, check out these courses.]

Michael Wallace signed with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint in a 5 book deal for his awesome suspense thrillers set in a polygamist enclave. But he also has 8 more books that he has independently published. Michael writes about the importance of persistence in this article.

Recent news has Boyd Morrison dropped by his publisher in the US, but who still has traditional deals in other markets. So he will be in perhaps the unique position of publishing his next book independently in the US, but traditionally everywhere else. Now that is really the hybrid model!

As I was about to post this, uber-author Jackie Collins wrote a blog post about her decision to self-publish. Clearly she has a a lot of books with traditional publishing but in this case she says “you’ve always got to be thinking two steps ahead of the game.” There are a lot of great nuggets for authors in that post. Definitely go read it.

This is actually the model I would like to have. Some books with traditional publishers and others indie published. Isn’t that the best of both worlds?

I am more aware of thriller authors, since this is the genre I read and write in, but perhaps you have other examples of hybrid authors – or perhaps you are one. I’d love to know your thoughts on this, so please do leave a comment.

 

 

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

Are You Trying to Create an “Impossible” Book?

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I don’t know about you, but I hate disappointing people. Authors have something to say, a message to get out, or a story that has to be told. They may have products to sell, too, but it’s no small thing to put your name on a book and send it out into the world.

Publishing promises to fulfill the goals we have for our books. But it’s no fun sitting across from an author and listening to her describe the book she dreams of publishing, only to realize that she’s stumbled into one of the biggest traps for self-publishers.

What’s that trap? Trying to create an “impossible” book.

I know you’re wondering exactly what I mean by an “impossible” book, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

It seems like new technologies really make our imagination light up, often with fantastic ideas of how we can use these technologies to create great books.

But sometimes the ideas we come up with are actual fantasies, and that’s not so good.

These days we can create books lots of ways:

  • Print books at offset book printers
  • Upload book files to print on demand suppliers
  • Create ebooks for different ereaders

When looking at a book, most novice publishers can’t tell how it was produced, or why it was produced that way. That’s understandable; otherwise they wouldn’t be newbies, would they?

But here’s the problem. Sometimes we think we can take the technology of one method and use it to create books that are usually produced by a different method.

This is particularly true now, when books are easier and faster to publish than ever before. However, we haven’t repealed the laws of physics yet, or the laws of economics either.

Examples from Real Life

What’s an “impossible” book? Consider this statement from an author (and maybe you’ve had thoughts like this too):

“I want my book to be just like a regular book but I want a couple of color photos inside because that way the readers will be able to see the [scene/parts of the process/complex diagram/beautiful dress] exactly the way it’s supposed to be seen.”

Book printing technology won’t let you easily drop a couple of color photos into a black and white book. Of course you could do it, but you would end up with either bad color reproduction or an awkward and expensive book that no one would buy.

It’s just the nature of the printing methods we have available right now. The day may come when these books become possible, but it hasn’t arrived yet.

Books with good color reproduction are printed by specialty printers on paper designed for that purpose. These books are more expensive to produce, heavier, and don’t make particularly good reading if most of the book is text.

Here’s another example:

“My book needs to be done with print on demand because I can’t afford a print run, but it’s also important to me that it’s affordable, so I want to keep the price of my 480-page novel under $10.”

Well, I’d like that too, but it just can’t be done. If you wanted to sell this book through online retailers like Amazon, you’ll need to give up a discount that would result in you losing a dollar for each book sold.

When you see books like these in the stores and wonder why you can’t do that too, remember that the publisher may have printed 10,000, 20,000 or more copies in order to get the cost per book low enough to sell at that price. Are you going to do that? I hope not, it usually doesn’t work out well for self-publishers.

Book sales are as much about how your books are distributed as anything else. The distribution methods available to you—a small self-publisher—will mandate how your book is produced and priced, and how much you profit from it.

How about one more?

“My gallery opening isn’t for 2 more months, so I’d like to get my book of [photographs/artwork/children’s drawings/interior designs/fashion] designed and printed and available by then.”

The best choice for most self-publishers to create a full-color books is to print them in Asia. Through a good print broker you’ll be able to get prices you just can’t match here in the United States. But overseas book production, even after the book is completely finished at your end, will take 8 to 10 weeks (with no hiccups).

Even then, you may have to deal with getting your books through customs, transporting them to their final destination and making plans for distribution and fulfillment.

Creating Books That Sell

When you begin to see what’s involved in matching up the realities of production with the vision of self-publishers, you realize that getting all this straight is one of the first things you need to do if you’re considering publishing your own books.

The projects that seem to work best for self-publishers get it right. They:

  • Match up with what their potential readers look for in a book
  • Have distribution that reaches those readers
  • Are priced to get the best production for those readers within that distribution channel

When it all lines up your book can truly fulfill the goals you’ve set for it.

I’ve seen too many authors spend lots of money—I’m talking tens of thousands of dollars—on software, designs, cover images and all the other preparation books take, without realizing that the book they are creating may be unwise, unprofitable, or even “impossible.”

So do your planning wisely. If possible, talk to someone who has produced the kind of books you want to create, and who understands the realities of how books are made. They will give you some guidance early in your process.

You’ll be glad you did.

 

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Why Everyone in Publishing–Authors, Agents, Publishers–Feels Disenfranchised

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This post, by Janet Kobobel Grant, origiinally appeared on the Books & Such Literary Agency blog on 5/14/12.

The other day I was talking with an editor about digital rights the publisher wanted back even though those rights had reverted to my client. I was surprised to hear her say: “We have ended up promoting authors’ books that are published by other publishers when we offered titles for free. That offer cost us, but other publishers benefited.”

I found myself thinking: “Welcome to the new world of publishing. Why are you surprised by that?” Neat lines of loyalty to publishers have melted away. But even so, doesn’t it benefit each publisher if all of an author’s titles sell well? When the water rises, it raises the entire boat. Yet the editor clearly thought of her publishing house as being in competition with other publishers, and she couldn’t imagine why she should help another publisher. That’s kind of an old-fashioned thought. While publishers might end up competing for a certain title or author, generally publishers are in competition with self-publishing, not each other. Which leads me to my next point of surprise in that conversation.

The editor went on to say that she found it disturbing that I had pointed out to her that my client could make more money by self-publishing her digital titles rather than returning them to the publisher, who intended to use those titles to promote my client’s other titles. In other words, those digital rights were useful to the publisher to make money off of other titles. But I have to weigh how much money my client could lose by reassigning those digital rights to the publisher. Why should the publisher be offended? It’s my job to think about all the angles of such a decision.

That exchange with the editor was one of several instances I’ve experienced that demonstrates publishers, agents, and authors all feel disenfranchised. The publishers feel wronged and wonder what happened to loyalty. The authors wonder what happened to publishers who worked hard and over the long-term to build careers. And agents wonder what happened to a world in which their major job was to place clients’ work with publishing houses.

That’s my point: Everyone feels disenfranchised and disrespected. Feelings run strong and deep on every side.

 

Read the rest of the post on the Books & Such Literary blog.

Hey All

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 Hi, I’m Tomara  Conner last summer I wrote a novel called "Nightwalkers" it’s like my baby and i’m finially ready to send her out into the cruel world.  I’m not the best at grammar and you can probably all see that by my novel but still…I try my hardest.  So if you guys don’t mind please check out my novel Nightwalkers.

Working with an Editor: Got My Edits Back. Now What?

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This post, by Cheri Lasota, originally appeared on her site on 7/15/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

I was about to email this information to one of my editing clients (yes, I edit fiction as well), but realized many writers out there could benefit from these tips. I’ve worked with dozens upon dozens of writers through the years, and I walk each of them through the best way to go about incorporating my comments and edits into their manuscripts ( MS). It can be overwhelming and sometimes even devastating for a writer to receive a manuscript back that looks like the editor dumped a can of red paint on it. I know. I’ve been on the receiving end for my own novel, Artemis Rising.

Here are the steps, in order, of how to go about receiving and revising your manuscript edit from an agent, editor, critique group, or kind friend with time on his or her hands.

Give yourself some peace and quiet.

Carve out a quiet block of time—several hours’ worth—to read through your MS. Try to clear your mind of distractions, upcoming appointments, the fight you had with your significant other. If you don’t have time to browse through slowly, then hold off until you do. The reason? If you’re rushed, you won’t be able to take anything in or think critically about it. The more you can retain in this first pass-​​through the better. In fact, it’s imperative. I’ve initially zoomed through edits from critique groups and failed to catch important points and suggestions. And worse, I’ve misread comments as snarky or unkind, when in truth, they were just specific and honest. When I cooled off and read back through, I would have to adjust my incorrect assumptions, which wasted my time and energy. In general, a critiquer or editor’s goal is to aid you in achieving your dream of publication. They wish to make your manuscript better, albeit through their own subjective viewpoint. But we’re all human, and sometimes editors/​critiquers aren’t as tactful as we could be. This is something, the writer must anticipate and eventually overlook. Why? Because you might miss the valuable advice buried under the snarkiness.

Don’t scan or skip.

Don’t skip ahead and scan through a document looking for how much the editor’s pen has bled onto the page. This is a self-​​defeating exercise from the beginning. Why? Because many of those comments might be praise. I often litter manuscripts with praise and encouragement. I do this because I know how important it is for writers to know when they are hitting the mark on their language, characterization, or plot.

Sit on the manuscript.

Yes, you heard me. Sit on your MS, like a chicken incubating an egg. That’s quite literally—okay, metaphorically—what you are doing. Incubating, concocting, inventing, spawning . . . That last one sounds wrong, doesn’t it? Anyhoo, let that sucker fester for a LONG time. I mean it. Don’t touch it after you’ve read all the edits and comments. I recommend two weeks at least. Perhaps a month. Here’s why: a writer’s natural response to criticism—either positive or negative—is to be defensive. That doesn’t make the writer childish or foolish. It is just a natural response, and waiting to dive into revisions cools off that natural tendency. If you wait for a long time before jumping in, you’ll be shocked at how different your response is to the edits than the first time around. I’m always surprised at the difference, and I’ve been at this for years.

Mull over your options.

During your "vacation" from the MS, start thinking about some of the major issues the editor mentioned. Allow yourself to come up with ideas for how to fix that character’s inconsistent personality or that plot hole in chapter nine. Maybe write some notes down to remember for later or freewrite possible avenues to explore. But again, don’t touch the MS. You’ll thank yourself later, when you’ve had time to let your anger or confusion cool and you begin to see the edits for the first time with clear, objective eyes.

Make a copy.

Whether you’re working with hard copy or electronic edits, you’ll want to start revising in a COPY of the manuscript the editor worked on. You want to preserve those original comments/​edits for future reference as well as keep your original draft intact in case you need to go back to it for any reason. So copy and rename that master file with the current day’s date. And every day you work on your edits, save the previous day’s draft, and start a new file with the current days’ date. This way, you’ll have a log of all edits you’ve ever done and when. Works brilliantly. I learned that trick from the president of a publishing house actually. And don’t worry about drafts filling up your hard drive. Your manuscript file is probably not even a megabyte, which is nothing compared to one music or photo file. Oh, yes . . . one more thing: BACK UP YOUR NOVEL FILES frequently. All of them. Most of us have lost drafts to laziness, stupidity, or busyness. Learn from those previous mistakes. Back up, even if you are just emailing the file to yourself. ‘Nuff said.

Turn your Track Changes ON!

After your "vacation," give yourself a long block of time to begin looking at your MS. Have a notepad by your computer or an open blank document up to write notes. Critical at this stage: turn your Track Changes on (in Microsoft Word). Yes, you heard me right. Any changes you make need to be tracked from here on out. Why? Because you are more likely to introduce errors into your manuscript at this stage than at any other. Yup. This is because despite your best efforts, you’ll start rushing through accepting edits, and you won’t pay attention to the fact that an extra space just slipped into that sentence or the first letter wasn’t capitalized, etc. This happens ALL the time. Trust me. I know.

Choose your direction.

This depends on the type of edit/​critique you’ve received, but usually you can separate your edit into the "easy stuff" and the "hard stuff." The easy stuff is straight copyediting issues: grammar, punctuation, etc. These are relatively quick fixes. I have to say that I heartily recommend this route. It will:

  • ease you into the revision process.
  • eliminate a lot of the editing marks that are riddling your document.
  • ensure that most of your grammatical problems are fixed before you press on to more difficult edits.

Conversely, you could go straight to the more time-​​consuming developmental or substantive edits. Bear in mind that this will save you some time if you end up cutting a lot of scenes from your manuscript. But again, I don’t recommend this route for the reasons I listed above.

Don’t just make changes. Learn!

If you’ve hired a professional editor to work on your manuscript, you’ve invested in that editor’s expertise and knowledge. To get the most from your investment, don’t just go through and blindly make changes. Understand why the editor has made these edits and suggestions. If you notice an editor has repeatedly added in paragraph breaks around blocks of dialogue, find out why. What is the general rule/​guideline? What is the goal? If you notice the editor has re-​​done your comma usage in a particular type of sentence construction, find out what you are doing wrong. Memorize that grammar rule. Look it up in the Chicago Manual of Style (the fiction writer’s style manual). Learn the rule and vow never to make that error again. This will aid you not only as you rewrite your current MS but in subsequent manuscripts as well.

Incorporate only what you feel will serve your story.

Remember that you don’t have to incorporate all suggestions. I personally break my edits into two categories:

  • Comment is optional/​recommended.
  • Ignore at your own risk.

My optional comments usually involve issues of language, style, voice, clarity, or sentence structure. I’ll suggest a change in these instances sometimes, but there are always other ways to smooth out structure, rhythm, or language in your own author’s voice. Often, I’ll set off these types of comments with a "consider this" or question mark to make its optional nature clear. For example, I might say: Delete this phrase to tighten the sentence structure here? Or: Consider expanding on your description of the MC to better illustrate her tendency toward self-​​deprecation. Other editors/​critiquers might use different methods, so ask them if you are unsure.

The key is to use both your head and your gut when making these decisions. If you feel a suggestion may compromise the overall plot or the characterization or the theme, etc., then put that comment on the back burner. You can always come back to it later or ignore it completely if you feel it doesn’t serve your story well.

WARNING: There is a big difference between deciding that a change isn’t right for your story and being too lazy to make the change. Confession: This is a problem for me personally as a writer. I’ll often see the merit in a critiquer’s suggestion, but due to lack of time or energy, I’ll put it aside and "conveniently" forget to go back to it. *blushes with shame* This is a bad practice for writers, considering that our ultimate goal is to better our books. And don’t forget that the critiquer took his or her valuable time to make the suggestion in the first place. So, don’t be lazy or use busyness as an excuse. Do the hard work—you won’t regret it.

Overhauling? Then get out of your MS.

If your editor has recommended doing major revisions to whole scenes or chapters, I highly recommend copying and pasting those scenes into a new document. Playing with ideas or major fixes outside of your master MS file accomplishes two things:

  • You eliminate the possibility of losing any valuable original material.
  • You allow yourself the freedom of exploring ideas and possibilities in a "throwaway" document.

Once you’ve rewritten a scene to your satisfaction, you’ll want to re-​​paste it into your master file and save the file again.

Take another vacation.

Once you’ve made (and tracked) all the edits you can bear to make without keeling over from exhaustion, then take another "vacation." Yes, you’ve earned it! But only a couple of days’ worth, because you’ve still got work to do on this draft. Once you’re back at it, go through the MS again and accept your tracked changes one by one. Make sure that you double check those edits before you accept them, to ensure that you aren’t introducing more errors. You’ve spent countless hours on spit-​​polishing your masterpiece; you don’t want to screw anything up at this point, eh?

Get to work!

All right, now that you know all my secrets for a proper revision, you’ve no more excuses. Get to work and get that manuscript out there already!

 

What Makes a Critic Tick? Connected Authors and the Determinants of Book Reviews

by

A study of literary critics was recently conducted and the results have been posted at Harvard Business School’s The Working Knowledge journal.

Executive Summary:

The professional critic has long been heralded as the gold standard for evaluating products and services such as books, movies, and restaurants. Analyzing hundreds of book reviews from 40 different newspapers and magazines, Professor Michael Luca and coauthors Loretti Dobrescu and Alberto Motta investigate the determinants of professional reviews and then compare these to consumer reviews from Amazon.com.

Key concepts include:

  • The data suggest that media outlets do not simply seek to isolate high-quality books, but also to find books that are a good fit for their readers. This is a potential advantage for professional critics, one that cannot be easily replicated by consumer reviews.
  • Expert ratings are correlated with Amazon ratings, suggesting that experts and consumers tend to agree in aggregate about the quality of a book. However, there are systematic differences between these sets of reviews.
     
  • Relative to consumer reviews, professional critics are less favorable to first-time authors. This suggests that one potential advantage of consumer reviews is that they are quicker to identify new and unknown books.
     
  • Relative to consumer reviews, professional critics are more favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes.
 

Author Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of expert reviews in the book industry. Reviews are determined not only by the quality of the product, but also by the incentives of the media outlet providing the review. For example, a media outlet may have the incentive to provide favorable coverage to certain authors or to slant reviews toward the horizontal preferences of certain readers.

Empirically, we find that an author’s connection to the media outlet is related to the outcome of the review decision. When a book’s author also writes for a media outlet, that outlet is 25% more likely to review the book relative to other media outlets, and the resulting ratings are roughly 5% higher. Prima facie, it is unclear whether media outlets are favoring their own authors because these are the authors that their readers prefer or simply because they are trying to collude.

We provide a test to distinguish between these two potential mechanisms, and present evidence that this is because of tastes rather than collusion — the effect of connections is present both for authors who began writing for a media outlet before and after the book release. We then investigate other determinants of expert reviews. Relative to consumer reviews, we find that professional critics are less favorable to first time authors and more favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes.

 

Read the full text of the paper (in pdf format) here.