The Future Makes A Comeback

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This post, by L.J. Sellers, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 11/4/11, and is reprinted here in its entirety with the author’s and site’s permission.

We’ve all seen the ads for the new book When She Woke (by Hilary Jordan), a futuristic novel in which a criminal’s skin is dyed to reflect her crime, a story that’s been compared to the classic, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. In recent years, other similar novels have been wildly popular too, such as The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. These novels are dystopian and reflect a society that has completely broken down and morphed into something ugly.

As a reader, my love of futuristic thrillers—which I distinguish from dystopian novels—started long ago with a terrific novel by Lawrence Sanders called The Tomorrow File. For the record, he’s my all-time favorite author, and TTF may be one of the best books I’ve ever read, or at least that’s how I remember it.

The story was written in 1975—and takes place in the year 1998. I read it in college and was captivated by Sanders’ vision of the future, in which genetic classifications are based on whether one is natural, produced by artificial insemination, artificial inovulation, cloned, or otherwise created without the necessity for sexual intercourse. The objects (people) of tomorrow eat food synthesized from petroleum and soybeans, and enjoy unrestricted using (sex) and an addictive soft drink called Smack.

The new language took some getting used to, but the story was so engaging with so many twists that it was hard to put down. Most important, the book triggered my fascination with well-told futuristic thrillers.

Another of my favorite novels set in the future is The Handmaid’s Tale, published ten years after The Tomorrow File. The book won numerous awards, was made into a film, and is so well known I won’t bother with the details, except to say it’s a feminist portrayal of the dangers of a conservative society. I admire Atwood immensely for tackling the subject. (I took a stab at that issue when I wrote The Sex Club…but that’s another story.) Reading The Handmaid’s Tale further inspired me to someday write a thriller set in the future.

Interestingly enough, yesterday a blogger posted comparative reviews of The Catcher in the Rye, The Handmaid’s Tale and my futuristic thriller, The Arranger. The blogger focused on insecurities as the theme, both social and personal, and concluded they were necessary in fiction. First, I find it interesting that people are reading or re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale from 1985 because of the advertising for When She Woke. It’s fun to see the novel resurrected.

Second, it’s an honor to be listed in the same company as works by J.D. Salinger and Margaret Atwood.

I don’t mean to imply The Arranger compares to any of the brilliant works I’ve mentioned, most of which imagine a shockingly different future. (I’m still not sure why Catcher in the Rye is in there, but that was the blogger’s choice.) My story is set only 13 years in the future, and I don’t consider it dystopian. It presents a bleak vision of the United States, in that the economy is stagnant, government has shrunk, and people without health insurance are left to fend for themselves. But all that seems quite realistic to me and didn’t require much imagination.

The Gauntlet, however, is an intense physical and mental competition that provides a backdrop for my novel and required me to create entirely fictitious scenarios.

Overall, I’m excited for the revived interest in futuristic novels. Does it represent a dissatisfaction with our current state of affairs or a fear of what is waiting for us? Or both?

Do you read futuristic novels? What are your favorites? What themes do like to see?

 

Getting A Big Name To Write Your Book’s Foreword: An Introduction For Self-Publishers

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Once again, we are happy to promote a post from member Joseph C. Kunz Jr.’s Publetariat blog to the front page.

Getting a notable VIP, industry guru, or media celebrity to write the foreword for your book is a great way to jump-start bigger sales and get positive publicity for your book. If you are an unknown author, getting a notable leader in your field to write your foreword is essential if you want to get readers to take a chance on you and buy your book. Having your name associated with an industry leader will greatly enhance your credibility within your industry and with your readers. 

Forewords give the endorser another place to discuss and show-off their skills and knowledge. It also gives them and an opportunity to connect with your reading audience in a deeper, more meaningful way. This is a great selling point to consider when requesting this service from someone. You get a foreword for your book that will help improve your sales, and the foreword author gets additional exposure and credibility for their own name and business. It’s a win-win situation for the book’s author and the foreword’s author.

The process of getting a foreword written is the same as with endorsements. But instead of simply writing a few sentences endorsing your book, the endorser writes what amounts to being a glorified recommendation letter to the reader. It can be as short as several paragraphs or as long as a few pages, and gives, in greater detail, the reasons why the industry guru recommends your book.

One thing you should remember – that when you ask a VIP to write your book’s foreword, that you should not be selling your prospect on your book’s good points. You need to sell them on their own value as a potential endorser of your book. In other words, don’t start off by telling them how great your book is. Start by saying why you admire their opinion and why it’s important for you to have their opinion included in your book. Also, make sure that you share your reasons for writing the book. Discuss the subject of your book in detail.  Finally, discuss who the market is that your book is addressing so that the endorser can readily see that you are marketing your book to the same audience that they serve. Doing this allows them to see the advantage in having their name visible to your network of readers. They are looking to connect with their own audience as much as you are.

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

Categories, Key Words, and Tags, Oh My: Why should an Author Care?

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Two weeks ago I published my second historical mystery, Uneasy Spirits, and in the process I was reminded of how confusing it can be to determine the best category and key words I should use on Amazon to describe my book. Since there are several other authors who have been wrestling with the same question in the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative (HFAC) that I belong to, I decided to write this post on how to use categories and keywords to maximize ebook sales.

For the purpose of this post I am focusing on ebooks on Amazon, in part because that is where I have the most experience, but also because Amazon is definitely ahead of the other ebook stores in its sophisticated approaches to helping readers find books. My understanding of these issues is based on my experience as a self-published author using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). Finally, as with much of the publishing process, there is still a lot of conflicting information about how Amazon categories, keywords, and tags work, so some of what I say is more of an educated guess than documented fact.

First some definitions:

Categories: When a book is uploaded into KDP, an author (and, I assume, a traditional publisher) has the opportunity to choose two categories. It used to be that Amazon allowed you to choose five categories, which is why some books have more Kindle Store categories listed at the bottom of their product page. When you, as author, choose a category for your book, you are actually choosing a browsing-path for readers. That browsing-path/category consists of a hierarchy of sub-categories and your book is available for readers to discover under each of the parts of that hierarchy. For example, in the case of my most recent book, Uneasy Spirits, one of the two browsing-path/categories I chose was:

Fiction—Mystery&Thriller—Mystery—Historical 

If you browse for Uneasy Spirits in the Kindle store, you will find it in under all four parts of the hierarchy:

Fiction
Fiction–Mystery&Thriller
Fiction—Mystery&Thriller—Mystery
Fiction—Mystery&Thriller—Mystery—Historical  

Note that each time a reader goes one step further down the hierarchical browsing-path, there are fewer books to browse. For example, as I write this, here are the numbers of books in each of these four areas:

Fiction [324,671]
Fiction–Mystery&Thriller [43,629]
Fiction—Mystery&Thriller—Mystery [9,700]
Fiction—Mystery&Thriller—Mystery—Historical   [73]

By carefully choosing my category, I make it much more likely that a reader will find my book, since the pool of books is smaller with each step down the path.

The “categories” Amazon offers when you upload your book to KDP are apparently BISAC categories, a book industry standard for subject headings.  What is confusing is that the “browsing path” that Amazon generates from your choice is not always the same as the BISAC category you chose. Amazon apparently converts the BISAC categories that you pick into the Amazon browsing-path categories and subcategories that show up in the Kindle store — and the two are not always the same.

To make matters more confusing and frustrating, this conversion process does not always work accurately. You can read more about this on my blog post, “Working Amazon” and on Suzanne Adair’s blog post, which provides a hilarious description of the trouble she had with getting her wonderful new Revolutionary War thriller, Regulated for Murder, in the right category. (Suzanne is a fellow HFAC author.) To complicate issues further, the browsing categories for books and ebooks are not identical, and Amazon creates browsing categories like “newly released” and “best sellers” and “editors’ pick” — some of which are separate from the browsing-path/categories and some of which are available as additional qualifiers to the browsing-paths. Are you lost yet?

Keywords: When you publish your book with KDP, you can choose seven “key-words” in addition to the two categories. These are really key phrases since they can be more than one word. For example I used terms like “Victorian Mystery” and “cozy mystery.” These “key-words” are apparently used by Amazon in its own search engine — along with words in your title and subtitle and product description. This may seem very straightforward, until you get to the next definition—tags.

Tags: These are another kind of key-word or key phrase. They are listed on a book’s product page under the heading “Tag this product” and were designed by Amazon to help customers describe and find products using key words called “tags.” Readers can add tags to a product page and can indicate that an existing tag is useful. It used to be that the “key-words” that authors chose at the time of uploading a book to KDP were automatically displayed as “tags” on the book’s product page, but this evidently no longer happens. Of course, after publication, an author can add tags to a product page just like readers can.

There is contradictory information about how Amazon uses “tags” and “key-words” in its own main search engine, but I believe that “key-words” that the author has assigned to a book are searchable in Kindle store, the but “tags” are not.  For example, I did not add the word “clairvoyant” as a “key-word” when I uploaded my book Maids of Misfortune to KDP, but it has been added by customers as a tag on the Maids product page. So, if I go to the Kindle bookstore on the Kindle device (or the main search box on the Amazon website) and search for “clairvoyant,” Maids of Misfortune does not show up in the 100 books that are listed in the search result. So, apparently, Amazon does not include the customer-created “tags” in its Kindle bookstore search (available on the Kindle device) or in the standard search box on the Amazon website.

“Tags” are available for a different kind of searching, though. The “tags” themselves are clickable links. Readers can click on any “Tag” on a product page and find other books that have the same “tag.”  For example, if, on the Maids of Misfortune product page, I click on the tag “clairvoyant” (which 19 people checked as useful), the result is 152 books, including Maids of Misfortune. Also, in the “Tag” section of the product page there is a special search box labeled “Search Products Tagged with.”  By entering terms in that special search box, you are searching only “tags.”  Searching “clairvoyant” using the special tag search box finds those same 152 books. Note that “tags” are typed in by users so you will see misspelled tags!

Why Should an Author Care?

Categories, keywords, and tags can be used to help readers find your books, and these are methods that are generally not available to authors of print books that are sold in brick and mortar stores. As authors of ebooks, we need to learn how readers find books in estores like the Kindle store and use the tools that are available to us to maximize our sales.

When you sell a book to a traditional publisher, who then distributes that book to bookstores, you, as author, really don’t have much to say about how readers find your books. You hope that the bookstores will shelve your book on the right shelf (and that they have separate shelves for your genre) and you hope your publisher can convince the seller (or pay them) to put your book in special places like “newly released” tables, or “best seller” tables, or under “staff recommendations.” Beyond that, there isn’t much authors can do besides cultivating booksellers at conventions and through book signings, hoping this will convince them to feature their books — a time-consuming and expensive proposition. (Although I know one author who always turned their books and books of their friends so that the full cover showed whenever they found them in a bookstore!)

However, self-published authors, by their choice of categories, keywords, and tags, can increase the chances that a reader will find their books in an ebook store. I am going to discuss two strategies an author can use to achieve that end.

The first strategy is to choose a category (browsing path) that ends up with a small number of books at the end of the path.

For example, I could have chosen as one of my two categories, the browsing path of Fiction—Historical Fiction for my newest historical mystery, Uneasy Spirits, which is most certainly a work of historical fiction. However, this would have placed this book in a final pool of over 15,000 books in the Kindle store. Maybe some day I will be such a successful author that I can compete in a pool of that size, but right now as an indie author without a big promotional campaign behind me it would be easy for me to get lost in that pool. Few people are going to scroll down through hundreds if not thousands of books to find mine.

So, I chose to place both of my books, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits in the Fiction—Mystery&Thrillers—Mystery—Historical category/browsing-path. Not only does this more accurately define the sub-genre of these two books, but there are fewer than 100 books in this subcategory. It took me six months to reach the top ten books in that subcategory with my first book, Maids of Misfortune, but once I did, my sales went up exponentially. In May 2010, I sold 55 copies of Maids in Kindle and in August, after the book hit the top 10 in this category, I sold 249.

I did a fair number of things to help Maids of Misfortune achieve that top ten status (price changes, reviews, short story, etc.) but I could have done all those things and it still wouldn’t have gotten me into the top 10 in the category of Historical Fiction—it is just too big a pool of books. With the publication of Uneasy Spirits, I had the benefit of now being a better known author, with an already existing fan base, which explains why it took only 24 hours for this book to hit the top ten in the historical mystery subcategory. Even so, as an independent author without a whole publicity machine behind me, I still would not have achieved this within the “Historical Fiction” category.

This strategy (getting your book into the smallest possible pool of books) is also why I chose to put Uneasy Spirits into the browsing path Fiction—Romance—Romantic Suspense (4,800), rather than into the Historical Fiction (15,000 books) or the Historical Romance (8,800 books) subcategories. Again, this was in part because this subcategory accurately describes the book, but also because the pool of books in this subcategory is smaller than in these other two. This is also why, when I had 5 choices of categories when I uploaded Maids of Misfortune, I chose History—United States—state and local—west as one browsing path. I not only figured that people looking for books about the western US would be interested in my book, based as it was on solid historical research, but this was also a pool of less than 500 books, and Maids of Misfortune has been at the top of this list for most of the last year.

The second strategy is to use key-words and tags that will help users find my book in a small pool of potential books.

Let’s take the example of a work of historical fiction that is not a mystery and that, therefore, doesn’t have a lot of options apart from being placed in the historical fiction category with those 15,000 other books in the Kindle store. Here the application of key-words (or tags for people who are doing a tag search) is the appropriate strategy for narrowing the pool to a reasonable level, giving your book a better chance to compete. For example, when I was giving advice to a fellow HFAC author, Elisabeth Storrs, who has written a well-reviewed work of historical fiction, The Wedding Shroud, which has not yet found the readership that it deserves, I investigated what key words she could use.

I discovered that a user who is browsing in the historical fiction subcategory and looking for books about Rome will narrow that list from 15,000 books to 221 books if they put in the search term “Rome.” If they search for “Ancient Rome” they will find a list of just 88 books. And, if they searched for “Early Rome” while browsing in the historical fiction subcategory, they would find just two books.

My recommendation was that she use “Rome” and “Ancient Rome” for two of her seven “key-words” because readers using this browse-then-search strategy would be more likely to find her book in these smaller lists of books that match. This would enable her to compete more successfully in an otherwise broad category. And, of course, these terms more accurately describe the historical fiction she has written!

However, I did not recommend the use of “Early Rome” (although it equally described the period of the book) because it produced such a small pool of books that readers probably wouldn’t return to that search. The other two key-words bring up enough books to make them search terms that readers would be likely to use the next time they were ready to look for a new book.

These two strategies can boost your sales in two additional ways.

First, they will help you get on an Amazon “Top 100 Best Seller List.” Second, they will help ensure that people who find your book will have found books similar to yours — and that improves the chances of your book showing up on the Amazon “Customers who bought this book also bought” recommendation system.

The best-seller lists: Amazon has a computer algorithm that updates the “best-seller lists” in each category and subcategory every hour. While secret, the algorithm evidently takes into consideration “all-time sales, as well as recent sales that are weighted more heavily than older sales…” according to an Amazon spokesperson quoted in this article. Needless to say, no matter how good your sales are in a given hour, or day, your chances of getting into a top 100 best-sellers list and staying there are pretty slim if you are competing against 15,000 other books.

If, however, you are in a group like Horror-Dark Fantasy (227 books), or Science Fiction—Series (169 books), or Fantasy—Authurian (27 books), or Mystery—Historical (73 books), your chances of being ranked in the top 100 in these categories increases (or becomes 100%). Since many customers start their searches for book in the best-seller lists, this heightens your visibility and cachet and increases your sales, which in turn helps you stay on and move up the best seller lists. The increase in sales may, in time, help your book rise in the other categories or key-word searches where your book is listed. Very briefly after Christmas of last year, when my sales were high (700 books in the 3 days after December 25), I actually made the top 100 of the category Mystery—Women sleuths (6,222 books). Heady days!

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought: Amazon uses an algorithm that identifies other books that people who have bought your book have bought. You have to have a certain number of sales for this to kick in (Uneasy Spirits had enough Kindle sales so this section appeared within a day—my print edition came out a week later and has had fewer sales, so its product page does not yet have this feature.) In addition, it appears that for a book to appear in this list, a certain number of your customers must have bought the book. For example, nearly 15,000 people have bought Maids of Misfortune, yet there are only 100 books that show up in the “Customers Who Bought” list, and I know that those 15,000 people bought more than 100 books altogether. It also appears that there might be some other limitations; I haven’t seen more than 100 “also-bought” books listed, even for popular books like Amanda Hocking’s ebooks.

You’ll want to do more than just sell enough books to trigger this feature, however. You’ll want to make sure that the books that show up are similar to your book – and you can do that by using the right categories, key-words, and tags. For example, I could certainly have put my books into the category of Romance—Historical, but then the books that would show up in this “Customer who Bought” list would be dominated by books that tend to put the romance before the history and have explicit sexual themes. While there is nothing wrong with these books, a customer who bought my book, based on the expectation it would be like these historical romances, might be very disappointed by the rather chaste nature of my protagonists’ relationship.

Since my books are in the Mystery—Historical category, it is not surprising that the list of books in the “Customer who Bought” feature is filled with historical fiction (usually in the Victorian era) and mysteries. This adds to the chance that the customer who is checking out my book will think, “Hey, I read those books and liked them, I will probably like this one.” And if they buy my book, there is less chance they will be disappointed —  thinking, “Where was the sex?” — and give my book a bad review. And finally, it will also mean that my book will show up on “customers who bought” lists for books that are in my sub-genre. You can imagine how pleased I was when I discovered that Maids of Misfortune had started showing up on a “customers who bought” list for Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight Mystery Series! That meant my book was being seen by exactly the readership I want to attract.

In Summary:

As an author, you need to carefully choose categories and key-words when you publish and add your own “tags” after publishing. You need to take into consideration not only what best describes your books but also what will maximize the chances that a reader who is browsing through the Kindle store will find your books. You also want to make sure that readers who find your book are the ones who would be most likely to buy it and enjoy it. Careful uses of categories and key-words and tags can also increase your chance of getting on one of the best-seller lists and showing up on one of the “Customers who bought” lists, which in turn will help boost your sales. Carelessness in using these strategies can condemn even the best work to the backwaters of the Kindle store —  undiscovered, unbought, and unread — and that would be a shame.

 

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s blog.

Author Blogging 101: Up With Comments!

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One of the first experiences you’ll have when you start your blog is publishing a post and then wondering if anyone is reading it.

Especially at the beginning, author blogging can feel a little bit like “pouring from the empty into the void.” We all know that some of the best blogs are about the conversation going on between the blogger and the readers, but it can take a long time before you start getting those comments on your blog articles.

 

Commenting is central to the kind of blogging I like the most, and the one that seems to work best for most bloggers. There are lots of reasons commenting is a tool you should learn to cultivate and respect. And whatever you do, try to make it easy for your readers to comment. It will do many things for you:

  1. Comments allow you to engage one-on-one with readers. When we write for publication, we’re writing for some group of people, and we may or may not know very much about who is reading. But when a reader steps forward and writes a comment, they are opening a dialogue with you, one that can have profound implications.

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  2. Readers will make your blog posts better with their comments. If you’ve missed something in an article, or made a factual error, astute readers may well point it out. And since none of us can know everything about a subject, comments can make a conversation more complete and well-rounded than it would have been with only one voice.

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  3. The voices of many people can be heard in the comments. These other voices help to expand the range of your blog and its appeal to more kinds of people.

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  4. Comments show that a community is building around your blog. Many of us follow dozens of blogs, but we can only give enough attention to become part of the community at a handful of sites.

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  5. Commenting gives readers an opportunity to get to know you better. In fact, this is one of the most common pieces of advice given to bloggers who want to write guest posts for other blogs, and it certainly works. For instance, the wonderful article on Friday by Joan Reeves came about because of her comments on another article.

 

A Word About Blogs Without Comments

Although it seems like most bloggers are eager for comments, sometimes you come across a blog where the comments have been turned off. I don’t read many of these blogs, and it’s interesting how different the environment is on a blog without comments.

It feels more like a website where articles are posted regularly, and that’s about the only relation to a blog. Some bloggers have good reasons for blogging this way, and it does take time and attention to have a conversation with readers that just goes on and on.

So it can be done, and done very well by the right person, but I’m not talking about those kinds of blogs in this article.

What is “Social Proof”?

One of the reasons you want comments from your readers is because it contributes a great deal to “social proof.” What does that mean?

Social proof is a psychological trigger that affects our behavior. It’s the tendency, when you are undecided about something, to be influenced in your choice by the apparent choices of a group of other people.

What does that mean? What I mean is that suppose you happen onto the blog at Copyblogger.com, one of the internet’s premier resources on the subjects of copywriting and content marketing. You like the article you’re reading, then you notice the subscription box:

Copyblogger.com

When you see that over 155,000 other people have subscribed to the Copyblogger blog, you are assured it would not be a big mistake to take a chance and put your email address into the subscription box. The number of subscribers is a kind of proof of quality, a social proof that can influence our behavior.

The same is true for blog comments. If you see a blog article with 10, 30, 50 comments, you might automatically think that it has some value, that it’s not just an empty post parroting something some other blogger said. Otherwise, why would it have so many comments?

So having comments, and displaying the number of comments on your blog posts, naturally prompts more comments. And remember, the vast majority of your readers will never comment on the blog, so each person who does represents a whole swath of readers who likely have similar opinions.

How Can You Stimulate Interaction?

As a blogger trying to build community and relationships, your readers are vitally important. Encouraging comments makes your blog a better read and more attractive for interaction.

So how do you get those comments?

  • Ask—I know it seems obvious, but it’s not that easy when you start out. If you’re writing a post that centers on your opinion, ask for reader’s opinions. If it’s a how-to article, ask if they understood it. If it’s a survey, ask if readers know other resources.

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  • Unfinished posts—I learned this from Chris Brogan and it works. Instead of writing all the way to the logical end of an article, stop and ask readers how they would finish it.

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  • Controversy—One of the easiest ways to spark a discussion is to take a controversial stand, to oppose the current trends in your field, or pick a fight with a leading figure.

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  • Revelation—Discussing your problems and your passions, revealing yourself to your audience in an emotional, contactful way will bring in comments from a variety of readers.

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  • Co-creation—You may want to try creating a resource with the help of your readers. This can be a powerful community-building experience, especially if you can get enough people to participate, and the comments are a great way to do that.

The Golden Rule of Comments

Okay, now you’ve got the story on blog comments. Comment on other people’s blogs so you can get inside the feeling and know what your readers are experiencing.

Use comments to ask your readers what their concerns are, what information they would like, or what they think of your new book cover. These conversations turn into relationships and the bond between you and your readers will grow strong.

The Golden Rule of blog comments, of course, is to never ignore them. What’s the point of asking people to comment if you never answer them?

You don’t have to answer every comment, but it makes a huge difference if readers sense that you are as much a part of the discussion as they are, and a well-placed response will be much appreciated.

So does that answer your questions about blog comments?

 

 

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Plumber by Day, Writer by Night

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This article, by Crystal O’Gorman, originally appeared on the South Charlotte News site on 11/2/11.

Indie author focuses on Internet intrigue

David Moore knows joy.

A native Charlottean and resident of Matthews’ Windrow Estates, Moore recently turned 50 and launched his career as an indie author with the debut of his second ebook, "The Collective, " which came out last week.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Moore has been a plumber for more than 30 years.

Currently the plumbing superintendent at P.C. Jackson Plumbing in Charlotte, he’s overseeing two 10-story and one 12-story office building and three parking decks being built in Ballantyne.

Plumbing pays the bills, helps take care of his wife of 26 years and has seen both his sons through college.

But when the work day is done, Moore returns home, turns on his computer and turns into Maxwell Cynn, author and publisher of "The Collective" and "CybrGrrl," which came out in 2008. (Moore estimates he has sold about 1,000 copies of "CybrGrrl" at $2.99 a download.)

Cynn is more than just a pseudonym; he holds the consciousness of what Moore calls his muse.

Moore says, "(Dr. Carl Gustav) Jung (the founder of Analytical Psychology) would call her my anima: that part of me that is just below the surface, that is creative and free, that knows no boundaries or responsibilities, that part of me that dreams."

Through Cynn, Moore plunges into a world where computers and the Internet become weapons used to brainwash and kill innocent Web surfers all in the name of research and development.

 

Read the rest of the article on the South Charlotte News site.

Denying the Muse

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This post, by T.L. Tyson, originally appeared on her blog on 11/1/11.

Like I’ve said a handful times before, I used to be the Queen of beginnings. For the longest time, I wrote stories I never finished. Beginning after beginning, start after start and nothing to show for it, except a truck load of half stories that I never wrapped up. I feel this is the curse of an overactive imagination.

A lot of writers talk about their ‘muse’. This is basically what we call our imagination. Some people even name them, things like Bob and Flutterbutt DeBarnacle, and give them characteristics. The idea of a muse is a bit crazy if you break it down. A lot of non-writers don’t understand why we have them. Well, a muse to a writer is much like an invisible friend is to a child. They keep us company when we’re all alone, or in really boring, never-ending business meetings. In a lot of ways they keep us sane, while giving the world the impression we’re completely off our rocker.

Writers, like fingerprints, are all uniquely different.

Some need complete silence while others need music. There are some people who can create under any circumstances. They have the luxury of being able to shut the world around them out. Others need to lock themselves away, burrowing themselves in a dank, dark cave as far away from humanity as possible. Some even write with their laptops precariously perched on the arm of their couch with the television playing the latest episode of something they can pay little attention to, a cat laying across one arm and a dog’s head in their lap. The later might be close to what I experience on a day to day basis.

But that’s all physical environment and, in reality, there is another environment writers are tested with every day. The mental environment. Humans are moody bastards. We allow the people around us to dictate our moods, as well as the weather and trivial things like how many dishes are in the sink. There are some writers out there who can write no matter what mood they are in. I hate them with my whole heart. Just kidding. Well, sort of. I just went through a very tedious couple of months where I was unable to write a word. Even the outgoing dirty emails I like to send screeched to a halt. (That’s another joke.) For me, I need a mental environment like a soothing rainy day, calm, slightly gray and a total sense of not caring.

 

Read the rest of the post (and see the funny cartoon, too!) on T.L. Tyson‘s blog.

No Hurry to Publish

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This post, by Marika Flatt, originally appeared as a guest post on Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer site on 11/1/11.

In today’s guest post Marika Flatt, founder of PR by the Book, shares her wisdom about choosing your pub date and planning ahead for publicity.

This blog post is for all you authors out there who are self-publishing, now or in the future! Let’s start with the big picture. There is a reason why it takes so long for the publishing process to roll out with publishing houses. It’s not unusual for there to be an 18-month window (or longer) between a publisher accepting a manuscript and the publication date. There are a myriad of reasons why this is. So much has to be done: editing, cover design, more editing, seeding the distribution pipeline, sales meetings, more editing, printing galleys (also called ARCs/ advanced review copies), etc.

The publicity department starts working on a title approximately six months prior to the pub date. The reason for this is because they want to send galleys to publications that are book review publications, industry publications (for that topic, such as education magazines) and national media outlets (such as national TV programs). This process takes time. And, for six months leading up to pub date, the publicists are pitching, pitching, pitching (and lunching with producers for national TV shows).

 

So, self-published authors . . . what’s the big hurry? I talk to one or two authors per week who tell me that their pub (publication) date is this month or next month and what can we do?? First of all, you don’t want your pub date to ever be in November or December (unless it’s a holiday book).  Don’t get me wrong. Publicists stay busy during November and December, but not on books that are releasing those months. So, why?

The publishing industry has two big time frames for releasing books: the Fall (primarily September and October) and the Spring (primarily March and April). There are a few other months that are popular for releasing books, depending on genres/ topics: January for New Year’s resolution-oriented titles: February for relationship books and books from African-American authors since it’s Black History Month; May and June for beach reads, etc.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Savvy Book Marketer.

5 Things Paratrooping Can Teach You About Self-Publishing

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This post, by Chris Allen, originally appeared as a guest post on Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn on 10/31/11.

As a thriller writer, I am always keen to experience new physical adventures! I have done tandem and static line parachute jumps so I was fascinated to hear what Chris Allen had to say about paratrooping in this guest post.

As a kid growing up in Western Australia in the 70’s, I knew I wanted to be a writer of action stories from the moment I picked up my first Ian Fleming (The Man with the Golden Gun, a dark blue, dusty old hardcover borrowed from the school library).

I devoured Fleming’s descriptions of dastardly villains – devoid of scruples and resplendent in physical malformation, his exotic women – subtly flawed but incredibly beautiful in their own way, the locales, the action, the adventure, and of course, the ultimate action hero… James Bond. What boy wouldn’t be hooked!

Of course, not everyone needs to see action to write about it, but I wanted to – fuelled by the belief that I was ten tall and bullet-proof.

So, joining the Australian Army at the tender age of 18, the next fifteen years I spent ‘in’ as an Officer gave me all the fodder necessary to recreate action scenes in my writing. But what I didn’t expect was the similarities between publishing books and those exciting days as a Paratrooper, when I’d launch from a plane, sometimes by night, into less than hospitable parts of the world.

Back then, I remember what would flash across my consciousness whenever we’d force ourselves to depart from a perfectly good aircraft into black, starless skies…

To the brave belong all things

Sometimes we needed encouragement to launch out into the unknown, and when it came to me, it worked every time.

The stoic Celtic adage applies equally to those of us who are part of the current publishing revolution  – blazing a trail (or perhaps, hot on the heels of those doing so) into the world of eBooks, online communities, and technologies that allow readers to find and enjoy stories from a diverse new range of voices.
There are other ways that being a Paratrooper is similar to being in the writing and publishing game, so if you’re conscious and still reading this, thank you, and here they are.

(1) Trust your peers

My mates in the Army always double-checked my gear before I jumped, and even today they still have my back. Similarly, as writers we’re lucky to have friends, family, colleagues, fellow authors and online fans who will tell us first-hand about their reading experience as we press the green light. We are no longer totally reliant on the big publishing houses to send their versions of our stories out into the world. Listen to honest feedback from your own network and use it – it’s your lifeline to connect with your fans and give them what they want.

Real-life outcome: We chose our book cover via an online vote using SurveyMonkey.com. It gave us amazing feedback direct from our fans, and a classic cover!

(2) It’s a long way down

It can be overwhelming, overseeing the editing and design of your book, researching and choosing providers, building your author platform, planning events, negotiating with distributors, bookstores and libraries… all at the same time. I recall peering over the ramps of Hercs many times and being so weighed down by the gear I was carrying (usually 90kg) that I just wanted out of the aircraft, if only to take a load off. Once you get on your way with your publishing project, adrenaline and pig-headedness will keep you going. Stay the course, even when it seems like it’ll never end, and resist the urge to hurl your computer out of the nearest window.

Real-life outcome: We drew on the energy and enthusiasm from our network of friends, family and online communities when it seemed like we’d never get there.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Creative Penn.

NaNoWriMo: Some Helpful Hints and Tools

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For those of you who will be participating in NaNoWriMo…this post, by Steven Sande, originally appeared on the TUAW blog on 10/29/11.

This morning, I noticed a tweet from @rvbelzen that said, "As a NaNoWriMo veteran, do you have any tips for this NaNoWriMo newbie, maybe an article you wrote about it?" Most of the posts that I’ve done about National Novel Writing Month for TUAW have focused on the tools, not on the technique. Based on the tweet, I thought I’d give you some hints from a three-time NaNoWriMo winner (that means you wrote a 50,000-word novel in the month of November) about how to prepare for the writing marathon.

Helpful Hints For Writing Your NaNoWriMo Novel

1) Make sure you have a broad outline of your plot and characters in your mind or on paper. This was the hardest part for me the first two years I did NaNoWriMo, as I had a story in my head but didn’t spend the time to think of characters or how the story was going to evolve. As a result, those first two novels were only about halfway through the total plot line when I got to 50,000 words. What I suggest is sitting down with your favorite writing tool — whether that’s TextEdit, Word, Storyist, Story Mill, Scrivener, or another other writing tool, and just write a quick outline of how the story is going to unfold. Come up with character names and a rough description, locations, etc., and write them down as well.

2) At some point on November 1st, sit down for an uninterrupted spell of writing. In order to write 50,000 words in a month, you’ll need to average 1,667 words a day. I find that setting aside time to write in a place where I’m not going to be interrupted by talk, TV, or tweets is essential. If you’re enthusiastic about your story, that 1,667 words is going to flow out of you, and you’ll find that some days you’re writing 2,500 words. Go for it on those days, because you’ll have other days when you need to take a break. My favorite place to write NaNoWriMo novels? The kitchen table. The chair is uncomfortable, so I need to write quickly so I can get out of it ASAP.

3) It’s all about words, not about tools. I’ve noticed over the last few days that I see more and more tweets about "which tool should I use?" There are debates going on about the merits of Storyist versus Scrivener, or using one of the many minimalist writing tools. Here’s my take on the writing tools: don’t go out of your way to buy a new app that has lots of bells and whistles, because they’ll get in the way of writing your novel. Many of the novel-writing apps have ways to write outlines, build character cards, etc. I found these tools to be so incredibly distracting that I finally just started using minimalist tools. You can easily write a NaNoWriMo novel in Pages or Word — you don’t need an "author’s tool" unless you really think it will help you. My second NaNoWriMo novel was actually written in TextEdit.

 

Read the rest of the post on the TUAW blog.

NaNoWriMo and Why I Don't

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NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. I’m going to rant a bit here, because I’m pretty much against it in every way. However, and I’ll say this again at the end because it won’t sink in with the converts, if it works for you, more power to your elbow. But what is it really working?

The principle is simple enough – for the entire month of November, you write and try to get down 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1,666 words a day on average. Any old words will do – if you get 50,000 or more, you “win”. What do you win? Well, probably several weeks or months of editing at best.

 

From the NaNoWriMo website we get these gems:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing… The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.

First point of order – 50,000 words is not a novel. It might be a children’s or very young adult novel, but even then, not really. Most young adult novels are between 50,000 and 60,000 words. Most adult novels are over 80,000 words. The vast majority of publishers will not accept a novel of less than 80,000 words.

Then there’s this one:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Quality doesn’t matter. Lower your expectations. These are never things we should apply to our writing. EVER. The whole concept of NaNoWriMo seems to be to churn out 50,000 words of shit, just to call yourself a winner, and then try to knock it into some kind of shape afterwards.

Why not just aim for 20,000 good words throughout November? Then again in December, January, Feb and March. Then you have an actual first draft novel. And a far better one than you’d achieve using the NaNo model. You won’t have to lower your expectations and take quantity over quality. And you know what you’ve done as well? You’ve become a writer. You had a goal to write a novel and you did it. Not a goal to vomit up 50,000 words no matter what in a month and call it a win.

What do you win? Nothing, except a feeling of disappointment and an unfinished novel.

nanowrimo 400 NaNoWriMo and why I dont

Talking about previous participants, the site says:

They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

No. Just no. They didn’t. They may very well be novelists one day, but churning out 50,000 words of shite in a month does not a novelist make.

So yes, I’m being especially harsh. It’s hard to write a novel, trust me, I know. It’s a fucking chore to find writing time, to force that thing in your head out on to paper (or screen, more accurately). Sometimes it’s like trying to crap a watermelon out of your face. I get it, I really do. And I can see why some people appreciate the drive of NaNo to force them into a deeper writing zone.

A lot of great novels have grown out of NaNo projects. A lot of people take great strength from the whole NaNo community and the shared support and encouragement. Writing can be a lonely pursuit. I think most writers actually like that – I know I do – but we all crave community. I have many friends in the writing world and we do support and encourage each other. All the time, not just during November.

Any writer can achieve that. You start writing, you join some online forums, you join your local writers’ centre and start making friends. Join a crit group. Toughen up and listen to advice. Take any favours you can and offer your help to others in response. Before long you’re a writer with a writing community around you. That’s how we’ve all done it.

I can’t help thinking about all those would-be writers who get all excited for NaNo, shit out 50,000 words and then live the rest of the year in a mire of inactivity because they were ruined by the NaNo experience. Or all those who don’t “win” and then just have something else to beat themselves up about instead of writing.

It’s simple – writers write. Not every day necessarily, because everyone has a life, even full-time writers. But just write. Don’t mug yourself with perceived wordcounts, or pointless goals. No one wins or loses. We all write, hopefully we get published, and we keep trying to get better and get more published. Lots of little victories among hundreds of failures, but the determined and thick-skinned among us power on through sheer bloody-mindedness.

Here’s my advice. Fuck NaNoWriMo. Set yourself a new goal, a far simpler one. Here it is:

I will be a writer.

Simple as that. You write whenever and as often as you can. You keep writing whether you get down 1,666 words in a day or 6. Or 6,000. Fuck it, it doesn’t matter. Find the broader writing community and become a part of it, we’re happy to have you. And keep doing it. However fast or slow you write, just write. Finish a novel. An actual novel, not 50,000 words of drivel that might be 20,000 decent words when edited that might be part of a novel one day. Then keep going and write some more.

I see NaNoWriMo as a circus of short-term back-slapping and pointless goals, far removed from what’s really needed to be a writer. But, and here it comes again for the NaNo fans – if it works for you, go for it! I hope you get inspired, churn out 50,000 or more fabulous words and end up with the start of a novel that you go on to finish and get published. I hope it hits the bestseller lists and makes you rich and famous. I really do. But you know what? It’ll take more than 30 days. I’m just saying.

I’ll be over here, growing a moustache for Movember.

 

 

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

Z Winters: YA Dystopians

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For a long time I’ve thought about trying my hand at writing YA dystopian novels. It’s a genre I really enjoy and I have a ton of creepy ideas for them. I hadn’t pursued it because I felt like I’d need to create ANOTHER identity. And really, there are only so many separate brands I can maintain. It gets difficult, especially when you are building brands and not having crossover/cross-pollination. But for some reason there seem to be a lot of paranormal romance readers who also read YA dystopian. I have no idea why this is. And I fit into that camp as well. I enjoy reading both genres.

 

So I thought I didn’t really want to create a whole other identity somewhere, just a slight branding distinction. Like if I’m going to write both genres, I don’t want someone to pick up a PNR from me expecting YA dystopian or vice versa. But since there is a lot of crossover potential, as long as it’s easy to tell which is which at a glance, there should be no problem with keeping it all in the family so to speak.

I set up a Facebook fan page for Z Winters. Yes, that’s my sad little fan page with nothing on it.

On Twitter, I am Z_Winters (Don’t forget the underscore.)

And I also purchased Zwinters.com and Zwinters.net

So I’m ready to roll with that when I get ready to. Please note, I am NOT changing my name. I am simply adding a new brand identity. Zoe Winters will still be there and she will continue to write paranormal romance. (No, that didn’t sound schizophrenic at all!) Z Winters will write YA dystopians. I will be cross-promoting the names also.

Those who are waiting for more Pretverse, don’t worry. I am not writing my dystopian until I get Dark Mercy (the novella/novelette coming in November), The Catalyst (tentative title for book 3) and LifeCycle (book 4), out the door to you. I just have this awesome idea that’s been percolating and really want to write it. And even though there are some dystopian type themes in Pretverse which will be expanded upon, this particular idea won’t work in that world and doesn’t fit a paranormal structure.

I’m not sure how many dystopians I’m going to write. I’ll probably publish them less frequently unless I just get on a tear with ideas. But by keeping the pen names so closely linked together, I feel like it will be less stressful/overwhelming trying to build a totally separate brand with a totally new readership because I anticipate a lot of the Zoe Winters readers will also read Z and vice versa.

And that’s all I have to say about that. :)

 

 

This is a reprint from Zoe Winters‘ weblog.

The Cost of Kindle Books – Pay Up or Shut Up

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This post, by Kristen Tsetsi, originally appeared on her site on 10/28/11.

There’s an entire thread on Amazon’s discussion forum dedicated to the “high” cost of Kindle e-books. One commenter, J. Bryan, writes

I only buy books that are $3.99 or less. If the publishers and/or Amazon want to be greedy, that is their choice,but I will not pay.

J., I understand your position. $3.99 can seem like a lot of cash for a book. But, if I may…

COST PER WORD:   BOOK VS. SONG

Consider the song “Sail” by Awol Nation (for example):

At $.99 for this 131-word song on Amazon.com, you’re paying approximately $.007 per word.

However:

25 of those words are “sail.”

14 of them are this: “La la la la la la oh!”

5 words, “Sail with me into the dark,” are sung three times, so they account for 15.

Which leaves 74 original words at $.012/word. (I happily paid the $.012/word for “Sail.”)

Now, consider John Grisham’s Kindle version of The Client, well above your acceptable price range at $7.99.

The Client is 496 pages.

Cost: $.0161 per page (which is just a bit over the price per word for the song “Sail”).

Average word count per page: 250

Cost of The Client per word: $.00006

(Note: Even if some of the words in The Client are repeated, for a book’s repetition to match the repetition of a song, whole paragraphs or chapters would have to repeat, so we won’t count the “and” and “the” and “a” words as “repeats.”)

 

Read the rest of the post on Kristen Tsetsi‘s site.

A Cynic's Guide To Foreshadowing

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In which Keri Payton of Quill Cafe book reviews offers a reader’s tongue-in-cheek advice on effective foreshadowing—NOT!

10 Steps to Anticipated Surprises

  1. Insert a character with seemingly no purpose at the beginning of the story. Have him show up at the climax or when there is a big reveal. The real reveal is that his purpose in the story is foreshadowing.

2. Have your protagonist read about or overhear certain information. Is there a rumoured Special Powered One? Surprise, surprise when it turns out to be your protagonist.

3. Use the weather and setting to reflect the upcoming mood of the scene. Bonus cliché marks if it rains and then your character receives really bad news.

4. Have a wizened mentor suggest at something ominous but not tell your protagonist anything substantial until the climax. Regardless, your protagonist is amazed and shocked at the reveal, even though the old geezer could have just told him what was going on chapters back. Cheers.

5. There should be a useless looking object that your character gets stuck with. It should be so seemingly irrelevant that it can only be exceptionally relevant. Later, it saves your protagonist’s life.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 5 more tips, on Quill Cafe.

Amazon Author Page

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This post, by Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton, originally appeared as a guest post on the BookBuzzr Blog on 10/21/11.

Amazon has been instrumental in the rise of the indie author. Amazon provides do it yourself publishing platforms both for ebooks (Kindle Digital Publishing platform) and print (Createspace), as well as its own imprint for a print and ebook publishing model. But that’s just the beginning. Amazon takes things a step further by treating indie authors the same as mainstream-published authors when it comes to marketing and promotional opportunities on the site. One example of this is Amazon Author Central, through which anyone who has authored content offered for sale on Amazon can have his or her own, dedicated Amazon Author page.

 

An Amazon Author page can be a surprisingly robust plank in your author platform, especially considering that they’re offered totally free of charge. Your Amazon Author page can include all of the following:

• Author Photo
• Author Brief Biography
• Author Bibliography (of books/content for sale on Amazon)
• Author Blog Posts
• Dedicated Discussion Board
• Integration With Facebook, Twitter, and Email

Here’s my Amazon Author page:

Setting up your Amazon Author page is very, very easy, and it’s an opportunity that’s open to all authors, mainstream-published and indie alike.

First, you need to have an Amazon account. It doesn’t matter whether you have one set up as a consumer or self-publisher, either type of account is fine to use for Author Central sign-up. Just go to the Amazon Author Central page, login, and fill in the provided form to have an Amazon Author Page created for you. On the U.S. site its URL is http://authorcentral.amazon.com, and on the U.K. site the URL is http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk . This page shows the options and tabs available to you once you’re logged in:

 

Read the rest of the post on the BookBuzzr Blog.

Drink The Kool-Aid

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This post, by J.A. Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 9/30/11.

Yesterday, an agent blogged about a speech she recently gave to Sisters in Crime. Some of the advice was fine. Some was archaic (no, writers don’t need to attend conventions or volunteer for anything), but this was just downright awful:

"Do NOT drink the kool-aid on E-publishing. It’s too early to be making sweeping statements about any of it. We’re all learning this as we go and the right answer to almost everything is "we’ll see what happens."

I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that. It’s terrible advice, especially coming from someone who should have writers’ best interests at heart.

Here are some sweeping statements I’ll make, which can be verified:

1. Ebooks sales are going up, paper sales are going down. This trend WILL continue. This means that you need to worry less about who handles your paper rights, and more about who handles your erights.

If you handle your own erights, you keep 70% of the list price (that you set.)

If you let a publisher handle your erights, you get 17.5% of the list price (which they set.)

2. There isn’t much a publisher can do for you that you can’t do for yourself (or hire someone to do.) In other words, paying a publisher 52.5% to create cover art and do some editing is crazy.

3. More and more self-pubbed authors are doing well. And more and more legacy pubbed authors are trying self-pubbed. On this blog I’ve had dozens of guest posts, and listed hundreds of authors by name, who are making good money. Some are getting rich. None of them would be making bupkis if they didn’t drink the Kool-Aid.

 

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