How Convenient! Contrived Coincidences

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This post, by Roni Loren, originally appeared on her blog on 6/22/11.

A while back I talked about the TSTL character in a Lifetime movie I was watching.  Well, unfortunately (or fortunately–considering it provided fodder for two blog posts), the crappy plot devices did not end there.  The You’ve-Got-To-Be-Freaking-Kidding-Me moments continued.  But this time in the form of contrived coincidences.
 

Contrived Coincidence describes a highly improbable occurrence in a story which is required by the plot, but which has absolutely no outward justification

When we left our heroine in the previous post, she was under suspicion for murder.  So, she had decided the best course of action was to break in and search the crime scene (leaving DNA-laden hair and fingerprints in her wake no doubt).  Well, she doesn’t find much over there (although the killer does stop in the house briefly–at the exact time she’s there–she hides under the bed, seeing only his feet).  But, that my friends, is not even the silliest coincidence.

Our heroine goes on and continues her search for evidence in different places, but doesn’t turn up much.  However, she strikes up a friendship with the local coffee barista who tells her how every townie takes his or her coffee.  Well, fast forward, and Ms. Brilliant is being followed all around town by a mysterious black mustang (the car, not the horse, although that would have been better).  Because that’s what killers do, they show you their car and follow you in broad daylight.  But anyhoo, a few days later her own car is vandalized and she needs to go buy another vehicle.

Well, lo and behold, as she’s searching the used car lot, she happens upon what?  You got it.  The black mustang that’s been following her.  Oh, and what’s that you say Mr. Salesman?  The car was just dropped off yesterday and IT HASN’T BEEN CLEANED YET!  Well, hot damn!

So she buys the car and what is laying neatly in the floorboard of the car?  A receipt for coffee with the very order of one of the people the barista told her about.  Killer identified!

Seriously.  I’m. Not. Kidding.  That’s how they wrapped this thing up.

 

Read the rest of the post for some concrete tips on how to avoid contrivances and coincidences in your writing on Roni Loren‘s blog.

Publetariat Scheduling Announcement

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Due to vacation scheduling, Publetariat will be on skeleton crew through the end of July. During this time it may take us a few days to process new member registrations, answer emails, and approve comments. Thanks for your patience, and happy summer to all!  (no need to click through, this is the end of the post)

It Starts with an Idea

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An author who sold several bestsellers and millions of books once shared some insights into becoming a successful author. They indicated that the book has to be well written, professional looking, with a good product description, and for sale at the right price. With a bit of luck, these attributes can help make a book a commercial success.

What the author neglected to add was that successful writing starts with a good idea. Anyone can copy the latest literary trend, but a truly successful novel or story should be based on a compelling idea. The idea does not need to be original per se, but rather one that piques readers’ interest. It means moving beyond the latest paranormal vampire romance into unexplored territory. Can you guess what the next frontier in writing will be? If so, write about it before it becomes passé. A strong idea can be a good foundation for success.

Your Agent Should Not Be Your Publisher

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This post, by Peter Cox, originally appeared on his Redhammer blog on 6/8/11.

A major debate is going on in publishing circles at the moment, and you need to know about it.

Frequently, these things are a storm in a teacup.  What excites publishing folk often leaves the rest of the world… a bit limp.  “Inside Publishing” isn’t always as exciting as… watching leafcutter ants.

This time it’s different.

This issue is enormous.  Because it will affect every book deal, every publication contract, from now until the end of time.

It affects every author who has an agent, or who would ever like an agent.  It goes to the heart of what being an agent is all about.

In a nutshell, this is the question:

Should your agent also be your publisher?

In recent weeks, there have been a spate of agents who have cut deals on behalf of their clients with… themselves.  One such involved the agent to the estate of the late author Catherine Cookson.  According  to the Daily Mail, the literary agent didn’t even inform the author’s publishers, Transworld and Simon & Schuster, that she’d done a deal – with herself – to digitally publish 100 of the author’s titles.  “I haven’t told either firm about the deal”, she said, “and I am sure they are going to kick up a fuss about it”. [Click on image at right to read the full story]

Yes, I bet they will.

As should any author whose agent says to them – come on – let’s cut your print publisher out of the picture… give me those lovely digital publishing rights, and I’ll publish you myself!

No doubt many agents will jump on this particular bandwagon before it overturns.

It’s Not OK To be Your Client’s Publisher

Let me be absolutely candid with you.  Although various excuses have been put forward by agents for doing this – it’s mostly about lining their own pocket.

Not that I’m against agents making money – how could I be?

But this isn’t just about making money. It comes perilously close to what is termed in law “self-dealing“, and it is both ethically wrong and legally very dangerous. In taking this fateful step, those agents who choose to do this are in danger of crossing a line that is legally and ethically of immense significance.

Read the rest of the post on Redhammer.

Heightening Emotional Impact

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This post, by Juliette Wade, originally appeared on her TalkToYoUniverse site on 6/21/11.

How can you get your reader to feel emotionally moved by your story?

Well, first off, you can’t just tell them, "you should be emotionally moved." This is obvious, I think. I had been thinking about the topic of emotional involvement and creating intensity at particular points of the story, and then I ran across this article by Lydia Sharp, where she gives the following quote from Donald Maass:

You can’t expect your reader to feel what your protagonist feels just because they [the characters] feel it. Only when that emotion is provoked through the circumstances of the story will your reader feel what you want them to.

Lydia then asks:
"So what does this mean? For starters, it goes back to the age-old advice of "show, don’t tell." Where emotions are involved, it’s best not to simply outright tell your reader what the characters are feeling. Let the reader experience it.

"And how do you do that? By not being obvious."

All of this, I agree with. If I were to take the Donald Maass quote and give my own take on it, I would have to say that our impressions of the emotional experiences of characters grow more out of our own emotions in a particular part of the story than the other way around. In other words, it is our own emotional understanding of the story that deepens the character’s experience, rather than the character’s emotional state deepening our own.

In a way, this makes sense. Because the character inhabits the story, he/she is limited in his/her ability to grasp the entirety of the story. The reader usually does not have these same limitations. I’m going to come back to the idea of the entirety of the story in a moment, but first let me address Lydia’s advice.

Lydia suggests we should let the reader experience what the characters are feeling, rather than telling them, by not being obvious. An excellent point. There are a number of ways that emotional states can be shown. One way is to describe the internal physical sensations of a person – adrenaline surges, feeling hot or cold, and many different kinds of metaphorical descriptions of pain, fear, embarrassment, joy, etc. can be of use for internal points of view. Another way is to show the external behaviors of a person feeling an emotion. If the point of view is external, you can show facial expressions; this is awkward to do with internal points of view, but you can still show actions of rage (as one example) like throwing things across the room, or pacing, stomping, etc. Still another way is to have the emotional state of the character in a scene be reflected somehow in the way that person perceives things around him/her, by including a sense of rage or other emotion in the surrounding descriptions of setting, descriptions of the actions of others, etc. There is a descriptive passage in Snow Falling on Cedars where the destruction wreaked by a storm is treated in intensive detail…and that reflects the inner state of the protagonist, Ishmael.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes numerous specific, before-and-after examples, as well as some concrete tips, on Juliette Wade‘s TalkToYoUniverse.

Metadata For Self-Publishers, Part I

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Metadata—even the word sounds hard to understand. meta comes from the Greek, and means “above” or “enclosing” Metadata is simply data about data.

In other words, metadata is information about your data. You can think of data as being an electronic document, file, music file, book or any other form content presented in electronic format. Metadata is meant to summarize the key characteristics of the underlying work—in our case, our books—for the purpose of making the work itself discoverable to electronic searches.

An Example

Think about it for a moment. Suppose you want to know how to train your dog. You’d like a book that describes the step by step actions you can take to teach your dog to stop barking every time he hears a little sound in the bushes. You punch up Google and look for a moment at the search bar. What are you going to type in?

This is the moment you need to understand when it comes to the book you’re trying to market online. There’s simply nothing as important as understanding what’s going through the mind of your potential book buyer when they are thinking of how to search for the information they need.

Let’s say there’s a really good dog training book that would answer this searcher’s question. Suppose the author has titled the book “Getting Along With Man’s Best Friend.” Notice that the words “dog” and “training” don’t appear in the title. How would Google or any other search engine know that this book could possibly be a great find for the searcher?

The answer is: Metadata.

Filling In All the Blanks

When this book was published the author (or publisher) had an opportunity to enter metadata about the book. The principle place this is done is in the Bowker information file about the book. Usually self-publishers fill this out when they buy their ISBNs and then forget about it.

That’s a mistake. This seemingly inoccuous-looking form that appears to be just a nuisance to get through as fast as possible is actually a key to how well your book will sell. Why?

Metadata.

If you fail to fill in all the fields, or use the many types of metadata available, your book will be harder to find. The information you’re providing is the same information that will come up in Google’s search. If the description of this book, for instance, says:

An easy to use, step by step guide to training your dog for behavior problems including barking, biting and sitting.

It’s quite likely that the book will be included somewhere in Google’s results. Without this information, how would the search engine know that this book is a perfect fit for the searcher? It’s your responsibility as publisher to make sure the metadata for your book is as accurate and complete as possible.

Back to the blank line

Try to put yourself in the place of the guy sitting there listening to the dog barking out back, and looking for a solution. What are some ways we could construct a query that might be similar to what the searcher will come up with?

You’ll quickly find that the most important part of figuring this out is keywords. One reason this is so is because we can’t actually guess how the searcher will frame his question. But we can have a pretty good idea of some of the words she will use in that question:

  • dog
  • bark
  • training

Just with this much we can start to do some research on keyword phrases or long-tail keywords (3 or more words used together as a keyword). Knowing the keywords that are associated with your book is essential to marketing your book online.

In the next part of this series, I’ll look at the way this metadata is stored and exactly where you can go to make sure you’ve got the strongest, brawniest, most focused metadata you can for your book.

 

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

Book Marketing Q&A With Joanna Penn

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In this podcast [see bottom of this post], I go through your marketing questions submitted as part of the blog survey a few months back.

I recorded this about a month ago before I left Brisbane in anticipation of the change to come. I will try to update you in the next podcast or video, but basically I am in temporary accommodation so haven’t got my blogging/video/audio routine together yet. I am also working from 6am as I have a project in Brisbane so my early pre-work slot is gone which is when I used to do a lot of creation. I am adjusting but some things will be changing once I settle in as I also have a much bigger commute. The day job is manic, but I am LOVING the culture! Last weekend we went to St Martin’s in the Fields to listen to Mozart’s Requiem, and then saw David Tennant in Much Ado About Nothing (Dr Who & Shakespeare – geek heaven!). Marvellous! This weekend I am going to Paris for a research trip for the next novel, Prophecy – more on that to come! On with the show.

Show Notes:

  • Do book trailers work? Should you make a book trailer? I am a believer in meeting people where they are and YouTube is a major search engine now so to me, it makes sense to be there. I did a book trailer for Pentecost that has been viewed over 1386 times. Here’s my post on how I made it. Video is also growing and few authors use it effectively now so I think it is a growing niche (and publishers are just realizing this which means we may have missed the curve!)
  • Are there people who can be hired to do marketing for you who will charge based on results? In marketing it’s very hard to know what works vs. what doesn’t work. Marketing professionals are generally paid on a retainer basis where they will do a list of things and some may work. Some online people have programs for authors, e.g. Aggie Villanueva Promotion a la Carte. You need to be sure of what you want and what you’re getting for your money. But you will always be your best ambassador as you care and you know your book.
  • Selling when you’re an introvert. Don’t think selling, think marketing. It’s about relationship and content marketing. Be useful, provide good information and people will notice you. Attract people to you and then provide them with what they are interested in, at some point they may buy your book. None of us want to be over the top salespeople. I also interviewed Ruth Ann Nordin on marketing as an introvert here. She’s also written a little ebook on marketing.
  • Is Twitter worth my time? I’m an evangelist for twitter and it’s my #1 social network. Here are all of my Twitter tips. I explain why I share other people’s links – one reason is relationships and most of my podcasts have come from people I’ve met on twitter. It’s important to be useful and also you must focus. So if you spread your energy across a lot of networks, you won’t be successful on any of them. Choose your network and focus.
  • Effective blogging patterns. See this article on Content Marketing for Authors for the overall concepts and types of posts. Longevity is critical. You need to last at least 6 months before you get any benefit and a number of years before you really make an impact. The 6/7 figure bloggers have been blogging for 5-6 years. Blog regularly, I blog every 2-3 days and consistently (you can schedule posts while you’re on holiday). You also need to blog a niche so it has a focus – you wouldn’t like it if I started to talk about weight loss on a writing blog! Centering your blog around your personality is important too as you will change over time. Quality information is important as is multi-media so you stand out. Getting traffic is about a hub and spoke effect (check out the Author 2.0 Blueprint for more details on this – bring people back to your central hub). Go where your audience is.
  • How can I get email addresses to market my book online? Here’s the article on this topic. Basically, you need to give something useful away for free in exchange for the email address – example is my Author 2.0 Blueprint. I use Aweber (affiliate) to manage my list which fits the anti-spam laws.
     
  • How do I manage my time with marketing? I’d rather be writing. I explain how depressing it was when I wrote my first book and didn’t sell any. The writing time was “wasted” because I had no platform for readers, no one knew who I was. So you have to determine whether, if you just write the book, who is going to buy it? Agents & publishers want a platform now, it’s not just for indies.
  • Blogs for authors, not readers. What’s the point? Most people blog about what they know and experience. You do need to go elsewhere, so I have a book review blog MysteryThriller.tv. in order to connect with readers of the genre. You can also use Goodreads or Shelfari. You can also connect with book bloggers.
  • What if you are a private person and you don’t want to share your life on the internet? I use the example of Zoe Winters, paranormal romance writer who has been on the podcast twice now. That’s not her real name and I don’t know what she looks like. CJ Lyons also uses a pseudonym as she is a pediatrician. I don’t even mention my husband’s name and people use other names for their children e.g. Mur Lafferty’s daughter is The Pink Tornado, Tee Morris’ daughter is Sonic Boom. Justine Musk also uses a lot of fake names on her blog as she knows some high profile people. You can still hide yourself online.
  • How do you get public speaking bookings? I believe successful authors need to know how to speak publicly so this is critical. People will buy your book if they know, like and trust you and being a good speaker is an excellent way to do this. I got my first speaking events through being approached on my blog. If you have an ‘authority’ presence, people will find you and want you to share. You also need a speaking page on your website and make it clear you’re available. If you want to be a professional speaker, join an organization like National Speaker’s Association which has chapters everywhere. Here are my 7 tips for speaking about your book.
  • On the fear of putting yourself out there. Think about what will happen if you don’t – i.e. you won’t sell many books, and that is the aim of pro-writers. You will have time to grow into your presence, so just start and things will happen slowly. Very few people become overnight successes on the internet – most of them have been working for years and then a tipping point happens.
  • How the hell do I get people to notice me? It’s about word of mouth and it is slow! Be useful, put yourself out there, write great stuff and someone will notice and tell their friends, then they will share and so on. This is not get rich quick, people!
  • Marketing for fiction vs non-fiction authors. I think the principles are the same. Any of these strategies can be applied to any type of book or any business. It’s about building a platform and getting attention. Find where the people who will buy your book hang out. I think having a personality blog is critical so your audience can grow along with your writing. I’m intending to write in other genres as I’m intending to write until I die (in a long time!) and hopefully some of you will grow with me. We all need to cultivate a long term market.

All my best marketing posts are here => Marketing for Authors and Writers

Podcast: Download (Duration: 37:00 — 25.0MB)

What are your marketing questions? Maybe I’ll make the Q&A a regular segment – what do you think?

 

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

Indie Author Mailbag: "Can you tell me the best way to ensure the success of my book?"

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In a word, no.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it too many times to count:
There is no one-size-fits-all, by-the-numbers success formula for indie authors. There is no specific template or blueprint that will guarantee lasting sales or readership for any book.

Assuming for the moment that your indie book is exceptionally well-written, immaculately edited and sports a compelling cover, it’s just a matter of getting the word out about it and pricing it reasonably, right? Wrong.

Every author is different, every book is different, and every sales climate is different. Consider the (originally self-published) book which launched me into a life of publishing punditry and activism,The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use. This was clearly a simple case of the right book at the right time. Writer’s Digest Books was happy to pick up the rights and republish the book in a revised edition because interest in self-publishing is at an all-time high right now and they saw it as the only truly comprehensive how-to, nuts-and-bolts book on the subject.

Had I self-published the same book just five years ago, neither Writer’s Digest Books nor any other mainstream publisher would’ve been interested in picking it up. The self-published edition of the book wouldn’t have been very successful either since self-publishing was widely viewed as a fringe activity up until about two years ago, engendering dismissal at one end of the opinion spectrum and open scorn and ridicule at the other.

Let’s take a look at some of the supposedly surefire success strategies for indie authors, as they apply to this book and my other, still indie novels.

1. If You Build A Quality Author Platform, You’ll Succeed.
I cannot deny that for anyone seeking a mainstream publishing contract, platform is key. Mainstream publishers want to see a pre-existing audience, and the potential to grow that audience exponentially. However, even for me, a retired software engineer with web developer skills of considerable sophistication, no amount of web presence or social networking savvy would’ve made my book a success five years ago. Even today, no amount of platform quantity or quality would make my book a success if it were poorly written or didn’t contain the specific information the target audience wants and needs.

With respect to my novels, platform has not, in and of itself, made much of an impact. Not only do I have a custom, professionally-designed author website, I’m also on Facebook and Twitter, I’m the founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat.com, I’m a Technorati BlogCritic, on the Board of Directors for the Association of Independent Authors, and…well, I won’t bore you with the rest of this litany. Yet despite all this "visibility" and "web presence", my novels only do fair-to-middling business unless I’m actively and specifically promoting them. Why? Because the bulk of my platform activity pertains to serving the needs of self-publishing authors, not readers in general.

So yes, platform is important. But just getting your name and face and the titles of your books out there isn’t enough. Your platform activities must be targeted, with each piece of the platform puzzle helping to support the others. At this point, if sales of my novels were to become a priority for me, I’d launch a secondary platform strategy just for them because I know my established audience for The Indie Author Guide is more or less indifferent to my novels.

2. If You Price Your Kindle Books At .99, You’ll Succeed.
All of my indie Kindle books have been priced at .99 for over a month now, in a kind of pricing experiment of my own devising. Sales have ticked upward a bit, but not dramatically. It’s definitely worth experimenting with different price points on your Kindle or Nook book, since it’s easy and low-risk to do so, and you can see (and interpret) results of price changes pretty quickly. But it’s a mistake to think that a .99 pricetag is the shortest distance between you and blockbuster sales.

3. If You Make Your Books Available In As Many Formats And On As Many Sites As Possible, You’ll Succeed.
My novels are listed on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Createspace, Scribd, GoodReads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Audible.com, covering the spectrum from hard-copy through ebooks and even audiobooks. Yet no one on the NYT Bestseller list is quaking in his boots from fear of me and my novels. Sales of The Indie Author Guide, on the other hand, have benefitted greatly from the book’s visibility across multiple bookseller and book review outlets. Its availability through the Writer’s Digest Book Club has made a big difference as well.

Yes, it’s important to get your work out there and available through as many outlets as are feasible; just don’t assume that doing so will guarantee significant sales growth.

4. If You Get A Lot Of Good Amazon Reviews, You’ll Succeed.
My indie novel, Adelaide Einstein, has 47 Amazon reviews with an average star rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. My other indie book, Snow Ball, has 16 Amazon reviews with an average star rating of 4.43. Adelaide has more and better reviews overall, yet it sells at a fraction of the numbers I see for Snow Ball.

When both books were first published in 2008, Adelaide Einstein sold better than Snow Ball. Now it’s just the opposite. I can only speculate as to why, but if pressed, I’d say that the chick-lit and hen-lit genres into which Adelaide fits are somewhat played out, whereas the mystery genre to which Snow Ball belongs is less trendy. It could also be that Snow Ball‘s darker tone of humor is more appealing to readers in these trying economic and social times.

5. If You Do All Of The Above, You’ll Succeed.
I’m already doing all of the above, and my novels aren’t doing gangbuster business. But that doesn’t mean the work and time I’ve spent on all of the above was (or is) a pointless waste.

Since you’ve read this far, I’ll share a little secret with you. There actually IS a surefire success strategy that works equally well for any book, movie, game or music release. And here it is:

Capture the zeitgeist in your work, then maximize your work’s exposure.

Yep, all you need do is figure out what the majority of the Western world’s populace will be interested in at a given point in time, create a work or product that serves that interest, time the release of the work to coincide with when interest in its content will be approaching a peak, and then make sure as many people as possible know the work exists.

It’s that first part that’s the tricky bit, the whole "right book at the right time" part. Then, for fiction at least, there’s the matter of actually caring enough about the work to imbue it with passion and soul. But even if the Fates smile upon you, you actually have the right book at the right time and it’s filled to bursting with passion and soul, the second part of the equation is just as important: maximizing exposure. So while none of the supposedly surefire success strategies is any such thing for books in general, couple the right book with the right time and #5 above, and you’re well on your way.

Unfortunately, since you can’t know if you’ve captured the zeitgeist until after your book is published and you’ve maximized its exposure, you’re pretty much stuck working every exposure and sales angle you can to find out. And even if your book hasn’t exactly captured the zeitgeist, if it’s a quality book in a broad-based genre, there’s no reason you can’t drum up respectable sales and interest through your efforts. But it will be an effort, you will have to pursue every promotional avenue available to you (given your personal time, skill and financial constraints), and there’s just no way around that.

If you’re looking for shortcuts or get rich quick schemes, you’re in the wrong business.

 

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

An Insider's Look At Screenwriting

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This post is reprinted in its entirety with the permission of The Crime Fiction Collective, where it first appeared on 6/17/11.

We’re excited to post a Q&A with scriptwriter, novelist, and journalist Karen Lin, winner of many national screenwriting awards and competitions. For more about Karen, see her bio at the end.

What should readers expect from a good screen adaptation?
First know that the screenplay will usually be different than the book. It should capture the essence of the story and main characters but not the step-by-step moments. There are exceptions such as Holes, which is YA – just the right length to lend itself to following the story exactly. Movies that try to stick too closely to the books usually end up dragging and boring. If you need something for the story, make it up. If too many subplots or characters are in there, nix some of them. As to the nitty gritty: Grab the audience’s attention with opening image. Introduce your protagonist right away. We want to know early. Don’t overwhelm your reader with dozens of names in the first ten pages (each page is a minute on the screen). Limit details that don’t move the story forward. Focus the reader’s attention where it should be. Give us the clues we need to "get it” as early as possible. Many other things go into making a great adaptation, but those are the bare bones.

What are some examples of crime novels that made great movies?
The Godfather (1972) very effectively and seamlessly stripped subplots way back and it is consistently listed as one of the best adaptations. Similarly, The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – streamlined the plot line. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) would have been a bit short if 100% true to the novella, but just the right amount of meat was added. As to true crime: William Goldman (arguably the greatest screenwriter of all time) believed that in historical screenplays, one doesn’t need to be accurate about the people involved, only to the historical event and the result of that event. Example: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He wasn’t even true to his own novel, Marathon Man (told in the head of the kid). In it the only scene that stayed the same when he adapted it to a script was Olivier in the diamond district.

Can you name some failures and tell us why the novel didn’t adapt well?
Most scripts fail when trying to stay too true to the book. They aren’t well acted or directed or edited or visually successful. This is true even for a great book. One example would be Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Have you seen it? Some books are brilliant but are hard to pull off as movies. One recent example of that is The Time Traveler’s Wife. A great effort was made but it still didn’t touch the book. How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Dune and many others don’t work. Interestingly, Stephen King didn’t like the feature-length adaptation of The Shining but he liked the other adaptations. In my opinion it was the reverse of that. The Shining, partly because the vision didn’t remain 100% true to the book, was the best. The others stayed more true but were duds on the screen. Hope King doesn’t read this. Adaptation is NOT being true to the original. There is controversy over fidelity. But altering the author’s original vision may be required.

What value is there for a novelist to learn the craft of script writing? Can it enhance storytelling abilities?
It helps tremendously. I’ve written over a dozen screenplays, a few of them shorts. I can tell you that my prose has greatly improved because of it. I learned to write tighter, less on-the-nose, with snappier dialogue and to pick and choose the most telling details in the “direction” of the narrative. It improved my storytelling skills and gave me an important lesson in writing visually. It also gives a sense of completeness much quicker so it’s a great boost to the self-confidence.

What is the hardest adjustment for writers to make when moving between the two genres?
First, film is collaborative. They will change your script; believe it, accept it. Most painful when you go to sell, it’s a who-you-know industry. There’s lots of business acumen and rules about it: Outright Sale versus a Development Deal (your script is a lure to pitch your ideas), Auditions (sample script secures you an audition for writing assignment), Options (usually 6-12 months $0-$20,000) at the end of the stated time, the producer pays purchase price or passes.

Then there are differences between who represents you. Agents are Writers Guild-signatories, 10%, no reading fee, 90 day termination clause. Managers (not WG signatories, they nurture your career but can’t sell without attorney, often 15%). There’s the Hip Pocket Deal—when an agency signs someone only to sell a spec script (not to get the writer any other work) It’s better than nothing but you want an agent that believes in you as a whole and not just one of your scripts. The bigger agencies tend to offer only this to newer writers.

As to adjusting to the writing of a script: it will to be shorter if adapted from a novel. Since Voice Overs are somewhat frowned upon (Forest Gump is an anomaly), you must be prepared to tell the story without lots of internals. Show Don’t Tell is definitely the rule for screenwriters. And you can’t boss around the director or actors. Avoid camera directions like Close Up – unless it is essential for the plot. Avoid telling the actor to speak sarcastically; this should be evident from the dialogue. If not, improve your dialogue. And don’t put into your directions things that a director can’t portray—like a quick thought backstory that won’t ever come out on the screen. Try to avoid Dawn and Dusk scenes because capturing the moment in several takes is difficult. Film is a more restricted venue. But on the bright side, working in a box is easier for many people. It makes the structure and rules less of a guessing game.

If novelists can visual their story as a movie, should they go ahead and write the script or does it make more sense to shop the novel?
Good question. That depends on who you ask. My entertainment attorney told me to write the book first because more money comes that way, since selling the rights to a movie is more lucrative and easier than selling a spec script (assuming it is a popular book). Personally I didn’t wait to finish a book to write it as a spec script because a producer told me that if I turned it into a screenplay he’d take it on. It never sold (the young producer died before having a chance at it), but it sent me down a detour from my novel writing that I don’t regret at all. After my solo stint, I teamed up with a few other writers on different projects, got an agent (who took scripts to Sonnenfeld, Cameron, HBO, Showtime, and Sci-Fi), and I finally had a co-written short produced. I ended up having to terminate my agent and am looking for another. In the meantime, I have irons in the fire for features, webisodes, and made for TV movies. While I market, I’m back to writing novels with my new skills well in place. How can I regret writing spec scripts?

Do you need a Hollywood agent to sell your novel/screenplay or are there websites and services that put authors directly in touch with production companies?
Yes and no. If you are willing to go the indie route you can team up with small budget director/producers through lead services such as Inktip, learn about the business and what’s hot through e-newsletters like MovieBytes, join local groups like Colorado Actors and Screenwriters Assembly, go to festivals and pitch, and gain attention through contests. When you are starting out, I suggest contests like BlueCat and ScriptVamp that offer great feedback on your work. When you are ready and confident, try The Nicholl Fellowship—cream of the cream—if you even make quarterfinalist you’ll get attention. There are many other great contests. Do your research. Be sure the contest gets your work into the right hands if you final.

What resources do you recommend for a writer who is just breaking into the genre?
Read the trades like Variety and Hollywood Reporter. Read directories like Hollywood Creative Directory. Lead services like InkTis (One service is free; their more complete services cost.), MovieBytes on line.

Don’t be intimidated by the format. There is great software out there like Final Draft and MovieMagic but I wrote most of my scripts using Word…easy…thanks to tabs. I believe www.Zhura.com has on-line screenwriting software for free.

To learn the nitty-gritty on formatting, start by reading The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier. For foundations: Syd Field’s Screenplay. For story development: Story by McKee. For understanding the industry: The Writer Got Screwed by Brooke Wharton and Hello, He Lied by Lynda Obst. For taking it to the next level: Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great. There are also many on-line sources for learning the art and business of screenwriting:
 

  • CASA:
  • Learn the difference between coverage and consulting here.
  • Good site to learn more about the construction of a pitch by Christopher Lockhart.
  • Excellent site for articles on screenwriting by Michael Hauge.

 Most importantly, dive in and try. I suspect you’ll be glad you did.

Karen is a novel, screenplay and nonfiction consultant and editor. But her own writing is her first passion: novels, literary cookbooks, magazine and newspaper articles, and screenplays. She’s garnered international, national and regional awards for feature length and short screenplays (solo and collaborative) including: Moondance Film Festival, BlueCat, All She Wrote, Lighthouse Writers, Boulder Asian Film Festival, SouthWest Writers Contest, and Pikes Peak Writers Contest.  One of her co-written short scripts has been produced. She has been represented by a Hollywood agent, an LA entertainment attorney, and a top NY literary agent who sells book to film. Learn more about Karen and her writing at her website.

 

The Arc of Publishing and Other Predictions

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This podcast and accompanying transcript are provided in their entirety by the Copyright Clearance Center’s Beyond the Bookcast.

In May at the annual BookExpo America in New York City, CCC’s Skott Klebe spoke on The Arc of Publishing.

“What I’m talking about is predicting the future,” he told the Javits Center audience. “And that’s really hard, right? People get the future wrong all the time… But some futures are very predictable. With that in mind, let me ask, does the future of publishing have a predictable arc?”

For his illustrated lecture, Klebe examined the characteristics of market disruption, and how they apply in the changing world of eBook publishing, with special attention to the author-direct publishing model currently gaining attention on the Kindle and Nook.

Klebe’s presentation earlier this year to the Tools of Change conference caught the ear of Andrew Albanese from Publishers Weekly. “Klebe’s point: with technology, the wars [over e-books will] never really end,” Albanese noted enthusiastically. “There is constant tension between innovators, and entrenched interests.”

 The Arc of Publishing and Other Predictions [51:49m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

View or download the accompanying transcript pdf here.

 

A Tale of Two Indie Authors: John Locke Becomes the First Independently Published Author to Join the “Kindle Million Club,” and Amanda Hocking Goes Big League

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Here are two cases of very big news for the two most successful “direct to Kindle” indie authors to date.

First, Amazon announced moments ago that John Locke has become the first indie author to sell a million Kindle books, with the following titles:

“As of yesterday, John Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP),” said Amazon’s release.

Locke said he studied the ebook market, looked at pricing of ebooks, and decided to become the bestselling author of 99 Cent books bar none.

He did it.

His 10th book, a tell-all about how he marketed his way to success, breaks the pattern.  How I Sold 1 Million eBooks In 5 Months costs $4.99.

Congratulations, John! See the entire Amazon release at the end of this post.

Meanwhile, the author who could become the next “Kindle Million Club” member, Amanda Hocking, is the subject of a pretty interesting full-length article in yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Magazine. It’s a good read whether you are a Hocking fan or simply someone interested in what’s going on in publishing and the Kindlesphere.

Hocking was outselling Locke in the Kindle store until around the time she signed a $2 million four-book contract with agency model publisher, St. Martin’s Press (MacMillan). She’s still selling 9,000 books a day, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Does Hocking’s contract mean she is no longer an indie author?

Not to me. For one thing, one important characteristic that Hocking and Locke share is that each of them writes very fast. Very, very fast. Like it takes them a month or two to complete a novel.

So even if Hocking has four books tied up with a traditional publisher, that need not keep her from bringing beaucoup other books direct to Kindle. And when she looks back on the decade as a millionaire 35-year-old in 2020 or so, I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t find that she made a lot more money with direct publishing than she did with a traditional publisher. But we’ll see.

Here’s Amazon’s release today:

 

 
John Locke Becomes the First Independently Published Author to Join the "Kindle Million Club"
Locke passes 1 million Kindle books sold using Kindle Direct Publishing

SEATTLE, Jun 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) –(NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon.com today announced that John Locke has become the eighth author to sell over 1 million Kindle books, becoming the newest member of the "Kindle Million Club," and the first independently published author to receive this distinction. As of yesterday, John Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Kindle Direct Publishing is a fast and easy way for publishers and authors to start selling to Kindle customers worldwide via Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle with Special Offers, Kindle 3G with Special Offers, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac and Android-based devices. The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid copies in the Kindle Store. Locke joins Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins and Michael Connelly in the Kindle Million Club.

"It’s so exciting that self-publishing has allowed John Locke to achieve a milestone like this," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We’re happy to see Kindle Direct Publishing succeeding for both authors and customers and are proud to welcome him to the Kindle Million Club."

"Kindle Direct Publishing has provided an opportunity for independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the book selling industry," said John Locke. "Not only did KDP give me a chance, they helped at every turn. Quite simply, KDP is the greatest friend an author can have."

John Locke, of Louisville, KY., is the internationally bestselling author of nine novels including "Vegas Moon," "Wish List," "A Girl Like You," "Follow the Stone," "Don’t Poke the Bear!" and the New York Times bestselling eBook, "Saving Rachel." Locke’s latest book, "How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months," is a how-to marketing guide for self-published authors.

Like all Kindle books, Locke’s books are "Buy Once, Read Everywhere"– customers can purchase these books and read them on the third-generation Kindles that start at $114 with the new high-contrast Pearl e-ink display, as well on iPads, iPod touches, iPhones, Macs, PCs, BlackBerrys, Windows Phones and Android-based devices. Amazon’s Whispersync technology syncs your place across devices, so you can pick up where you left off. With Kindle Worry-Free Archive, books you purchase from the Kindle Store are automatically backed up online in your Kindle library on Amazon, where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.

 

 

This is a cross-posting from Stephen Windwalker‘s Kindle Nation Daily.

Settings

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Let me caveat this article by saying I wasn’t an English or a Literature major. I double majored in music and business at Indiana University. I state this to explain why the following article is only my perception and opinion. I won’t use standard literature terms but my own.

Settings for writers of fiction and nonfiction are absolutely critical. They are far more than geographical locations in my opinion. Because of my intelligence background, I tend to think of settings as the context. It includes location, but it also includes contextual elements such as culture, dialects, customs, costumes, architecture, manners, and even time frame. All these elements impact on what and how people say and do. They are the glue and rules that hold together societies. A character violating the setting becomes wide open to criticism and conflict, which is fine if the writer knows how to capitalize on it. Put a 2011 Wall Street Stock Broker on a ranch in Wyoming in 1930, and you’ve got one hopeless individual. Likewise, put a cowboy from that time and place into a corporate setting of 2030 (a common theme in sci fi) and you’ll have a totally bewildered, endangered person.

Now I’m not saying don’t do these things. What I am suggesting is that you understand the impact such a change of setting may have on a character and a story. As you develop characters, you must consider the setting and how they interact with it. For example, one of the things that makes writing historical fiction so difficult is doing complete and accurate research so that you get the setting right and keep your characters consistent with their interaction within that time period, locale, and society.

Is your story line plausible within that setting? What impacts has that setting have on people. What activities are expected from an English butler as compared to an Irish street urchin at the front door of a mansion bordering Central Park in 1903? Do you think that might be a setting for conflict?

If you have been having difficulties with word counts that are too low, expanding on setting descriptions and impacts would be a good way to pump up the word counts. On the other hand, I’ve also read writers’ materials that went overboard in the other direction. I’ve come across this problem a lot in romance and gothic tales.

Setting accuracy is also a dangerous area. Let me illustrate this with a real-life example. I once reviewed a historical western set in the 1870s. This is how the author described a particular scene: “We crossed the Missouri River and traveled for hours into the setting sun until we finally reached Fort Leavenworth.” So what, you say? Here is the reality of that setting: The train bridge across the Missouri River was just downstream from Fort Leavenworth, which borders and overlooks the river from some bluffs. There certainly wasn’t any need to travel westward for hours to reach it. The same author mentioned several place names in Arizona, when they actually lay in New Mexico. Making mistakes like these shows the writer didn’t even bother to look at a map of the setting areas. All credibility is destroyed. Don’t you make mistakes such as these. Although they make for great hilarity in the reader’s mind, they also label the writer as a complete idiot.

I think now you should have an understanding of the importance and complexities of settings.Do your due diligence to discover the full composition of a setting and how elements and people within it interact. Enjoy your research and analysis.

 

This is a reprint from Bob Spear’s Book Trends.

Other Authors Are Not Your Enemy

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I was talking recently about how important it is these days for readers to review and talk about the books they like in order to help the authors of those books have a career. I also mugged myself with an idea about making a list of all the Aussie authors who tweet. That turned out to be way more work than I thought it would, but I’m glad I did it. And I’ve been surprised by a few comments here and there from people that basically boil down to, “Why do you do so much to promote other authors? Aren’t they your competition?”

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

Which is a bizarre position to take. I’ve always thought of other authors as partners, not competitors. We’re all partners in this big old mess of writing and publishing. We all need to work together to keep the publishing world alive and fresh. Readers are voracious animals – they subsist on stories and get really ornery if the stories run thin. It’s not as if my promoting another author is going to result in the loss of a sale for me. Can you imagine ever reading something on my site and thinking, “Hmm, well I was going to buy RealmShift, but Alan’s convinced me I should buy this other book by this other author instead”? If anything, a reader is more likely to think, “Excellent, I’ll buy RealmShift and then I’ll go and track down this other book that Alan thinks is worth reading.”

Of course, that assumes said reader holds my opinion in any esteem, which is unlikely, but the principle of the argument is sound. Readers love books. Duh.

I wouldn’t have a fraction of the tiny career I do have without other writers. The spec fic community in Australia is particularly friendly, but in my experience writers in general are very supportive of each other. Of course, there are the dicks who think they deserve the career they have and no one else is worthy. But you get elitist fuckknuckles in every walk of life and they’re usually the scared and insecure people, terrified of being exposed as having something they don’t deserve. Which is rubbish, because they deserve everything they’ve worked for, and so do the rest of us.

Other writers have been incredibly supportive of me, from when I was first starting out, wandering around an SF convention like a startled rabbit, wondering just how the hell I was supposed to find my way in this bizarre world. I’ve subsequently done all I can to embrace and encourage other emerging writers and help them to get a start in any way I can. Hell, I’m still an emerging writer myself! I don’t have any great career upon which to rest my laurels. I’m paying it forward and back and intend to continue doing so until I’m bigger than Gaiman. Which I will be, of course. Aim for the stars and all that – if I don’t dream big, how can I ever expect to succeed at all? And regardless of how successful I may or may not get, I’ll still keep doing what I’m doing, and talk about the other writers out there who I believe in. I don’t want to ever look down from my own success on other writers, or ever think that other writers are in any way my enemy.

So don’t think of other authors as your competition if you’re a writer. If you’re a reader, don’t think you need to be faithful to a particular handful of authors – you’re doing no harm by promoting everything you like. There’s loads to go around and we all need all the help we can get, so it’s only reasonable that we help each other too.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

RSS Is Your Friend

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This post, by Marc Johnson, originally appeared on Longshot Publishing on 6/16/11.

Going indie has some drawbacks. One of those drawbacks is staying on top of the news. While I did that anyway especially in the Fantasy genre, with today’s publishing climate, I’ve had to do it a lot more. I’ve had to not only keep track of my preferred genre, but publishing as a whole. There are many good blogs and news sources out there, but how was I to keep track of them?

The last year and a half, I learned something about a little thing called RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. While I don’t understand the technical aspects, RSS really is simple.

Instead of constantly visiting and bookmarking all the websites I go to or leaving dozens of tabs open, I just use RSS. In most websites these days, they’ll be either a button that says subscribe like what I have in the upper right corner or they’ll be this picture. By clicking on this button, you’ll be able to get the feeds from a whole bunch of websites. You will never need to go to the website ever again.

What RSS does is pull the news from the site. You’ll get their updated news feed whenever they update and you’ll see whatever images they post. In the case of some sites, you’ll no longer need to play the guessing game of when they update their site. It’s also helpful for podcasts and webcomics.

 

Read the rest of the post on Longshot Publishing.

New YUDU Research Report Finds That Tablets Are Usurping e-Readers as Reading Device of Choice for Consumers

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[press release] Research Provides Detailed Insight and Statistics on the Rise of the e-Book Industry; 2011 Is Likely "The Beginning of the End" for Dedicated e-Reader Devices

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – Jun 15, 2011) – Digital publishing company YUDU Media (www.yudupro.com) today published a new report summarizing key research, facts and figures on the e-book market, which continues to grow at a blistering pace. The report, titled, "Rise of the e-book: e-book stats and trends," discusses some of the key components of the industry in its current form, aiming to provide analysis and insight into some of its most recent developments.

A sampling of the research included in this report:

  • E-book sales now outpace print book sales, as sales of e-books nearly tripled in the US from 2009 to 2010.
     
  • Tablets such as the iPad appear to be overtaking e-reader devices such as the Kindle as the platform of choice for reading e-books; Forrester predicts that by 2015, there will be twice as many owners of tablet PCs than there are of dedicated e-readers.
     
  • Apple’s iBookstore is gaining rapidly on Amazon.com as the highest volume sales platform for e-Books.
     
  • E-books have helped fuel success for self-published authors, who are no longer beholden to large, traditional publishing houses to get their works into the hands of readers.

"The e-book market shake-up is likely to become more pronounced over the course of the year, with a growing number of publishers and consumers alike choosing a tablet as their hardware of choice," said Richard Stephenson, CEO of YUDU Media. "While 2010 may be remembered as the birth year of consumer e-books, 2011 may well be considered as the beginning of the end for the dedicated e-book reader."

The e-book market in 2011 will experience exponential growth which will impact the book publishing industry as a whole. YUDU’s report offers a deeper analysis of the e-book industry with evidence that transitions in the market go beyond a simple upward sales trend. Ongoing technology innovations and shifts in consumer behavior are driving the continued growth of the e-book market, which publishers are embracing to meet consumer demand and factoring in as part of their overall growth strategy in order to compete in this rapidly changing environment.

Those interested in more detail can access the white paper online at www.yudupro.com/e-book_whitepaper or on the iPad/iPhone by downloading the YUDU Media App and selecting ‘e-book Report.’

About YUDU Media
YUDU Media is a web, mobile and tablet ePublishing specialist that’s been serving digital publishing solutions to book and magazine publishers since 2003. YUDU has customers in over 70 countries, produces up to 1,200 digital publications a day and has developed almost 100 iPad and iPhone Apps. YUDU Book customers include Wiley, AA Publishing, McGraw-Hill Ryerson and HarperCollins.