Sell

Articles about book / author promotion and marketing, and author platform.

Invitation To The Madhouse ~ Report On Self-Publishing

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Alert: Stay turned to this channel for a special broadcast, Monday, 28 Feb.
Irina Avtsin will tell us all about the power of the word, “No!”.
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{This post is almost a rant and purposefully written in a voice I rarely use…}

A madhouse is where insane persons are confined or a place exhibiting stereotypical characteristics of such a place.

This, to me, right now, is what self-publishing is.

Let me define my terms a bit more precisely:

“Sanity” has roots indicating “healthy condition” or “soundness of mind”. If I temporarily constrict my argument to the term “publishing”, most people who are trying to keep up with the frenetic pace of change in this arena of human experience would, I feel, tend to agree that publishing is not in a healthy condition or showing soundness of mind.

Many of those same people would go further and claim that self-publishing is the medicine needed for the sick field of publishing.

Well…

I’ve been involved in self-publishing for about six years now and the last year has seen me working overtime to come to terms with how to best take advantage of the opportunities that self-publishing seems to offer.

I don’t have space in this post to detail the ills of the traditional publishing route but anyone interested can easily find much to ponder.

So, try to accept one point on a conditional basis: self-publishing can bring a book to market faster and supply the author with higher royalties than traditional publishing, as long as the author is not already on the bestseller lists or in the stable of a publishing house being preened to take the book-world by storm when the right marketing moment arrives.

If the above statement is true, one would think that an author would find it easier to self-publish…

My experience has been that the word “easy” needs to be carefully defined with ample attention being paid to whether said author has what it takes to build their own following and work intensely at experimenting till they find the particular combination of tasks that can assure them a sufficient platform of eager individuals waiting to render them aid on publishing day.

If you are comfortable with building relationships, if you can be honestly altruistic in those relationships, if you can multiply the number of those relationships, if you have the time to attend to them with care and diligence, if you have the money to pay for or can trade for the expertise of editors, artists, and publicity specialists, then, maybe you would say self-publishing is easier than going the traditional route.

The reason I’ve been willing to persevere in the madhouse of self-publishing isn’t because I can easily fulfill all the ifs in the last paragraph.

I will continue to do all I can to successfully self-publish my work-in-progress because I lack the patience to search for an agent who would accept the unusual book I had to write and must publish, because I don’t have a few years to wait while such an agent finds a publisher who thinks my book can sell and negotiates a contract, because I refuse to be paid a royalty that can have itself disappear in paybacks to the publisher if the book doesn’t sell, and because finding an editor I don’t have to pay and supplying cover artwork are something I was able to personally handle.

So, from my perspective, the crumbling house of traditional publishing and the raucous adolescent scene of self-publishing are both “madhouses” but I’m a writer and I have a book I’ve written and I want people to read it and I had to make a choice…

I chose self-publishing.

I’ve written about this topic before in this blog and using the handy Top Tags Cloud in the side panel will lead you to those other musings…

What are your thoughts, theories, experiences, and rants or raves about traditional publishing and self-publishing?
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Follow the “co-author” of Notes from An Alien, Sena Quaren:
On Facebook
On Twitter
AND, Get A Free Copy of Our Book

How To: Deal With Negative Online Sentiment About Your Brand

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This article, by Maria Ogneva, originally appeared on Mashable on 2/21/11. Maria Ogneva is the Head of Community at Yammer, where she is in charge of social media and community programs, and internal education and engagement. You can follow her on Twitter, her blog, and via Yammer’s Twitter account and company blog.

Brands try to inspire excitement among their communities so that their fans and supporters will do the selling for them. That’s called advocacy, and it’s much more powerful than self-promotion. There are of course many ways to cultivate that fan base and get your advocates motivated

On the flip side, however, are “badvocates” –- the folks who spread negative comments about you with their networks. For example, Kevin Smith’s experience with Southwest Airlines.

It’s important for any business learn how to handle this badvocacy. To do so, you must first understand its causes.

Causes of Badvocacy
 

In most cases, badvocacy is a result of negative experiences with your brand. These can come from:

  • Inconsistency across channels and touchpoints. With social media, you can touch the customer at any point in the purchase cycle: Pre-purchase, during, and post-purchase. Each of those interactions has to add value and be consistent with the rest of the experience.

    Let’s take support as an example. When you provide multi-channel support, you need to be careful about creating a consistent experience across all channels. Twitter support tends to lead other channels in its ability to provide individual solutions to customers. Other channels tend to lag behind. How many times have you called a support line only to have them route you to another 800 number because information you are looking for is in a different database? An inconsistent user experience can breed bad experiences. 

  • Inconsistency with expectations. Several times, I’ve gotten excited about a product based on the advertised promise, only to discover that that expectation was wrong. This type of disconnect certainly breeds negative feelings because time, effort and possibly money were wasted. 
  • A negative relationship with people who represent the company. Social media can humanize your brand, if used correctly. It’s important, however, that everyone adheres to the highest codes of conduct and is on the same page about company’s policies, news, product and feature releases, etc. A negative interaction with any person, whether in social or traditional channels, will mar the user’s view of the brand. 

Chronic Complainers

Read the rest of the article, which offers specific strategies for dealing with and preventing "Badvocacy" on Mashable.

A Virtual World, A Writer’s Mind, And Serious Business That’s Always Fun!

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I just got back from Book Island in Second Life.

Yep, a virtual world I visit for play and work. I wrote about virtual worlds in a previous post. Here’s a bit of what I said:

“All virtual worlds have virtues that make them valuable whether we’re talking about your mind, a book you read or wrote, or a computer-created world.”

Yes, I called our minds and books “virtual worlds”. Check out that post for more about what I’ve done as a writer in Second Life.

This post is for talking about what I’m doing as a promoter (of my writing) in that virtual world.

Just like a book’s virtuality can become quite real to us, walking around in a computer virtuality can make you wonder why this “real”, consensual, physical reality puts so many demands on we weak humans 🙂

My latest book will be coming out in May and I’m doing all the necessary promotional tasks I can squeeze into my day–writing this blog, visiting the blogs on my Blogroll and commenting there, planning a BlogTour for the book launch, making final revisions, preparing for online reviews of the book, using Twitter and Facebook, etc…

Most of those activities are me relating to other people and that’s what I consider Promotion to be–Relationships.

Would you rather be bombarded with TV or online ads for books, movies, or your favorite things, or would you like to have a friend recommend one to you?

Relationships have always been the most effective form of promotion, in spite of the mega-budgets of the marketing firms. Sure, you may have seen a movie that got mega-hyped and liked it but, imho, most of what’s sold through the traditional channels of promotion is either quite useless or actually harmful.

So, I take a break from the sometimes sweet, often harsh, conditions of Real reality and move my relationship-forming brand of promotion into Second Life.

I’m the events manager on Book Island, I help host the weekly Open Mic on Sundays, I take part in the Wednesday Writer’s Chat Support Group, I’m organizing the new Happy Hours at the Writer’s Block Cafe, and I read chapters from my forthcoming book on Thursdays.

Apart from the live reading of book chapters, most of the “work” is hanging out with people and forming relationships. I’m not running around shouting out my agenda. I talk with folks from all over the world. I bond with them. They often wonder what I do in Real Life. I tell them about my book…

What I do in real life takes many hours of every day. I make time for virtual relationship-building, carve it out of my diurnal allocation, find it often more satisfying then this war-torn, global crisis-ridden, greedy and dangerous “real” world…

Like yesterday: I sat with five people from various parts of the United States, one man from Finland, and two others from the UK. Some were writers, some artists, and one was a pole dancer. We all had a great time. We shared information, experiences, laughter, and good will…

I think it’s time to wrap this post up. I’ll do it with some questions from that previous post:

Have you ever wondered if your mind is truly registering our physical world with fidelity?

How lost can you get in a good book?

Has a book you’ve read ever made you want to abandon our consensual reality?

Have you ever visited a virtual world?
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Follow the “co-author” of Notes from An Alien, Sena Quaren:
On Facebook
On Twitter
AND, Get A Free Copy of Our Book

With All The Hype, Is Self-Publishing Really For You? Five Questions to Ask Yourself

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The dust is settling on 2010 self-publishing industry and the results seem promising. But are they promising for you?

You may have read some of the more compelling industry data published about e-books recently.

• The sale of e-book readers continues to grow. Gartner, a leading information technology analyst firm, predicts the global sale of electronic e-book readers will have reached up to 6.6 million units by the end of 2010. This will represent a 79.3% rise from 2009 sales figures of 3.6 million units worldwide. Further, if this rate continues, the global e-book reader sales is expected to reach 11 million in 2011.

• The sale of e-books surged after the Christmas sale of e-readers. According to Publisher’s Weekly, this holiday season Simon & Schuster reported a 150% increase in e-book sales over last year, Random House reported a 300% surge, and Kensington saw a 400% jump over 2009. E-book sales for 2010 are expected to be $966 million and some predict it will triple to $3 billion by 2015. For the first time, USA Today’s Best-Selling Books top-50 list had more than two titles in which the e-version outsold the print version. Of the top 50, 19 had higher e-book than print sales.

• Libraries saw a 200 percent increase in e-book checkouts. At the American Library Association Midwinter Conference (January 6, 2011), it was announced that libraries and schools worldwide were at the forefront of the e-book boom in 2010. More than one million new users signed on to access free e-books at ‘Virtual Branch’ websites, resulting in a 200 percent increase in e-book checkouts.

• Self-published books are flooding the market. Publishers Weekly released R.R. Bowker statistics revealing that 764,448 titles were produced in 2009 by self-publishers and micro-niche publishers. It’s likely that figure will top one million for 2010.

• Some self-published authors are generating thousands of book sales a month. According to the Kindle forum, there is an increasing membership in the 1000 sales/month club. (The average book sells 200 or less in its lifetime.) It’s important to note that analysis of the data shows that 67% of authors in the club have three or more titles available. Four genres-romance, paranormal, thriller, mystery– occupy 50% of the sales. For more detailed information, read Derek Canyon’s article at Publetariat.com.

In his blog, Joe Konrath said of 1000 sales/month club member L.J. Sellers, “…is a perfect example of all the things I’m constantly harping about: good books, good covers. good book descriptions, low prices.” With all the competing titles, of course the critical fifth dimension is L.J.’s marketing efforts. She explained in her guest spot on Konrath’s blog:

… I rerouted my promotional efforts toward e-book readers. I quit sending marketing material to bookstores and instead joined several Kindle forums, where I participated in discussions. I got more active on Goodreads and did five back-to-back book giveaways just for the exposure. I wrote a dozen guest blogs and sent them all over the Internet.

In a recent blog post at Writers Beware, Victoria Strauss advised writers to look at the hype in context. Among her comments on high-selling, self-published authors:

Many of these authors have multiple books on offer (i.e., they may be selling 250 copies each of four books, not 1,000 copies of one book), and/or are pricing them well below what larger publishers charge (which makes them extra-attractive to ebook enthusiasts, many of whom are very hostile toward trade publishers’ ebook pricing strategies). And even if, as Konrath claims, the list is only a small sampling of high-selling Kindle self-publishers, these success stories have to be considered in the context of the thousands of self-pubbed authors whose ebooks aren’t selling in large quantities.

So, with all the hype, is self-publishing really for you?

Let’s look at what it takes to write, publish, and sell your book successfully: advanced planning, time, resources, more resources, and tireless patience. Below are five questions to consider.

Are you willing to commit to the:

…advanced planning and research? Realize a book is a commercial product. Are your goals realistic? Who will buy your book? How will you reach your potential readers? Who is your competition? How will your book be better or different? What are your realistic ROI expectations? Do your homework in advance and you will save a great deal of time, effort, and stress.

…time to write a high quality content? That means knowing your audience, supplementing “what you know” with appropriate research, and knowing how to tell a good story (for fiction and nonfiction). It also means carving out the time to do the actual writing or working with a ghostwriter.

…resources to produce a quality book? At a minimum expect to pay professionals to proofread your book, design an attention-grabbing cover, and format the interior pages. You want a timeless book you’ll be proud of forever.

…resources to create your platform? Must-haves include a website/blog, Facebook and Twitter presence, Youtube channel, and other social media sites appropriate for your book.

….practice of tirelessly and patiently promoting your book and building your readership? You can pay thousands of dollars to have self-publishing companies market your book–with no guarantees. The bottom-line: you must spend YOUR time and energy communicating with your readers-consistently and creatively. Marketing can seem daunting until you learn the efficient methods for promoting your book. Realize that building a fan base likely will take a year or more.

Before getting carried away by all the e-book, self-publishing hype–and quitting your day job–take stock and determine if you are you willing to make the five major commitments for writing, publishing, and selling your book successfully.

 

This is a reprint from Patricia Benesh‘s AuthorAssist blog.

Interview With April Hamilton and Zoe Winters

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This article, by Kristen Tsetsi, originally appeared on Inside The Writers’ Studio on 2/7/11.

Once  looked down on as a path for the untalented, self-publishing (or independent/indie publishing) is becoming an increasingly more respectable way for authors to get their work into the public eye. Some have used it as a stepping stone to a “traditional” publishing deal, while others are content, even happy, to do-it-themselves. Some authors have even found self-publishing to be a viable way to make a living.

April Hamilton and Zoe Winters are two writers who were at the forefront of the “Indie Author” movement. April is the founder of Publetariat, “an online community and news hub built specifically for indie authors and small, independent imprints.” Zoe produces a humorous animated YouTube series called Zoe Who?, which seeks to combat the stigma that still surrounds self-publishing.

In addition to their own works of fiction, April and Zoe have each published informative guides for writers who are considering self-publishing: April’s is called The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use and Zoe’s is Smart Self-Publishing: Becoming an Indie Author (click on the pictures for links to purchase). Today, Inside The Writers’ Studio talks to April and Zoe about their books, about the conflict between the traditional and indie publishing worlds, and about what makes a good self-publisher.

PAPER RATS: When did you start writing your book, and how long did it take?

APRIL HAMILTON: The Indie Author Guide began life as a series of free how-to guides I wrote and offered for free on my website. As I kept cranking them out, it wasn’t long before I realized I had more than enough material for a book and decided to collect everything I’d already written, plus a lot of new material, and publish it as a book. All told, it probably took me about five months to author the material and one more month to deal with editing, formatting and publishing.

 

ZOE WINTERS: I really don’t track that sort of thing. Becoming an Indie Author had been a concept for awhile. Then when I took a break from the Internet in October, I decided to get serious about finishing and editing it. Because it spanned a bit of time and sat unworked on for awhile, I don’t really know how long it took. I’m like that about most books. I don’t clock them. They just take as long as they take. I don’t even know how long Blood Lust or any of the novellas took. Time becomes sort of meaningless when you’re on your own schedule.

RATS: Where do you live?

APRIL: I live in Los Angeles, California.

ZOE: Planet Earth. Though there have been rumors I live elsewhere.

RATS: What would you say is the primary focus of your book?

APRIL: The main thrust of The Indie Author Guide is to provide clear, detailed, plain English, step-by-step directions in self-publishing and author platform/book promotion tasks. If I’ve succeeded with this book, anyone with a modicum of computer skills and a willingness to learn can use its content to self-publish in print and ebook formats, and then go on to develop or optimize an author platform and book promotion strategy. The Indie Author Guide is all about empowering individual authors and micro-imprints to tackle publishing and book promotion by providing them with the specific information and instructions they need.

ZOE: Attitude. I give a lot of tips and how-to, but the main focus, besides stripping away all the extra fat to basically say: “okay, this is what you REALLY need to know to get started. Here’s my process…” was the concept of having the right attitude. A lot of the book had personal experiences of mine along the way as well as a lot of troubleshooting and mistakes I’ve made. A lot of it is about this idea that you don’t have to be perfect to do well. You’re going to make some mistakes, everybody does. It’s what you do with them that makes a difference.

RATS: Please share the chapter titles that appear in your book.


Read the rest of the article on Inside the Writers’ Studio.

Make Time To Promote Your Book

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As a book author, how much time should you devote to promoting your book and yourself each week?

There’s no "right" answer—the amount of time that you can devote to promoting your book depends on a number of factors, including your goals for the book, family responsibilities, and outside job commitments.

In my recent Book Promotion Strategies Survey, 68 percent of the respondents said that they spend 14 or fewer hours a week on book promotion, and 24 percent spend less than five hours a week. Hours

Regardless of how many hours a week you can devote to book promotion, the key is to create a solid book marketing plan, set aside time to promote your book, and make the most out of the time that you have available. Here are some tips:

Prioritize your book promotion tasks. In your book marketing plan, determine which tasks have the highest potential return on investment so that you can concentrate on those areas first. Then set daily, weekly and monthly promotional goals.

Schedule time. Decide how many hours a week you can spend promoting your book and block out time on your calendar every day. If you have a day job, set aside a half hour or an hour on weekday evenings for promoting your book. Even if you just have time for a few quick emails, make sure you do something EVERY DAY to promote your book, so that you don’t lose momentum.

Learn to be more productive. If you need help in learning to manage your time for top productivity, there are lots of resources available. From February 9 to March 9, Ali Brown is offering a 4-part telecourse, Millionaire Time & Productivity Secrets. The course is discounted to $197 through this Friday, February 4. For those of you who don’t know Ali, in just a few short years she has transformed herself from a freelance copywriter to a multi-millionaire business mentor with eight employees, so she must be making excellent use of her time!

Divide and conquer. Break down large projects, like designing your website, into smaller tasks and schedule a specific time to get those tasks done.

Group similar tasks into batches. For example, write several articles at one time, read your email just once or twice a day, and set aside a specific block of time to do your online networking.

Develop routines. Create systems and check lists for repetitive tasks. Save time by creating document templates and standard cover letters that you can re-use by just changing a few words.

Spend a day getting organized. Set up folders to store your computer files and emails. Organize your paper files with folders and three-ring binders. Set up automatic backups for your computer. Make a list of all of your websites, user names, and passwords. Create a database of all your contacts. Set up an electronic or paper system for keeping track of your marketing and article ideas.

Look into time-saving software and services. Spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel are ideal for creating lists, budgets, schedules, and databases. If you aren’t familiar with spreadsheets, learn the basics by reading a "Dummies" book or using the help menu.

Consider outsourcing routine tasks if your budget allows. You can hire a virtual assistant or a college student intern, or use a freelance agency such as Odesk.com or Elance.com to hire help.

Reward yourself. Acknowledge how far you’ve come and celebrate your successes!

Don’t be overwhelmed by the myriad of opportunities for promoting your book. Develop a solid plan, get organized, and then implement one thing at a time. You can do it!

 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Free Fiction And The Value Of Our Efforts

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The advent of the internet has had many effects, not least of which is giving a voice to pretty much everybody. We’re all sitting at keyboards making noise, like a flock of a billion seagulls fighting over one bag of chips. It’s not a bad thing, as far as I’m concerned. The really strong voices lift above the white noise and everyone gravitates towards those voices that interest them. It’s a big world and an infinite internet, so there’s room in this sandbox for everyone. However, another aspect of that easy online voice is a million wannabe writers posting their stuff online and hoping people will read it. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but a potentially damaging one for a writer’s career in the long run.

I’m one of those voices, obviously. I’ve got some of my own fiction posted here for anyone to read. I’ve engaged in the Friday Flash phenomenon. Is this damaging for my career? I don’t think so. I think it’s helping my career, by giving potential readers an insight into some of my stuff. I’ve had some nice comments from people about stories they’ve read here. But I’ve engaged in the practice with careful forethought.

I decided to write about this after reading this post on Benjamin Solah’s blog. You may remember that Benjamin guest posted here about a week ago, talking about his experiment self-publishing an ebook of his fiction. The power of the internet gave him some pretty solid and honest feedback very quickly. It can be summed up quite well in these comments on Ben’s post by Jason Fischer:

My two cents is this: trunk stories belong in your trunk. You either take them apart and make them good enough to sell, or you leave them there. Why would you want anyone to see a piece of your writing that isn’t working? If your career takes off, do you *really* want these out there?…

There’s so much fiction out there for the reading, even more with the new e-book markets. As such, it is remarkably easy to slide into the infamous “90% of everything that is crap” of Sturgeon’s Law. You should be aspiring to be in the other 10%, not taking the path of least resistance and self-publishing your unsellable trunk stuff.

Work on the nuts and bolts of your writing first and foremost. Be brutal with your own writing, edit, and edit some more. If you can’t get it to work, trunk it and try something else, and LEAVE IT IN THE TRUNK. You can promote something till the cows come home, but if it’s no good, no-one will want it…

These comments are culled from a longer conversation and it’s worth reading Ben’s post to see the whole discussion. Jason is someone worth listening to – apart from being a top bloke, his advice comes from great experience. He’s made many quality short fiction sales and is a recent winner of Writers Of The Future, among many other awards and nominations. Check him out here.

I agree with his sentiments. So how is what I’ve done with fiction on my site different to Ben’s experiment? There’s one simple difference – all the fiction I’ve made available to read here is previously published somewhere (with a couple of exceptions that I’ll talk about in a minute). Some of it is older stuff published in non-paying markets, but it’s still stuff I’m proud of. Other stories are published in better markets and the links here are directly to sites where the story can be found. The point is that it made it past an editor, so I’ve got unbiased, third party confirmation that it’s worth a read. For that reason, I’m happy to direct people towards it and say, “Here’s some of my writing for you to check out, I hope you like it.” If I wasn’t able to sell that story to an editor, even “sell” it to a for the love market, then I certainly won’t put it up here with a pouty face and a “well, I think it’s good enough” attitude. Because it’s not. Writers are the worst possible critics of their own work. Of course we love everything we write – we wrote it!

If people do like it, with any luck they’ll seek out some of my other stuff, they might take a punt on my novels. Hopefully then they’ll enjoy my books and recommend them to friends or buy copies to give as gifts. Using the same hypothesis, the first three chapters of both my books are available here (just click on book covers to find them) so that people can try before they buy.

The other exercise in free fiction I engaged in was Ghost Of The Black: A ‘Verse Full Of Scum. In an effort to generate return visits to my site and more interest in my fiction, I wrote a 30,000ish word novella in a series of episodes, which I then posted here every Monday during 2008. This was a conscious decision to write a piece of fiction that I had no intention of trying to sell. Rather, it was a deliberate exercise in giving something away to showcase my writing. It’s still available on the Serial Fiction page and it’s also available as an ebook and print book, that I’ve self-published. On the whole it’s been very well received and garnered a few decent reviews. Whether it’s really done much to enhance my career is hard to say, but I certainly don’t think it’s done any damage. Whether I leave it here indefinitely is also hard to say. For now, I’m happy to leave it for people to enjoy. I may take down the Serial Fiction page one day, and just leave the ebook and print edition available for people to buy. I may take those away too at some point. (Leave a comment if you have a particular opinion about that – I’d be interested to know.)

What I haven’t done is post here those stories that I couldn’t sell. Believe me, my story trunk is a dark and nasty place, full of things I really don’t want anyone else to see.

Another example of free, unpublished fiction here comes from my occasional jaunts into the Friday Flash meme. This is essentially a community of writers that post flash fiction on their websites and promote it with the #FridayFlash hashtag through Twitter and Facebook. A lot of those people don’t care about getting published, they’re just happy to be part of a community of likeminded people. Things that I’ve posted on Friday Flash are stories that I’ve decided are a good idea and an entertaining little yarn, but one that I don’t want to spend time trying to sell or expand into a longer piece. They’re all taster stories, exercises in writing and storytelling.

For me, writing is a very serious business. Friday Flash was a brief hobby. I don’t mean to denigrate the community by this statement at all, it’s just my own personal situation now. I’m not likely to post any more Friday Flash – I agree with the comments on Ben’s post that it’s a time-sink and I intend to spend that time on sellable short stories and novels. I’ve had fun with it, but now I’m moving on.

These days I only approach semi-pro and pro markets with my work. I know I can get stuff published in other places, but I’m improving my craft and expecting better results from myself. If I can’t sell a story to at least a semi-pro market, I won’t sell it at all. Nor will I post it here on my website. As the things on my site here attest, I was happy to get acceptances from much smaller markets before. Every writer starts somewhere. But I won’t stay there. I want to improve as a writer and I want to sell my work to better and better places all the time. I intend to be a pro writer, as in, get paid pro rates for my work, and I’ll keep working towards that. Recent sales are bearing out the worth of this endeavour – I’m making better sales all the time. I’m still yet to crack the big time pro markets, but I will one day.

In the meantime, I’m happy to leave the stuff here that I’ve already posted. I may well decide to take it all away at some point. Who knows?

What do you think? Do you appreciate free fiction as a taste of a writer’s work? Are you a writer for or against the idea? Have you had good or bad experiences posting fiction on your site? Do you think I should leave free fiction here or take it away? Leave your comments – I’m interested in people’s thoughts.

 

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

What Kind of Feedback Do Writers Need? What Helps Them Most?

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Our last post had me offering to put your name and Bio and web link in a Special Listing in my forthcoming book.

All it takes is getting the free copy of Notes from An Alien and giving some feedback.

I need to quote part of C. M. Marcum’s comment on that post:

“But we’re such good friends now. Why spoil it?

No, seriously, I have run the gauntlet of writing sites and I have found the relationships to be dreadfully one-sided.”

I think part of that one-sidedness is folks not knowing what writers really need when it comes to feedback. Though, I think C. M. knows exactly what kind of feedback to give, even if it’s not appreciated 🙂

People who give feedback on a WIP [work-in-progress] are sometimes called “beta readers”.

I’ve even known writers who only let beta readers have their WIP if they follow a prepared outline of what questions to answer about the piece.

Personally, the very worst form of feedback is, “Great job!”, and its many variants.

If they meant those words, fine, but what was “great” about it? And, if they didn’t mean it and were thinking they “protected” my feelings, the faux-comment is actually an attack against honesty and fairness. “This sucks!”, is much more welcome…

There’s an interesting discussion about what writers want and need in feedback at the Absolute Write Water Cooler.

One of the most interesting comments was: “Beta readers should be used to critique story effectiveness.”

Exactly! What effect does the writing have on you? What did it make you think? What did it make you feel? What was your response to various characters? Was the storyline understandable? Where did the piece disappoint you? Why did it disappoint you?

Another person in that forum thread said: “…’train’ your beta readers to read with a pencil in hand. Have them mark any section, phrase or word that pops them out of the story, even if they have no idea why it did. Sometimes that’s all you need to see a problem.”

Now that is some excellent advice 🙂

I’ll end this post with some quotes about feedback and critiquing:

“A guest sees more in an hour than the host in a year.”
~ Polish proverb

“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.”
~ Christopher Hampton

“Constant, indiscriminate approval devalues because it is so predictable.”
~ Kit Reed

“Don’t judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.”
~ American Indian saying

“It is easy – terribly easy – to shake a man’s faith in himself. To take advantage of that, to break a man’s spirit is devil’s work.”
~ George Bernard Shaw

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”
~ Abraham Lincoln

“When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.”
~ Oscar Wilde

“Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee; rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.”
~ The Bible

“To escape criticism – do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”
~ Elbert Hubbard

Please, leave your feedback and criticism in the comments 🙂
[ The Comment Link Is At The Top of The Post :-]
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What *Not* To Do If You’re Looking For Writing Advice

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I remember when the Internet was a baby–a brilliant, wide-eyed, baby with limitless potential for positive growth.

The Internet was born to Scientific and Military parents. It soon showed its independence and became the playground of creative, intelligent folks who took its potential and shaped a carnival of information amazement.

One of the most famous slogans back then was, “Information Wants to be Free …”, and this leads me to the first thing I feel you should not do when looking for writing advice.

Don’t pay anyone a penny until you’ve written the equivalent of a novel and even then you should probably wait much longer.

There’s a growing trend [in some fields, it’s a cancerous riot] of people with no credentials to speak of trying to woo unsuspecting novices into costly nets of stolen information–advice that could have been found for free.

If you’re the novice’s novice, you might start your explorations with our recent post, Resources for Writers ~ Readers Welcome 🙂

My second suggestion for what not to do is:

Don’t listen to people who are willing to give you free information until you’ve read some of their writing. { blogs actually count as writing 🙂

When it comes to blogging-writers who give advice, you may find some who don’t have a ton of published work. Still, you have their blog as evidence of how they handle words. If they’re fiction writers and they don’t have examples of their fiction in the blog or available through a link, you could, if you appreciate the things they say, ask if you could review some of their work.

My third thing to not do is:

Don’t get caught up in reading writing advice until you’ve given yourself the chance to write what you feel is the best work you can produce.

This may be a small collection of poems or three novels. If you’re really listening to yourself and letting your resident spirits guide you, you should know when you’ve produced something good. Sure you may doubt it’s “good enough” but that kind of thinking is married to the need for approval. You need your own approval for your work before you consider changing it based on others’ opinions.

And, because the Internet has grown into a many-headed, commercial beast and we all seem to love looking for approval and there are so many wolves in sheep’s clothing out there, when you do have some work you feel good enough about to have other minds check it out and offer advice, put it aside, resist the temptation to get advice, let it sit a month or two, and work on a new piece. When you come back to it, you’ll probably find things that you feel need changing. Change them and then, maybe, offer it for critique.

I know at least six writers who regularly read this blog and I trust they’ll offer their advice in the comments 🙂
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Really, No *Really*, What The Heck Is Writing?

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So many things in life are taken for granted. So much is automated. Even things like Love can suffer from a lack of proper awareness.

Ever walk down a street you’ve been down hundreds of times and wonder at some detail that seems like it just appeared yet has always been part of the landscape?

Perhaps I can do that for you in this post–give you a fresh vision of what the heck Writing really is.

I often find that checking an Etymology Dictionary gives me fresh perspectives on words and concepts that have become a bit stale. “Write” has roots that mean carve, scratch, cut, or paint.

Pardon me while a let the poetic side of my personality take control for a minute:

Authors can sometimes be said to carve a place for themselves in our culture.

There are also many writers barely scratching out a living.

Many wish they could cut a swath of recognition through the crowd of other writers.

And, our favorite writers are those who paint images in our minds with their words.

Anyone who ranks high on tests of left-brained activity is probably cringing at such a poor example of the application of word roots to an understanding of the meaning of writing.

You right-brained folks are probably creating other, equally-poetic examples 🙂

“You! Citizen! Step away from the keyboard!!”

Keyboards aren’t real good at carving, scratching, cutting, or painting. But the many former instruments of writing did all those things.

This attempt to go back a few steps so we can advance our understanding of writing has just reminded me of the many comments I see in the Twitter stream for #amwriting declaring, sometimes with boldness, sometimes with an excuse, that the Tweep is actually using a pen and paper for their WIP.

Just like my glee at saying my favorite word is “word”, I find an absurd pleasure in perusing written attempts at defining “writing”. Kind of like reciting the Kama Sutra while making love. Or, even better, putting two mirrors face to face and creating an infinite regress. And, possibly, best, the self-importance of this example of self-reference: I think the first word in this sentence is egotistical.

Seems like I’ve written myself into a corner: Carved a cul-de-sac, Scratched a non-existent itch, Cut off more than I can chew, Painted something non-representational…

Still, writing exists and I’m doing it now.

Your Feelings, Thoughts, Written Affidavits, Rants, or Explanations??
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Do You Write For The Reader or Should You Write For Yourself?

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As usual, I won’t write a post that claims ultimate wisdom. My goal is to share ideas that get you thinking and, hopefully, sharing what you think in the Comments 🙂

Should a writer write for the reader?

Who is the reader?

What value is there in writing what you consider necessary in spite of what readers may think?

Some writers will tell you to do research about your potential readers and find out what they want when they read. This is fairly straightforward if your goal is to produce books that fit into an accepted genre. If you write cross-genre or your writing is actually creating a new genre, the only reader you can consult is yourself and, possibly, that weird group of people who actually understand what you’re up to 🙂

The value in writing what’s necessary, in spite of potential reader turn-off, is helping elevate the conversation our Human Family is engaged in. Some of the most enduring reads are books that were first misunderstood by the general public but trumpeted valiantly by those who saw the Value. Some things in life are worth fighting against horrendous odds to achieve higher ends…

I’m tempted to pull a little rant here about the formulaic method of writing that caters to formulaic readers, all spiraling into a slush fund of wasted resources–pimping your talent to make a buck. Oops, I did let a bit of rant slip, didn’t I 🙂

There are honest writers who create within and give value to a niche market of readers. Plus, with all the burgeoning opportunities for self-promotion and publishing, these dedicated artists can reach their dreams of sharing their unique perspectives.

My personal solution for this seemingly contradictory situation of choosing either the reader or yourself as the motivating impulse for why you’d spend so much time alone creating something that might reach a large audience is:

Read as widely and deeply as you possibly can. Read till you’re bored and then read more. Absorb as much of our Human Family’s hopes and dreams and challenges and fears and dangers and failures and quirks as you possibly can–absorb it into what you could call your internal Meta-Reader.

Then, when you sit down to create, let that Meta-Reader decide what is absolutely necessary to write………
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No Shortcut To Awesome: What I've Learned

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I’ve said before that there is no shortcut to awesome and it’s time to take my own advice. I’ve had an interesting publishing journey so far and I’ve made a lot of mistakes (I’ve done some things right, too, but I’ve made a lot of mistakes.)

Right now, 24 hours after Save My Soul went live on Kindle, I’m already reflecting on things and thinking about WHY I make myself so crazy over this [stuff]… things which I largely cannot control.

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

I’m in an interesting position of having another pen name so I actually have sort of a “control group” to study. Like I don’t have to just speculate about how things might be different if I’d taken the Zoe thing in a different direction. I sort of have the closest comparison I’m ever going to get.

Let’s compare and contrast shall we?

My other pen name does not do Kindle giveaways or any giveaways. She doesn’t market at all, really. She announces her book release in her varied platforms, and then she’s out. She blogs a little. That’s about it. She doesn’t obsess over rankings or stats. She doesn’t do a big launch/release. She has no expectations about anything. It is what it is and that’s that.

Zoe… does kindle giveaways, spazzes out over release week, stresses herself out, gets anxious and worked up about the entire process. Has expectations she can never meet then feels disappointed when she doesn’t meet them. (because they are unrealistic for where she’s at). And there is some serious obsessing about sales and rankings that goes on. Zoe did a book trailer, a private contest for newsletter subscribers, blah blah blah.

And yet, the sales for 24 hours after the Save My Soul launch are almost exactly the same as they were for the Blood Lust launch. Even though Blood Lust was previously released material. And didn’t have a gee golly wow book trailer, or as large of a newsletter following and on and on and on.

January is pretty crappy for sales for all types of entertainment. People have just gotten off Christmas and are trying to recover financially from overspending during the holiday season, etc. So that could factor in.

But the bottom line is… I’ve made myself crazy. And it’s not really that much about “ego”. It’s about… this is the first time in my life I’ve ever made a living doing anything and I’m terrified I’ll fall off the map and lose that, but there are no guarantees in life. And it seems to me that freaking out and worrying about the future is a great way to not enjoy the present and the awesome things I’ve been blessed with… i.e. great readers and the ability to write as my only job.

But here is the really interesting part. You’d think that Zoe would be doing a lot better than the other pen name, but she isn’t. The other pen name sells just as well, sometimes better. So why am I wasting time making myself crazy?

I can’t MAKE everybody “act now”. I know I have more fans than what have bought so far. I also know some are waiting for other formats (totally reasonable), some don’t have cash right now, some just have missed the announcements. Some haven’t “gotten around to it yet”. And that’s all fine. The world doesn’t owe me shit. Other people have lives and everything doesn’t revolve around Zoe Winters. We’re still very much in that Zoe Who? phase of things.

I also know that most people who have bought Save My Soul haven’t had a chance to read it yet. It’s not a novella that can be read in just one sitting for most. It may take a few days before even the most serious fans get it read and start talking about it. Since Amazon continues to change their algorithms for sales rankings so book blitzes become less effective unless they are long, drawn out, obnoxious events, I’ve got to go back to the “slow build” mentality. I am NOT going to camp out on Twitter and Facebook every single day going “buy my book, buy my book”. That’s a guaranteed recipe for losing the fan support I currently have.

I also can’t spend a ton of time doing social marketing “right”, where I’m building all these “relationships”. Because relationships take time to maintain. And all the time I spend being social on Twitter and Facebook, is time I’m not spending writing. So it’s too much focus on the wrong stuff. I like you guys, and I answer my @ ‘s on Twitter. And I won’t ignore you. But… constantly seeking out social interaction to “get my name out there” is not fair to the readers who want me to actually be writing so they can read new books from me.

So what’s the plan now? Well, I think I’m done with big contests. No matter how I structure it, adding incentive to purchase doesn’t seem to drive enough purchases that wouldn’t have happened anyway. (Though, I think I’ll probably still do an initial sale price.) I also want to know that people are buying the book simply because they want to read it and for no other reason. I’m also not sure how many people I “annoy” with giveaways. Like some people don’t like to feel like I think I have to bribe them to read. Some readers/fans may be insulted by big giveaways as incentive to purchase. So how much damage am I doing compared to how much good? I have no fucking clue.

I’ve already backed off the indie rah rah train. So that’s good. Basically I’m just going to focus on writing and publishing fiction. I’m not going to attach expectation to another book release. My other pen name is not insane. She’s happily just writing and publishing and doing her thing. She’s passionate about the work first and foremost.

Now I just have to make Zoe more sane. So that’s the plan going forward.

Another reason I think I need to let go of expectation is because it’s making me ungracious. As previously mentioned, the world doesn’t owe me shit. And when I get to the point where I start seeing readers as “numbers” and not human beings who are graciously giving up both their time and money to read me, then I have MISSED THE PLOT.

I think that’s the most unhealthy part of book releases with expectation attached. It slowly turns me into somebody I don’t want to be. At some point I do hope my work breaks out. Once Save My Soul gets more out there and people read and react to it, it may even break out somewhat. I think it’s a strong story. I think it’s stronger than Blood Lust. But the focus here needs to be on building backlist. I am FAR from ideal backlist. Most trad pub authors don’t really break out until book 5 or 6. I am not a magic unicorn or a special snowflake and the rules don’t just suspend for me.

This is a slow tortoise event. And dude, I’m just on year 3 on my 10-yr-plan. What the hell happened to my 10-yr-plan? Oh, I know what happened, I started comparing myself to other people and getting my eyes off my own paper.

With every book release I learn new lessons. Some of them are hard to deal with. The main lesson I’ve learned so far from this is that I’m no less crazy than I was with the Blood Lust release, and it’s because I haven’t yet shifted my attitude. I was shifting a marketing strategy, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that every author is on their own unique path at their own unique pace and the most important things for me to do are:

1. Write good books

2. Get them out there

3. Be decent (i.e. don’t turn into a little shit, or if I’ve been one, definitely don’t continue on in that path.)

So now I’m going to go work on a short story for an anthology and try to get my word count back up some. (I’m behind on my 365k goal.)

In 2011 I want it to be ALL about the words. Not about the ego. Not about the competition. Not about the drama. In the spirit of the title of the new release, I’m not losing my soul to reach any dream. If I can’t get where I want to go while being a decent human being, the cost is too high.

 

This is a reprint from the Weblog of Zoe Winters.

How You Can Sell Your Ebooks Via Mobile Phones

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This is a reprint from Piotr Kowalczyk‘s ( @namenick on Twitter) Password Incorrect, which is provided here in its entirety with the author’s permission.

There are great services like Ether Books, which are designed to reach mobile readers and populate their minds with high quality reads tailored to mobile conditions. But what to do when you are not lucky enough to be one of Ether’s authors?

If you are a self-publisher actively using social media to find readers and draw their attention to your books (probably published in an electronic form), this post is for you.

I’d like to share a simple way to make your e-book available for instant purchase by mobile phone users. As you’ll see – it’s very easy.

What to do?

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Use Twitter to share links to your books self-published at Kindle Store – with an extra information addressing owners of mobile Kindle applications.

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An example of a tweet is shown in screenshot 1. When you tap on a link you’ll be redirected to a mobile browser, like Safari on an iOS device, or a browser working within a Twitter app.

Screenshot 1 – click to enlarge

As you see, just after one click (screenshot 2) the reader can make a purchase decision. What’s more important, the time of actually reading this book on a Kindle app is delayed only by a couple of seconds more. It’s the essence of an instant purchase.

Experts can say: “Yeah, but it’s so obvious that you can buy goods via Amazon’s mobile site.”

The thing is not what experts know, but what readers don’t know. And most of them still don’t know that:

1. Amazon has a mobilized version of its site (even those users who already have Kindle app on their mobile phones – as they never tried actually buying anything yet)

2. 1-Click purchase works on mobile phones

3. It’s extremely fast and convenient – it takes a couple of clicks and less than 30 seconds from discovering an e-book on Twitter to reading it.

In fact, buying an e-book via Twitter link is faster than doing it via the Kindle application, where you’re just redirected to an Amazon site and have to browse for a book.

Why mobile phones?

 

Screenshot 2 – click to enlarge

1. Mobile web is growing extremely fast, everyone knows it

2. Half of Twitter users are connecting with a service via mobile phones

3. They don’t have to switch devices to complete a purchase – even if they won’t read the e-book on a mobile phone, but on a Kindle device

4. Mobile phone can be a purchase device for owners of Kindles not equipped with 3G

5. Mobile phone users regularly make purchases in the application stores for their respective mobile operating systems; buying Kindle e-books via Twitter is a similar kind of experience.

Why Amazon?

1. Availability of Kindle apps (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7)

2. Well designed Amazon mobile site – with 1-Click functionality

3. A growing number of Kindle owners and mobile device users with an Amazon account

4. Very important – book syncing. We can assume that this functionality from Amazon will always be a step ahead of the competition

5. Right at the beginning, after landing on an book’s page at Amazon, the reader has a choice: to buy a book or to download a free sample

6. Automatic detection of mobile browsers – if you open a link from a mobile phone, a mobile site appears.

Why Twitter?

 

 

1. Great discovery&recommendation tool

2. Instant delivery of messages, tweet streams, many users – all of that is a great foundation for instant micro-purchase decisions

3. Amazon link (amzn.to) is a guarantee of a safe purchase. If you use bit.ly shortener it automatically changes to amzn.to when you share a page from Amazon.com.

* * *

Obviously the most important factor is the information contained in a single tweet. The user has to know that the book can be downloaded in a couple of clicks. You have to pick up the owners of customer accounts at Amazon.com – those ones who are reading your tweets on their mobile phones right now.

I’ve tested this method on an iPhone. @narnua came back with the info that it’s also working on Android devices, so probably both BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 users would be also able to buy e-books this way. Please share your experience on this in the comment section.

As you see in an example shown above, this is doable. I sent this tweet yesterday and sold 10 copies of my short stories. Not a bad result for a self-published e-book of a niche genre (I call it “geek fiction”).

There are many ways to address – in a single tweet – mobile users who have access to Kindle e-books:

1. Use “Kindle”, either as a word or a hashtag

2. Use hashtags, not only #kindle, but also #ebook, #ebooks, #mobile

3. Name devices or mobile operating systems: iPhone, iPad, Android, HTC, etc. (also as hashtags).

If you start selling your books this way, I’d love to hear news from you. Please come back and share your thoughts [in the comments area of the original article on my site]. 

 

2011: The Rise of a New Breed of Blogger

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This article, by Jean Aw, originally appeared on the American Express Open Forum Idea Hub blog on 12/27/10. While the piece examines the four major types of bloggers now entering the online fray, and does not specifically address writers, authors or publishing, it’s informative in the sense of knowing who you’re up against out there on the ‘net when trying to drive traffic to your own blog.

Let’s face it: blogging is big business. I predict that in 2011, there will be a rise of Lifestyle Bloggers. This new breed of business-savvy blogger not only writes, but also handles business development and prioritizes having a fulfilling life NOW. Cash flow positive with a happy, small and flexible team, this type of blogger has a balanced, sustainable new business model.

As creating content gets easier, we are faced with more noise online than ever before and more data than people are willing or able to parse. Curation was the inevitable trend of 2010 — everyone from huge corporations to small businesses to college kids uses platforms like Tumblr and Twitter to distribute content and create influence. In 2011, we’ll need people to curate the curators to find a more refined signal.

This is where the Lifestyle Blogger comes in. Are you a Lifestyle Blogger? Do you want to be? If not, does your business know how to best work with and benefit from this rising group?

I had a conversation with a growing Lifestyle Blogger who just made the transition from having a day job to blogging full-time and trying to become a sustainable company. He’s brought on two writers, and he’s starting to negotiate contracts for advertising and special projects with a major ad agency. He asked me for help.

Here’s a little snippet from our conversation:

 

Yes, I was horrified at the idea of being compared to a cartoon pocket monster… even a more evolved one. But more importantly, I wondered what it was that he saw that we had in common? And, if he was looking to grow, why did he turn to me instead of the founder of a major blog with teams of writers, venture capital and ad sales teams? As we talked further, it became clear: our goals as site owners, as writers, as bloggers united us… and were very different than those of most other types of blogs. The word blog doesn’t even begin to encompass the spectrum of what’s out there. 

As we see it, here are the main types of blog based businesses today and how we’ve seen some of them evolve:

 

Read the rest of the article on the American Express Open Forum Idea Hub blog.

Publishing Progress ~ the Highs and the Lows…

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Writers, almost all of them, want to be published. Not so many years ago, the only way to be published that let the multitudes receive your work was to find an agent and have them present your work to editors who then might decide to work with you toward publishing.

There are many stories of writers’ works being published in forms that they really didn’t like; yet, they really wanted to be published so they caved…

To be fair, most respectable publishers worked hard to bring the manuscript to a form that was marketable as well as true to the writer’s vision.

Still, this path to publishing depended on people other than the writer making decisions about the most important factor in the whole process. Is the work something people will want to buy?

As I was contemplating writing the book I’ll be publishing, I knew that the traditional processes to decide if it would sell would keep it from being published. It’s just that kind of book 🙂

But I also knew there were many people who would want to read it.

Luckily, the way to publish is rapidly changing and the ways to reach people who want a specific book are easily available.

For the best resource I’ve found to reveal this new publishing reality, visit Publetariat. It “…was founded by April L. Hamilton, and its editorial staff includes experts in writing, journalism, editing, publishing in both hard copy and electronic formats, book marketing and promotion, web design, podcasting, video trailer creation, author services and social media….we trawl the internet daily to bring you the most valuable content in books, publishing, book promotion, authorship and more from all over the web.”

Now, my personal Highs and Lows:

A huge high was the realization that I’d finally tripped over a story idea that could successfully present the themes I wanted to share.

Another high was re-discovering the virtual world, Second Life, where I interacted with folks while I was shaping and testing the story idea.

The first low was realizing how much damned work it was going to take to turn the idea into a book. [ It should be noted that I’m a man on a small military pension that just barely lets me eat, pay rent and utilites, and have Internet connection. I was looking at potential amounts of money that I didn’t have and hours of interaction with people on the Internet, most of whom I knew wouldn’t "get" what I was doing. ]

The process of radically changing my thinking while I was researching intensely and making tons of notes that somehow turned into a rough draft of an outline was a mixed bag of highs and lows…

Actually beginning the writing was the High of highs.

Revision of each chapter as it was finished was a high.

Using FastPencil (my Print and Ebook distributor) as an interactive lab for reviewers and beta-readers as the chapters accumulated was a unique high. Also, discovering that saving $50 a month for four months would let me buy their package that distributes to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iPad, and Ingram was a delirious high 🙂

Printing the manuscript out and reading it as I used a pen to mark changes was a blast from the past.

Finding an editor who I could pay with only a tribute in the book was a high (hint: explore your nearest universities for Grad students in the English department).

Kicking my Social Media Pre-Publication Networking into high gear was mostly a high with many low troughs that had to do with sifting the wheat from the chaff–an ongoing slog through oceans of mundane trivialities to find and connect with sources of creative and progressive relationship.

Waiting… for the editor to finish her work was, as embarrassing as it is to say, a low 🙁

Seeing that she had only found a multitude of small, necessary edits was a Gargantuan High!

That last event just happened yesterday. Now comes the high of final revisions.

I know there will be more lows as I approach the high of release date but my experience with my past publications and the way that the highs of this recent journey have quickly obliterated the toxic effect of the lows makes the ultimate publication of Notes from An Alien the most important event of my life.
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