Write

Articles about craft.

Point of View Demystified

by

Listen to a PODCAST of this article. 

I recently sought to hire an editor for my MANUSCRIPT and found many of them willing to offer a CHAPTER length sample edit. One came back with the notation I had a Point of View error on page one.

 
How in the world did I miss a POV error on the first page? *shakes head – roll eyes*
 
If nothing else, the experience taught me two things. Editors are a necessity, and POV errors are easy to miss. With that said, I thought I’d pen an article on POV and share it with you.
 
Let’s first try to understand what POV is. In a sound bite, it’s who’s telling the story. POV is nothing more than the writer’s method for presenting narrative. See, it’s not all that mysterious, though mistakes are evidently difficult to catch.
 
The first aspect of Point of View to understand is each POV has its advantages, disadvantages and typical uses. My focus for this article will be the three most common uses of POV.
 
The three major types are:
 
First Person POV – the writer tells the story
Second Person POV – the writer gives advice
Third Person POV – the major character or characters tell the story
 
Third Person POV has three subdivisions and they are:
 
Limited
Omniscient
Objective
 
Let’s take a look at First Person POV.
 
First Person has the writer, or narrator, tell the story. In effect, the author speaks to his readers. This POV is told in either present or past POV.
 
It is most often used when one authors a book about ones’ personal experiences or opinions. You’ll see the writer using the pronouns I, me, my, mine, we, our and ours. It does fit into fiction, but is widely used in memoirs.
 
Second Person POV
 
Think of this as an instruction manual with extensive use of the pronoun, “you.” This POV is rarely used in fiction as it simply tells the reader what the characters are doing and what they see. A weakness is it provides only limited access to creativity though a strength is it grabs the reader’s attention. It can also exist in past and present forms.
 
Third Person POV, where a character or characters tell the story, has three subtypes and we’ll discover each of these in time. It’s the primary POV utilized in fiction.
 
Third Person – Omniscient POV
 
Third Person Omniscient POV has all the major characters in your novel tell the story. What is nice about this POV is the freedom it affords. The author can tell the reader everyone’s motivations and their thoughts. It allows the writer to give or withhold information at will.
 
The difficulties of this POV lie in lack of control and its potentially cumbersome nature. If you aren’t careful and you show too much of what’s inside every character’s head, the reader receives an overabundance of information and can become frustrated if your POV loses cohesion.
 
To overcome this drawback, ensure consistency in your POV and have only one person at a time tell the story. It’s also important to eliminate any information that is not pertinent to the story. Have each chapter focus on one individual to eliminate “head-hopping,” which is jumping from one character’s POV to another within chapters.
 
Third Person – Limited POV
 
Third Person Limited POV is perhaps the easiest to utilize and most popular when writing novels. Here the author writes from a single person’s vision throughout the entire book. In third person POV, you’ll see pronouns such as she, he, her, him, hers, his, it, its, they, them, theirs.
 
The disadvantages come with the writer’s limitation as to who sees what. The character who tells the story cannot get into the head of another to read his thoughts. He can only surmise what the other guy thinks by their facial expressions, actions and such. It’s also very easy to shift out of this POV.
 
Third Person Objective POV
 
In this POV, the author only tells his readers what happens by way of action or dialogue. Their characters’ feelings or thoughts are never revealed. It’s not the most effective POV for fiction.
 
The secret to POV is to learn what type works well for your writing style and genre.
 
Now, who wishes to share a POV issue they’ve faced?
 
I hope you know by now, I wish for you only best-sellers.

 

This is a reprint from C. Patrick Shulze‘s Author of Born to be Brothers blog.

Review of Editor's Lexicon

by

Last week Rebecca Hargreaves, a blogger I follow, asked her readers whether or not she should take an advanced writing class. This post and the lively comments that ensued got me to thinking about how a writer trains to be a successful writer.

As an academic who went through eleven years of post secondary education to become a professional historian, I have always been bemused by the thought that I could become a professional fiction writer without even one college level writing class, yet I suspect my serious lack of formal training is not unusual.

I did take a college extension novel writing class over 20 years ago when I started the first draft of Maids of Misfortune, and I did find the class useful because it taught me how to find agents, write query letters, and generally what to expect in negotiating the landscape of traditional publishing. In addition, the main assignment was to write the conclusion of your proposed novel, and this initial scene remained a beacon, drawing me on, as I wrote the first draft over the next few years.
 
But for me, my formal training in the craft of writing fiction came from my writer’s critique group, the two agents who worked with me, the comments from editors who reviewed my work, and the books I have read about writing. I have read books about the writing life, about writing dialog, about writing mysteries, about plotting and punctuation, but I had never before read a book that does the following, which is why I would like to highly recommend, The Editor’s Lexicon: Essential Writing Terms for Novelists by Sarah Cypher(Glyd-Evans Press, 2010, 80 pps,$9.95 list price.)
 
This delightful guide by Sarah Cypher, a writer and professional book editor, is designed to improve the critiquing process by providing definitions and examples of common terms editors use to describe the strengths and weaknesses of a piece of fiction.
 
For example, if an author gets back a manuscript with the comment on a section that “the pacing of this scene lacked tension, and could be improved by increasing the stakes,” she could look up these three terms in the index of The Editor’s Lexicon and read clear and concise definitions of each term. She would also see well-chosen, and often amusing, examples-either a piece of writing that demonstrated the term, or a comment an editor or reviewer might make.
 
How I wish The Editor’s Lexicon had existed when I had started fiction. I was familiar with the specialized terminology of academic writing (thesis, evidence, topic sentences, etc), but when I started getting comments on my work from agents and editors, I frequently didn’t know quite what they were asking of me. I remember struggling to understand point of view, or the admonition to cut back on my exposition (historical non-fiction writing is primarily exposition!) This handy book would have shortened my learning curve considerably.
 
In addition, the organization of The Editor’s Lexicon means it can be used as a short primer on the basic elements of fiction writing. Cypher lists the terms under five sections (premise, theme, voice, plot, character), and if you read through the terms under each section you learn a great deal about each element and the general craft of writing. I even found this useful as a refresher as I began to outline my second mystery.
 
Finally, the Editor’s Lexicon would have improved the effectiveness of my writer’s group, particularly during the years when the group had writers with a wide range of experience and skill, because a common language would have helped us provide more objective and useful comments on each other’s manuscripts.
 
While The Editor’s Lexicon: Essential Writing Terms for Novelists  will be most helpful to new writers, because it provides such an accessible introduction to fiction writing and the terms editors use, I believe it will become an important tool for any writer or teacher of writing, self-taught or academically trained, who wants to improve her craft.

This is a cross-posting from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

Blogging the Tortoise Way

by

I don’t think there is anyone who would disagree that blogging on a regular basis is a must to gain a solid reader base. If you want to be noticed you have to get the attention of not just people, but the internet spiders, especially those of Google. The question, however, is how often should you blog?

 
The vast majority, I think, would say that you absolutely must blog everyday. Their reasoning? Usually it’s an assumption that everyone prefers having their email inbox glutted with “great” new posts on a daily basis. Or it’s all about increasing your Google rank. Or both.
 
While blogging daily will increase your Google rank, unless it is of very high quality, a daily blog (even just on weekdays) can be seen as a nuisance to your readers — and a major stress factor for you, especially if you’re a highly sensitive person. I strongly disagree with the thought that it’s a wonderful idea to blog on a daily basis, from both a writer’s and a reader’s standpoint.
 
From a reader’s view, I have enough emails to wade through that the daily blogs, unless they’re amazing, simply get deleted with nothing more than a quick scan. Those that come on a weekly or monthly basis I’m more likely to take the time to read because I believe that person really took the time to produce something of high quality. (It’s a judgement call, I know, but I just haven’t seen enough fantastic daily posts to believe otherwise.)
 
As a writer, a daily blog puts strain on an already tight schedule. For me, blogging isn’t just sitting down to write whatever pops into my head. There is a lot of research to be done for a quality blog. Not to mention a large amount of time actually crafting and editing it. After all, a “quality” blog gives useful information and makes sure the reader has ready access to helpful sites. If all I wanted to do was give a quick tip, I’d use Twitter.
 
One such advocate of daily blogging is Gary Smailes of BubbleCow. Gary says in his post Why (And How) Writers Should Blog Every Day, “If you are looking to build a platform then it all comes down to priorities. If you are going to build an online presence then you need to develop a voice and audience. The more you push, the louder your voice becomes.”
 
If you’re an HSP like me, then pushing and speaking louder is almost the antithesis of who you are. I’m sorry, Mr. Smailes, but there are other ways of making yourself heard.
 
Basic networking can be done via social media or face-to-face and you don’t have to shout to do it. Building a network, and a following, does not have to happen overnight. Trying to stretch yourself beyond what you can naturally do and without the needed downtime, something non-HSPs do on a regular basis, will only make a highly sensitive person overwhelmed. I know from personal experience that trying to market myself the way “everyone else does it” or, worse, the way “everyone else says I should do it” only gave me wicked heartburn and a lot of cranky days from lack of sleep. It didn’t improve my following at all.
 
What has worked is crafting quality weekly blogs and networking the old-fashioned way. As a highly sensitive person, I find I absolutely must be creative — and slow — in building my platform. I may not win a lot of readers today, but over time I’m positive I can entice many on The Road to Writing.
 
BTW: This post took 1 hour 15 minutes to write and edit. That time does not include research on the topic of blogging.

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

How To Write Book Titles for People & Robots

by

In advertising, it’s said, 80% of the effectiveness of your ad depends on your headline. Brian Clark of Copyblogger says

Your headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a compelling promise that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist. From a copy writing . . . standpoint, writing great headlines is a critical skill.

Book titles, meant to entice a reader into a purchase, need to be even more effective than headlines. But book titles often seem like an afterthought, or maybe a title the author has been carrying around in their head for many years. Titles can be chosen for any number of reasonable or completely frivolous reasons.
 
But the success of your book might well depend on your book title. Dan Poynter, the author of The Self-Publishing Manual, says
Selecting the title and subtitle will be the single-most important piece of copy writing you will do for your book. A great title will not sell a bad book but a poor title will hide a good book from potential customers. Both your title and subtitle must be a selling tool. They are the hook that help sales.
For instance, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was originally called Trimalchio in West Egg. Don’t you wonder what the book’s fate would have been if Fitzgerald had used his original name?
 
 
The Best of the Worst Book Titles
The Bookseller runs an annual award, the Diagram Prize, for the oddest book titles of the year. Here’s a list of the finalists for the 2009 award:
  • David Crompton’s Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter (Glenstrae Press)
  • James A Yannes’ Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich (Trafford)
  • Daina Taimina’s Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes (A K Peters)
  • Ronald C Arkin’s Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots (CRC Press)
  • Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky’s The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (SLACK Inc)
  • Tara Jansen-Meyer’s What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua? (Mirror)
self-publishing, book design templates

The Winner

I’m sure you’ll be interested to know that Daina Taimina’s Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes took home the prize. If you think the book wasn’t worthy, consider the Product Description on Amazon: “Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes is a work of gargantuan proportions whose influence will be measured for decades to come.” So there.

Book Titles Are Serious Business
Rachelle Gardner wrote a useful post with some ideas on how to brainstorm your book titles, and she has several suggestions for practical exercises you can do. Here’s one example:
Nothing is off limits—write down anything you can think of that conveys anything about your book. Use visual words that suggest a scene. Other words that evoke an emotion. A sensation. A location. A question. You should have at least 100 words.
But here’s my idea. Once you get finished finding exactly the right title, stop and think about the world in which your book will be sold. Particularly for nonfiction books, one of the chief ways people will find your book is through search, specifically through online searches.
 
Since we know that careful study and use of keywords can be influential in how people find our books (as well as our blog posts, articles and other online writing) we can use this information to help guide us to better book titles.
 
Titles for Humans and for (Search) Robots
Here are some examples of titles that work well for both of your constituencies: the person browsing in a bookstore or at an online retailer, and the robots sent out by search engines to catalog the web. Take a look at these titles and see if you can spot the pattern, the way they were carefully crafted on both ends.
 
The Devil’s Casino: Friendship, Betrayal, and the High Stakes Games Played Inside Lehman Brothers

In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War

Black Wave: A Family’s Adventure at Sea and the Disaster That Saved Them

Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance

The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
 

In each case, a punchy, evocative title grabs attention and attempts to create curiosity, suspense or interest in the reader. Then comes the subtitle. These are typically longer than the title and have two equally important roles to play:
  1. The subtitle has to adequately convey, at a glance, what the actual subject matter and scope of the book is.
     
  2. The subtitle also has to contain the one or two critical keywords that best represent your book.
While the title addresses the human browser, the subtitle has to flag the search engine robots with keywords that will turn up in any relevant search on your topic. Look through the list above again. In each case, the punchy title is followed by keyword-rich descriptions. Each subtitle is far more specific than its corresponding title. In fact, without the subtitles, many of these titles would tell you almost nothing about the book they were attached to.
 
As almost all book discovery moves to digital databases and online searches, more and more of your success will rely on your ability to alert searchers—both robotic and human—to the worthiness of your book when they search on relevant keywords for your subject area.
 
These are the same keywords to use in filling out bibliographic information for Books in Print on Bowkerlink, to incorporate in your catalog copy and any descriptions of the book you write, or any press materials, media releases or sales copy.
 
This combination of title and subtitle gives you the greatest chance of your book being found by exactly the right people. Put some really good thinking behind your choices—it will serve you well.
 
Takeaway: For nonfiction books, combine an attention-getting short title with a long, specific and keyword-rich subtitle to achieve the best discoverability for your book.

 

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

How To Increase the Pace of Your Novel

by

Listen to a PODCAST of this article. 

Did you know CONFLICT is not the only tool you have to increase the pace of your writing? Of course, the more forceful the conflict, the faster the pace. However, there is another important concept available to help ramp up the pace of your writing. The second most important technique used to increase the pace of your writing is the rise and fall of tension.

Tension is different from conflict in so far as conflict is your character’s emotional reaction to the challenges he faces. In contrast, tension is the emotional strain placed upon your readers. It’s a bit of hostility you interject into their lives.

So, how does a writer place emotional pressure on a reader? Alfred Hitchcock presented this concept at it best when he said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

In my own mind, I see this concept in a scene where two characters sit at a table. Unbeknownst to them, there is a ticking bomb strapped beneath it. The reader knows the bomb is there and when it’ll blow, but the characters do not.

Can you see how a ticking time bomb, real or metaphorical, can propel your tension? 

Okay, now for some tips on how to increase the pace of your writing.
 
1. Use sentences and scenes and chapters that leave them hanging.
2. Tension, like conflict, should ebb and flow through your novel. Think of a line chart that grows ever upward in consecutive peaks and valleys. Your tension should follow this same path. It should always build, then fall, then rise to the next higher level. After you slow the tension, make something happen, and soon, to regain your momentum.

3. DIALOGUE is a great tool to increase the tension of your writing.
Not only are you able to use your characters words but also how they say what they say.

 
4. Quick lines make for quick reading. Quick reading makes for a fast tempo and greater tension.
 
5. In those nail-biting situations you create, sentence fragments will increase the excitement. Always. Every time. As here. I urge caution, however, for overuse of fragments can get out of control.

6. Consider the amount of white space on the page. Imagine a sheet of paper filled with text, one line after the other without breaks, from top to bottom and side to side. You can visualize how this would overpower the reader. Think instead of a page loaded with choppy sentences. This creates a great deal of white space to the right and makes the page read faster. Your reader will feel the increased rhythm if for no reason other than the speed by which they flip the pages.

7. Shorter, simpler words increase the tempo and the tension of your story. Anything that slows your reader will slow the pace, and the tension, of your scene.

Number 8 is one of my favorite sayings. “Be cautious of argot your middling might not twig.” That is to say, don’t use terminology your average reader might not understand. When you force them to take their mind off the story and focus on individual words, their reading slows in dramatic fashion. So does the pace. That goes double for medical thrillers and the like where difficult words are normal.

9. Strong, specific verbs and nouns can also increase the tension. Consider someone who dreams in nightmares in contrast to someone who is haunted by nightmares. How about someone who “falls” as compared to someone who “collapses.” These examples show how a single word can increase the tension of your novel. Therefore, seek precision with your words.

10. Use active voice. “He was going to fight it out,” reads slower and with less strength than, “He determined to fight it out.” Read this ARTICLE to learn more about active voice.

 

Now, might you have any tips to share?
 
As always, know I wish for you only best-sellers.
 

This is a reprint from C. Patrick Shulze‘s Author of Born to Be Brothers blog.

Writing Q&A: Finding Time, Finishing Work, Short Story Markets And What To Do After A First Draft

by

Here are some questions that have been sent in by readers.

How does one find the time between work, family, and other commitments to write the book one wants to write?
This is one of the most common questions asked, and basically there is only one answer.

There is not enough time to do everything, so what are you going to give up in order to write your book?
I personally went down to working 4 days per week, plus gave up TV ( I do download shows from iTunes but it cuts out watching crap!). I also have very little social life, but am a happy hermit! Here are some more ideas for finding time. Here is a free audio on Beating Procrastination.
 
What is your inspiration that keeps you moving towards finishing your book? I’ve got lots of “chunks” of text that i need to assemble into a coherent title (or series of titles).
The only thing that can keep you moving is wanting to achieve the goal of writing your book. Much of the ‘assembly’ can be boring but you have to push through that. Persistence and discipline have to be the hallmarks of anyone successful at anything. Here is some more help:
I’ve almost finished my 1st draft, what do I do next?
“Writing a book is rewriting”, I think Michael Crichton said that, but many other writers will say the same thing. The first draft is just the very start, but at least it gives you the rough material to work with. From here, you need to think about the following:
  • Rewriting, editing, proof-reading and rewriting cycle – here is a great post on different types of editing from Self Publishing Review. Whether you are going to submit to an agent, or going down the self-publishing route, you need to go through editing and rewriting to make the book as good as it can be. Yes, you will be sick of it, but it will be a better product. I have hired editors before to get a professional viewpoint.
Short Story markets. For question #–I’m a short story writer and would be interested in doing an anthology.

 

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

Writing Grief

by

For the past year or two I have been living with two impending deaths. One was natural, merciful and literal. The other was unnatural, tortured and figurative. Both have both come to pass.

I have been alive long enough to know that there is no way to anticipate or speed the grieving process. There is no way to shed grief but to endure it and to respect the truth of it. I am also aware that the trend these days is to encourage people to move on with their lives, or to otherwise ignore or distract themselves from grief — advice that is often proffered by friends and family who do not want to embrace the totality of loss, or the inevitability of mortality, in their own lives.
 
As I have watched myself move through this process in two instances, I have noticed that as a writer I do not have the tools to accurately describe what I am thinking and feeling. Were I authoring these events I would struggle greatly to communicate the totality of what I feel as a character. 
 
The lesson here — the fiction writing lesson — is that this cannot be done. The craft of the writer is as much about reconnecting readers with vistas already observed as it is about describing vistas that have never been seen. (And in this is the difficulty of writing about life for young readers. Because they have so little of life’s experience to draw on, there is little that can be evoked.)
 
If there is a common core to every writer’s work, it is found in the intersection between what the author wants to express and what the author can evoke. This is true of love, of loss, of madness and of resolve. It can only truly be communicated if the reader already speaks the language.
 
I don’t know if I will ever write about my grief. I don’t know if I ever want to, or if in doing so I would have anything more to communicate than adding my voice to the human scream.
 
What I do know is that I know how. As I tread water and look for landmarks by which to orient myself, I find my craft sustaining me in ways I did not anticipate.
 
Writing is inextricably a part of who I am. It has always been my way of seeing and being.
And it is a constant reminder to go to the truth not simply in my work, but in my life. Even if that truth is grief.

 

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

The Secret to Plot in Your Novel

by

With this post, Publetariat welcomes indie author C. Patrick Shulze as a regular site Contributor.

Listen to a PODCAST of this article.
 
What makes for good fiction? Is it character, PLOT, story, setting, voice, dialogue or some other component of your novel? The answer is  PLOT; the story of what happens. Think of it this way: you can find millions of different characters, tens of thousands of settings and about a dozen stories. But as Jim Thompson says, “There is only one plot—things are not as they seem.” What makes your novel stand out is its plot, that series of causes and effects found within your story.of this article.

To create a meaningful plot, you need at least one main character who suffers some level of conflict, that inability to achieve what it is he wants. This conflict, his emotional reactions to the obstacles placed before him, is the crux of your plot. It is this inexorable series of obstacles your hero faces, and how he overcomes them, that hooks your readers.

The secret to plot is that it flows from your characters.

When you write a story, you create a sequence of events that move the hero toward what it is he wants. However, your greatest effort should be in your introduction of conflict, those ever-larger obstacles and the increasing resistance your hero experiences. You first give him a goal to surpass, then once he completes this task, deny him his desire. Then you have him master a more difficult challenge, then deny him yet again. Do this over, and over, and over again. Of course, the hero will at some point reach his goal, but you must keep it from him as long as the story, and your word count, allow. This constant battle between upheaval and triumph is what develops your plot and engrosses your readers.

Your character’s conflict, and thus the plot, may derive from either internal or external sources. Regardless, they thwart his progress until the very end of your novel. We all know external conflict can be exciting, but what can place your novel above others is your hero’s internal struggles. Consider this basic storyline: your hero has a burning desire to become a surgeon, but faints at the sight of blood. Which is the most moving aspect to the character’s goals? Is it the struggle to become a doctor or the sight of blood issue? His struggles to master his fear will have the most power with your readers.

In addition to plot, you have a wonderful tool you may employ called "SUBPLOT." That is, each major character is haunted by some minor conflict that further hinders him. This, too, can be internal or external in nature but if used effectively, can give a great deal of life to your novel.

The basis of this is your hero’s desire for something beyond all else that is kept from him. This ever-rising tension and conflict, or your character’s hardships, are what make up your plot.

Now for some quotes about plot from those famous among us.

"’The King died and the Queen died’ is a story. ‘The King died and the Queen died of grief’ is a plot." E.M. Forster

“Plots are what the writer sees with.” Eudora Welty

“Plot is structuring the events of the story.” Aristotle

“Character, of course, is the heart of fiction. Plot is there to give the characters something to do.” John Dufresne

“When a character does something, he becomes that character; and it’s the character’s act of doing that becomes your plot.” Henry James

Until we meet again, know I wish for you only best-sellers.

 

This is a reprint from C. Patrick Shulze‘s Author of Born to be Brothers blog.

My Dialogue Sucks: Tips For Improving Dialogue In Your Novel

by

I have just submitted the first few chapters of my thriller novel, Pentecost to my writing group for critique. The responses have been great on plot but truly, my dialogue sucks! (and I am using the English spelling before everyone starts sending me typo notices)

So here are some articles and links that I have been reading to try and improve my dialogue so hopefully they will help you too.
  • “Dialogue is not conversation” from Robert McKee ‘Story‘. Conversation is boring, repetitive and concerns inane things. Dialogue moves the plot along, reveals character and every word is necessary to advance the story. As Alfred Hitchcock said, ‘a good story is life with the boring bits taken out’.
  • Very few writers get away with writing in dialects, (think Irvine Welsh) but for most readers it is very annoying and disturbs the flow of reading so don’t do it.
  • Dialogue breaks up monotony of paragraphs of exposition/description and makes the story move faster (JA Konrath). It is better to reveal story elements in dialogue than exposition. It should be natural, but not too natural (as above, it is NOT real conversation). Avoid adverbs and dialogue tags where possible i.e. Jill said wryly. Reading it aloud helps.
  • On attribution and dialogue tags from Let The Words Flow. He said/she said is needed but not every line which can be distracting. But be careful of the opposite extreme so the reader loses sense of who is speaking.
  • Dialogue should reveal emotion through words, not through adverbs. Don’t say “angrily” when you can use angry words and describe the character/action portraying anger. (Show, don’t tell!). From Blood Red Pencil.
  • Don’t use dialogue to explain the back story, saying things like “As you know John, we have already navigated the lost world of Aurion and found the golden goblet…” . From Poewar, which also has some great exercises for dialogue.
  • For a brilliant chapter on dialogue, read “How not to write a novel” which parodies the author who is too good for the word ’said’, as well as examining misplaced exposition, random adverbs, failure to identify the speaker and more in a laugh-out-loud writing book.
  • My primary flaw seems to be that my readers don’t think my character would talk the way I have written, so my dialogue does not match the person created in the reader’s head. This is good in a way as I have evoked a specific character in their minds, but bad as I have clearly got the ‘voice’ wrong! Holly Lisle’s advice helps here, “writing good dialogue comes from being able to hear voices in your head that aren’t there“, and the voices have to belong to the specific characters. I am planning to read my chapters out loud and rectify the issues. I am still on first draft so I am not fretting too much but dialogue is one of the areas that has stopped me writing so I want to continue learning about it.
Do you have any tips for writing dialogue? Or any good examples in books I could read?

 

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

It's Not Who You Know

by

We’ve all heard the old adage:

It’s not what you know but who you know that matters.  
 
Apart from being a conspiracy-theorist’s dream excuse, the adage does have a grain of truth in it. Relationships and networking may matter as much or more in business as your skill set.

 
I mention this because of a blog post put up by Debbie Stier, Senior V.P. and Associate Publisher at HarperStudio, and Director of Digital Marketing at HarperCollins. It’s a short personal piece about an epiphany in Debbie’s work life, but it also speaks volumes about the book business and how it actually works.
 
Like many would-be authors I used to think that writers wrote books in little cottages in the woods, bleeding truth onto pages already saturated with tears. When a book was done the author then agonized over query letters, blindly attempting to appease personal idiosyncrasies that each agent somehow believed to be an industry norm. If, against all odds, the author managed to land an agent for his book, the agent went through a similar process trying to generate interest in an editor at a publishing house. If, against these even-longer odds, an editor became interested, that editor then went through a similar process trying to get the support of the person or group that was responsible for pulling the trigger on an actual deal.
 
Read Debbie’s post about the five new books she’s excited to be working on and you’ll see none of that. In fact, there is no direct mention that Debbie read a single word by any of these authors as a means of discovering them:
I’d heard him speak at the Web 2.0 conference and I wanted desperately to work with him.
…
The next author to sign with HarperStudio was Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com. I’m a huge fan — have been following his blog, twitter, videos, etc. for some time…
…
Jill Kargman is a novelist. I saw her on Samantha Ettus’s show Obsessed TV six months ago and knew I wanted to work with her.
…
I’d been thinking a lot about merits and challenges of being a small company within a large corporation, and Bob suggested that there’s a book in that. Nick Bilton from the New York Times lead me to Ryan Tate at Gawker, and he is now writing a book for us called Skunkworks, which I can’t wait to read.
…
One more author who I want to mention who signed with HarperStudio, though it was slightly before that December epiphany, but still very much part of my process of realizing how much I love my job, is Melanie Notkin, the Savvy Auntie. She’s writing her Savvy Auntie’s Guide to Life.
Here’s what Debbie did not say: ‘I read Author X’s novel/manuscript and it knocked me out.’ And yet there’s nothing wrong with that. As noted above, this kind of book-production paradigm may actually be the norm these days.  
The point I want to make is that here you have someone in the business talking about five books she’s excited about, and none of them is a book that exists because of an author’s personal convictions. Rather, those five books came into being because Debbie Stier contacted five people and suggested a writer/publisher collaboration.
 
Again — and I really mean it — there’s nothing wrong with this. If it cuts against the romantic grain of the literary world, or your own authorial fantasies, it’s also the way most corporate entertainment works. In fact, if you really think about it, it couldn’t work any other way. Predicating the success of your business or industry on the speculative output of a bunch of writers would be like putting on a sporting event and hoping that some athletes show up. If you sell gas you can’t wait for someone to strike oil; if you sell food you can’t wait for the crops out back to mature. You’ve got to drive product yourself or partner with people who can deliver a steady supply.
 
In order to protect the bottom line, people in the book business (in any incarnation) cannot wait around for good books to find them. They have to be proactive in priming the pump and reconciling the content of a title with the objectives of their business. Again, who else other than publishers would be qualified to make such informed decisions? Agents? Writers?
 
Whether Debbie had the budgetary authority to make these projects happen herself or not, it’s clear that her personal interest in the people now working on the new HarperStudio titles short-circuited the much longer approval process facing a writer with a spec manuscript. It’s also clear that those five people did something that helped catch Debbie’s attention, and that that was critical to the book deals they signed. Debbie didn’t hike into the woods and knock on a door, or even plow through a slush pile: she looked at interesting people who made themselves visible to her in a variety of ways and asked herself if they might have a book in them that also fit HarperStudio’s goals.
 
This is another big reason why you constantly hear everyone talking about having a platform as a writer. It’s not simply that a manuscript you’ve written will gain more visibility, it’s that you as a writer will also come to the attention of the decision makers in the industry. Maybe a publishing house needs another writer for a series project. Maybe they’re looking to capitalize on a trend. Maybe they like your attitude and a blog post you wrote suddenly helps focus a hazy idea they’ve been wrestling with. Whatever the project, the chance that you’ll be working on it is pretty much zero if they don’t know you’re alive.
 
That’s why it doesn’t really matter who you know. On any given day you can call up your publishing contacts and pitch book ideas until you turn blue, but the majority of opportunities in your future are probably not ones you’ll be initiating. They’re ones the industry will create, and the simple truth is that you’re not going to have a shot at those opportunities if the industry doesn’t know who you are.
 
Does this mean that writing a book is a waste of time? Absolutely not. What it means is that when you write a book you’ve created two properties. One is the book, the other is you as a writer. Neither of them will see if nobody knows they exist. If you’re already committed to getting your manuscript some visibility, then you should be willing to do the same thing for yourself.
 
If you have the conviction of your own creative vision, and you’re willing to suffer and die for that cause, I’m not telling you to change your ways. I wouldn’t do that to myself on a project that I initiated. Having worked as a writer on collaborative projects in multiple industries, however, I can tell you that there’s a lot to recommend them. And not just the fact that you get paid.
 
First, there’s the implicit networking bonus that goes with any collaborative project. Assuming you don’t reveal yourself to be insane or abusive, and assuming you do what you say you’re going to do, you will, simply by demonstrating those two traits, successfully separate yourself from approximately 90% of potential competitors. (That’s a conservative estimate.)
 
How many people does Debbie Stier know? How many times a year does she sit down with a co-worker or a peer at another publishing house and talk about projects which can’t find the right writer, or projects where a writer pulled out and they need someone at the last minute? I have no idea, but I’m guessing the number of people that Debbie knows is not trivial, and that the percentage of her contacts who can approve projects is higher than most agents you’re likely to sign with.
 
Second, you might get to work with people who are actually happy to work with you. One read-through of Debbie’s post and you’ll see that she’s clearly good at marketing — almost instinctively, reflexively so. But I’ve also read enough of her tweets, posts and musings to believe that there’s a real person in there who had a genuine epiphany about the fact that she loves what she’s doing. And that in itself is rare.
 
There are a lot of people out there in positions of power and authority who are really not happy. They don’t like their life, they don’t like their work, they don’t like the people they work with. The only thing they like is spreading unhappiness around like shrapnel. You might even run into a writer killer or a writer hater who loathes you for the very skills that brought you to their attention. Does that sound like fun?
 
Take a moment and think about what it would be like to work on a book with someone who wasn’t jaded. Not someone who’s in your grill every minute, telling you how to write each paragraph, but someone who is interested in you, in your skills, and in the project you’re both working on. Writing is lonely, and there are times when it’s satisfying to have someone other than you cat say they’re excited about a project or thrilled with your last chapter.
Finally, as much as any author believes they know it all, they don’t. As I said in a previous post, there are good editors and bad editors. A good editor knows craft. A good editor listens.
 
I have no experience working with Debbie, but in reading her post she says the right things. She talks about kicking ideas around and finding something that works for both parties, and that’s what you want. You want someone who actually listens, instead of just smiling and saying nice things. You may not always get your way, and the project may have other masters (including time and money), but when you work with someone who takes your concerns seriously you get to take a break from the exhaustion of being your own biggest fan and your own worst critic.
 
There’s no way you can plan for this kind of synergy, of course. If you actively try to impress the Debbie Stiers of the world you inevitably end up making an idiot or nuisance of yourself. The goal is not getting attention, but being who you are and doing what you already do in a way that is visible — whether than means blogging or attending conferences or speaking or giving readings or something else. Even if you can’t make anyone open a door for the book you wrote or the writer you are, and you probably can’t, you can be there when they open the door.
It’s not who you know. It’s who knows you.

 

This is a reprint from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

What's That?

by

Anyone who follows this blog knows I’m not big on rules of writing. But in my experience as an author, a reader, and an editor, I’ve found the word "that" is one of the least needed, most overused, and most frequently misused, in all of modern literature.

To better understand what I’m driving at here, allow me to rewrite those first two lines with the "thats" left in:

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I’m not big on rules of writing. But in my experience as an author, a reader, and an editor, I’ve found that the word "that" is one of the least-needed, that it is among the most overused and misused words, in all of modern literature.

Notice how the "thats" add nothing to the passage. They don’t clarify, they don’t improve flow, and they don’t reflect any sort of stylistic choice, either. They’re just taking up space and bloating word count. The word "that" is only rarely actually needed in a sentence, but for some reason, an awful lot of writers are in the (bad) habit of peppering their prose with this largely superfluous word. Consider the following, typical constructions:

He knew that I wasn’t going away.
vs.
He knew I wasn’t going away.

She was sure that everything would be fine.
vs.
She was sure everything would be fine.

You get the idea. When you find yourself tempted to include a "that" in a sentence immediately following a verb or adjective, try the sentence without the "that" first. In the vast majority of cases, you’ll find your meaning is perfectly clear, and your prose much tighter, without it. Now look at these constructions:

None of the cars that we saw were suitable.
vs.
None of the cars we saw were suitable.

The books that I needed weren’t in stock.
vs.
The books I needed weren’t in stock.

Again, the "that" adds nothing but characters on the page. As with "thats" following a verb or adjective, try any sentence where a "that" follows a noun without the "that", and see if it doesn’t read tighter.

So when is it appropriate to use "that"? When it’s needed to clarify your meaning:

As a pronoun – That is the hotel where we stayed last time we were here.
As an adjective – I’m pretty sure that book belongs to Jimmy.

Or to improve the flow of your prose, as a stylistic choice:

As an adverb – It didn’t matter all that much.
(compare this to)
It didn’t matter much.

Moving on, what about "that" versus "who"?

The judge that heard the case was biased.
vs.
The judge who heard the case was biased.


All the kids that came to the party had a good time.
vs.
All the kids who came to the party had a good time.

Presumably, the judge is a person, not a thing. Kids are people, too. People are "whos", not "thats". However, both of these examples illustrate the case where a relative clause requires an object to restrict an antecedent, which is just a fancy-pants grammarian way of saying a "that" or "who" really is needed to clarify the meaning of the sentence and make it grammatically correct. Just be sure to use "who" in reference to people, and "that" in reference to things.
 

One more thing: are you mixing up your "whiches" with your "thats"? Consider:

The dog that was found in her yard was a stray.
vs.
The dog, which was found in her yard, was a stray.

Note the difference in meaning. In the first sentence, the fact that (<– see, even I think they’re necessary sometimes!) the dog was found in her yard is an important detail. The use of "that" makes the subject, "dog", more specific. We’re not talking about the dog she saw in the park, or the dog on the corner. In this type of usage, the phrase, "that was found in her yard" is called a "restrictive phrase".
 
In the second sentence, the fact that the dog was found in her yard is incidental. The sentence could be shortened to, "The dog was a stray," with no loss of meaning or clarity. In this type of usage, the phrase, "which was in her yard," is called a "nonrestrictive phrase". The phrase does not exist to better specify a particular dog, it’s there to provide additional information about the dog.
 
It can be a tricky distinction. Let the comma be your guide when choosing between the two words. In general, if the desired meaning or emphasis of a given sentence is best conveyed when a descriptive phrase within it is offset by commas, you’re looking at a nonrestrictive phrase and "which" is the right way to go. Conversely, if such a phrase is not surrounded by commas, you’re looking at a restrictive use and can safely go with "that".
 
Also note, what’s grammatically correct isn’t always a match with the most commonly-accepted usage:
 
The puzzle pieces which we couldn’t find this morning turned up under the cushions.
 
Gah! This sentence is like fingernails on a chalkboard to a grammarian’s ears because it uses "which" as part of a restrictive phrase. Yet the sentence will seem correct to most readers because most of them think the rule used to divide the "thats" from the "whiches" is based on whether or not the noun in the sentence is plural. Look at the grammatically correct version of the same sentence:
 
The puzzle pieces that we couldn’t find this morning turned up under the cushions.
 
It sorta kinda doesn’t "sound" right, does it? It’s because the incorrect usage has become more ubiquitous than the correct one. You can moan and complain, stamp your little grammarian feet, and even threaten to pull out your Chicago Manual of Style, but about 99 times out of a hundred you will lose a bar bet on this. It’s usually fine to go with the more common, incorrect usage in such a case, but better still to avoid the whole kerfuffle and dispense with both words whenever possible. Remember, most often, you’ll find a given sentence is just fine without either one:
 
The puzzle pieces we couldn’t find this morning turned up under the cushions.
 
But if you should find yourself in a bar with nothing better than grammar to bet on, whip out your web-enabled phone and bask in the victory round – Grammar Girl‘s got your back.

 

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author blog.

What Does Self-Publishing Cost: DIY

by

In my earlier article I looked at a framework to determine what it costs to self-publish. I described 9 cost categories and three paths to publication as a way to organize the costs for different kinds of self-publishers.

After all, not everyone wants the same kind of book, nor do people publish for all the same reasons. It seems practical to help people decide which category they’re in and look at the costs for each approach.
Today I’m going to collect the kinds of costs a self-publisher might encounter if they want to keep their cash outlay to the absolute minimum, doing much if not all of the work themselves. These are the DIY self-publishers.
 
 
9 Cost Categories for DIY Self-Publishing
  1. Company setup—The choice here is to establish a sole proprietorship or to simply publish your book under your own name, without any company structure. The cost of establishing a company vary, but the minimum cost would be whatever you are required to pay to register a business name.

    Here it costs $42 plus about another $40 for the classified ads you need to run as a public notice. These costs aren’t strictly necessary, but if the self-publisher is treating her publication like a business at all, she will take this step.

    Total: $0 – 84 
     

  2. ISBNs—Another way to control costs is to print with one of the services that will supply you with an ISBN. For someone with a book project but a small budget, this can be a considerable expense at a minimum of $125.

    You only need an ISBN if you intend to sell your book through a book trade channel, such as Amazon.com. If you don’t plan to make your book available through those channels, or if the book is strictly for private or personal use—for instance a fundraiser—you can skip the ISBN completely.

    On the other hand, if you’re concerned about the future publishing possibilities for your book, and that you might someday want to take the book to another printer or service provider, you should think about buying the ISBN up front.

    Total: $0 – 125
     

  3. Manuscript preparation—At the DIY end of self-publishing, the author will do all manuscript preparation, usually using their favorite word processor.

    Total: $0
     

  4. Editing—If our DIY self-publisher can find someone to look over the manuscript for errors, it will likely be on a free or barter basis. There probably won’t be any editing except self-editing, so expenses here are pretty much eliminated.

    Total: $0
     

  5. Design—The DIY self-publisher is the designer of the book as well. Some publisher services companies provide templates that authors can download and use with programs like Microsoft Word. And some have cover generators to help create a decent-looking cover. But the principle here is that the author completes all these tasks on his own, with or without the help of customer service staffers.

    Total: $0
     

  6. Review program—Reviews for the DIY self-publisher will probably be limited to online reviewers, where a PDF of the book can be submitted at no fee. In my experience, most of these books are not submitted to reviewers with any regularity, saving more money.

    Total: $0
     

  7. Platform building—The DIY self-publisher who wants to spread her work, find new readers and sell some books will look to online resources to do her author platform building. Typically this will involve a blog at one of the free blog hosting sites, and a lot of time spent online.

    Total: $0
     

  8. Proofing and Reproduction—Virtually all DIY self-publishers will use digital printing through print on demand suppliers to manufacture their book. A copy of the book essentially acts as the proof if one is considered necessary. Since these services—like Lulu—only charge for the books you actually buy, you could say that there is no cost here. But let’s assume our self-publisher orders 5 copies of her 200-page book, and that we consider this part of the expense of getting into print.

    Total: $27.50
     

  9. Fulfillment—Books sold will be by hand, through the self-publisher’s website, or on retailer websites. The first two options could encounter costs for packing and shipping, but they are transaction costs, not included in getting into print.

    Total: $0
     

Let’s Add It All Up
 
Each publisher has different goals for their book, but for many getting into print at the lowest possible cost is a major consideration.
 
Adding our nine categories, we have a range of $27.50 (plus shipping, of course) to $236.50 if you go for the ISBN and company set up. This plan is completely reasonable, and shows just how far we’ve gone to eliminate the obstacles to publishing your book.
 
Keep in mind that a book coming out of this process will be an amateur production. It wasn’t editing, designed or produced by publishing professionals, and it’s very likely to show it. But you will be in print, the proud owner of 5 copies of your book, with the possibility that many more people will discover you.
 
Total DIY Self-Publishing Cost: $27.50 – 236.50
 
Takeaway: It’s entirely possible to get a book into print for almost nothing. The effort, ingenuity, and talent of the author-publisher are what will determine the final quality of the book.

 

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

What Does Self-Publishing Cost: A Preview

by

One of the first questions people ask when they think they may want to self-publish is: What’s it going to cost? It doesn’t matter if the author is producing a cookbook for a fundraiser, or plans to end up on Oprah’s couch, we need to know how much we’ll have to spend to get our book into print.

I’ve found it difficult to answer this question without a fairly involved conversation with an author first. I need to find out the author’s goals for her book, get a sense of what kind of marketer she will be, judge as best I can whether her goals are realistic given the budget available. Then, and only then, can I put together an estimate.
 
But wouldn’t it be great to have a way to categorize the different costs involved in self-publishing? That’s what I’ve tried to do here. And by looking at three distinct paths authors can take to publication, I can create a set of cost factors you can use in planning for your own book’s publication.
 
Here’s how I’ve broken down the costs:
 
 
9 Cost Categories for Self-Publishing
  1. Company setup—Most self-publishers are doing this for the first time, and most don’t have a company structure in place. Although you can’t assign these costs directly to the individual book you’re starting with, you still have to pay or you won’t have a publishing company at all.
     
  2. ISBNs—Although years ago this was an insignificant cost, the new reality is that Bowker, who administers the ISBN program in the United States, has decided this will be a cost factor that penalizes one-book publishers. But hey, you can’t fight city hall, can you?
     
  3. Manuscript preparation—Are there costs to get the manuscript to the point where it can be handed over to an editor? Fact checking, adding a bibliography, rounding up artwork or illustrations are examples of the kinds of costs in this category. I don’t include here developmental editing, which is a manuscript development cost, not so much a publishing cost.
     
  4. Editing—The editing process on any book might be long and involved, or it may be a read-through for grammar and usage, for typographical errors. It’s a truism that every book needs editing, and editing can be a major cost in getting ready for print.
     
  5. Design—Someone will have to design the cover for your book, and someone will have to at least do a layout for the interior. There are many ways to go about this step, and most of them cost something.
     
  6. Review program—For authors who intend to sell into the retail book channel, book reviews are critical. They also come at a cost.
     
  7. Platform building—Most self-publishers are relying on the internet for both customers and sales. This effort needs to start with an author’s platform, and there are costs there too.
     
  8. Proofing and Reproduction—Whether using offset printing or digital printing with print on demand distribution, this may be the single largest cost in your plan. We have to nail it down.
     
  9. Fulfillment—In some of the models we’ll look at, storing, invoicing and shipping your books are costs that have to be taken into account.
Three Paths to Publication
 
In looking over the 9 Cost Categories above, I can see that different authors will approach these tasks differently depending on the path they’ve chosen. I’ve separated these into three approaches:
  1. The hobbyist, do-it-yourself, lowest-cost path to publication
     
  2. The online bookseller, seeking to maximize profits with minimal cost
     
  3. The fully competitive publisher, who intends to compete agressively in their niche in all parts of the distribution chain
Each of these publishers will approach the cost categories differently. That’s as it should be, because different goals animate their different strategies.
 
In the series of articles to follow, I’ll look at how each category impacts the cost of your publishing project in each of the three publishing scenarios. We’ll look at actual costs and attempt to come up with a bottom line number for a “typical” book going through each process.
 
I think this will be a useful exercise. Times change, options multiply, aims get more focused. With the information we’ll develop, any author ought to be able to calculate for themselves the costs for their book. They will be able to answer the question: What will it cost?
 
If I’ve left out any costs that should be included here, please let me know in the comments.
Takeaway: Although every book is different, costs for the three paths to publication can be calculated in advance.

 

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

Post Office Slow – Three Kings Early

by

Here’s an update on my trying to collect an insurance claim from the postal service for a box lost in the mail last year. I spent most of Monday afternoon copying proof to support my claim for insurance on a package of 15 books that was lost in the mail over a year ago. After 13 months of not hearing back from the postal service, I wrote a letter asking the status of my claim. The reply took a month to come back which was last Friday. My claim had been denied for these reasons. Mail not bearing the complete names and addresses of the mailer and addressee, or is undeliverable as addressed to either the addressee or the mailer. I’ve been given 60 days to reply.

I copied everything I had as proof that the postal services reasons aren’t so such as the pieces torn off the cardboard box which the postal service sent me back from the dead letter place in Hazelwood, Mo. where the box ended up. The postal service employees didn’t have any problem finding me by taking my address off the return address to contact me. Other cardboard pieces contained the address sticker for the person who bought the books plus the canceled stamps. I’d kept my email correspondence to show the person emailed her address to send the books to and the address matches the address sticker on cardboard piece.

My problem didn’t begin with this box. I sold the 15 books on January 1, 2009 and sent the first box a day later. It was lost in the mail at the same Hazelwood, Mo dead letter office as the second box. I was sent cardboard pieces of that box with address stickers and stamps, but I hadn’t insured the box so didn’t have any way of getting back my loss. So the second time February 9, 2009, I did insure the box. Both times, I was asked to send pictures of what was in the box so the postal employees could look for the contents and fill out a form describing the contents. I was hopeful if the employees had portions of my boxes they might have some of the books. I didn’t hear back one way or the other.

Not wanting to lose a good customer, I sent a third shipment of books by UPS. That box was delivered to the address, which the postal service said couldn’t be correct on the missing boxes, in 24 hours. By then, I was out 45 books and $20 postage, postal insurance and tracking fee and was paid for 15 books and postage to cover one shipment. My letter to the postal service states if I had that kind of bad luck with their service very many times, I’d be out of business.

In February 2009, I was told I had to wait a month to fill out a claim form in case my boxes were found. My month was up in March 2009. I waited patiently for a reply on finding the books or the insurance claim check but didn’t hear from the postal service. Finally months later, I called the claims status phone number. The help line is voice activated. I tried giving my umpteen numbered claim and was ask to repeat the numbers. Finally, I was told I’d have to wait 17 minutes for someone to help me in person that could understand me. Not 10, 15 or 20 but 17 minutes. I hung up.

After waiting a year, I’ve heard stories from others that they hadn’t gotten insurance claims either. I was told by them not to be hopeful. Now I’m sending my 9 pages of proof and two page letter back to see what happens next. It is a good thing to keep a paper trail for transactions. Whether it helps me or not we’ll have to wait and see. After all this long wait, I still may not get a reply for months. When my patience runs out again, I’ll inquire why the postal service hasn’t gotten back to me, I’ll get a letter from the postal service telling me the inquiry wasn’t bearing the complete name and address of the mailer so they couldn’t answer me.

Saturday afternoon, we scurried around like squirrels burying nuts for winter. The weather men said it was going to be down to 31 degrees that night. My husband covered up as much of our large garden as he could with tarps. I put lids on the plastic coffee cans that protected our two dozen tomato plants I’ve babied since February, a dozen pepper plants and a few sweet potato plants. I brought my hanging baskets and small flower pots inside. My husband took three large ones, containing two feet tall geraniums I had taken care of in an upstairs bedroom all winter, to the garage.

Sunday morning, we checked from window to window, looking for frost in the hayfield and pasture. Though the air was cold enough to cause the furnace to run with the thermostat set on 60, we couldn’t see any flowers or vegetables that froze. We spent the evening at my husband’s mother’s house in Belle Plaine. The rest of the family had tales about frosted grass, icy sheets and wilted leaves. When I lamented we may have to go through this again at the end of the week because it will be the Three Kings days, my mother-in-law said not to worry. The Kings came early this year. They won’t be back. I sure hope she’s right.

The first of our setting hens hatched chicks yesterday. My husband has them in a secure, warm place in the barn which is the only varmint proof building we have. We had two other hens sitting on nests in the machine shed, but a mother fox decided she needed those hens and eggs worse than we did. She has babies in a field driveway culvert not far from our house. Recently, I thought she was cute when I saw her red head peeking at me in tall road ditch grass as we drove by her home. Several mornings in a row, we discovered empty eggs shells a few at a time on the machine shed floor then my hens came up missing. We realized Mrs. Fox was paying us nightly visits. I don’t think she is cute now.

We decided the machine shed is off limits to the hens wanting to be mothers. We have other places that the hens can hide so we forgot to keep checking the old corncrib we use for storage. Yesterday we found a nest with 17 eggs. Later when I looked again, the hen was on the eggs. When she stays on the eggs at night, we’ll know she’s sitting. The corncrib isn’t any safer than the machine shed so I hope Mrs. Fox doesn’t find out about her.

Publishing & Self-Publishing in 2010

by

I read quite a lot each day about the issues going on in the publishing world, but in particular about self-publishing and the part it now plays within the industry of book publishing. Note the subtle emphasis on the word within. Say nothing—keep it under your hat—just maybe they, the industry, won’t notice! What is significant today is, much of what appears in trade magazines, news services, publisher and writer blogs, as well as the wider media dealing with the latest technological and digital advances in publishing is just as relevant to independent and self-published authors as it is to the most seasoned publishing houses or bestselling authors.

I would go further and suggest the challenges facing publishing houses—trade and independent—in the current economic climate are what self-publishing authors experience in their microcosm world of publishing. Make no mistake—self-publishing a book is a business decision and slowly but surely, authors entering the field are realising this fact.

Self-published authors have long been dealing with the commercial dilemmas of e-book platforms and formats, targeting, and crucially, engaging their readership with carefully but aggressively led viral marketing plans. What self-published authors are quickly learning, particularly authors of non-fiction, is that the paper product of "book" is not necessarily always the primary selling point. It can often simply be a promotional tool used to present an idea, service, strategy or philosophy.

The core focus of POD, Self Publishing & Independent Publishing has always been to look at global publishing from the perspective of the author considering the possibility of publishing his book outside of the mainstream channels—that is—sans literary agent and even the sniff of a publisher or small press of any kind. I’ve never seen self-publishing as some form of compartmentalised oddity on the soles of the publishing industry’s shoes, or the guy who hawks folded and stapled A4 sheets of verse through the pubs of Ireland. This romantic notion of bard with verse may have once been the view of self-publishing in its bad old days of vanity publishers, but it no longer reflects the burgeoning industry within a larger industry.

Though our pub crawler with his sheets of stapled verse may consider himself as published and legitimate an author as Joyce, Yeats, Hemmingway, Pynchon or Picoult, the fact is, the self-published fraternity have dramatically upped their game in the past ten years. Self-publishing may have an unfair perception of poor-quality books and content, but is no longer the outpost for Aunt Maple’s home recipes for family and friends. It is now the playing field of talented authors with true and original voices, as well as highly motivated business entrepreneurs.

I’ve hosted several short, hour-long sessions with writers’ workshops and book clubs, with the topic of discussing self-publishing. I carry out the same exercise at the start of each one. I lay out ten books, a mix of fiction, non-fiction, paperback and hardback, and challenge them to identify the two books self-published or printed through an author solutions service. After several minutes and much mumbling, they all make their choices and note them down, having been encouraged to sniff, stroke, rub and read each book on the table. They will usually be insistent as a group on which ones are bona-fide and the three or four that ‘look suspect’. I normally go through the books afterwards with them and announce that actually eight of them are self-published and only two published by mainstream publishing houses. You won’t believe how many times at least one mainstream title ends up being one of the suspect pair. Yes, I did have a session where they both ended up as the suspect pair. God knows why some woman thought Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee was self-published!
 
I mention this exercise in the context of my opening paragraph and the fact that readers of books pay little or no attention to who the publisher of a book is; be it CreateSpace or Canongate, Little-Brown or Lulu. Branding only means something to the reader in the context of the author they identify with and the words produced on page. We don’t shop for books in the same way we shop for food. A good book is a good book and the most discerning and fickle editor in the world is often the ordinary reader.
 
The landscape of global publishing has dramatically changed in the past year. I find it increasingly difficult to speak about publishing without instinctively including self-publishing. For one, the most innovative and refreshing approach to modern publishing is coming from self-published authors, though not necessarily from the author solutions services they choose to pay for and use. For the most part, with a few exceptions, authors get their book set up with a digital printer and made available online, and with the potential to provide a finished product comparable to anything offered from a commercial house, provided the author invests in good editing and design services. From there on, the author is pretty much on his own to promote and market his book online, or ideally, secure distribution and placement on the shelves of bookshops—something even commercial publishers are finding harder to do with low and mid-listed titles from their catalogues.
 
Without doubt the most significant news in self-publishing occurred in late 2009. For many traditional-thinking purists of the publishing industry—the unthinkable happened. Thomas Nelson, the fifth-largest trade publisher in the United States and leading global publisher of Christian textbooks, signed a partnership deal  with Author Solutions (ASI), the largest global corporation of author services. ASI own some of the biggest brands in the self-publishing sector, with companies like AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, and Trafford. Their partnership with Thomas Nelson led to the formation of Westbow Press, an imprint of Thomas Nelson offering self-publishing services to authors. Hardly had the ink dried on that deal when ASI announced a second partnership, this time with commercial romance giant Harlequin. The resulting new imprint, Harlequin Horizons, caused considerable criticism from three major author guilds in the US, MWA (Mystery Writers of America, RWA (Romance Writers of America) and the SFWA (Science-Fiction Writers of America). Within days Harlequin changed the name of the imprint to Dell Arte Press in an effort to remove the implied connotation authors might be confused and think they were being published for a fee by Harlequin’s mother ship.
 
The jury is still out on these new entities of self-publishing—shrouded in the criticism that Thomas Nelson and Harlequin are exploiting manuscript slush piles by referring rejected authors to their paid services. But then, in some form or another, haven’t commercial publishers always been exploiting authors by retaining and sharing out 90%+ profits with printers, distributors and retailers on every book sold? Would you be happy if you devised or invented a product, sold it to a manufacturer, and they offered you 6 – 8% on every unit sold? Probably not, but then, that’s the publishing model as we know it. Deal with it or self-publish.
 
What we are seeing in self-publishing increasingly are authors with more savvy and the know-how to reach directly out to the readers through blogs, online forums and fanzines like Shelfari, and the ability to use unique sales platforms like the Amazon Kindle bookstore and Smashwords, beyond the standard e-tailers. More authors are slowly educating themselves about self-publishing and they know the difference between services like CreateSpace and AuthorHouse. In the past couple of years we are seeing an increasing amount of authors opening commercial accounts with Lightning Source (LSI), the primary choice of printer and fulfilment services for many of the world’s POD (Print-on-demand) Publishers—effectively we are seeing a new breed of self-publisher confident and bold enough to purchase his own block of ISBN’s, set up his own imprint, and entirely cut out the middle man by going straight to source.
 
It is clear we are seeing the lines between publishing and self-publishing blurring, and the core model of the traditional business of publishing is changing, not because it wants to, but because it has to if it wants to survive. In many ways, both publishing perspectives have a great deal to learn from each other. Time, then, to learn…
 
(This article first appeared in Irish Publishing News on February 8th 2010.) 

 

This is a reprint from Mick Rooney’s POD, Self-Publishing and Independent Publishing site.