Month: August 2009

The Wrong Questions

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This post, from Gallagher Girls series author Ally Carter, originally appeared on her Ally’s Diary blog on 9/11/08.

I attended a couple of writers’ conferences last summer. I enjoy conferences. I like notebooks and name badges and having an excuse to wear the three cute outfits I own.

But this year it felt like I gained less from the sessions themselves than I usually do.

This is probably due to a lot of things, not the least of which is that I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m simply farther along the learning curve than I used to be.

As a result I spent a lot of time twisting in my chair, wanting to shout out the things that I’ve learned so far. But I couldn’t. Because shouting is a good way to get escorted out of the Hyatt or the Marriott.

So instead I’ll do my shouting here–in the comfort of my own blog.

Please note that what follows is my HONEST opinion about the differences in writing for teens and adults. If you don’t want my honest opinion, stop reading. If you continue to read, consider yourself warned.

One of the sessions that I attended was a session on the differences in writing for teen and adult audiences. But two minutes into the session I wanted to stand up and tell everyone in the audience that they were asking the wrong questions.

Now don’t get me wrong, they were no doubt very common questions, but in my opinion if you want to be successful in the YA market, they were the wrong questions.

So here is my lame, Thursday-morning-just-got-back-from-the-gym-and-I’m-too-lazy-to-go-upstairs-and-do-some-real-work attempt at answering the wrong questions and steering people toward the right ones.

WRONG QUESTION: How do I develop an authentic teen voice?

THE RIGHT QUESTION: Do I have a voice that’s appealing to teens?

After all, would you ask "how do I write in a voice that mystery readers would respond to?" Or "how do I sound like a science fiction reader?" No. You wouldn’t.

Your voice is your voice is your voice. Period. And frankly, either you’ve got a voice that teens will enjoy or you don’t.

Furthermore, all teens don’t sound the same and neither do all teen novels.

There are very successful teen authors who use long sentences and huge words and very complicated sentence structures. And then there are teen authors like me.

There is no such thing as a "teen" voice. And no amount of hanging out in shopping malls and eavesdropping on the kids at the next table is going to teach you to write in a manner that will appeal to those kids.

Furthermore, trying to mimic those readers is an almost surefire way to make those kids hate your book. They know imitators when they see them. They don’t take kindly to pandering.

Trying to write like you think teens want you to write is the fastest way I know to fail in this business.

Write how you write. Either it’ll work for the YA market (or the horror market, or romance market, or scifi market, etc) or it won’t. At the very least, teens will respect you for it.
 

Read the rest of the post (it’s quite lengthy, so there’s still much more to learn from it) on Ally Carter’s Ally’s Diary blog.

Just Say NO!

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I have been reborn! At least I feel like something basic has changed, deep inside my writer’s mind.  I just read "Say No to Your Publishers Advance!" which is located in the Publishing Section of this site.  It is the most compelling, well-thought out presentation on why fiction writers don’t need any publisher but themselves.  No kidding.

I’m not unusual, I found out, in thinking that if I push the boulder uphill far enough, I’ll get a big, fat advance check.  Now I’ve learned why that isn’t such a good thing to hope for — if it comes true, the mathematics may well destroy your career as an author.

The change is simple.  Now I want to sell books. Lots of books. That’s a concept I can understand.  Marketing 101.

Make the best product you can, find a need, and sell it!

 

You Gotta Love The Conflict!

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This post, by author Valerie Storey, originally appeared on her Writing at Dava Books blog on 7/28/09.

Conflict. If you’re anything like me, the very word conjures up argument, avoidance, ‘peace at any cost.’ In real life, conflict is rarely fun or something I go looking for. But leave it out of our writing, and we can have some serious conflict with editors and readers.

The first step toward understanding conflict is to know what genuine artistic conflict is not. Compelling conflict rarely stems from:

* Slammed doors.
* Slapped faces.
* Misunderstood fragment of overheard dialogue.
* A spilled drink.
* Romance characters tormenting each other with “fake” lovers.
* Characters complaining they are never understood because men and women can’t communicate.

You get the picture. All of the above are actions and events; things that can certainly be the result of conflict and that can make characters angry, but conflict is much more than anger. Authentic conflict often begins long before your story opens and is the motivating spur behind every decision and action your characters will make. In order to uncover as many levels of conflict possible (and to make life near-impossible for your characters) it can be helpful to explore the following seven areas.

1) The World or Society at Large. This is the world your story characters inhabit. It can be as simple as a barren desert or as elaborate as a feudal realm set in the distant future. Whatever it is, it contains problems; problems that can disadvantage and hold your characters back from their goals in significant ways. For instance, a world at war can be set anywhere from ancient times to the present day, from Middle Earth to outer space, but no matter the weaponry used, war always involves great suffering.

At the opposite end, a peaceful, apparently beautiful society can be filled with social injustice or a devastating class structure. Characters caught up in a perfect life may be the most discontent of all. Consider the poor heroine who is engaged to the perfect man, has the perfect job, eats perfect dinners with her loving, supportive parents every Friday night. On the surface she seems happy, but she may be ready to strangle them all.

Including a backdrop of social turmoil to your work will provide your characters with either past negative experience to overcome, or an ongoing situation that creates constant hardship. “High society” with all its rules and traditions, vices and hypocrisies can be a terribly low place filled with dark secrets and psychoses.

2) The Immediate Professional Environment or Workplace. No matter the times they are born into, your characters all have to do something to make a living. Even if your heroine’s sole purpose in life is to be married off to a peer of the realm, this is still her “occupation.” No matter if your characters are nannies or rock stars, advertising executives or harried FBI agents; they will at some stage encounter the monster boss, rival co-worker(s), ruthless or incompetent employees. Sometimes the workplace itself harbors corruption and is a great source of conflict, such as an unethical law firm or a company cutting corners on its products.
 

Read the rest of the post, which covers locations #3-7, on Valerie Storey’s Writing at Dava Books blog.

Authors: Just Say "No!" To Your Advance

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This article, by Joe Quirk, originally appeared on the SF Gate site on 8/27/09.

My fellow authors laughed when I said I was publishing my fourth book with Numina Press. Then they learned my cut of each sale.

How big is the difference? Try three times as much money each sale.

Numina is an exclusive commercial publisher that uses print-on-demand technology to radically alter the cost ratios in favor of the author. They started working with dead writers like Jack London, who was quite cooperative. Now they have their sights set on living published authors, who are not.

Your choice, living authors. Take home:

$1.50 from a $23 book, or

$4.50 from a $16 book.

Wait. You have to give up a lot of perks for this tripling of your pay, and my living author friends are quick to list their objections:

Big New York publishers will give me an advance!

 

Okay, stop flapping your wrists like a pack of sissies. Let’s walk through each of the standard fear-driven objections one by one.

But major publishers will pay me an advance!

An advance is a chance to ruin your career. A big advance for a first or second book is a chance to almost guarantee your career will end six months after your book comes out, and nobody will tell you until you write and try to sell your second book. A gigunda advance? That spells an almost certain death.

The bigger the advance, the worse it is for the author.

Seventy percent of published books don’t earn back their advance. Add to the balance sheet the costs of printing, shipping, and promotion, and that means even more than 70% of books lose money for the publisher. That means the majority of published authors get a permanent Big Red Mark next to their name.

Publishers don’t know why most books don’t sell, nor do they understand why most of their riches are made off less than 5% of the new authors they publish, and they don’t know what to do about their ignorance, but they do know how to do one thing: blame the author.

If your first book lost them money, they will not publish your second book, no matter how many copies it sold.

So move on to another publisher? Not so fast. Publishers share sales information with their competitors. That’s right, competing New York publishers close ranks in solidarity against the authors who might have sold well but lost money. Most major publishers, before they read your new book, run straight to the stats and see how well your last book sold, how much money was spent on it, how much was earned back, and their eyes go straight to the bottom line: Did it lose money? If the answer is yes, they don’t waste their time reading your new book.

Remember: Second book finished? Publishers read the bottom line on their balance sheet before they read the first line of your manuscript.

Read the rest of the article on the SF Gate site.

Big New York publishers will get me publicity!

Big New York publishers will pay for a book tour!

Big New York publishers will get me book store placement!

But if I accept triple money with a print-on-demand publisher, Big New York publishers will punish me! My agent will be mad!

Commentary — Crusty, but Likeable!

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I guess I’ll have to start doing this — it’s easier than running back and forth between different writer’s sites, replying to lots of different threads — as if my opinion was important!  Well, my wife and my cat care what I have to say, so I guess I’ll have to put that up there for you, too. 

I’ll add something every other day, or so, as the mood strikes me, or as frustration builds, or as my arthritis needs a work-out.  Please be sure to reply and add your own take on my blither.  It wiull prevent my stress-shrunken head from getting any bigger.

Interview with TV's Inside edition turns into salable article

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TV’s Inside edition contacted me about doing a movie review of Brad Pitt’s movie, The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. They sent a film crew to my home in Kentucky, where we shot some story background footage. I viewed the film at Warner Brothers in New York, and the next day appeared with my review on camera at Inside edition’s studio. My review never was aired by Inside edition. However, the story of what happened turned into a nice salable article, first published as Pitfalls – Confession of a Jesse James Movie Reviewer.

The Writing Life: I Don't Believe In Writer's Block

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This post, from C.L. Anderson, originally appeared on SUVUDU.

I don’t. Really. I don’t believe there is a mental disorder that only strikes writers. As my friend the writer Steven Harper Piziks put it: dentists do not wake up in the morning, go into the office, stare at an open mouth and say “OMG, I can’t drill! I just…can’t…drill…” Or if they do, we call it burn out and the smart dentist changes jobs, or gets a better shrink.

But writer’s block is mysterious, it’s dramatic. It is regarded as a sign of true artistic temperment and possibly genius. Because everybody knows Geniuses are tempermental and a little c/r/a/z/y eccentric.

In short, unlike the dentist’s failure to drill demonstrating the symptoms of writer’s block gets you attention and sympathy and even a weird kind of respect. Kind of like the ladies of old Great Britain with their Nerves and Vapors.

Don’t get me wrong, writing is a tough gig and there are days it does not go well. In fact, there are days it doesn’t go at all. I have been stuck, even mired. But usually this is because of something I’m doing, or not doing. Usually, I am not looking at the scene in the right way. I don’t have a clear handle on the goals of the characters, or, worse, I’ve gotten lazy and ignored something important further up the line, or refused to acknowledge that the way I had planned to write the scene is no longer going to work because of changes I’ve made to the plot.

In cases like these, the answer is similar to that with any other sticky problem. Step back. Walk around the block. Take a shower. Do a load of laundry. Work on something else. Come back fresh and ready to do the needed work. Amazing how the words almost seem to rearrange themselves and provide the answer.

This can be hard to do, however, when you’re under pressure. And everyone who writes professionally is under pressure. Writing is a performance art and it is also piece work. You don’t produce, you don’t get paid. You don’t produce, you lose your audience. To make your living eventually something of yourself has got to get out there and face the judges and the judges have to buy it, literally.

Read the rest of the post on SUVUDU.

What Is 'Value Added' And What Does It Have To Do With Indie Authorship?

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This post, from Publetariat founder and Editor In Chief April L. Hamilton, originally appeared on her Indie Author Blog on 1/7/09.

I’ve been taking a lot of flak lately from professionals in the graphic arts and typesetting fields because in The IndieAuthor Guide, I more or less tell indie authors that in most cases, the services of those professionals are optional. The flakkers protest, in frequently ugly tones, that I’m giving bad advice in this regard and a book brought to market without their services is a "defective" product.

Here’s my recent response to one such complaint:

The local independent bookseller who stocks my titles has said that to his (professional) eye, apart from the lack of a recognizable imprint logo on their spines, my books are indistinguishable from mainstream books. So long as the readers and booksellers are pleased with my books, I’m meeting the demands of my target audience. And that’s what indie authorship is all about: reaching and serving your readership, not slavishly following the conventions of traditional publishing, regardless of whether or not they form a value-added proposition where your intended audience is concerned…I and my books are doing pretty well. And in the final analysis, in attempting to judge the merits of what I propose and advise in The IndieAuthor Guide, isn’t *that* the only benchmark that really matters?

After I posted, another flakker chimed in to berate me further, pretty much missing my point about ‘value added’, and it occurred to me that it may be a term that merits some further exploration. It’s something one hears bandied about in the business world quite a bit, and entire books have been written on the subject. In simple terms, a ‘value-added proposition’ is something in which you invest time or money because there will be a commensurate payoff, or payback of that investment, in the future.

For example, let’s say you manufacture protective cell phone covers. People like your covers and they’re selling pretty well, but you think you could do even better if you started printing licensed cartoon characters on them. So you go through the paperwork and expense of getting the licensing rights, you re-tool your shop to print the characters on the covers and you invest in some extra advertising to let everyone know about your new product line. Naturally, you must price the new line higher to absorb the added expenses, but you’re confident it’ll be a hit. Three months down the line you find your old, plain covers are selling just as well as they ever did, and sales on the new covers are decidedly slow. Clearly, printing licensed cartoon characters on your covers was NOT a value-added proposition. Customers may like the new covers, and may even prefer them to the plain ones. But if they don’t prefer the new covers enough to pay extra for them, it doesn’t make business sense for you to be producing them.

And what does this have to do with indie authorship, you ask? When bringing your book to market, every time you make a choice that involves investment of your time or money you should be asking yourself, "Does this constitute a value-added proposition for my target audience?" Because if it doesn’t, you should be looking for ways to reduce or eliminate that investment. Based on my research and experience, I’ve concluded the average reader doesn’t know or care about the minutiae of ‘proper’ typesetting according to mainstream pubishing standards. So long as the text is easily legible and looks about the same as that in a mainstream book to a typical (non-industry) reader, the reader will not find fault with the layout and typesetting in a given book. I freely acknowledge that people who follow the directions I provide in The IndieAuthor Guide will end up with a book that’s instantly recognizable as self-published to most industry pros, but since those pros are not the indie author’s intended audience, their opinions are irrelevant in this regard. Therefore, investing hundreds or thousands of dollars in professional typesetting and layout services does not form a value-added proposition for most indie books.

In deciding whether or not to invest in this or that service or product when bringing your book to market, let your target audience be your guide. If your target audience WILL notice and care about details of typesetting and layout for instance, paying for those professional services is a necessary expenditure for your particular book. However, if paying for those services requires you to price the eventual book so high that no one is willing to buy it, then the entire book fails the value-added proposition test.

Cover design is another area where value added comes into play. The IndieAuthor Guide includes directions for designing your own book cover, but many authors feel out of their depth when it comes to graphic arts and design and will prefer to hire out for those services; even so, they must wade through a seeming ocean of possible vendors and price ranges. Of course you want a cover that will draw the potential buyer in, even when viewed as an icon on a webpage if your book will be sold online. However, spending thousands of dollars on a piece of commissioned artwork from a name artist for your cover doesn’t necessarily add value for which your eventual readers will be willing to pay extra.

Since increasing the retail price of your book to absorb that cost may alienate potential buyers, you need to consider how many extra books you must sell at your regular retail price to recoup the money you spent on the cover artwork. In some cases, the investment will be worth it. In other cases, not so much. You can usually get an attractive, professional-looking cover which effectively conveys the theme of your book from a journeyman graphic artist at a much lower cost, or even from an art school grad student who’s willing to do the cover for free in exchange for the portfolio sample and exposure. As with any small business expenditure, you must balance the benefit against the cost when determining how much money to spend on professional services.

Let me hasten to add: I am not suggesting that indie authors try to do everything ‘on the cheap’ for the sake of saving money or increasing royalties. On the contrary, I advise indie authors to do all in their power to deliver a product that, to the typical book buyer, is indistinguishable from the products of their mainstream competitors. That means quality editing, paper, printing, cover design, and more. What I AM saying is that each time you’re faced with decisions about whether, and how much, to spend on some aspect of your book’s production or promotion, carefully consider the matter of ‘value added’.

Google Book Settlement: The Revenue Models

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This post, from Jane, originally appeared on the Dear Author site on 8/2/09.

The point of the Google Book Settlement is to make money. There are some that argue that it is designed to provide more access to literature than is currently being provided, but money is involved here otherwise there wouldn’t be lawsuits.

Google Book Settlement has authorized four different revenue models and contemplates others. The four approved revenue models are as follows:

  1. Advertising revenue
  2. Institutional subscriptions
  3. Consumer purchases
  4. Per page printing fees

Advertising Revenue

Through the GBKS, Google is given the right to display advertisements on “Preview Use pages and other Online Book Pages.” Ads that appear on a general search results page are not considered “Advertising Use” and that money, then, is kept by Google. Revenues generated through ads within the pages of the books themselves (or ads that appear on searches within a particular book) will be shared with publishers and authors at a rate of 63% less BRR administrative fee.

Per Section 3.10(c)(iii) Google is not permitted to use “any pop-up, pop-under, or any other types of advertisements or content of any kind” and the Registry may restrict Google’s advertising for non Registered Rightsholders if Google is using animated, audio or video ads.

Institutional Subscriptions

Institutional Subscriptions is subscription access to a database of scanned books sold to institutions. The pricing will be set by Google and the BRR. It is likely that subscriptions will be offered in full access and smaller discipline-based collection but Google intends to price the different versions so that there is an incentive to purchase the access to the entire database. Section 4.1(a)(v)

To provide an incentive for institutions to subscribe to the entire Institutional Subscription Database, Google shall design the pricing of the different versions of the Institutional Subscription such that the price for access to the entire Institutional Subscription Database will be less than the sum of the prices for access to the discipline-based collections.

Google and the BRR will consider “the pricing of similar products and services available from third parties, the scope of Books available, the quality of the scan and the features offered as part of the Institutional Subscription.” 4.1(a)(ii)

The Uses contemplated by the agreement include “view, copy/paste up to 4 pages in a single command, and print pages of a Book (no greater than 20 pages in one command), and may enable Book Annotations.” All printed pages will include a visible watermark. Section 4.1(d)

Consumer Purchase

The agreement confers consumers the same use rights and restrictions as under Institutional Subscriptions including view, copy/paste, print & annotation if the latter has been permitted. Section 4.2(a).

Pricing is determined by Google & the BRR by default. The Rightsholder (and remember that could be any number of people with any disputes headed for arbitration) can notify Google of the price she wants the access to be sold. Failure to notify Google results in the Settlement Price being used. Section 4.2(b). Pricing Algorithm will be based on comparable sales data. Section 4.2(c)(ii)(2). Books are not individually priced but rather allotted placement in a Pricing Bin.

Read the rest of the post, including a detailed breakdown of the ‘Pricing Bin’ categories and payouts, on Dear Author.

How To Fail At Self-Promotion

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This post, from Merrilee Faber, originally appeared on the e-Fiction Book Club site on 8/16/09.

Here’s a tip for the clueless author.   Self promotion does not mean spam.  Word of mouth?  Not YOUR mouth.  Getting noticed?  Not successful if people remember you as an arrogant arse or a nutter.

(Obligatory disclaimer; the opinions expressed in this post are mine and do not represent the views of other members of the e-Fiction Book Club.)

Back to the soapbox.

I know you want the world to hear about your opus.  I get it.  And getting noticed in the vast sea of information that is the internet can be an uphill battle.

But just think for a moment.  Remember those comments you get, the ones trying to sell pharmaceutical products, or encourage you to explore the dubious delights of a XXX site, or the ones that promise to make your sex life better?  How many of those do you read?  How many of those do you post to your site, thinking ‘wow, I’m so glad someone told me about that’?

My blog is not here as a vehicle for your marketing activities.

When you post a long advertisement about your book/site/product whatever, you are spamming me.  Your information is unsolicited, and that means it’s unwelcome.  Yes, even here, on a book review blog.  The rules for submission are posted on the front page and on the submission page.  90% of the authors who find us can figure it out, why can’t you?

Wail, bitch, moan, they say, how am I going to get noticed if I don’t spread the word about my book?  Oh, I noticed you, all right.  But I’m certainly not encouraged to click through and read your book.  I’m going to hit the Spam It button, and say bye-bye.

There are ways to do self promotion right, and the internet is a great vehicle for it.  If you can’t be bothered to Google ‘internet marketing’, I can’t help you.  But I will pass on 3 marketing guidelines for the clueless author (and any authors who might just be uninitiated.  There’s a difference, and mostly it’s to do with attitude.)

1.  Be involved, be interesting, be a person.

People connect with people.  Want to be noticed?  Get out there, on Twitter or Facebook or WordPress or whatever.  Find your community.  Get involved.  Read blogs, post comments, tweet about your day.  Connecting, finding followers and building your audience is primarily about making friends.  You don’t have to be the life of the party; networking is just getting to know people, and letting them get to know you.

 

Read the rest of the post, including tips #2 and 3, on e-Fiction Book Club.

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff Week: Word Up!

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This post, from author Janice Hardy, originally appeared on her The Other Side of the Story blog on 3/23/09.

I’m in the mood for a theme week, so I’m going to talk about the stuff that writers typically agonize over at some point. These are the things we debate on the boards, but ultimately don’t matter as much as we think they do.

On the list for the week:

Word counts
Adverbs
Exclamation points
Back story
Fonts and formatting

One of the first things writers do is figure out how big the book is going to be. You don’t always know, but you usually have a general idea to shoot for. Going over or under can send a writer into a fit of panic. And there’s so much contradictory info out there. For every person who says you’ll never get published with a 145,000 word book, another says BestsellerBob was 145,000 words, so don’t worry. The really frustrating part, is that they’re both right. But it’s all depends on the book. (Doesn’t it always?)

Basic word count for a typical novel runs between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Mysteries often go as low as 60,000 and historical fiction and epic fantasy rise as high as 140,000. Childrens fiction runs 30,000 to 50,000 for middle grade, and 50,000 to 80,000 for young adult. Chapter books run 5,000 to 25,000 words. Picture books come in under 500.

Now, none of these are set in stone, as evidenced that Shifter, my middle grade novel, is 71,000 words. But it still falls under the basic YA guidelines. You’ll also find plenty of people who offer different ranges, which is okay. These are all just rough guidelines to give you a basic idea of how big a typical book runs. Plenty of books fall outside of these averages and nobody cares about that if the book is good.

Here’s something I’ve learned since selling my own novel and working with top-notch, professional editors who do this for a living.

It’s not about how many words you have, but what those words do, that counts.

This, folks, is the holy grail of word counts.
 

Read the rest of this post, about word counts, on Janice Hardy’s The Other Side of the Story blog. Then see her related posts about adverbs, exclamation points, backstory, and fonts and formatting.

Twitter Chats For Writers

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This article, from freelance writer and illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi, originally appeared on her Inkygirl.com site. It is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission, but as it is updated frequently, we strongly recommend you bookmark the source article and revisit it from time to time. Debbie is best known for her Inkygirl comics, which are geared to writers.

It took me a while to check out a chat on Twitter because I figured it would be complicated, and I lacked the time to learn a new user interface. To my surprise, it was MUCH simpler than I expected…and a lot of fun!

Twitter Chats For Writers

(Updated by @inkyelbows on August 24, 2009)

Compact writer chat schedule (for details, read further down on page):
EVERY DAY: #amwriting, #writegoal, #writingparty plus others (see hashtag list below)
SUNDAYS: #writechat
MONDAYS: #litchat, #journchat
TUESDAYS: #kidlitchat
WEDNESDAYS: #litchat, #memoirchat, #wnw, #editorchat
THURSDAYS: #poetry, #dnchat
FRIDAYS: #platformchat, #litchat, #scifichat
SATURDAYS: #ScreenwritingSaturday

If you’ve never tried a Twitter chat, here are some tips to help you get started:

What IS a Twitter chat?

A chat on Twitter basically consists of people making posts that include a particular hashtag (words that start with ‘#’). To read posts made in a chat, you just search for that hashtag in Twitter. Here’s a sample search for the hashtag ‘#writechat.’

If all you want to do is monitor a chat and not say anything, that’s all you need to know. You’ll need to refresh the page to see updated posts.

If you want to say something in the chat, just post your comment to Twitter, but make sure the hashtag is included somewhere in your post so other people in the chat will see it. That’s the simplest way to participate in a chat so if you’re in a hurry, there’s no need to read further.

However, it can be a hassle to have to manually add the chat hashtag each time you post (and inevitably you forget) and also to keep refreshing the search result page. To make Twitter chats a more pleasant experience, there are many Twitter chat tools available (for free!); I’ve included a list of some later in this page.

Where to find Twitter chats for writers

These dates/times are accurate as of today, as far as I know. Info may change, however, so be sure to verify this info by checking the hashtag before attending your first chat. Info was excerpted from Meryl.Net’s great list of chats, this Google Docs chat list, Twitter, and comment posts. If you run a regular Twitter chat for writers that is not listed below, please post info in the comments at the bottom.

Every day (”slow chats”)

The following are more motivational groups rather than scheduled Twitterchats, but are still a great way of meeting other writers on Twitter.

#amwriting: Every day
See @johannaharness’s FAQ.
When: anytime.

Other hashtags of interest to writers: #authors, #pubtip, #nanowrimo, #writegoal (post your daily writing goals and get inspired by reading goals by other writers),#wip, #wordcount, #writetip, #novelists, #writers, #writing, #writingparty.

Reminder: Hashtags are useful in filtering Twitter posts, but DON’T OVERUSE THEM. Here’s a great post about how to use and not use hashtags.

Scheduled

#writechat: Sundays
Topic or topics are usually announced at the beginning of the chat.
Moderated by @WritingSpirit
PST: 12-3 pm
MST: 1-4 pm
CST: 2-5 pm
EST: 3-6 pm

#journchat: Mondays
PST: 5-8 pm
MST: 6-9 pm
CST: 7-10 pm
EST: 8-11 pm

#kidlitchat: Every Tuesday starting July 21st
Craft & business of writing for young people, board books up through YA. Topic or topics are usually announced at the beginning of the chat.
Moderators: @gregpincus, @bonnieadamson
PST: 6 pm
MST: 7 pm
CST: 8 pm
EST: 9 pm

#litchat: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Mission is to connect readers with books and authors.
Moderator: @litchat.
Transcripts on blog.
PST: 1-2 pm
MST: 2-3 pm
CST: 3-4 pm
EST: 4-5 pm

#WNW:
Wednesdays
Wednesday Night Writer. Fantasy/Fiction discussion group on Twitter.
Moderator: @_decode_ .
PST: 5-8 pm
MST: 6-9 pm
CST: 7-10 pm
EST: 8-11 pm

#memoirchat: Every other Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST.
Moderator: @alexisgrant
For writers of memoir.

#editorchat: Wednesdays
…A place for professional writers and editors who use the micro-blogging service Twitter to discuss how best to help one another.
Moderator: @LydiaBreakfast
PST: 5:30-8 pm
MST: 6:30-9 pm
CST: 7:30-10pm
EST: 8:30-11pm

#poetry: Thursdays
We talk poetry. Readers, writers, and all others encouraged to join. Moderator: @gregpincus.
PST: 6-7 pm
MST: 7-8 pm
CST: 8-9 pm
EST: 10-11 pm

#dnchat: Thursdays
For those who write fiction for online publication. “DN stands for DigitalNovelists.com, which is the platform most of us in the group publish on, but all web fiction writers and fans of web novelists are welcome.”
PST: 8-9 pm
MST: 9-10 pm
CST: 10-11 pm
EST: 11 pm-12 am

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: also check out #followreader, on Thursdays at 1pm PST, 2pm MST, 3pm CST and 4pm EST. Each week features a different topic of interest to authors, publishers and readers]

#scifichat: Fridays
Moderated by: @DavidRozansky. Follow @scifichat for schedule changes and announcements.
PST: 11-2 pm
MST: 12-2 pm
CST: 1-3 pm
EST: 2-4 pm

#platformchat: Fridays.
Moderator: @thewritermama.
PST: 11-12 am
MST: 12-1 pm
CST: 1-2 pm
EST: 2-3 pm

#scifichat: Fridays
Moderated by: @DavidRozansky
PST: 11-1 pm
MST: 12-2 pm
CST: 1-3 pm
EST: 2-4 pm

#ScreenwritingSaturday:
Saturdays (all day)
Moderator: @UncompletedWork.

To see other chats, please visit Meryl.Net’s list of chats and What The Hashtag.

USEFUL TWITTER CHAT CLIENTS

You don’t have to have a special Twitter chat tool to participate in a Twitter chat, but it can make things easier.

TweetChat: This is my favourite so far. Very simple to use. Web-based, just enter the hashtag you want to follow, enter the chat room, and you don’t have to keep adding the hashtag to every post because TweetChat does it for you.

TweetGrid: Also Web-based. You can participate in more than one chat at the same time but this means you have to enter the hashtag each time you post to make sure it goes to the right room. I find it enough of a challenge keeping up with ONE chat and can’t imagine trying to participate in more than one, though.

TweetDeck: If you use this desktop app, then you can create a column that filters the hashtag/chat name.

Related sources:
Meryl.net’s article abou Twitter chat clients
10 Free Twitter Chat Tools

FOR THOSE NEW TO TWITTER CHATS

Tweeting With Your Twitter Community: How To Participate In A Twitter Chat by Jeff Hurt
How to Join Twitter Chats from Meryl.net
How To Participate In A Twitter Chat

A FEW TWITTER CHAT TIPS

If you’re arriving after the chat has begun, try to catch up on older posts to find out what you missed. DON’T start posting right away — you may be interrupting a moderated chat with guest authors or editors, or there may be a particular theme or topic of discussion.

Don’t get angry if people seem to be ignoring your posts. In a crowded chat, posts often go by very quickly and people often miss reading some posts. System lag can also delay the public appearance of posts. Wait a little and then try re-posting.

I’ve found it handy to keep an extra window open, to monitor any “@” replies I may have missed seeing in the main chat window.

If you’re replying to someone’s comment, be sure to include that person’s account name in your post so they see it.

If you’re using a regular Web browser, include the proper chat name hashtag, or no one in the chat will see your post.

Proofread your tweet before posting.

Try to stay on topic, if there is a topic of discussion.

Don’t forget that if you have a protected Twitterfeed, people won’t be able to see your posts unless they’re following you. Consider opening a separate (and public) feed for chats.

If you use one Twitter account for regular posts as well as for chats, you may want to warn your followers that you’re about to participate in a chat and may therefore be posting a LOT for the next little while. Or you might consider having a separate account just for chats. Here’s how I tweet.

Even though the environment may seem intimate and casual, ALWAYS REMEMBER that your posts are public. You can always count on someone taking a screenshot of an embarrassing post before you have a chance to delete it, plus certain types of feeds will still retain your post even if you delete it. Never, ever post in anger; don’t forget what happened to Alice Hoffman.

Never post in anger. (see above) I know I keep harping on this, but I’ve seen far too many writers make this mistake and regret it later. If you want to disagree with someone, do so respectfully. Don’t let someone goad you into a flamewar. Also remember that people reading your Twitter page will only see your posts, and not the others in the discussion. These readers may include other authors, editors, and agents whose professional opinion of you may be altered for the worse, depending on what you post.

TWITTER CHAT ACRONYM PRIMER

I’m still learning the acronyms, but here are some you may come across in a Twitter chat for writers:

YA = young adult
MG = middle grade
UF = urban fantasy (thanks to @tom_hummer)
FWIW = for what it’s worth
LOL = laughing out loud
LMAO = laughing my ass off
RT = retweet (usually precedes the Twittername of the person who is being quoted or retweeted)
BFN = bye for now
TTFN = ta ta for now
BRB = be right back

Here are some other chat acronyms
Chat acronyms used in e-mail, IM and text messaging (includes handy search box)

FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO RUN A TWITTER CHAT

How to Run a Successful Twitter Chat (from Meryl.net)

FOR THOSE NEW TO TWITTER OR TWITTERCHATS:

10 Ways Twitter Can Help Writers by Debbie Ridpath Ohi
The Twitter Chat Experience – by Swan
What Tweetchats Can Do For You by Ami Spencer
Twitter FAQ: RT, HT, OH, ETC by Brent Ozar
Twitter 101: Clarifying The Rules For Newbies from SheGeeks.net.
The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter – by Michael Hyatt (CEO, Thomas Nelson)

All Your Base Are Belong To Amazon

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This post, from Eoin Purcell, originally appeared on his Eoin Purcell’s Blog on 5/14/09.

Sometimes you get tired of being outmaneuvered
In some senses, what Amazon launched yesterday with Amazon Encore is neither that amazing a project, after all there have been several small-press or self-published titles taken on board by large publishers as I’ve mentioned on this blog before, nor is it even that innovative, Authonomy is at its core a way to tap the self published and slush-piled manuscripts out there in the wild.

But the key point is that this moves Amazon directly into the role of publisher as James Bridle makes clear on his post on the topic:

"It’s been a while coming, but some of us have been predicting this move for some time: Amazon have finally made it to the penultimate step on the publishing chain. I say penultimate, because although they are now, by any definition, a publisher, they still appear to be cherry-picking from existing books rather than seeking out their own authors."

I think this move suggests a couple of key questions:

    1) Who benefits most from this (and conversely who hurts the most because of it)?
    2) Can it be extended?
    3) Will there be a reaction?

First, Cui bono
On the face of it, this seems like an amazing opportunity for the author, reading her Amazon blog she certainly seems happy. Amazon’s platform (and as Personanondata point out platform is pretty key) allows for so many things that the average (or small press) publisher cannot. View for instance the neat homemade (and windy) video that amazon have on the main product page. The extra push that Amazon can give a product is really impressive. It will certainly be interesting to see how this works. I think it is fair to say then that the author gets a fair shake of this tail, though it would be interesting to see how the royalties split out.

As for the publisher who backed the book in the first place (always assuming that this encore element remains true) the deal is a win-win. So long, that is as rights for the project were acquired to begin with. A smart author would try and retain the rights for any potential Amazon Encore deal if that was even remotely possible. but allowing for the rights being with the publisher, they will surely gain something from the deal, though if the split of revenue is as one sided as in the case of the new amazon blogs-on-kindle deal (70-30 in favour of amazon) it’ll not be a huge amount. So there is a sense that the publishers who are “chosen” will benefit. But a note of caution from two sources Personanondata & James:

"Amazon as producer is a subtle but important change in the operations of the largest retailer. I often mull what would happen to some of the largest publishers if they lost their top two or three authors to Google or Amazon. It may be that the Amazon Encore program sets the stage for a much larger program by Amazon to establish their own publishing and media production operation – their content supply – that feeds their retail presence. There may be further ramifications from this seemingly innocuous press release."

"Those who suggest they’ll just keep picking stuff up from the little guys hasn’t been paying attention. In the last five years Amazon have, in addition to dominating online bookselling, bought a book social network, a major print-on-demand supplier, a complete end-to-end self-publishing system, pretty much the entire used books marketplace, the biggest audiobook distributor, the best iPhone ereader, and designed, built and delivered the only truly mass-market dedicated ereading device, with a proprietary format that sets them up to be the iTunes of eBooks.* It’s big, it’s scary, it’s Amazon. But the publishing industry is under so many different pressures at the moment, this is unlikely to be as big as it could be: Amazon don’t want to annoy their major suppliers, not too much, and not yet. They will though, and by that point, they’ll be past caring. Like Google with their ebooks programme, they’ve been given so much leeway for so long, they think they can do whatever they like, and chances are, they’re right."

So, there is a benefit but they might just eat publishers’ lunch next week, next month, next year or next decade!

Read the rest of the post (be sure to read through the excellent comments thread, too) on Eoin Purcell’s Blog.

How To Set Up A Blog Book Tour

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This post, from Pat Bertram, originally appeared on her Book Marketing Floozy blog on 8/24/09.

Alan Baxter is an optimistic cynic and dark speculative fiction author, based on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. His writing is primarily based in the magical, the spiritual, the religious and the arcane with tendencies towards horror, depravity and battles between light and dark. Baxter says:

A blog book tour is a great way to generate buzz about you and your book. It’s essentially free, it generates a lot of hits on your site and others, and it creates an ongoing interest in your work. As a result of a blog tour, your books and name will gain exposure to potentially thousands of new readers. And all it really costs is time and effort on your part.

Any author, however they’re published, needs media attention. The new media of blogging and social networking is a great tool to use to your advantage. Working with other people, cross posting on a variety of media, gives you a saturation coverage for a period of time that can have excellent ongoing results.

So what is it? A blog book tour is essentially taking your books out on the virtual road, in much the same way that authors would traditionally tour the country, visiting various bookstores promoting their work. In this case, an author visits a different blog every day where they engage in various activities (interviews, guest posts, reviews and so on) and make themselves and their books known to the audience of that particular blog. There’s great cross-promotion as the writer’s audience gets exposed to a variety of blogs they might not have discovered otherwise (which is good for the blog owner) and that blog’s existing audience learns about the author and his or her work.

I currently have two novels out, RealmShift and MageSign, and it was these two books that I recently took on a blog book tour. My books are available in print and ebook format and I also have a novella available as a free ebook, Ghost Of The Black: A ‘Verse Full Of Scum. By taking my two novels on the virtual road, I opened up my both those novels, my free novella and my other work featured on my website to a wide audience that may never have heard of me or my writing before. It also helped to increase exposure to my indie press, Blade Red Press. Building an author platform online is essential for indie authors and a blog book tour like this is a great way to expand that platform.

It helps to offer something special. I really wanted to make an aspect of this tour something attractive — a special offer for people following along. It’s difficult with the print editions of my books through Amazon or places like that to make any changes in the short term. However, all my books are available as ebooks in a variety of places including Smashwords.com. With Smashwords there’s an excellent degree of control for the author/publisher. With any title you have there it’s possible to generate vouchers to vary the cost of your books however you please. So that means that I was able to set up a voucher code that was made available to anyone following the tour, valid only for the duration of the tour. If those people then came to Smashwords to buy RealmShift or MageSign they could enter that code and the books only cost them $1 each, instead of the usual $3.50. Giving very cheap or free content has proven itself many times over as an excellent way of generating interest in new work and it also gives people an added reason to check out the blog tour.

As for how successful a blog book tour can be, it depends on how much work an author puts in? With anything in this game it’s all about how much work you do. It’s also about working smart. If you get involved with a variety of blogs, with a widely varying audience, and you ask those people to promote the tour for you, then a lot of publicity can be generated. You can also make sure that you and those others involved cross-media promote with things like Twitter, Facebook and so on, to attract as many potential readers as possible.

Read the rest of the post on Book Marketing Floozy.

What lies beneathThe Red Gate?

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The Red Gate

On a rain-soaked morning, in rugged County Mayo, a reclusive shepherd with little formal education learns a secret that has tied his family to the same small plot of land for millennia.  An unexplained drowning, and a single misstep: are they connected? The answer may cost him everything. Can he prevent the world from learning what has been kept hidden for so long? Will he still have time to tend his sheep?

The Red Gate, will transport the reader back almost 100 years, to the wild coast of Ireland, into the painful struggle a small, traditional family undergoes as it tries to protect its legacy from the outside world.  Follow the O’Deirgs as they learn the real reason their flocks graze the grassy slopes.

an outstanding debut novel for Richard Sutton

ISBN 1441472258

Historic Fiction/Fantasy

Available at Amazon.com US$15.95 Preview Available

Available also on Barnes& Noble.com discounted!

eBook Available on Smashwords for US$4.95 Preview Available

eBook Available on Lulu for US$4.95 Preview Available

 

Kindle Edition also Available

For more information, visit RLSuttonBooks.com