Month: April 2011

The Importance Of Author Organizations

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Writing can be one of the lonliest career fields. There you are–hour after hour, day after day, etc. working away in a room by yourself. Even in a public setting such as a coffee shop, we build walls around us that warn, “Don’t bother me! Writer at work!”

Writers are human too. They need connectivity, especially with like-minded writers. There are a several ways you can do this. The first is to join a local group of writers. These are often sponsored by bookstores and libraries. Just ask at the counter. Contacts with these may also lead to contacts with critique groups, although you need to be careful. Other credible sponsors are colleges and community colleges. Ask in the English departments. Some schools offer workshops such as the University of Iowa’s Writing Workshop and their MA degree. Kansas University’s famous Jim Gunn runs an excellent SciFi/Fantasy program.

Probably the most helpful ar the writers’ organizations for specific genre fiction. The following are links to some of these:

Author Organization links

Amazon Author and Writer Groups  http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=13786431

Mystery Organizations:
http://www.mysterywriters.org/

http://www.sistersincrime.org/

Erotica Fiction:
http://www.erotica-readers.com/

Horror Fiction:
http://www.horror.org/

International Thrillers:
http://thrillerwriters.org/

Romance Fiction:
http://www.rwa.org/

Science Fiction and Fantasy:
http://www.sfwa.org/

Western Fiction:
http://www.westernwriters.org/

Historical Novels:
http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/

Children’s Books:
http://www.scbwi.org/

If some of you host similar sites, please comment to let us know.

Finally, some very gracious popular authors provide pages for other writers who want help and assistance in their writing. My favorite is Orson Scott Card at http://www.hatrack.com .

Linking in with other writers interested in your genre can be very helpful. Oft times they will point out other resources and people with which to network. Don’t let loneliness get you down. Get out there and network with others.

 

This is a reprint from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends Blog.

Allowable Home Office Tax Deductions

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Publetariat Contributor Julian Block shares this helpful tax information for writers and other freelancers:

The National Association of Realtors has a Web site for the general public, houselogic.com. At the site, [you will find a slideshow entitled] "Home Office Tax Deductions: Tips to Get It Right". The slides pair attention-getting images with brief explanations of what expenses are allowable for freelance writers and others who operate businesses from their homes. The explanations alert [viewers] to opportunities to save taxes this year and get a head start for next year. Here is a direct link to the slide show.

 

Platform Evolution

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Here’s a graph from my Twitter Quitter post:

A basic premise of independent authorship is that authors should establish their own platform in order to reach out to readers and potential customers. I believe in that premise. What constitutes a platform, however, remains undefined.

Implicit in the idea of an author’s platform is the creation of an online presence. Because the internet has become commonplace it’s easy to forget that an independent platform for individual artists would be impossible without it. (Prior to the internet an artist’s platform was limited by geography. Bands were limited not by their music but by their touring range.) While the advantages and opportunities provided by the internet are astounding relative to the pre-internet age, the internet is still a communications medium devised by human beings, with inherent strengths and weaknesses.

Understanding how the internet works in a business context is an ongoing process. Two days ago the New York Times put up a paywall, attempting for the second time to derive revenue from its own online platform. (The first attempt failed.) That one of the most prominent newspapers in the world is still struggling to monetize content despite almost unparalleled visibility and economic muscle is a reminder to everyone that the platform question has not been answered.

Depending on your perspective, the tendency of the human mind to cherry pick information can be seen as either a bug or a feature. In the context of online platforms, it’s easy to see successes like iTunes as indicative of potential and promise when it’s actually the result of a unique set of circumstances. Finding gold in a stream may spark a gold rush, but only a few people will stake claims that literally pan out. The internet is no different. As I noted in a post about the future of publishing:

In return for making distribution almost effortless and almost free, the internet promises nothing. No revenue. No readers. Nothing.

Possibilities are not promises. Possibilities are chances, which is why I always say that writing for profit is gambling — and gambling against terrible odds. Determining what your online platform should be, and how much time you should devote to that platform, is an important part of nudging the odds in your favor.  

Lowering the Bar
Platform-services consultants, like marketing consultants, will always tell you that you can never do enough. Because the time you can devote to your platform is limited, but the time you should devote is infinite, these people will offer to bridge that gap on your behalf, for a fee. Because the internet is driven by technology, and because anything less than a cutting-edge platform means you’re falling short, platform consultants will also offer to sell you myriad apps and solutions, all of which they will teach you about, maintain and upgrade for a fee. (The New York Times was convinced by these same people to spend $40 million dollars on a paywall that can be easily circumvented.)

Approaching your platform as a vehicle of infinite possibility constrained only by your own feeble lack of determination is a recipe for failure. You do not have an infinite amount of time and resources to devote to your platform. Even if you did, there’s no guarantee that such a commitment would equal success. From part IV of my marketing and sales series:

In the real world, if you really did grab a pick and shovel and head out into your backyard to strike it rich, your friends and family would rightly think you a loon, no matter how deeply felt your convictions were. Why? Because it’s common knowledge that gold isn’t plentiful everywhere. Rather, it’s concentrated in veins of rock or in waterways that hold gold from eroded veins of rock.

If you try to dig in the wrong place it doesn’t matter how much time or money you spend, or how cutting-edge your tools are. You’re not going to get any gold even if you have infinite resources. Because the internet obviates geographical limits it seem to negate all limits, but as the NYT’s second attempt at a paywall makes clear that’s not the case. The internet is not an infinite vein of gold waiting to be exploited if only you’re smart enough to pick the right mix of apps, site functionality and marketing techniques.

(This false premise echoes the happiness industry’s determination to blame everyone for their own failings. If you’re not a happy person it’s your own fault: stop whining and try harder. If your platform isn’t racking up clicks and sales it’s your own fault: stop whining and try harder.)

Platform Motivation
I think the right question to ask is how each independent author’s platform can most effectively dovetail with that author’s individual goals. If you’re the kind of writer who wants to write a lot of books, slaving yourself to a complex or time-consuming platform is going to keep you from reaching that goal. (I’ll elaborate on that in a moment.) If your writing goals are more modest or limited — and if the work you’re producing is itself part of a larger goal — then creating a more complex platform might make sense. For example, if you’re a public speaker or have a primary profession, authoring a book might help you further those pursuits even if the work itself never becomes a bestseller.

I think it’s also important to be conscious of the motivations behind the voices championing the idea of a platform. As a writer I think you should have a platform in order to make yourself visible. Making yourself available online allows people to find you and your work, and it allows you to have information or products waiting for them whenever they choose to arrive. Without a presence on the web you are invisible and mute, no matter how many pages you crank out.

Publishers, agents and editors want you to have a platform, but for slightly different reasons. To them your platform provides a metric by which they can measure your popularity in an uncertain marketplace crowded with aspiring writers. The measure of dedication you show to your platform also indicates how interested you might be in doing the things those people would want you to do in order to maximize sales. Given that they only make money if you make money it’s understandable that they would have these interests, but those interests do not put writing first.

In my case, for example, the decision to quit Facebook and Twitter was made after considerable deliberation about what was best for me as a writer, including assessment of the workloads involved. I’m fairly confident most publishers, agents and editors would see my choices as a mistake, if only because I’ve made it harder for them to assess my platform relative to other authors. Staying active on those sites would please them, but it would make my writing life more difficult without any demonstrable payoff. (If I write a runaway hit I can always join those sites again in order to capitalize on that success.)

Platform Criteria
So: how to juggle all of the available platform options? Well, after testing some of the options I’ve changed my own platform weighting as follows:

  • Creating and publishing new work is more important than any platform activity by at least an order of magnitude. If there’s a choice between writing and working on my platform, I’m going to write. Doing so emphasizes the proper ratio of time I should spend on my platform.

    As I said above, writers who crank out books probably need less of a platform relative to other writers. Why? Because after you establish even on an online toehold, your growing body of work becomes the greatest expression of, and attraction to, your platform.

  • Becoming a better writer is more important than bettering my platform by at least an order of magnitude. Because I’m never going to be able to drive sales with my celebrity I need to make sure I can compete with my content. Here’s how I put it in the conclusion to my series on marketing and sales:

    Writing is a qualitative act. It matters whether you suck or not. As such I believe mastery of craft is the most reliable predictor of critical or commercial success for the great majority of writers. There will always be people who succeed despite a lack of authorial gifts and there will always be good writers who are overlooked in the marketplace. But if you’re determined to play the percentages and protect your own authorial vision, nothing pays off like focusing on being the best writer you can be.

  • Both Twitter and Facebook demonstrate the same inescapable truth: if you have celebrity you’ll have more success at exploiting those sites; if you don’t, the road to cultural currency (to say nothing of sales) becomes much, much more difficult. The written word is the root of any storyteller’s celebrity. It is the engine of an author’s success in every way, including platform success. I agree that authors should launch their platforms before they launch their books, but the success of that platform will be defined largely by the success of those books, not the other way around.

  • All platforms are not the same. Some authors focus on issues, some authors focus on readers, some focus on both. (Zoe Winters wrestles with these choices here and here.) I’m at the point where I want to write and self-publish more fiction, and engage more readers. Again, however, my success at doing so will come from spending more time writing things for people to read, not more time working on my platform.

  • After a year and a half I can say with conviction that an author can have no better platform than their own website and blog. If you want to extend that locus through other sites like Facebook and Twitter, that’s fine. But you should have your own home base and you should own it. It doesn’t have to be a complex site, and probably shouldn’t be if you want to protect your writing time. And you should always protect your writing time.

Everything I’ve learned over the past year or two says that an author’s platform should be smaller rather than larger. Everything I’ve learned also says that authors should concentrate on writing rather than augmenting their platform. You do need to have a presence. You don’t need to obsess over it.

The Platform in Context
Launching an online platform is like staking a claim. You hope you pick a good spot but you also know you have to compete with everybody else working the same territory. However much time and money you decide to devote to your platform, some of your competitors will have more money, some will work harder, and some will have trained professionals helping them.

Treating your platform like a competition with others is tempting but it’s a big mistake. I’m convinced that the people who visit my site and read my words are less concerned with how my platforms stacks up against other sites than they are with how well I deliver on my promises to them. I certainly don’t want my site to look amateurish, but beyond that low bar my focus needs to be wholly on my readers.

Because the internet potentially allows an author to connect with everyone on the planet it’s tempting to try to drive readers to your platform. I’ve come to believe that doing so is a waste of time. You should approach your platform and presence as something long-term and make it easy for readers to find you when they’re interested. The best of all possible worlds is one where readers promote you and your work by word of mouth, and apart from celebrity-driven successes I can’t find any examples to the contrary. Bottom line: it takes time, so plan accordingly, including emotionally.

One of the most oft-quoted remarks about the obstacles facing independent artists comes from Tim O’Reilly:

Lesson 1: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

This idea has also been heavily promoted by anti-DRM advocate Cory Doctorow:

That’s because my biggest threat as an author isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity. The majority of ideal readers who fail to buy my book will do so because they never heard of it, not because someone gave them a free electronic copy.

The problem with this claim isn’t that it’s false, it’s that it’s meaningless. Obscurity is also a far greater threat to authors than smallpox, grapefruit and linoleum. If nobody knows who you are, yes, that’s a big problem. But ignoring the costs of piracy doesn’t solve any author’s obscurity problem. In fact, based on my Twitter experience, I don’t think anything can solve the obscurity problem because it’s baked into the online cake.

The internet made information available 24/7. It also made it possible for anyone to distribute digital content. Now, with the advent of Facebook and Twitter, it’s effortlessly easy for people to express every stray thought in their heads. As a result, the wall of noise that any content provider must compete against has grown exponentially. We’re at a point where every single person on the face of the earth is a direct competitor. There is no longer any distinction between the people who make content and the people who consume it.

The fact that everyone seems so deeply invested in expressing their own thoughts means fewer and fewer people are listening. Attention has become a commodity as critical to the lifeblood of a writer as obscurity is daunting:

Many of the filters earlier generations took for granted, the ones imposed by the absence of real-time communications and efficient transmission and storage, have now been eradicated by the advent of internet and digital media.

The only possible solution to the obscurity/attention quandary is not to play. No matter how great your celebrity or big your platform, there are limits. Just ask Roger Ebert. (There are also good reasons to believe that Facebook and Twitter are overvalued financially and culturally. Just ask Warren Buffett and Vincent Eaton.)

Picturing Your Platform
When I first thought about my own platform I imagined it as a kind of soap box. It was my spot in the public square of ideas. Later, I also came to think of my platform as a retail space. It was my shop and display.

Now, however, I’ve come to see my platform as a launching pad. It’s how I try to put stories and ideas and conversations into virtual orbit. Some of the things I launch may blow up on the pad, some may go to the moon, and the fate of some launches may be unknown for a long time. And nothing I do to my platform will change that.

 

This is a reprint from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

Managing Expectations: Patience and Perspective in Indie Publishing

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The last few weeks, because I have not been able to maintain the terrific sales numbers I achieved over the Christmas holidays for my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, I have noticed a growing sense of disappointment. In addition, two of my friends who have recently self-published books, encouraged to do so by my solid sales, have sold very few of their books. Naturally I feel partly responsible for their frustration. Finally, the author Facebook site I started last month only has 74 “likes,” most of them other authors who “liked” my site in exchange for me “liking” their sites, instead of the fans of the book I hoped to attract. I confess these three things were beginning to undermine my generally enthusiastic state of mind towards self-publishing. A few days ago, however, I experienced an interesting “attitude adjustment.”

First of all, I read a guest post on J.A. Konrath’s blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, by an author Guido Henkel where Henkel described how, despite all the changes he had made to his book Demon’s Night, (new cover, new description, better editing, etc), after a relaunch of the book four weeks ago he hadn’t seen any great improvement in sales.

I found myself mentally chiding Henkel for being so impatient. Four weeks, particularly if he hadn’t been doing anything to let the potential readers out there know about his new and improved book, is a very short period of time in the self-publishing world. And one of the wonderful benefits of self-publishing is that there is time to build a market for our work. Unlike traditionally published authors, we aren’t facing the 6-8 week window, where one needs to achieve enough “sell-through” before your book is remaindered and your book is labeled a failure. (Of course today, when I checked Henkel’s ranking on Kindle, Demon’s Night was now in the top 100’s of several categories. This should help improve his sales dramatically, which I am sure was his hope, and Konrath’s plan; so he is probably no longer feeling so discouraged.)

However, thinking about Henkel reminded me that it took me seven months to reach the point where my book was selling enough copies so that it was high enough in the rankings to reach its potential market. Seven months and a whole series of actions on my part to increase my sales.  This also reminded me if I had expected to make a lot of sales instantly that I might very well have gotten discouraged and not taken the actions that did ultimately achieve success.

Fortunately, when I first published in December 2009, I really hadn’t heard of very many previously unpublished indie authors hitting it big, so my expectations were very modest. I was honestly delighted after four months of sales to discover I had sold 158 books, because this meant someone besides my circle of family and friends had actually bought my book.

A second occurrence again brought home how changing expectations can be a trap for an indie author. I was rewriting a talk I had given in November about the new opportunities in ebook and independent publishing and I ran across the statement that as of October 2010 I had sold over 2100 books, and that since I was then averaging 14 books sold a day, I estimated that in the next twelve months I would sell over 5000 books. I remember being so proud of this, and it eliciting a distinct gasp from my audience of academics. (Academic monographs seldom sell more than 600 books in a title’s lifetime.)

That was my expectation five months ago, but when I sold nearly 3000 books in one month (January) my expectations changed. Now, even though I have sold over 8000 books in just six months-way over my estimate, I was discouraged because my average sales for March was down to 42 books per day, a number that would have made me ecstatic five months ago. Objective reality hadn’t changed, my expectations had.

Hence my need for an attitude adjustment.

As an indie author I needed to remember what the process would be like if I was going through the traditional (commercial) publishing process. How long it takes to get an agent. How long it takes an agent to find, if they ever do, a publisher. How small most advances are. How long it takes to get the book actually in print. How short the time period a book stays on the shelf, and how seldom the book pays back its advance so that it will start to pay out royalties. Finally, how short a time most books stay in print.

As an indie author I needed to remember that in self-publishing the time line is reversed. It takes very little time (from a few days to a few months) to get your book published (cover designed, interior formatted, product description written, files uploaded) but you have forever to sell it-particularly if you have written fiction, or in my case an historical mystery that is never going to seem “dated.”

As an indie author I needed to remember that indie publishing and ebook publishing are transitioning so rapidly that expectations built on today’s experience are probably going to be outdated tomorrow. Experimentation not expectation needs to be my watchword. For example, I know one of the reasons my author site hasn’t yet attracted many fans is that at the start I didn’t set up any mechanism to connect up with people who bought my book.

I did have my website listed at the end of the book, but this website has remained static, and I didn’t even have a contact email on it until recently. Truth was, I really didn’t expect to have fans! Now I have an email address, I am careful to respond when someone reviews my book on GoodReads and other sites, and I plan to update my ebook with a link to my facebook author site at the end, to encourage readers who liked the book to go on and sign up. Maybe I will even institute my first contest and giveaway to get more people signed up! A drop in sales doesn’t mean the market has dried up, it means I need to be more experimental in expanding my reach to the market that exists.

These tactics may work or they may not. My sales may go up again when we hit the summer holidays, or they may not, my sales of my second book may match or exceed that of my first, or they may not. But the point is, I needed to regain the perspective I started out with, that the benefit of self-publishing was that a book I had worked hard on and believed was good got to see the light of day and wasn’t stopped by some gatekeeper. I needed to remember its success or failure to sell was contingent on the work itself and my efforts to market it (not some corporate marketing department or book store purchaser).

With that perspective I can once again rejoice whether 40 people (my sales number last night) or only one person buys one of my books or stories. Because without self-publishing, no one would have been reading Maids of Misfortune, or Dandy Detects, and that would have been the real disappointment.

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

How To Include Backstory Without Killing Your Novel

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I’ve been writing most of my life, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got it down cold. If anything, I’ve learned I have a lot to learn. For example, although my first novel may spend the rest of eternity tucked safely in the darkest corner of the deepest drawer away from anything living it might otherwise harm, I would have to say I did a much better job of delivering back story in it than I’m doing with my current WIP. Of course, that begs the question: why?

Because my first novel was conceived and drafted under the tutelage of a wonderful high school English teacher (Thank You, Ms. Patti Jo Peterson!) who understood the need to plan the entire thing out before jumping in. This one I began as a total pantser. ‘Nuff said.

“So what’s the big deal? I’ve always been a pantser.“

That’s true, but I’m discovering that being a pantser can really cause problems later on. After reading posts like How do you know what to cut? Tune into the rhythm of your story by Roz Morris and 7 Deadly Sins of Prologues–Great Novel Beginnings Part 2 by Kristen Lamb, I’m seeing that what I thought were awesome scenes were really just a cheap way of dumping information. Not a great way to win readers over.

Fortunately there are ways to get that important information to your reader without slowing the story down. Roni Loren suggests 5 ways to include back story in her post How to Dish Out Backstory in Digestible Bites.

  1. Dialogue: Just beware of making this tool a hammer when you really need a screwdriver. It needs to happen naturally and in a way that doesn’t make your characters sound as if they are reciting a history lesson to your reader.


  2. Flashback: Most experienced writers strongly caution against using these. From my own experience I know using flashbacks can be tantalizing, but as Kristen Lamb says, “Flashbacks, used too often, give the reader the feel of being trapped with a sixteen-year-old learning to drive a stick-shift. Just get going forward, then the car (story) dies and rolls backward.“


  3. Memory: I think this one is trickier because you can easily fall into creating a flashback. Roni uses this example — “Ex.) He smiled at her, and for a moment, she was reminded of the boy he used to be, the one she used to love.  (See, that tells us they had a previous relationship and that something changed along the way.  Just enough to whet the reader’s appetite.)“


  4. Thoughts: This is my favorite both in writing and reading. It’s a great way to let readers into the characters internal world and have a glimpse of what their past has made them into. Unfortunately, it’s easy to abuse this one, too. Beware of pages of italicized text. They’re probably hiding an info dump.


  5. Action: Current action in a story can detail past events. Roni uses this example — “i.e.  A news story comes on TV talking about a cold case murder that relates to your MC.“


Roni’s parting suggestion is probably the best piece of advice a writer can tuck away in her toolbox: “The easiest way for me to figure out how to put in backstory is to think like a screenwriter.  They cannot tell you things in a movie, they have to show it all.  So how would I convey this information if it were a movie?“

As I continue to work and re-work my WIP I know I’ll run into the need to include back story, but with all the great resources available, like Kristen Lamb’s blog Warrior Writers, Roz Morris’s Nail Your Novel, and Roni Loren’s Fiction Groupie, finding an answer on how to include that important past information in ways that don’t slow down the story won’t be so difficult.

What about you? How do you include back story without killing your novel’s pace or choking your reader?

 

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

Goshen College Amish & Mennonite Author List

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Why am I interested? I write Amish fiction, and I’m on the list. After I self published I’ve always been on the lookout for free websites to promote my books. It was my worry that I’d write a book that doesn’t sell after I hired a firm to promote for me. What works for me might not be the way most authors publish and sell their book. I’ve put my books in different author sites and blog posts, thinking that might take longer than paid advertising, but I wouldn’t lose money. Besides, I can always work on another book at the same time.

 

At the same time, I’m always looking for other sites I can submit to. That’s why I put my name or book titles in google search often to see what has turned up on the Internet. Some of the links are where my books are sold and many of the google searches came from my promoting and blog posts. I like it when I find what I’ve done so far leads to a submission on google that I didn’t submit. This information I found recently. The website is Center for Mennonite Writing

Ervin Beck, Professor Emeritus of English at Goshen College is editor of Journal of the Center and maintains the website. He wanted to write an article about serial fiction by and about Mennonites and Amish. He intended to make a list of authors and knew of eleven. So he sent his list to Joe Springer, Curator of Goshen College. The list of authors Professor Beck got back was about three times longer.

Professor Beck complied an informal bibliography containing a complete listing of authors, brief biographies, name of series, publishers, individual books and dates of publication which is listed on his website.

Guess what? The first two books in my Nurse Hal Among The Amish series had made Joe Sprinter’s list. He’s always on the look out for new authors and their Amish or Mennonite books so he keeps an up to date list. Information is in the Mennonite Historical Library list at Goshen College.

What didn’t make the list was the stand alone titles such as Jodi Picoult’s best selling Plain Truth. Since this is the first list he’s posted some fiction series probably have been unintentionally omitted. Professor Beck says corrections and additions are welcome.

Later I checked again and found another list of Amish books on a Bethel College, Kansas site Mennonite Library & Archives complied by Barbara A. Thiesen. Joe Springer had helped her with the list and for 2007 – 2008 he had added my Amish book Christmas Traditions which isn’t in the series and happens to be in the library. Actually, the main character in that book is in my Nurse Hal series but adding her to the series came as an after thought.

As the writer of Amish fiction, the lists were interesting to read. Of course, I was thrilled to find my name made both lists. It’s an honor to be included. I was surprised since I’m new as an author and an Independent one. When I wrote the first Nurse Hal book I didn’t think about starting a series. That idea came from the readers of the first book A Promise Is A Promise. They wanted me to keep writing about Nurse Hal. It’s amazing how everything seems to fall into place for a reason. The powerful reach of the Internet doesn’t hurt, either. That helps me pick up new readers interested in my books.

 

This is a reprint from Fay Risner’s BooksByFay blog.

Write Lots Of Books Or Build An Author Platform. Which Is More Effective?

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It seems there are two opposing camps in terms of author marketing.

On the one hand, there are  people who say “Just write a lot of books” and the books themselves will sell the other books and you don’t need to do any other marketing. The evidence for this can be seen in Amanda Hocking’s ebook sales numbers and other writers on JA Konrath’s (brilliant) blog who basically write and distribute ebooks but do little hardcore marketing. It looks like they all do something but don’t focus on it.

On the other hand, there is the “build your author platform” camp advocating blogging, social networking, speaking, podcasting, videos and more. Obviously all this marketing takes away from writing, so which should you focus on?

I try to be very careful on the blog to only talk about things I’ve done myself. I don’t have a huge back-list of novels ready to load up into the Kindle store, I’m not making thousands per month on ebook sales. I have built a reasonable author platform and I have enjoyed every minute of it, so clearly I sit in the second camp at the moment.

BUT/ Amanda Hocking’s sales numbers gave me pause so I thought we’d better discuss it here. Justine Musk also wrote a brilliant post over at Tribal Writer on the same topic.

Here’s my thinking on the matter but please leave a comment as to what you think at the bottom as this is a critical discussion point as we all have limited time.

What are your overall goals for your career as a writer?

I want to be able to define myself as an author, speaker and blogger and I want to help people. I’m also an entrepreneur and sell my speaking services as well as online products. I make the least amount of money from fiction ebooks and the most from other products and services (at the moment anyway). Therefore my author platform gives me more than just a sales platform for fiction.

I speak at least once a month and last year spoke at a writer’s retreat in Bali, all from my online presence. I couldn’t do those things if I just had books. So my overall goals involve having a platform to run my online business from. I’m also passionate about sharing what I have learned in order to save you time, money and heartache so I have an inner drive to get the message out there.
 

What do you enjoy spending time doing?

Writing and being a blogger can be a solitary profession and as much as I love being alone, I also enjoy the community we have online as bloggers and also on Twitter and Facebook. I enjoy connecting on Skype and making my podcast and videos. I love being part of a group and improving my blogging/online marketing skills as well as my writing. So my author platform also serves a personal development and social purpose that goes beyond selling books. Blogging has given me so much joy in the last few years that I would continue doing it if I won the lottery! Writing a novel is a totally different feeling altogether.

What do you think is more effective for author marketing? Writing lots of books or spending time building an author platform? Why do you do what you do?

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

Getting Started With Barnes & Noble's PubIt!: A Mini Tutorial

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Although Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader is the dominant force in the e-book world at the moment, Barnes & Noble, the business based on a huge network of brick-and-mortar book superstores, is also growing.

With the launch of the Nook Color last year, Barnes & Noble has gone the Kindle one better, and people who have tried the Nook seem to like it quite a bit. Barnes & Noble also allows Nook owners to bring them into a store and read any book for free for an hour at a time, from the collection of over 2 million titles.

Like Kindle, Nook has apps that allow you to purchase and read your Nook books on your iPad, your smartphone and your PC as well as on the readers themselves.

I’ve seen estimates that over 3 million Nook Color e-readers have been sold, and that Nook now accounts for 25% of the e-book market. That’s a lot of potential customers. To make it easy for indie authors to sell their books for the Nook and the Nook Color, Barnes & Noble has installed a simple and easy to use interface. They call their publishing program Pubit!

Even Easier Than Kindle?

I went over to the Pubit! site to check it out and upload the ePub files of A Self-Publisher’s Companion. These were prepared for me by Joshua Tallent at ebookarchitects.com.

You’ll have to go through the usual Account Setup, and I won’t bore you with that. Even though you’re a seller, you’ll have to give up a credit card, too.

But that only takes a minute, and then you get to the main dashboard and data entry area.

Pubit! has cooked the whole e-book submission process down to one screen, and it’s a pleasure to use. Here’s a look:

Barnes & Noble Pubit!

In 5 easy-to-follow steps, you’re lead through all the information needed to get your book into the Barnes & Noble system. This is publishing at its simplest and most streamlined. Here’s what you can expect.

  • Product listing, including the book title, price, author, publication date and publisher name.
  • Upload Your eBook provides a browse and upload utility. It’s highly recommended that you have your book converted to ePub files first, although you should know that you can upload a Word file and Pubit! will convert it for you, you just don’t know what you’ll get.
  • Upload Your Cover Image gives you another browse and upload utility for a 5KB to 2MB JPG of your cover.
  • Help Readers Find Your eBook asks for ISBN, for a related print edition, the age group of your target market, the language in which the book is written, the geographic rights you’re able to assign, and whether you want your e-book protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management) which may or may not prevent a buyer from making illegal copies of your files.
  • Tell Us More About Your eBook is the crucial section for your marketing efforts. Obviously you want to get all the numbers right in the first sections, but here you’ll be able to pick five subject categories (Kindle only allows you two), create an author bio (about 400-500 words) and enter reviews you’ve received. The other two areas here are keywords (you get 100 characters—use them wisely) and a Description field that will allow about 800 words (5000 characters). This is a huge opportunity to put your best, benefit-oriented, keyword rich copy to work. Really work on this book description because it will become the basic sales copy in the Nook store.

After your upload, you’ll get a chance to look at your e-book in a Nook emulator. Here’s what it looks like:

Nook emulator

Click to enlarge

 

Here’s the handy category picker:
PubitCategories

Making Money With Pubit!

The pricing policy is clearly spelled out in the excellent and space-efficient help section. Pubit! tries to get you to price your e-book between $.99 and $9.99. It tries hard. In this range you will earn a 65% royalty, so a sale of a $9.99 book will yield you $6.49. However, go outside those bounds and your royalty drops drastically to 40%. This means that you will earn more with a book priced at $9.99 than you will with one priced at $15.00 ($6.00 royalty). So you can see they mean business. The maximum price allowed is $199.99.

As with Kindle, you have to keep the price of your e-book consistent across retailers.

About As Easy As It Gets

Having published many print books, it’s almost eerie how easy it is to publish e-books, whether on Kindle or Pubit! The whole Pubit! experience is well designed. The dashboard has four tabs that give you access to sales reports, payments, help topics, your books, and your account info.

If you have all your copy ready before you log on—and you should have this copy written out in advance for the many places you’ll need it—the whole process takes less than 15 minutes.

Now if we could only get these companies to agree on one, flexible, sophisticated and user-friendly file format, e-books would really take off.

 

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

2K Challenge DONE: First Novel Draft is Now Complete

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 That’s right! I’m sitting on 52,360 words and a completed first novel draft.

 

I’d like to thank my husband, my hypothetical cat, and let’s see, who else?

I didn’t keep with the 2k a day, but I also had days where I wrote 4 or 5k instead.  Meaning I was ahead in some respects but at the same time fell severely behind.  Then yesterday I realized I was a lot closer to the end than previously thought.  My original word count goal was NaNoWriMo’s 75k.  Thing is, the story was done, so I ended it.

 

Now that doesn’t mean, by far, that this draft is ready for publication.  Are you kidding? Halfway through I changed the city (and the time era, for that fact).  The main setting was supposed to be Houston, TX (because it’s what I know and can describe).  Thing is, it eventually changed to the remains of Houston in what they call Hughes City.  You don’t see that change until about 2/3 through the draft.  And don’t get me started on names.  Some of the characters flip around a bit, and some just stopped getting mentioned all together.

 

Most of it is adverb-ville, full of telly phrases and cliche dialogue.  Why? Because I’m a fangirl and I think in cliches? Maybe. I think I’ll go with because I’m human and no one can make something beautiful in the first draft. Yes, that sounds much more dignified.

 

Anyway, if there’s anything I learned with this it’s to stop when the story feels done.  Word count, ultimately, shouldn’t define when you end a draft.

I know, I know, I’m awesome. ;P

 

So tell me, how do y’all write your first novel drafts?  When do you know the draft is done? I’d love to hear from y’all.

View the original blog post. 

Paying Up Online

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This podcast and transcript, from the Copyright Clearance Center’s (CCC) Beyond the Book, originally appeared on that site on 4/3/11 and are provided here with that site’s permission.

Subscription services favored over single file sales; no significant difference in behavior of men and women; a typical monthly “spend” of $10. Those are among the findings of a recent survey of 1000 American internet users by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Perhaps most surprising – given that so much of online content is “free” or used without permission – is that two of three Americans have paid for music, books and games, among other digital media.

“Our findings were that 18% of Internet users have paid for a newspaper article, journal article, or online report,” Pew senior fellow Jim Jansen told Chris Kenneally at the “Buying & Selling EContent” conference presented by Information Today. “The ability to buy digital content online is critically important to a lot of people, a lot of businesses, a lot of artists and photographers.”

According to Jansen, the most common digital media products purchased are music and software. The average spend was about $47 in a given month, although the typical user spent $10 to $15. In addition to his work for Pew, Jansen teaches at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences & Technology and is recognized as expert in Web searching, sponsored search, and personalization for information searching.

 Paying Up Online [13:42m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
 
Transcript of podcast in pdf format

 

You Can't Be A Fan Of [Sci Fi] And Lament The Rise Of Ebooks

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The title says it all. You just can’t. I won’t allow it. I hear it so often and I find it baffling. I know what it means to love books. I love books to a degree most would consider unhealthy. I’m a bibliophile of the highest order. The feel, the weight, the smell, the sound of a page turning. Awesome. And there will always be books. But they will be less and less common, as I’ve said here so many times before, and ebooks will be the mainstream before much longer. And that’s okay.

You know what I like more than books? Stories. I love stories. I love to read the tales of others, to marvel at a great writer’s turn of phrase, to be transported by a great author’s incredible ideas. Rarely do I ever find that sense of wonder so much as I find it in science fiction and fantasy.

Now, I know there are fantasy fans out there who don’t really like sci-fi. They’re the kind of people who wish we all lived in castles and rode horses and wore sack-cloth vests and said things like verily and thou art. I get that, I really do. Those people lamenting the slow demise of books as a mainstream delivery system for stories is fairly understandable. The hardcore fantasy fans lament all technology and yearn for an older, more agrarian society. Of course, they also yearn for magic and dragons, which is fine, but unlikely. About as unlikely as them surviving in a truly medieval world. Even the most hardcore fantasy fans would be chafing at the bit for some modern technology when they badly needed a bath to wash off the flea bites and smallpox.

But I digress. On the whole, most fantasy fans are sci-fi fans too. You don’t have to be into hard sci-fi to qualify. That really scientifically accurate stuff you need degrees in maths and physics to really understand is very cool, but there’s other sci-fi out there too. The softer, more accessible stuff, like Star Wars or Serenity to offer some mainstream examples. There are equally un-dense sci-fi books and short stories out there too – all the sci-fi I write is very light on the sci and heavy on the fi. But regardless of your particular flavour preferences, you can’t be a fan of science fiction and then sit there all miffed and put out at the rise of ebooks.

It happens so often, people that are such big reading fans saying, “Gods, no, I’ll never read an ebook! You can’t curl up with a good ebook!” Bollocks, of course you can. Curling up with a Kindle or Nook is easier than reading an actual book, in fact.

“I like the feel and smell of a real book.” Yeah, so do I, as I said before, and an ereader doesn’t have those attributes. But not everything we read has to be a tactile, olfactory delight.

Let’s be honest about this. Why is an avid reader really an avid reader? Do they like to go and buy a new book every week and run their fingers over it, sniffing deeply? Maybe. But is that the primary reason for buying it? No, of course it’s not. You’d have to be pretty fucked up to prefer the smell of a book over its contents. People buy books because they love stories. The delivery system is hardly relevant – it’s the content we want. We want that transportative magic of well-crafted fiction.

And in science-fiction we’ve been reading about technological advancements since… well, since there’s been science fiction. When I read a book on my iPhone, which I regularly do, I’m living something that just ten years or so ago was still science fiction. The phone in my pocket does more than most of the gadgets on Star Trek – even Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that’s only twenty five years old.

Only? Merlin’s Cock, that makes me feel old! Star Trek: TNG ran from 1987 to 1994. If you watch repeats of it now you see how far we’ve come in that time, not only in television and production, but in ideas too. Though some of those shows had awesome ideas that are still fresh now. Even Classic Star Trek had ideas like that.

But I digress again. I do that.

My point is this: If you’re a fan of science fiction, you have to be a fan of ebooks. Because a pocket- or handbag-sized electronic device that stores thousands of stories, that you can wirelessly connect to other devices or locations to get more stories, IS science fiction.

Get over yourselves, people that don’t like ebooks. It’s all about the story, the wonderment, not the delivery system. Also, if you’re sitting there saying, “But, but, but!” and you have all these reasons why ebooks are shit, let me see if I can address them first:

I don’t like reading off a screen – Then buy a Kindle or Sony Reader or equivalent that uses e-ink and is essentially just the same as reading off a printed page. And before you crap on about it, have you actually tried a Kindle? They’re amazing.

I don’t want to spend money on a reading device – What, like you spend money on books? With the cost of ebooks being lower than most print editions, you’ll get your money back and then start making savings in no time.

I like the smell and feel of real books – So do I. See above. Buy a special edition hardback once in a while and get your touchy, sniffy fix. Then carry on reading on your chosen e device.

I don’t want to see real books disappear – They won’t. There will always be real books. Just fewer of them and mostly in special editions or collector’s editions. But I bet most books will be available POD as well as ebook, just for folks like you.

You have to remember to charge up a reading device – You have to remember to pick up a book. What’s your point? The Kindle, even under heavy use, has a battery life of at least two weeks. You can cope with that, surely?

Ereaders are heavy and cumbersome – No, they’re not. They used to be, but the Kindle, Kobo or Sony Reader, among others, are lighter than most paperbacks. Sure, iPads and stuff like that are heavier, but they’re electronic devices that also have the ability to deliver stories, so it’s a different situation. My iPhone is like that as well and is far lighter and smaller than any paperback. There’s lots of choice.

I like to read in the bath – Good, so do I. Go for it. You’re really careful not to drop your precious book in the water, right? Just do the same with your ereader. And if you’re worried about being electrocuted, I suggest some basic science lessons to ease your fears.

Did I miss anything? If you have some other reason to stand against ebooks, put in a comment below and I’ll address it.

I understand that some people are complete paper book purists, and I get that, I really do. Although it’s an anachronistic and soon to be redundant position. But if you’re an SF fan, I don’t get it at all. Get over your elite self and embrace the future, or forever hang up your SF fandom.

Stop struggling, all you ebook haters – in a few more years everyone will be doing it. You can’t stop change or hold back the future. If you’re an SF fan, why would you want to?
 

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

Would You Ever Turn Down a Contract?

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This post, by Jami Gold, originally appeared on her Jami Gold Paranormal Author site on 3/31/11.

The comments for my last post were fantastic—thank you!  The range of opinions really got me to think deeper about the traditional vs. self publishing issue.

Many people wrote in with circumstances for when self publishing works (and possibly works “better”).  Others noted situations where traditional publishing is the only way to go, one being category romances (where the readers do buy based off the publisher or imprint) and the other being literary novels (where it’s harder to find and connect to readers).

Tom Honea wondered in the comments of the last post:

[I] can’t imagine that a writer who has the choice will go the self-publication route…

I understand his point.  If we really love writing, why would we take on the designing, promoting, and distributing that would negatively affect our writing time?  This was the main reason Amanda Hocking cited for her choice to pursue a contract.  But then you have Barry Eisler’s choice…

Can you hear the wheels turning in my head?  I love when comments force me to think, so thank you, Tom!

Would You Ever Turn Down a Contract?

Let’s say you were offered a contract with a traditional NY publisher.  What would make you choose not to sign that contract?

  • Mid-list Author

In the last post’s comments, Laura Pauling said her takeaway from Nathan Bransford’s analysis was ”[I]f you’re writing a midlist book … you’ll do better profit wise by self publishing. That’s huge.”

She’s right, that is huge.  This one probably depends on the imprint.  Some imprints are almost all mid-list releases, so they’ve learned how to promote and distribute those better than an individual author could do.  I’ve already mentioned the Harlequin situation, and I think MacMillan is trying to promote more as well, with genre-specific blogs, etc.

But if you’re looking at a contract with a publisher/imprint that doesn’t promote their mid-list authors at all, would you consider turning them down?  What if you knew there was a good chance they’d cancel your contract early (which happens with mid-list authors who don’t meet sales goals)?

  • Series Authors

Read the rest of the post on Jami Gold Paranormal Author. Publetariat Editor’s note: by now, most of us are aware that bestselling author Barry Eisler has already turned down a six-figure contract in favor of self-publishing.

 

Traditional Publishing vs Ebook Self Publishing

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This post, by Marsha Canham, originally appeared on Marsha Canham’s Blog on 4/3/11.

For those of you who may not have seen the recent blog by Connie Brockway over at All About Romance, it’s here http://www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=6169 In it Connie announces that she is excited to be joining the ebook Rogues, many of us who have been not only able to reissue our backlist books, which have not seen the light of day for decades in some cases, but who are exploring the opportunity to write the kind of books the publishers keep telling us “they” (meaning you the readers) just don’t want anymore.  They (meaning the publishers) have this big crystal ball, you see, and they know that you, the readers, only want Regencies with drawing room stories and hot sex, or vampire books with hot sex, or paranormals with hot sex, or….wait.  That’s all they (meaning the readers) want.

I went on hiatus six years ago because my proposal for the sequel to The Iron Rose was turned down flat.  I was told pirate stories were not popular anymore, this despite the wild popularity of the Johnny Depp movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, and despite the fact The Iron Rose was one of my bestselling books and readers sent scads of emails asking when I was going to write a story for the brothers, Gabriel and Jonas.

Well guess what?  Connie has had scads of mail over the years asking when she was going to write sequels to her bestselling books, All Through the Night and As You Desire.  And she has wanted to write them.  But why would she…or I…spend a year writing a book that the publisher’s won’t buy?  As Connie says in the blog:

No one was or is going to buy a book from me that is set in Egypt. Or Italy. Or take a chance on my riff on the Tarzan story. And while my Facebook page poll on where readers want their books set told me loud and clear that the publishers are right, most readers do want their historical romance set in England, there’s that hallowed  word “most” to consider. My core readers have never been “most” –otherwise I would have long ago sprung to the top of the bestseller list. I like to believe that my readers are picking up my books because they like my slightly different settings or characters or time periods.

Ditto ditto ditto.  I was told years ago if I wanted to break out of the midlist crowd of authors, I had to sit myself down and write what the publisher wanted me to write…namely:  Regencies.  Books without so much action and adventure.  Books that didn’t concentrate so much on the swashbuckling angle.  Books that were shorter, less intense.  Books that were character driven rather than plot driven.  Books that readers could read in an evening…375 pages max, preferably large print.  And don’t use too many big words.  And fill it with hot sex.

Read the rest of the post on Marsha Canham’s Blog.

7 Mindblowing Microsoft Word Tricks Every Writer Should Know

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This post, from The Intern, originally appeared on her The Intern blog on 4/2/11.

The other day, INTERN was flabbergasted to discover the existence of page breaks in Microsoft Word, thanks to this handy article about how to format a manuscript. This led INTERN to ponder the fact that, as writers, we spend so many hours—nay, years—of our lives using a computer program of whose many tricks and features we often remain woefully ignorant.

In order to remedy this sad state of affairs, INTERN spent the past few days unearthing some of the very best Microsoft Word tricks for writers. Here they are!

1. Custom AutoCorrect

Everybody knows that you can set Microsoft Word to autocorrect typos like “teh” for “the”. But did you know that if you’re willing to invest a little bit of time upfront, you can teach Microsoft Word to automatically fill in all the annoying character names, words, and even entire phrases you’re too lazy to write yourself?

Say you’re writing a novel about a spunky chap named Petronius Hermonculus Junior who has a habit of exclaiming "I say, I say, what weather we’ve been having!"

Simply create a custom AutoCorrect command like so:

and another one like so:

Now, when you’re working on your manuscript, all you have to do is dash off "ph exclaimed w" and Word will miraculously transform it into "Petronius Hermonculus Junior exclaimed "I say, I say, what weather we’ve been having!"

You’re welcome.

2. Autocapitalize first letters of sentences.

Listen here: if you have time to manually capitalize the first letters of your sentences, you’re writing too goddamn slow. That’s why Word has an AutoCorrect option that will automatically capitalize them for you. To turn it on, just go to Tools —> AutoCorrect and click the appropriate checkbox. Now never press the shift key ever again.

3. Custom Dictionaries

Anyone who has tried to edit a story or novel involving any amount of slang knows the misery and tedium involved in trying to use spellcheck ("for the last #%@$ time, ‘shizzle’ is not a misspelling of ‘shingle’!") Enter the Custom Dictionary. Before you even get started on your next opus, create a custom dictionary (e.g. ShizzleNizzle Dictionary) and add nonstandard or made-up words as you go along. That way, when you’re ready for the big spellcheck, you won’t get bogged down by unwanted corrections.
 

Read the rest of the post on The Intern blog.

50 Problem Words And Phrases

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This post, by Mark Nichol, originally appeared on DailyWritingTips on 3/29/11.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to conceive written communication. So many pairs or trios of words and phrases stymie us with their resemblance to each other. Here’s a quick guide to alleviate (or is it ameliorate?) your suffering:

1. a while / awhile: “A while” is a noun phrase; awhile is an adverb.

2. all together / altogether: All together now — “We will refrain from using that two-word phrase to end sentences like this one altogether.”

3. amend / emend: To amend is to change; to emend is to correct.

4. amount / number: Amount refers to a mass (“The amount saved is considerable”); number refers to a quantity (“The number of dollars saved is considerable”).

5. between / among: The distinction is not whether you refer to two people or things or to three or more; it’s whether you refer to one thing and another or to a collective or undefined number — “Walk among the trees,” but “Walk between two trees.”

6. biannual / biennial: Biannual means twice a year; biennial means once every two years.

7. bring / take: If it’s coming toward you, it’s being brought. If it’s headed away from you, it’s being taken.

8. compare to / compare with: “Comparing to” implies similarity alone; “compare with” implies contrast as well.

9. compliment / complement: To compliment is to praise; to complement is to complete.

10. comprise, consist of / compose, constitute: Comprise means “include,” so test by replacement — “is included of” is nonsense, and so is “is comprised of.” The whole comprises the parts or consists of the parts, but the parts compose or constitute the whole.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: also see Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty’s take on comprise vs. compose, here]

11. connote / denote: To connote is to convey (“Air quotes connote skepticism or irony”); to denote is to specify (“A stop sign denotes the requirement to halt”).

12. continual / continuous: Continual events are frequently repeated, or intermittent. Continuous events are uninterrupted, or constant.

13. credible / credulous: To be credible is to be authoritative; to be credulous is to be gullible.

14. deserts / desserts: If you eat only cake, pie, ice cream, and the like, you eat just desserts. If you have it coming to you, you get your just deserts as well. (However, the connotation is negative, so hit the gym.)

15. different from / different than: The former phrase is preferred in formal writing; but “differently than” is always correct usage.


Read the rest of the post on DailyWritingTips.