Month: September 2012

Selling Yourself to the Book Industry

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My bookstore’s writers group has asked me to tell them what is needed to present themselves to agents and publishers. What I came up with for an answer was a sample of short bios and elevator synopsis for a fiction and a nonfiction book and a press release. Bios are like good resumes. They are written from the perspective of the agent’s or publisher’s needs, not the author’s.

Here are two samples:

Bio for Senior Citizens’ Self Defense (Nonfiction sample)

Bob Spear, a 67-year-old retired martial artist, holds an 8th Degree Black Belt in the Korean art of Hapkido. An American pioneer in this battlefield defense system, Bob was the first American to obtain a 3rd Degree Black Belt and Instructor’s Certification in Korea. He has trained over 11,000 students throughout the world and eight people are known to have been saved from death or serious injury by his instructions, videos, and books. Now a physically handicapped elder, he understands the concerns of older people and how there are still things they can do to protect themselves.

Bob is well known with a Twitter following of 3,907, a FaceBook following of several hundred, and a Book Trends Blog with 14,080 hits.

Bio for Quad Delta (Fiction sample)

Bob Spear, a Leavenworth, KS resident since 1981, is a retired Military Intelligence professional of twenty-five years. He has written 17 books, five of which are a series of mysteries set in Leavenworth, Kansas. He is Internationally known as a self defense author. Owner of a bookstore located in downtown Leavenworth, he has a keen interest in the underground complex beneath the downtown which provides the setting for his first mystery, Quad Delta.

Bob is well known with a Twitter following of 3,907, a FaceBook following of several hundred, and a Book Trends Blog with 14,080 hits.

Note: Note how the bios are written differently to support the books’ themes. Also, each mentions your platform size in social media.

Imagine walking onto an elevator and finding an agent riding with you. What do you do if he asks, “What’s your book about?” You are getting off at the 10th floor, so that’s how long you have to tell him. These are short explanations that you should have memorized.

Elevator Synopsis for Senior Citizens’ Self Defense (Nonfiction sample)

With a rising crime rate set against an expanding senior citizens’ population, what is an elder to do when suddenly faced with a violent confrontation? This DVD/Training Manual explains the dangers of the streets and the simplest, most effective ways to counter these threats which can be done by anyone, even the handicapped.

Elevator Synopsis for Quad Delta (Fiction sample)

A PTSD -suffering retired Military Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel, Enos Hobson, is dragged into the private investigation world when an old military friend asks him to save his mother and their family fortune from a diabolical Satan worshiping cult that hides its unholy chapel underneath the streets of Leavenworth, KS.

Finally, here is a sample press release. Remember to put the most important things up front.

Sample Press Release for Senior Citizens’ Self Defense

“Old Folks Can Be Deadly”

Local author and self defense trainer Bob Spear says the elderly can defend themselves. With a rising crime rate set against an expanding senior citizens’ population, what is an elder to do when suddenly faced with a violent confrontation? Spear’s DVD/Training Manual program, Senior Citizens’ Self Defense, explains the dangers of the streets and the simplest, most effective ways to counter these threats which can be done by anyone, even the handicapped.

Spear uses true stories to illustrate his program. One describes a confrontation an 83-year-old woman experienced in her rental-assistance apartment in Leavenworth with a night time intruder. He tells about how she used a screwdriver and her common sense to survive the ordeal. Spear says such illustrations are meant to entertain and give confidence to his readers and viewers that they are not helpless.

Bob Spear, a 67-year-old retired martial artist, holds an 8th Degree Black Belt in the Korean art of Hapkido. An American pioneer in this battlefield defense system, Bob was the first American to obtain a 3rd Degree Black Belt and Instructor’s Certification in Korea. He has trained over 11,000 students throughout the world and eight people are known to have been saved from death or serious injury by his instructions, videos, and books. Now a physically handicapped elder, he understands the concerns of older people and how there are still things they can do to protect themselves.

This timely training package is available at The Book Barn at 410 Delaware, Leavenworth, KS 66048.

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I hope you find these tools helpful. 

 

 

This is a cross-posting from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends Blog.

Publetariat Site Maintenance

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We’re not posting new content tonight, as we’re using this evening to perform some server maintenance tasks. The site will remain online during this time, and we’ll be back with new content tomorrow evening, 9/10/12, at 6pm Pacific Time. Thanks for your patience and support.  (no need to click through – this is the end of the post)

Book Release – Kids Have Ups and Downs Too!

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Journal Books from Fertile Ground Creations are fun illustrated stories from me, Clyde Heath – author, international speaker and yoyo professional. I have encouraged over one million kids worldwide, how many more can I reach through my series of books?

The Real Reason What John Locke Did is So Appalling

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This post, by Stant Litore, originally appeared on the New Wave Authors blog on 8/31/12.

Since The New York Times revealed that million-book-seller John Locke scammed the system to get his sales (afterward, he also had the balls and utter lack of conscience to turn around and write a fake guidebook for other writers), there has been outcry across the Internet. Most eloquently from horror writer Lee Goldberg, who summed up the issue as follows in a customer review of Locke’s How I Sold a Million Ebooks:

 

There is a key piece of advice crucial to his success that he left out of this book: pay readers to leave fake reviews. In an interview with Locke in today’s New York Times, he admitted that he paid for 300 reviewers to heap praise on his books, a sleazy promotional technique that seems to have worked for him. Locke admits to buying reviews because "Reviews are the smallest piece of being successful, but it’s a lot easier to buy them than cultivating an audience." I have some advice for Locke on a more honest and ethical approach he might want to try: Actually write good books. That’s how to build an audience. You do not gain readers, or recognition, by swindling readers into buying your books with fake praise. It’s unethical and shows a startling lack of respect for your reader. 

Scifi writer Rob Kroese adds in a recent blog post that because of the way Amazon’s algorithms use reviews and ratings to determine which books end up going out in promotional emails to potential readers, Locke’s duplicity with reviews shot his book sky-high in sales.

Besides everything that Lee and Rob have said so eloquently, what is also truly appalling about this is that it’s a betrayal — ultimately, a personal betrayal — of the author/reader relationship.

Look, books aren’t just a product.

Yes, you sell them, you promote them, you consume them, yes, but they are not a hairbrush or a car or a vacuum cleaner. They are stories. They change your soul, they show you new ways to grow, they allow you to meet imaginary people and be affected by what happens in their imaginary lives. You will laugh with these people, yearn with them, weep with them. 

 

Read the rest of the post on the New Wave Authors blog.

Using Real People in Stories: Part 3 of 3, By A Copyright Law Attorney

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This guest post originally appeared on Beth Barany‘s Writer’s Fun Zone site on 8/31/12.

Welcome to our regular column on literary law. Today we focus on the thorny issue of using real people in our stories, part 3 of 3 — from our monthly guest columnist, Kelley Way, a lawyer specializing in literary law. If you have general questions for Kelley on contracts or other aspects of literary law, be sure to comment [on the original post]. Thanks!

PS. A list of books on literary law can be found here.

PPS. For more on copyright, visit the U.S. Copyright Office.

And now for a bit of necessary legalese:  Please note that this article does not constitute legal advice, and that an attorney-client relationship is not formed by reading the article or by commenting thereon.

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In Parts 1 and 2, we covered defamation and privacy rights, and how they applied to literary law. Today we turn to the right of publicity, which is a favorite among celebrities.

The right of publicity is actually an offshoot of the right of appropriation, which we covered in Part 2.

It even has the same definition: the use of a person’s name, image, or other identifying characteristic for a commercial purpose.

Don’t worry if you’re confused; some courts still haven’t figured out the difference, and mix up the names for them, creating some murky case law. The key difference is this: appropriation is about protecting your privacy, while the right of publicity is about protecting the commercial value of your identity.

Let’s go back to some examples. In Part 2, John was suing you for appropriation after you used pictures of him for the cover of your novel. The idea there was that you invaded his privacy, causing him embarrassment and distress. Now let’s say that John is a studly movie actor, and you used a picture you cut out of a magazine instead of camera-stalking him. He’s in the public eye, so he can’t say his privacy was invaded, and he’s hardly going to be embarrassed to have his picture all over the place, even if it is on the cover of a romance novel. No, he’s upset because first, someone’s making money off his face and it’s not him; and second, now everyone will think he endorses romance novels, or at least can be paid to model for them, which could quite possibly damage his reputation and/or affect current and future contracts. These are grounds for a right of publicity lawsuit, rather than right of appropriation.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on Beth Barany’s Writer’s Fun Zone.

How a Traditional Publisher Could Harm a Writer's Career

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This post, by author and Smashwords founder Mark Coker, originally appeared on the Smashwords blog on 7/25/12.

Follow the ebook numbers.  Unit numbers, that is.  A close look at the numbers indicates that those authors who continue to publish via traditional publishers might be harming their long term career prospects.

Most ebook market watchers fixate on dollar sales, which, while important, mask the true tectonic shift now underway in book publishing.

In 2012, ebooks in the US will likely approach 30% of trade book sales measured in dollars, up from about 20% in 2011, 8% in 2010, 3% in 2009, 1% in 2008, and 1/2 of 1% in 2007.

These numbers understate the unit market share of what people are downloading and reading, because ebooks are priced lower than print.  At Smashwords, the average unit price (not counting free downloads) of customer purchases is $2.99.

Back in April at the RT Booklovers convention in Chicago, I presented data (click here to access the presentation deck) that examined how price influences unit downloads and overall earnings for indie authors.  It wasn’t a surprise that free books generated the most downloads, and lower priced books sold more units than higher priced books.

One surprise, however, was that we found $2.99 books, on average, netted the authors more earnings (profit per unit, multiplied by units sold) than books priced at $6.99 and above.  When we look at the $2.99 price point compared to $9.99, $2.99 earns the author slightly more, yet gains the author about four times as many readers.  $2.99 ebooks earned the authors six times as many readers than books priced over $10.

If an author can earn the same or greater income selling lower cost books, yet reach significantly more readers, then, drum roll please, it means the authors who are selling higher priced books through traditional publishers are at an extreme disadvantage to indie authors in terms of long term platform building. The lower-priced books are building author brand faster.  Never mind that an indie author earns more per $2.99 unit sold ($1.80-$2.10) than a traditionally published author earns at $9.99 ($1.25-$1.75).

 

 

Read the rest of the post on the Smashwords blog.

Writers' Code of Ethics

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This post, by J.A. Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 9/4/12. .

Lots of controversy on the internet concerning writers lately. It’s time for…

THE WRITERS’ CODE OF ETHICS

1. I will never pay people to write positive reviews of my books.

2. I will never use a false account (aka a sock puppet or anonymous account) to leave negative reviews of any of my peers.

3. I will never use a false account to review my own books.

4. I will never send reviewers copies of my books if they review in a periodical where my publisher buys advertising.

5. I will never ask friends, family, peers, or anyone who knows me to write reviews of my books, since they are biased toward me.

6. I will never ask fans to write reviews of my books, since they are biased toward me.

7. I will never pay a publicist to send out books of mine to be reviewed, since I am essentially paying someone for reviews.

8. I will never allow a publicist working for a publisher to send out books of mine to be reviewed, since they are being paid to do so.

9. I will never allow anyone to send out copies of my books to be reviewed, because if they were doing that they must know me, and if they know me it is impossible to get an unbiased review.

10. I will never allow any review from anyone I’ve ever met. Every review must be from someone who has never met me, heard of me, or read me before, and must come with a signed affidavit proclaiming such.

11. Every review must be from a professional reviewer who has true integrity. But this professional reviewer cannot accept money in any way, shape or form, because getting paid for reviewing could compromise their ethics.

12. I will personally interview every reviewer to make sure they are unbiased, and then ask them to remove their review because upon meeting them (The Konrath Uncertainty Principle) I may have affected their review, which renders it biased.

13. I will never blurb a book by an author I know.

14. I will never accept a blurb from an author I know.

15. I will never blurb a book from any author, because I may know them some day.

16. I will never review anything, or blurb anything, or allow any of my books to be reviewed of blurbed.

17. I will never allow anyone I have ever known, or ever might know, to blurb or review anything.

18. I will never use a sock puppet or post anonymously online about anything at all, because I should stand by my own words.

19. I will never post anything at all online, ever again, because it might impinge upon someone else’s ethical standards.

20. I will publicly chastise, denigrate, ridicule, mock, and lynch anyone who has breached any of the above.

21. I will tattoo this code of ethics permanently upon my back to show all how ethical and moral I am.

22. Those who don’t ask about my ethics will still be forced by me to memorize the tattoo on my back, in public, as many times as I demand.

23. All who do not comply will never be allowed to write again, and will broken on the wheel, their intestines forced down their own lying, cheating, dishonest, unethical throats while they beg for mercy, then they’ll burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, their charred, smoking, crispy body parts placed on spires for all to view. This punishment will be meted out to any person, living or dead, who has ever had contact with, or has heard of, the offending party.

Joe sez: If you haven’t figured it out yet, this isn’t about dishonesty. It’s about degrees of dishonesty. And everyone, to a degree, is dishonest. Glass houses and throwing stones, folks.

The only way to make the system pure is to never allow anyone to do anything, ever. But that’s impossible. So instead we have people pointing fingers and masturbating to their own smug sense of superiority because they haven’t been caught in the "ethical lapse du jour" yet.

 

Read the rest of the post on A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

The Types of Online Reviews That Drive Writers Totally Nuts

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This post, by Robert Jackson Bennett, originally appeared on his site on 8/27/12.

The weekend has not brought joyous news in regards to online reviews.

For many writers, online reviews are the primary pulse they can apply their fingers to, because writers receive very little actual feedback regarding their books. So, they have to go online to feed their voracious doubts, like – is my book successful? Is it liked? Does anyone get it? 

As we’ve now learned, a lot of the feedback we see online is not trustworthy – some writers can, essentially, buy reviews and attention. This is kind of weird for me, because I treat online customer reviews with the same wariness as I do the comments on a news article – the odds of anything intelligent being said are very low, but the odds of reading strung-together swears and racial epithets are very, very high.

Yea, verily, the internet has become marvelously efficient at bringing frustration right into our homes and pockets. And online reviews are definitely a source of some frustration for writers. After a few years of watching them, trends emerge.

So let’s take a stroll, and discover the breeds of online reviews that slowly and steadily shave off numbers not only from a book’s ratings, but also from writers’ life expectations:

The Poor Packager

This book arrived quite damaged. There were water stains on the box, and some of the water got in the box, and it got on the book, and that’s bad, because I don’t want water on my books. Also, the mailman was very rude and I think he went to Auburn (boo Auburn).

Cannot wait to read the book.

0/5 stars 

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 5 more types of most-hated online reviews, on Robert Jackson Bennett’s site.

A Warning To All Writers Who Need Help Indie Publishing

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This post, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, originally appeared on her The Business Rusch on 8/29/12.

From the beginning, I have warned readers of this blog away from services that promise to publish your e-books for a percentage of the royalties. I haven’t done so in a while, and I really need to again.

Here’s why:

These businesses will harm you and your career. Best case, they’re run by well-intentioned idiots who have no idea how a business works. Worst case, they’re scams.

Most of the ones I’ve seen are scams.

This particular topic came up this week in a strangely roundabout way.  I have my Facebook e-mail notifications shut off, but every now and then one slips through. On Thursday, I got one in which a friend of mine mentioned me and Dean in a comment on a bestselling writer’s post. I was rather stunned that my friend, also a bestselling writer, knew the bestselling writer in question. My friend’s a military sf guy, and she’s a romance author.  Neither reads each other’s genre. But, I figured as I clicked on the link, that shouldn’t get in the way of friendship.

His comment was rather strange. It said that he had self-published five e-books and he would never, ever pay anyone 15% of those royalties. Then he told the bestselling romance writer to look at my blog and Dean’s blog for his reasons why.

When I clicked on the link, his comment was gone. There were 30-some other comments, but none from him, and none negative.

The post he was responding to was also strange. It purported to be from the bestselling romance author. She listed a service—which shall go nameless here—that was now e-publishing her backlist. She recommended everyone use it because “e-publishing isn’t as easy as everyone makes it out to be.”

Okay, fine. I know that for some people the learning curve is high and it frightens them. I know that others simply don’t have the time to spend on indie publishing. I figured she was one of those.

But as I scrolled through the comments, I noticed something else strange. She responded to every five comments by linking to that e-publishing service’s website. The language of her posts was odd as well. It was riddled with typos and other mistakes that she didn’t make anywhere else on her Facebook page.

And the posts didn’t sound like her.

I never did find my sf friend’s comment. Someone had deleted it. If anyone had responded to it by agreeing with my friend (and I have no idea if anyone did), then that comment was gone as well.

It wasn’t until I dug into that e-publishing service’s Terms of Use that I figured out what was going on. The bestselling romance writer didn’t write that post on her Facebook page. The e-service did. They handled all social media related to books for the author.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Business Rusch.

How To Work On More Than One Book At A Time

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When I was writing my first novel, I couldn’t ever see a point at which I would work on multiple books at the same time.

I couldn’t imagine juggling all the worlds or the amount of research I do for each book. But then I met professional writers like CJ Lyons (who is writing 4 books in 2012) and realized that it sometimes has to be done.

So although I swore I would never do this, I am currently working on several books at the same time, and to be honest, my head is exploding!

 

These are the books I am currently working on:

  • Pentecost,to be rebranded as ARKANE. I’m working on edits for my agent before we pitch to publishers in Sept/Oct, so this is the most urgent. It’s a fascinating process as the book went through several editors before publication and I also updated it after the first few months. Now I am reading it again and finding lots of things I want to improve as well as new scenes, adding depth to characters and more. Plus I know the future story development now so I can make sure the first book has some open questions for those subsequent books.
     
  • Exodus, ARKANE #3 is in second draft. It needs new scenes, reworking and deepening. My problem with getting this finished is that I may sell the ARKANE series and then this book won’t see the light of day for several years. I did have a deadline for self-publishing it by October, but that disappeared when I got an agent. But I need to get it to the point where I would be happy to publish it, take it through my editor and maybe even beta readers before resting it until we see what happens with publishers.
     
  • Hunterian (working title). This is a stand-alone or the start of a new series. It’s in research and first draft phase and I’ve only written ~2500 words but I obsessively think about it. The book will be a London based thriller/crime novel and would be under JFPenn: Ancient Mystery, Modern Thrill. I love the way this book is shaping up and I really want to work on it exclusively but it has to be sporadic until I can clear some head time.
     
  • Escapist (working title). This is a stand-alone or the first of two. ~16,000 words of first draft done. This is something a bit different and wouldn’t be under JFPenn because it’s probably categorized as contemporary women’s fiction. I’d have to use another name. I had a bit of a manic writing session the other week and the ideas took hold. I shouldn’t have indulged it but it feels like a little bit of fun writing that is turning into a book.

Alan Baxter Warrior ScribeI’m not the only one going through this process either. I was listening to the funThrillerPodcast the other day and discovered that my kickass, fight scene specialist friend Alan Baxter had this to say:

“I’m currently working on two novels – one is the sequel to a finished book that is currently looking for a publisher. The other is a project that is very much in my mind at the moment and won’t wait its turn! The first is about 42k words done and the second is only a couple of thousand words written, but I’ve been making extensive notes and plans. As the 42k project is the sequel to something currently before publishers, I’m making that my priority, and trying not to be too distracted by the other one. But when ideas won’t leave you alone, you have to at least make notes and rough outlines of scenes. So I would say that I’m working properly on one novel, while working part-time on the other!” Alan Baxter, dark fantasy author.

How do you work on multiple books at the same time?

So my head was exploding with all the different projects and it was hard to keep them all clear, or make progress on anything. So I asked for some comments on twitter and here’s some of the responses:

 

Are you sure there’s not a useful connection between them? Combine to make ONE GREAT NOVEL? @ThreeKingsBooks

Write them all. I have two I’m working on now. I’ve had as many as 4 at a time in my head. You have to let the ideas out.@lynnleite

Make an idea book where you can take a little time to put down info about the ideas you aren’t ready to work on. @druchunas

How about making a note of ideas for other two books, but concentrating on finishing the priority one first.@MJHolleyWriter

Plot them all, write chapter-by-chapter summaries and then go back to writing just one. That or work 24/7 til they’re done. @graywave

Keep feeding all 3 until 1 takes the lead (attention, energy). Then focus on that one, get to others afterwards. Good luck!@MsMartha_writer

Red Bull. @misterwakefield

Give into brain, ideas will sort themselves out @reebee01

Put your focus and talent into one at a time, scattering yourself won’t do any good! but keep the ideas noted for later!! @kiiyha

Keep going! Buy a dictaphone; hire an assistant. Better to juggle than be empty-handed @BookRambler

Can u capture ideas for two projects in outline form while only “writing” one at a time? @JenGresham

Hear ya. Done this many times. In the end I prioritised and focus on the one thing that would be done the quickest. @ColinFBarnes

That happened to me. But my creativity trigger is my playlists, so I only let myself listen to one set of songs. @LeighAnnKopans

Just write one trilogy? ;) @tomsbiketrip

Caffeine wins for me for every time. P.S Well done. I am struggling to finish the first!@iwanttowriteit

What I always do in that situation is write down key events, maybe write a full scene, so you can go back to it later. @NatashaMcNeely

Work on one in the AM and the other in the PM and vary it with the third. @LindaAdamsVA

How am I actually managing it?

Those were all great ideas, but we all have our own ways of working, right! Here’s how I am managing it.

So that’s me. I need to get my focus back and, in the words of the great Seth Godin, ‘ship’ some work!

Have you tried to work on multiple projects at the same time and how do you manage it? Or what do you recommend? Please leave a comment below.

  • I have shelved Escapist for now. I may do NaNoWriMo this year (November) and use that month to indulge this little project but for now it is parked. It doesn’t fit my brand and I need to finish the projects I have started.
     
  • I am primarily working on the edits of Pentecost (to be pitched as ARKANE) for my agent as that now has a deadline of mid September.
     
  • In late September I will get back to Exodus and finish that before October, so it will be the next primary project
     
  • Hunterian research is my weekend fun project, so I am doing field trips and reading books, but just note-taking and not even attempting to get into first draft writing anymore. 

 

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

 

 

 

Things To Think About As The Digital Book Revolution Gains Global Steam

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files on 8/27/12.

The switchover from reading print to reading on screens, with the companion effect that increasingly the purchase of books is done online rather than in stores, is far advanced in the English-speaking world and especially so in the United States. In the past 12 months, the UK has begun to resemble the US market in this way. 

With all due respect to everbody else, the primary driver of this change has been the efforts of Amazon.com. They made the online selling of print books work in the US and then provided the critical catalyst — the Kindle — to make ebooks happen. Other players — Barnes & Noble and Kobo with their devices and the publishers with their sales policies — have crafted their strategies primarily in response to Amazon. They are participants building out a market that Amazon first proved existed.

The impact of digital change in the US and UK markets has been both profound and severe. Bookstore shelf space has been lost at a rapid pace. (This has long struck me as the key metric to watch to predict industry change.) I have seen no estimates to quantify this, but with Borders gone and Barnes & Noble devoting much less space to books than it once did and the disappearance of many independents, it seems apparent that half of the bookstore shelves that were available in the US in 2007 are gone by now. The book trade in Britain is moving in a similar direction.

The publishers are well aware that their ecosystem has changed and that they have to change too. Many have changed their workflows so that ebooks and print books can be outputs from the same development process. They are all seeking new ways to interact directly with readers, which no general trade publisher would have considered doing ten years ago. They are learning about how to deliver their digital products with better metadata. They are learning to optimize that metadata for search. They’re trying to build vertical communities — or at least develop vertical audience reach — and developing new services and products to sell to the customers that they attract with their books. They’re recognizing that digital distribution newly empowers authors and responding by trying to make the experience of working with them more author-friendly.

And they’re recognizing that the world is getting smaller: that their outputs can reach readers outside their home market much more readily than ever before. That recognition is particularly useful to American and British publishers because English is the world’s leading second language, with potential customers for English language books in every country in the world.

Change has come much more slowly in non-English markets. There are many reasons for that. One is that the US and Britain have exceptional — if not unique — marketplace rules that encourage retailers to compete for book sales using pricing as a tool (or, if you prefer, as a weapon). Amazon used deep discounting to solidify its position in the late 1990s when it was building its print-selling hegemony and then again to create locked-in ebook customers for the Kindle when it launched in 2007.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

When You Can't Hack It As An Author

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This post, by Michelle Davidson Argyle, originally appeared on her The Innocent Flower blog on 8/31/12.

So this morning when I sat up in bed, I pulled a muscle between my shoulder blades. I probably slept wrong, or something, but this has happened to me before. I was literally in pain for four solid weeks. This time, it doesn’t feel as bad, but it’s still painful. I can’t move my head much. Bending over hurts. Even just sitting still hurts. I know from experience that nothing will help except time and rest. But, crap, I have things I have to get done! 

Oh, well. Pain or no pain, I’ll be writing today. I’m procrastinating at the moment, however, and just spent the last hour and a half browsing through blog links and reading things that make me feel like a terrible marketer, author, and person. You may be asking why, and I’ll tell you it’s because of noise. Constant noise on what we should be doing and not doing.

Elana Johnson wrote a really great post today about focusing on what you do well and letting yourself work productively because of it. After Elana’s post, I browsed around some other posts. There was one about how to write an effective blog post. There was one on how to use Twitter hashtags better. There was one on how often you should blog. The list goes on and on. Every post was effective and helpful, but after awhile, I started to panic.

I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING RIGHT!!!!!!

And this is why I don’t blog much anymore, why I avoid Twitter like the plague, and why I keep posting pictures on Facebook instead of actual status updates. I get into this spot where I feel like I’m doing everything wrong, people are judging me, or they’re annoyed I’m just trying to sell them something, or they think I’m full of myself, and on and on and on. And honestly, I think it’s because of all the posts out there telling me how to do things the right way. They all end up sounding like noise. If I don’t follow certain rules, my career will crumble before my eyes.

#1 – It’s a tough balance writing and selling a product so intimately tied with who you are. 

 

Read the rest of the post on The Innocent Flower.

Is Social Media Making Us All Too Vanilla?

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 by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

Several recent blogs made me think about the writer’s role and how social media has made us all so likable and homogenous. 

First there was Sandra Parshall’s great piece on Poe’s Deadly Daughters in which she asked the question: Should writers keep their opinions to themselves online so they don’t offend readers? She mentioned instances in which readers said they would never read so-and-so’s work again because of something they had posted on Facebook or Twitter. I’m guessing it was something political, and the readers were of the other persuasion. 

This has weighed on my mind because I have succumbed to self-censorship. Every day, I make a choice to not post links to liberal commentaries I enjoyed. When others post political statements I agree with, I’ll click the Like button but typically won’t comment. My thinking is that conservatives buy novels too, so why offend them? But it also makes me cringe. Until this point in my life—when I became a very public person—I’ve always spoken freely and said what I thought. Maybe too much so, I hear my husband say in my head. 

I even moved The Sex Club—my bestseller and a book readers loved—out of my Jackson series and into the standalone thriller list, because the book is political and I didn’t want to lose readers before they even gave the series a chance. But now Amazon wants to market it as part of the series, and I said yes. I’m a little worried about the backlash, but I’m also happy to take ownership of my politics again. 

The other interesting post that dovetailed into this discussion was in Slate magazine and subtitled The Epidemic of Niceness in Online Book Culture. The author made the point that when writers friend, support, and Like! everyone, it becomes nearly impossible to give an honest critique of their work. How can you say something even mildly critical about a novel if the author just gave you an online hug? 

In my experience, most writers are by nature really nice people. We’re typically very supportive. We want to help each other, and post great reviews on Amazon, and retweet book links. And l love it. I’m part of that culture. But is it honest? If I were a professional book reviewer who didn’t know some these authors personally, would I have a different assessment of their work? In that scenario, my loyalty would be to readers, to give them a full honest appraisal of the book. 

If I post on Twitter than I’m reading a particular book and someone asks me if I like it—and by then I’ve stopped reading it—what do I say? If I post that it was too slow for me, I risk offending several people and maybe that reader will decide we must like different books so they won’t bother to try mine. 

This is why I don’t read much fiction or talk about what I read—unless I love it. And I turn down almost all requests to review novels. My nature is to be supportive—often to an extreme—but I also have a loyalty to my readers, and I shouldn’t steer them toward books just because those writers are my friends whom I have great affection for. 

I love social media and connecting with people and I’ll keep doing what I can to cultivate friends and encourage people to like me. But some days, the self-censorship makes me not like myself. 

What do you think? Is the online writer community too nice? Do you ever wish you could cut loose and say something critical or political—without losing readers or friends?

 

This is a reprint from the Crime Fiction Collective blog, and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.