Month: October 2014

10 Things Every Writer Should Do

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This post by Karen Ball originally appeared on the Steve Laube Agency site on 4/16/14.

I’m a list person. In part, that’s because said lists serve to bump my memory when it gets…um…lost. But I also just love lists—especially lists of things you should (or shouldn’t) do. So here, for your perusal, are my top ten things every writer should do every day:

1. Stretch your word muscles. Learn a new word. Read a new writer. Do a crossword puzzle. Flip through the dictionary. Do the Reader’s Digest Word Power test. Something to test and strengthen your word skills.

2. Spend at least 15 minutes in silence. No words, no music. Just…be still. It’s hard to hear the Master’s voice in all the chaos that fills our days. Purpose to spend at least a little bit of time—other than when you’re asleep—in silence.

3. Read Scripture. Now, I’m not talking about your devotions. I’m talking reading them as a writer. See how the stories are told. Savor the beauty of the songs. Study the heroes and villains. There’s a wealth of gold to be gleaned in them thar pages.

 

Read the full post on the Steve Laube Agency site.

 

Time Travel and the Problem of Paradoxes

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This post by Graham Storrs originally appeared on momentum on 10/21/14.

Graham Storrs joins us on the blog to discuss all things TIME TRAVEL.

“Paradox is the poisonous flower of quietism, the iridescent surface of the rotting mind, the greatest depravity of all.” – Thomas Mann

What, you’re not a quietist? Never mind, we’ll come back to that.

As a writer of time travel novels, I spend a lot of time with paradox. It has become a friend. A shabby, disagreeable friend, I have to say, but one for whom I have an inordinate fondness. There are two ways of looking at paradox. Either it is a hideous monster of purest logic that prevents all possibility of time travel, or it is a sly creature of silken charm that whispers in the writer’s ear, urging creative trickery to make that story possible.

To be clear where I stand on the physics, let me just say that time doesn’t really work the way story-writers want it to. We don’t really travel in time. We travel in spacetime. Yes, you can describe space as a dimension something like the spatial dimensions to get a geometrical description of spacetime and, yes, it does seem as if you can move (in one direction) along that dimension at different rates. But consider this, if time is slowed in the vicinity of massive objects (which it is – ask Einstein), why does the Earth (a much smaller mass) not race ahead of the Sun in time, eventually leaving it far behind?

 

Read the full post on momentum.

 

No Author Is Too Good for Her Amazon Critics

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This post by Jennifer Weiner originally appeared on New Republic on 10/19/14.

Dear readers, the commoners have reviewed Margo Howard’s book … and Ms. Howard is not pleased.

A bit of background: long-time advice columnist Howard wrote a memoir called Eat, Drink, and Remarry: Confessions of a Serial Wife. Publisher’s Weekly called it a “touching” memoir by a “pampered princess” that relied heavily on name-dropping for its draw.

Amazon’s critics were less impressed—specifically, Amazon’s “most trusted” reviewers who, Howard says, are given “freebies…cold cream, sneakers, pots and pans, and…books!” and allowed to review them in advance of their publication date. She is not a fan. These reviewers—“the freebie people,” Howard calls them—are “dim bulbs,” they are “evangelical, unworldly,” “barely literate, and “deluded.”

The irony, of course, is that in trying to show that she’s not, as the “freebie people” say, a coddled, name-dropping, well-connected rich lady, Howard comes across as a well-connected rich lady. Everything from her name-dropping (both a MacArthur genius and a long-time Vanity Fair staff writer loved her book!) to her solution to the problem (it turns out that Howard knows two members of Amazon’s board of directors!) smacks of barely-examined privilege.

Still, I can feel Howard’s pain. Show me a writer who hasn’t felt savaged, misunderstood, unfairly attacked, or completely misread by an Amazon reviewer, and I’ll show you a writer whose books live in shoeboxes under her bed. I suspect that there are, indeed, reviewers who skim books looking for references of stuff they don’t have—a nanny here, a remodeled kitchen there—so their review can scream RICH LADY PROBLEMS in all caps.

 

Read the full post on New Republic.

 

Writer’s Block – Getting Unstuck

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This post by Kemari Howell originally appeared on Kbuuk on 10/13/14.

As a writer, there’s nothing worse than getting stuck, or dealing with writer’s block. Yes, rejection and the like is awful, but at least at that point on the writing timeline, you’ve accomplished what you set out to do.

There probably isn’t a writer that hasn’t suffered the unpleasant ailment of writer’s block—whether it is as small as figuring out the POV for your story, or as big as hitting the middle-of-the-novel slump. And getting unstuck can be incredibly difficult.

Imagine that you can’t even get to the finish line…that someone has glued your feet to the ground just before you reach your goal. You can see it—the end—you know it’s there, but you are unable to move, paralyzed by some unseen force (often it’s your own self-doubt). You’re stuck and you don’t know how to go about getting unstuck.

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath

 

Read the full post on Kbuuk.

 

'Am I being catfished?' An Author Confronts Her Number One Online Critic

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This post by Kathleen Hale originally appeared on The Guardian on 10/17/14. Note that it contains strong language.

When a bad review of her first novel appeared online, Kathleen Hale was warned not to respond. But she soon found herself wading in

In the months before my first novel came out, I was a charmless lunatic – the type that other lunatics cross the street to avoid. I fidgeted and talked to myself, rewriting passages of a book that had already gone to print. I remember when my editor handed me the final copy: I held the book in my hands for a millisecond before grabbing a pen and scribbling edits in the margins.

“No,” she said firmly, taking the pen away. “Kathleen, you understand we can’t make any more changes, right?”

“I was just kidding,” I lied. Eventually she had to physically prise the book from my hands.

A lot of authors call this “the post-partum stage”, as if the book is a baby they struggle to feel happy about. But for me, it felt more like one of my body parts was about to be showcased.

“Are you excited about your novel?” my mom asked, repeatedly, often in singsong.

“I’m scared,” I said. Anxious and inexperienced, I began checking goodreads.com, a social reviewing site owned by Amazon. My publisher HarperTeen had sent advance copies of my book to bloggers and I wanted to see what they thought. Other authors warned me not to do this, but I didn’t listen. Soon, my daily visits tallied somewhere between “slightly-more-than-is-attractive-to-admit-here” and “infinity”.

For the most part, I found Goodreaders were awarding my novel one star or five stars, with nothing in between. “Well, it’s a weird book,” I reminded myself. “It’s about a girl with PTSD teaming up with a veteran to fight crime.” Mostly I was relieved they weren’t all one-star reviews.

One day, while deleting and rewriting the same tweet over and over (my editors had urged me to build a “web presence”), a tiny avatar popped up on my screen. She was young, tanned and attractive, with dark hair and a bright smile. Her Twitter profile said she was a book blogger who tweeted nonstop between 6pm and midnight, usually about the TV show Gossip Girl. According to her blogger profile, she was a 10th-grade teacher, wife and mother of two. Her name was Blythe Harris. She had tweeted me saying she had some ideas for my next book.

“Cool, Blythe, thanks!” I replied. In an attempt to connect with readers, I’d been asking Twitter for ideas – “The weirdest thing you can think of!” – promising to try to incorporate them in the sequel.

Curious to see if Blythe had read my book, I clicked from her Twitter through her blog and her Goodreads page. She had given it one star. “Meh,” I thought. I scrolled down her review.

“Fuck this,” it said. “I think this book is awfully written and offensive; its execution in regards to all aspects is horrible and honestly, nonexistent.”

 

Read the full, lengthy post on The Guardian.

 

The Do's And Don'ts Of Writing A Blurb For Your Novel

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This post by Milena originally appeared on blurb on 10/9/14.

When writing a novel, there are few selling tools as important as writing a solidly written blurb. Sure, the cover design creates intrigue, but, if you have caught a potential reader’s attention, the blurb is what will sell your book—and convert readers. A “blurb” can refer to both a “description blurb” that you write for the back cover of your book and a “review blurb.” For the purposes of this post, we’ll be focusing on the former, and how you, the writer, can craft the best possible blurb.

 

Dos
-Reference the genre and central theme
-Create intrigue around the main conflict
-Dive right in and introduce your protagonist
-Keep it short and punchy
-Reference your book-writing or professional status, if it relates to your book.

 

Read the full post on blurb.

 

So You're Going To Pitch Your Book – A Guide

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This post by Alan Baxter originally appeared on his Warrior Scribe site on 9/19/14.

It seems that lately there have been more opportunities than ever before for writers to pitch their as-yet-unpublished manuscript to industry professionals. At writers conventions, festivals and so on, more agents, editors and publishers are making themselves available to hear about your magnum opus. It really is a superb opportunity and these things usually get booked out. But man, I’ve heard some horror stories! It’s a hell of a thing, trying to sell yourself and your work with nerves making your guts into an ice storm. So I thought I’d ask a few key people in the industry for some tips to help you formulate your pitch should you get the chance.

Firstly, I’ll throw a tip or two of my own at you, then we’re going to hear from a small press publisher, a literary agent and a big press editor.

My tips are simple: Know what your book is about so you can formulate a killer elevator pitch. This is so named because it’s based on the premise that you meet a publisher in an elevator and have a few seconds before they reach their floor to sell them on the idea of your book. Here’s the elevator pitch for BOUND, as an example:

Underground cage fighter, Alex Caine, is drawn into a world he didn’t know existed – a world he wishes he’d never found. The harder he tries to get out, the deeper he’s dragged in. It’s magic, monsters, mayhem and martial arts in a fast-paced dark urban fantasy thriller.

 

Read the full post on Warrior Scribe.

 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Grammar

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This post by John E. McIntyre originally appeared on The Baltimore Sun on 10/3/14.

Online, discussions of grammar tend to display confusion about what the subject is, and the usual admixture of rubbish and emotion does not help.

There is, of course, the confusion between grammar as grammarians and linguists discuss it technically, and spelling and punctuation. But other, unstated meanings are often involved.

A post by Lucy Ferriss at Lingua Franca, “Grammar: The Movie,” identifies some of the additional meanings that surface in a new documentary.

 

Spelling errors: If you write it’s for its in your cover letter or resume, or confuse there/their/they’re, you’re probably not going to get the job. But these are merely spelling errors, as likely the result of carelessness as ignorance. Of course, they’re obvious, so easy to spot that even a manager can see them, but they are still trivial.

 

Bad writing: Lord knows there is plenty of slack, inexpert, and impenetrable writing to be found, but that is not a problem for grammarians to address. Academic writing, for example, is notoriously wordy and opaque, but it is usually grammatical.

 

Read the full post on The Baltimore Sun.

 

Amazon and Booktrope Announce New Business Relationship

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This post by Rachel Thompson originally appeared on San Francisco Book Review on 10/9/14.

Booktrope announces a new business relationship beginning with a mutual licensing deal that deepens ties with Amazon.com to a much more significant degree.

Booktrope is a Seattle startup that says it’s reinventing publishing by providing efficient, online services to creative teams – authors, editors, designers and others involved in producing books — in order to produce high quality titles for readers at reasonable prices. By all outward appearances, Amazon and Booktrope share a strong commitment to keeping ebook prices substantially lower than print, allowing consumers to benefit from new technology, while still affording authors deserved compensation.

The relationship kicks off with a licensing agreement which includes fifteen titles to be reissued under Amazon Publishing as e-books and audio books. Booktrope will continue to publish print versions of these titles and to manage development and publication of future books by the authors.

I sat down (virtually) with Katherine Sears, CMO and co-founder of Booktrope to get the nitty-gritty on the deal.

 

Rachel Thompson: Help me understand this, did Amazon just take over Booktrope’s digital book business?

Katherine Sears: No – not at all! Initially this agreement covers ebooks and some audio books for only fifteen of our nearly 300 titles. However, this is the beginning of what is intended to be a longer term business arrangement, so we hope to announce many more titles being licensed in this same way over the coming months. And, of course, we are always exploring other ways for our two companies to work together.

 

RT: What led you to this relationship with Amazon?

 

Read the full post on San Francisco Book Review.

 

Future Bright For Children’s Books As Industry Names Plot Next Chapter

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This post by Imogen Russell Williams originally appeared on The Guardian Books Blog on 9/26/14.

A mood of optimism marked the Bookseller Children’s Conference, with sales up 10% and editors pronouncing themselves keen to experiment and push the digital envelope

The Purcell Room on London’s South Bank was awash with positivity on Thursday, as the Bookseller Children’s Conference celebrated a section of the books industry where everything is rosy. If current trends continue, said the magazine’s charts and data analyst, John Lewis, this year is set to become the best year for children’s books since records began. Sales in children’s and YA publishing are up 10% in 2014 – an extraordinary performance against the backdrop of a market that is down 2% overall. And it’s not just about new titles. The backlist is making a particularly strong showing in both picture books and children’s fiction, with five of the current top 10 bestselling picture books dating from pre-2011 – including Judith Kerr’s 46-year-old classic The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

Adding to the sense of celebration, Bookseller children’s editor Charlotte Eyre and publisher Nigel Roby also announced the launch of the Bookseller YA book prize, for which any young adult titles by authors living in the UK or Ireland and published in 2014 will be eligible. (Full disclosure: I’ve been asked to be one of the judges, and have been emitting a thin, gleeful squeal ever since.)

 

Read the full post on The Guardian Books Blog.

 

Why Is Typography So Important To Content Marketing?

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This post by Erika Schneider originally appeared on the Outbrain blog on 9/16/14. Note that while it is aimed at small businesses, the information here is just as applicable to author websites and blogs, and even book cover design.

Content marketing has become one the primary ways of retaining customers, attracting new clients, and generating leads, sales, and profit for a company. While the content itself on a website is incredibly important, another crucial aspect of content marketing is typography. Typography isn’t often given a lot of consideration, but there is no doubt it plays a role in strengthening your brand, creating interest in your product, and highlighting your central message.

 

What is typography?

Typography is actually a pretty basic concept, and simply refers to the way that text is arranged on a page or document. Often times, typography is referred to as an art, as typography can be incredibly creative and innovative. Typography is great for enhancing a theme, adding personality, increasing emphasis of an idea or reinforcing a thought, demonstrating emotion, creating interest, and crafting aesthetic appeal.

While straightforward black-colored text such as this is appropriate for some forums, colorful and artistic text can be a great advertising tool. Notice how that sentence caught your attention and drew you in based on its font and color scheme alone? That’s the whole point of great typography.

 

Elements of Typography

You might think that typography is limited to font and color, but typography is actually much more than that. Here are the elements of typography that you should familiarize yourself with:

 

Read the full post on Outbrain.

 

NaNo Prep

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This post originally appeared on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) site. With NaNoWriMo kicking off on November 1, now is the time to start clearing your decks and preparing for a very intense month of writing if you intend to participate.

Ready to start planning your November novel? Our NaNo Prep resources are for you.

From now until NaNo, we’ll provide resources to inspire, challenge, and prepare you to write that novel. Look to our blog, forums, Facebook, and Twitter for updates on new stuff, or bookmark this page (we say put it right on your browser bar so you remember your noble noveling intentions).

Let’s start by addressing some of the burning questions you might have:

You’ll find the answers sprinkled along the prep route below. Read on!

 

1. Make a commitment.

Intention is everything. Decide right now that you’re going to write a novel in November, then tell everyone you can. We’ve prepared a few ready-made social media messages for sharing:

 

Read the full post on NaNoWriMo.

 

What You Need To Know About Your Second Draft

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 10/8/14. Note that it contains strong language.

Writing is when we make the words.
Editing is when we make the words not shitty.

The poor sad widdle second draft.

I’m in the midst of one of these right now, and while you see a lot of attention given to the first draft and to the overall editing process, you don’t see quite so much attention given to the second draft specifically. But there should be! The second draft is a peculiar animal. Interstitial. Imperfect. It’s frequently the growing pains draft, where two limbs grow and two limbs shrink and by the end of its hormonal transformation it’s the same creature as before but also, entirely different. The second draft is the teenager of manuscripts. Awkward, pimply, full of faux confidence and bravado, and something-something pubic hair.

Okay, maybe not that last part?

Anyway. Let’s talk a little bit about the second draft.

 

Psst! You Didn’t Write The First Draft

Yeah, no, I know you actually did write the first draft, but shh, shhh, we’re trying to be tricksy hobbitses here. By the time you get to the second draft, your best way forward is to somehow convince yourself that Some Other Asshole wrote this book. Because you can be cold, clinical, dispassionate when you’re attacking the draft if you think it’s not yours. It’s like having children — you can look at other people’s kids and be all like LOOK AT THOSE SAVAGES HANGING FROM THE CEILING FANS, but then you see your own kid drinking out of the toilet like a dog and you’re like, awww, he’s pretending to be a puppy — he’s gifted.

You’ve gotta treat this book like it’s some rando’s kid. Baby Rando.

Rando II: First Blood.

Whatever.

 

Read the full post on terribleminds.

 

What the Editor Sees (That the Writer Does Not)

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This post by Savannah Thorne originally appeared on The Review Review.

When you submit to a literary magazine, do you ever wonder what is happening to your work on the other end? Has it disappeared into an editorial netherworld? What exactly is taking so darn long for them to get back to you? And is it true that the longer the editors take with your work, the better they like it?

I was delighted to be published in Conclave: A Journal of Character‘s inaugural issue, and when I heard the magazine was at risk of not continuing, I took over as managing editor and have kept it going for years, incorporating e-books into the equation. When I stepped in, I found myself with a huge, year-long backlog of submissions to wade through, and as I learned the ropes, I realized I was in the unique position of being an editor and a writer at the same time. It gave me insight into both sides of the desk. What I’ve collected here is the behind-the-scenes truth about what happens to your work after it’s been submitted and some dos and don’ts to get your work noticed.

So, what happens to your work after you’ve hit “submit?”

At Conclave, like many literary magazines, your work appears in our online submission manager and sits there with a status of “received.” It will stay “received” even after a real human being opens it and glances at it. If they know it’s way off for the magazine’s needs, it may be quickly rejected. If it has a hook, is well-written, and seems to draw the reader in (and, in our specific case, if it’s based around a strong character), then the first reader forwards the file to another reader. The status switches to “forwards.” Editors can vote on it, and if they choose to they can also write notes about it

The longer an editor takes with my work, the better…right?

I’m sorry to have to answer that with: Not necessarily. In actuality, submissions come in, and although they are arranged by date, then author’s name, title, and genre, I can assure you that these things get little attention. It is the quality of the work alone that determines whether a writer is accepted—whether it’s their first time being published, or their thirtieth. The very first thing we do is open the file itself, and read it. It doesn’t matter who you are—it matters what your story says.

 

Read the full post on The Review Review.

 

Should You Publish Indie or Traditional? A Hybrid Author Busts the Myths

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This post by Holly Robins originally appeared on her site on 8/17/14.

Yesterday, I gathered with a group of area writers at the Haverhill Public Library Authors Fair. My table was situated between Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, an author who publishes traditionally, and Connie Johnson Hambley, a self-published mystery writer. This was the perfect place for me: I’m a hybrid author who has jumped from a traditional publisher (Random House) to indie publishing and back to a traditional house again. As I start my fourth novel to be published by New American Library/Penguin Random House, I have no contract for the next one. This means that I’m revisiting the all-important question for many writers: do I want to go solo when I publish my next book, or stay where I am?
This is a good time to roundup what I’ve learned about publishing. In the process, I want to dismantle four common myths:

1. Publishers are Out to Screw Authors
MYTH. Publishing companies are businesses that compete in a global marketplace. Their job is to make money—and, in so doing, they will make money for you.

With a traditional publisher, you will get royalties from your books—typically about 25 percent of ebook sales. This is much less than the percentage of royalties you’ll get if you self publish. Rates vary, but with self publishing, you’ll reap about 65 percent of a book sale as your royalty rate.

On the other hand, with a traditional publishing deal, you will get an advance against royalties—anywhere from $5K to $45K for most first-time novelists, though of course there are some pie-in-the-sky whopper deals. You will also get—for free!–an editor, publicist, marketing team, designers, sales people, etc. Your team at a traditional publisher will help you whip your book into shape and get it into the hands of readers.

 

Click here to read the full post on Holly Robins’ site.