Month: May 2015

Was This Review Helpful To You?

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This collection of ridiculous and maddening book reviews was curated by Rebecca Makkai on Ploughshares on 5/29/15. A tip of the hat to freelance editor Jim Thomsen for sharing it on Facebook.

one star
Oh, where to even start? I wanted so badly to like this book. The New York Times called it “a trenchant masterpiece,” and it has blurbs from three Nobel Prize winners. So I had sky-high expectations. I anticipated a book that would change my world, that would help me lose twelve pounds and make clear the meaning of life and cure my husband’s erectile dysfunction. This book, while excellent, did none of those things. Threw it across the room on page 20. Ugh. Will not be reading this author again.

 

one star
The paper was rough to the touch, and after just three weeks the back cover ripped. Also, the book was “like new,” not “new.” Regret ordering from vendor BookXPress314. Do not recommend!!

 

one star
The author, a known Liberal, has a clear agenda here in including an African-American neighbor and a “lesbian” boss. I read to be entertained, not to have someone’s politics shoved down my throat. I was going to pass this on to my sister, but instead I recycled the book.

 

one star
I expected this book, which won the Story Prize and the PEN Malamud award, to be a new favorite. Apparently one of the chapters won an O. Henry award, and O. Henry is a highly respected author. But each chapter started off with a completely new set of characters and even a new title! I didn’t see any connection at all between the various chapters. One took place in 1873, and one was set on a distant planet in the future. I worked so hard to find the connections between the chapters, and just couldn’t find one. Too much work, gave up.

 

Read the full collection on Ploughshares.

 

The Telling Signs of Content Flops, and 6 Ways To Fix Content Marketer’s Worst Nightmare

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This post by Olsy Sorokina originally appeared on the Hootsuite blog in 3/15.

Even the best-love brands have their haters—that’s unavoidable. So for marketers, it’s often better to focus on being memorable and stand out from the crowd. Think of all those commercial jingles that just won’t get out of your head, or anticipation of products associated with the coming of a new season (Pumpkin Spice Latte, I’m looking at you). Brands that achieve this do so by straying off the beaten path. Marketing guru Seth Godin calls this “finding your purple cow,” a term inspired by a short 19th century nonsense poem and used by Godin to describe being remarkable, and succeeding in advertising by thinking outside the box.

Should you be thinking about finding your own brand’s purple cow? Finding that truly unique way of telling your story means taking risks and surprising your audience. That means the first step down the path to a more memorable bovine brand is to figure out if you’ve been boring your followers.

 

3 warning signs that you might be boring your followers:

1. Your Twitter engagement rate is low

Once Twitter has rolled out their analytics tools to all users, determining how well your messaging is performing on the microblogging network is easier than ever. Perhaps the most telling of all metrics available to users is the engagement rate, a number calculated based on the number of impressions (i.e. how many people saw the Tweet) and the number of engagements (link clicks, favorites, retweets, etc.) with your Tweets. Obviously, the higher the engagement rate, the better you’re doing. We experienced this ourselves when we doubled our Twitter engagement rate in two months.

 

Read the full post, which includes two more signs you may be boring your readers and six tips for fixing boring content, on the Hootsuite blog.

 

How Mad Max: Fury Road Turns Your Writing Advice Into Roadkill

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 5/26/15. Warning: strong language.

Said it before, will say it again: Mad Max: Fury Road is the dust-choked rocket-fueled orifice-clenching crank-mad feminist wasteland batfuck doomsday opera you didn’t know you needed. It’s like eating fireworks. It’s like being inside a rust tornado. It’s like having a defibrillator pad applied directly to your genitals but somehow, you love it?

It’s not a perfect movie.

But it’s amazing just the same.

And part of — for me! — what makes it amazing is how easily it flaunts its rule-breaking. Writing — particularly the very-patterned art of screenwriting — comes with all these preconceived sets of “rules” or “guidelines,” and like most creative rules and guidelines, they’re half-useful and half-dogdick. It’s great once in a while to be reminded why the rules work. But it can be even more illuminating to realize when something works in spite of those rules — in direct contravention to what you expect can and should happen.

And I wanna talk about that just a little. Real quick.

Hold still. *fires up the defib pads*

CLEAR.

bzzt

Begins With Action And Then Action Action Holy Fuck More Action

Beginning with action is hard. Because a lot of the time, you need context. You jump right into some actionstravaganza and you feel lost — unmoored, drifting, caught up in OMG THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE EXCITING BUT MOSTLY IT FEELS LIKE ACTION FIGURES BEING FIRED OUT OF A CANNON AGAINST A WALL BECAUSE I DO NOT YET HAVE A REASON TO CARE. It’s all whizz-bang-boom, but ultimately? Hollow as a used grenade. Shallow as a puddle of sun-baked urine.

Fury Road is like, “Yeah, fuck you, mate,” and then instantly there’s a car chase? And then like, five minutes of setup and another car chase that goes until the middle of the movie? And then a sequel to that car chase that ends the movie. On paper, that shouldn’t work. On screen, it roars like an engine and drags you behind it like you’re chained to the goddamn bumper.

 

Read the full post on terribleminds.

 

Writing: Front and Back Matter for your Self-Published Book

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This post by Jessica Bell originally appeared on the ALLi blog on 5/27/15.

Book promotion expert Ben Cameron always says “writing the blurb is the hardest 100 words you’ll ever write”, and many authors are also stumped when it comes to writing the front and back matter – another task that usually falls just when you’re feeling least like writing another word, after completing your book’s final edit. Coming to the rescue today is ALLi partner member Jessica Bell, also an author and book designer, with this handy summary.

The front and back matter in a book are one of the key factors to presenting a professional and quality product. If done haphazardly, it’s a sure sign in most people’s eyes that the book content will not be up to par. So please do take these things as seriously as your story.

First I’ll explain what to include, and how to order it in a paperback. Then I will tell you how to reorder the content for your ebook.

FRONT MATTER

Front matter can be subjective as it varies from book to book, but I’m going to advise you based on what I would do. The order isn’t set in stone, but it’s what I think looks the best in a paperback.

 

Read the full post on the ALLi blog.

 

A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It

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This post by Jodie Renner originally appeared on Killer Nashville on 5/21/15.

Once you’ve got the first draft of your short story or novel down, it’s time to go back and reassess each scene to make sure the characters are engaging and the scene is as compelling as it can be.

Besides advancing the storyline, every scene should:

  • Reveal and deepen characters and their relationships;
  • Show setting details;
  • Provide any necessary background info (in a natural way, organic to the story);
  • Add tension and conflict;
  • Hint at dangers and intrigue to come;
  • Enhance the overall tone and mood of your story.

Remember that every scene needs conflict and a change.

To bring your characters and story to life, heighten reader engagement, and pick up the pace, try to make your scenes do double or even triple duty – but subtly is almost always best.

For example, a scene with dialogue should have several layers, including:

  • The words being spoken;
  • The character’s real thoughts, opinions, emotions, and intentions;
  • The other speaker’s tone, word choice, attitude, body language, and facial expressions;
  • The outward actions, reactions, and attitudes of both.

Here are eight key ways you can intensify your writing and enhance the experience for readers:

 

Read the full post on Killer Nashville.

 

10 Things Authors Learn The Hard Way…

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This post by Diane Hall originally appeared on BDAILY on 5/25/15.

Writing workshops and books, professional advice, even Google, won’t answer every question an author may have. Some knowledge can only be gained by personal experience. The following list stems from genuine reports by authors I’ve either spoken to or worked with, across the globe. Individual points are not meant as sweeping statements; there may be a good portion of authors who have different outcomes and opinions. Nevertheless…

No one but you cares as much about your book

Agents, publishers and publicists – and especially readers – don’t have the same emotional investment as the author of a book. They might just as easily prefer another book on the same subject, or easily forget your title altogether; with over 14 million books to choose from, that yours will be the best, most unique book they’ve ever come across is unlikely. Dump the ego, and work on enticing them to look at your book in the first place. Help them to make their buying decision, don’t just assume that once seen, automatically sold.

Traditional publishing is not better than self-publishing

Yes, TP has a lot going for it, but it also has its downsides. Sacrifices to become a TP author may include your book no longer being recognisable to you, little control over the book’s aesthetics, a long, long time to market and vastly reduced royalties. That’s not to say self-publishing doesn’t have any cons; TP and SP are essentially just different ways to publish that should each be thoroughly investigated.
 

Read the full post on BDAILY.

 

Kindle Scout

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This post by Polly Iyer originally appeared on The Blood-Red Pencil on 5/20/15.

My book, Indiscretion, has been on Amazon’s Kindle Scout program for an entire week as of today. It’s been on and off the “Hot and Trending” list, which I guess is natural. This is measured by how many people read the sample and nominate my book during a thirty-day period. I’ve done some promotion, but there’s a fine line between promo and overkill. I try to be cognizant of where that line is. That said, self-promotion has never been an easy fit for me.

So what is Kindle Scout, you ask? This is from the Kindle Scout website:

“Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It’s a place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing.”

Bloggers have debated the pros and cons of the program. From my point of view, the answer depends on where you are in the publishing world. I’ve self-published seven books with Amazon. The difference with Kindle Scout, besides the nice advance, unheard of for an indie writer, is the strength of Amazon’s marketing that I wouldn’t get otherwise.

 

Read the full post on The Blood-Red Pencil.

 

Science Fiction Is for Slackers

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This post by Jacob Brogan originally appeared on Slate on 5/26/15.

It would be a mistake to say that science fiction as such is “about” laziness—no genre reducible to such a singular point of significance can flower long—but it is uncommonly good at animating fantasies about avoiding labor.

On a desert planet baked by two suns, a young man contemplates the sky, dreaming of a life beyond the workaday tedium of his family farm. He imagines that the robots his aunt and uncle have recently purchased—apparently sentient beings that work without compensation—will take on his burdens. You know his name as well as I do, and you know as well as I do that he will spend the weeks and month ahead on the run, fleeing this world of tasks and troubles as much or more as the evil empire that chases him.

Science fiction is a genre of dreams, and Luke Skywalker may be the most emblematic of all its dreamers, emblematic not because he longs for the stars, but because of what those stars represent. Above all else, Luke is a slacker, and when he looks to the heavens, he imagines release from the obligations that bind him to the surface of Tatooine.

Luke is not alone in his aversion to work: As a rule, science fiction may be the laziest of all genres, not because the stories themselves are too facile—they can be just as sophisticated and challenging as those of any other genre—but because they often revel in easy solutions: Why walk when you can warp? Why talk when you’re a telepath? Technology in such stories typically has more to do with workarounds than it does with work.

 

Read the full post on Slate.

 

On The Length Of A Story

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This post by Alan Baxter originally appeared on his Warrior Scribe site on 5/22/15. Warning: strong language.

There’s been a bit of to and fro via The Guardian recently about fantasy novels and short stories. Firstly Damien Walter wrote this pile of bollocks about how publishers need to stop encouraging big fat fantasy multi-book series. Then Natasha Pulley responded with this bullshit about how fantasy just can’t be done in short books, and especially not in short stories. I do wish people would stop trying to proscribe what the rest of us like to read and write.

You know what? A good story is exactly as long as it needs to be or it’s not a good story. Simple as that. If that means a fat book trilogy, or a ten book mega-series, or one thin novel or novella, or a short story, it doesn’t matter. A good story is good because it’s told in the right amount of space it needs. A really good story is made from great ideas, wonderfully written, using exactly the time and space required.

Sure there are plenty of rubbish, bloated books out there and loads of short stories that fall flat. But even the shite stuff has found its niche if its successful, because people are reading and enjoying it. If people are reading and enjoying something, get the fuck off your high horse trying to tell those people that they should be reading and enjoying something else.

 

Read the full post on Warrior Scribe.

 

Whose Game Are You Playing?

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This post by John Pettigrew originally appeared on Future Proofs on 5/4/15.

We hear a lot about Amazon, the new giant in the playground. But Amazon may actually be the least of the industry’s problems, because they at least play by rules we recognise. There are plenty of other giants out there who are playing entirely different games – but who may still stomp all over our playground. The question is, what do we do about them?

The publishing industry feels under threat from a lot of places these days. And the most commonly mentioned cause of this fear is surely Amazon. Starting off as just another book retailer, Amazon has grown hugely and very cleverly to become a true global giant.

Amazon seems to be the kid everyone’s afraid of – bigger, stronger, and not afraid to use its muscle to get what it wants!

Playing by the rules
However, Amazon is still playing in our playground, basically working with the same rules publishing companies are used to – getting books to customers more effectively and more cheaply than ever before. This is a game that publishers understand and play all the time. And we can see this by the way that publishers and Amazon are always talking about this or that, arguing about a particular situation and coming to new agreements.

The problem, it seems to me, is that Amazon isn’t actually what publishers should be most worried about. We fear Amazon, I think, because we understand it pretty well and so can predict clearly what effect its actions are going to have on us.

 

A different game
The true danger may not be Amazon but other giants who are playing entirely different games. Companies like Google and Facebook, who use content (including content from publishers) as part of their business but who don’t really care much about that content because their real business is selling advertising.

 

Read the full post on Future Proofs.

 

How to Price Your Work on Amazon

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This post originally appeared on Writer’s Circle.

So you’ve decided to publish a book on Amazon (and hopefully read our helpful guide for doing so). Before those pages hit the presses – or the Kindles – you’ll need to price your work on Amazon, and we’re here with a bit of advice on finding the right price for your readers.

Think about your motive. This is a great tip from Publishers Weekly, which advises writers to think about the purpose of their book: readership or revenue? Ideally, of course, you could get both, but a lower price will likely earn more readers (e.g. people will be more willing to try a new e-book author when the price tag is only a buck or two) while a higher price could earn you more revenue. The latter is true, of course, especially if you already have an established fan base – but many new authors prefer to price on the lower side to attract new readers.

Consider paperback vs. e-book. E-books should not cost as much as paperback books, for two reasons: Firstly because fewer resources are needed to publish the work, and secondly because research shows that expensive e-books don’t sell well, according to Mill City Press. While paperbacks can easily find success priced above $10, e-books do best when priced between $2.99 and $9.99 – in fact, PBS says $3.99 seems to do really well.

 

Read the full post on Writer’s Circle.

 

Avoid Holes In Your First Draft

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This post by Ksenia Anske originally appeared on her blog on 5/24/15. Warning: strong language.

Boy, the things The Badlings is teaching me. I don’t know what it is about this book. Maybe it will be my watershed moment and I will look upon the chasm cleaved in my life, on one end of it written “before The Badlings,” on another “after The Badlings,” and I will see the middle of it a thousand fiery dragons spurting up pillars of fire to remind me of what it was like. And I’ll tell you what’s it’s like. It’s gruesome. I’m learning one very valuable lesson writing this book.

Most of the story is handed to you in the first draft.

I think I’m paraphrasing Terry Pratchett as he said something along these words and I have read it somewhere and can’t find it now. No matter. It’s true. As shitty and cumbersome and as absolutely detestable your first draft might be, the foundation of the story is there. Your job is to lay it all down, like a groundwork for the future philandering with your story, because no matter what you will add or subtract, the core will stay the same. It doesn’t have to be complex, it can be very simple. In fact, the simpler it is, the better. But here is the catch. If you miss this core, or if you gouge pieces of it out later (I did both), you will suffer in the clutches of ruthless editing as a consequence until you bleed out of your nose.

The same holes you will have in the core of your story at the very beginning will show up like festering sores in all consecutive drafts no matter what you do. I have heard horror stories from writers about how they had to abandon a manuscript because no matter how many times they rewrote it, it was flawed. It was an ugly child born maimed and it could not be cured.
 

Read the full post on Ksenia Anske’s blog.

 

Do's And Don'ts On Writing A Book Blurb

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This post by Nicholas C. Rossis originally appeared on his site on 5/2/15.

The inspiration for this post came from a little gem I found on the Passive Guy’s Newsletter (if you aren’t already a subscriber, what are you waiting for? It’s free!). After some heavy editing, it ended up as this post.

The original post came from the Self Publishing Review, if you wish to see it in its entirety.

 

Writing a Book Blurb
By far, the weakest part of many self-published books is the synopsis*. Writing a decent blurb is an art form totally separate from writing a book.

Authors, myself included, often feel this is their least favorite part of the process. It can make you feel icky writing superlatives about your own book. At the same time, too many superlatives can literally be icky (“A work of genius” comes to mind). A good blurb needs to strike a balance between being informative, but not too informative, salesy, but not too salesy, while somehow seducing a stranger into spending money. It’s difficult, to say the least.

That said, there are some very common errors that show up time and again, and are pretty easy to change.

 

Read the full post on The Power of Six.

 

10 Odd Books That Will Improve Your Writing

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This podcast from Demian Farnworth originally appeared on rainmaker.fm.

You don’t have too look far to find a list of the best books a writer should read. This is a benefit for new writers, no doubt.

Unfortunately, those of us who have been around for a number of years often own every book that tends to make these lists. And we read them. And re-read them.

Not only do we own them, we’ve absorbed them into our bloodstream.

It wouldn’t be so bad if that list changed from year to year.

But it doesn’t.

So while the usual best-books-writers-should-read lists are fine for the greenhorns in the field … what about the rest of us?

What about those who want to go from undergraduate to graduate work? Who want to inject a tangible and seductive element in their writing that growls “You better take notice of me”?

What are the best books they should read? And why?

As you might guess, I have an answer.

In this 9-minute episode you’ll discover:
– The authors of this 1604 Bible edition made language their slave.

– Award winning producer delivers some of the best tips on how to inject emotion into any story

– The book you’ll walk away with some magnificent metaphors, if you read it

– Imitate the ebb and flow of people-centered tales in this book to make what you write memorable

– The real reason I want you to read these books

 

Listen to, or download, the full podcast on rainmaker.fm.

 

A Story of Three Authors (A Cautionary Tale)

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This post by Karen Dionne originally appeared on Pub Rants on 5/8/15.

In a perfect world, every literary agent would be a fearless negotiator, working tirelessly to get the best possible book deals for his or her clients. But the world isn’t perfect. And sometimes an author’s career goes off the rails because their agent doesn’t have the knowledge, skills, or tenacity necessary to negotiate well on the author’s behalf.

Author #1 had a six-figure offer from a major publisher for the first three books of his self-published middle-grade series. He also had no agent. The publisher recommended several, and the author signed with one. Sadly, the agent did not negotiate better contract terms. This meant the author now had to give the agent 15% of the exact same six-figure deal he’d set up himself.

The author hoped the agent would earn his commission going forward by advocating for the book during the publishing process. But in time, the author realized his agent wasn’t doing anything he wasn’t already doing himself. He terminated the relationship and negotiated the next three-book deal without an agent.

As the time neared for the next contract, this author still felt he could get a better deal if a savvy agent negotiated on his behalf. He interviewed carefully and signed with an agent with an excellent reputation who was also a fan of the author’s work. The agent soon learned what the publisher hadn’t yet told the author: sales were soft, and there wasn’t going to be a third offer.

 

Read the full post on Pub Rants.