Two Roads Diverged: Understanding Traditional And Self-Publishing Differences

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This post, from Todd Rutherford, originally appeared on his Ask the Publishing Guru blog on 1/29/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

The publishing world has experienced change over the past several decades as all industries have, but the next 10 years will be a cocoon altering it into a different species altogether. Many major print publishing houses have either merged, or acquired smaller houses, and the net result is that there are fewer traditional channels for getting your book published. However, this only means that the nature of the challenge of getting a book published has changed. It does not mean that the challenge has become insurmountable.

The traditional publishing path of the past has been described similarly by many sources. Write a book, send query letter and/or book proposal to agents, get picked up by an agent, get sold by agent to a small-to-medium-size publisher, pray that your book takes off and garners attention from a big publisher who pays you a six-figure advance in return for the rights to your book.

Nathan Bransford, a literary agent with Curtis Brown discusses going from small presses to big publishers. I agree with many of his points on the difficulties of being recognized by a big publisher. His advice is very similar to my premise, if your book is really good, well edited, designed, printed, distributed, and promoted, it will succeed.

Today, the traditional publishing path is in upheaval and turmoil. The economic downturn has caused many small publishers to shut their doors or, at best, significantly decrease their new release budgets. The emergence of the Kindle, Nook, and other Ebook readers has stirred things up. Publishers of all sizes are more carefully scrutinizing new authors, primarily seeking to invest in less-risky authors with established platforms. Gone are the days of a publisher investing marketing dollars to help an author develop their platform.

The new traditional publishing path is emerging as more of a partnership between author and publisher with the responsibility for marketing and publicity resting on the shoulders of authors. If you bring a viable manuscript to the table with a sound marketing plan and/or platform, the publisher will invest in editing, design, printing, and distribution, the rest is up to you.

The exciting game-changer for the unknown author is the advent of affordable self-publishing options. Self-Publishing should not be confused with the deplorable practice of Vanity Publishing where an author is charged seriously inflated prices for editing, design, printing, and/or marketing services while giving up 80% or more of profit and/or rights to their material. True self-publishing is where the author handles editing, design, printing, distribution, and marketing for their book or hires professionals to assist with the process while experiencing control, speed to market, ownership of rights, and max profitability.

The self-publishing path has existed since the dawn of time. Dan Poynter lists 155 best-selling books that started out being self-published. In the past, the editing, design, and printing of a book could easily run $15,000 or more because of minimum print runs of 5000 being required. With the advent of print-on-demand merged with distribution channels the cost of the entry toll on the path of self-publishing has diminished significantly. And publishing a Kindle version of your book doesn’t require an investment of money whatsoever.

I’m not preaching against the traditional publishing model. I cut my teeth in traditional publishing. My family was in the traditional publishing business for nearly 25 years. I started at the bottom in the warehouse of a traditional publisher picking and packing orders. I eventually worked my way up to running a subsidiary of this same publisher. Throughout my career, I kept seeing countless numbers of authors turned down because we simply didn’t have the budget to add them to our production schedule. When I was asked to take over the helm at Yorkshire Publishing, I studied the self-publishing industry in great detail. I became passionate about being a part of an author-empowering movement to publish and promote quality books that otherwise may have been unrecognized without modern advances in the self-publishing industry.

The old-school mindset that says to avoid the stigma of self-publishing is quickly becoming a whisper in the wind. More unknown authors are starting out self-published for the first time in history. I believe self-publishing is the democratization of the publishing industry. Any unknown author now has a chance.

In my seminars and workshops, I tell authors to treat their book like a business. If you want a real chance, you must treat your book like a big publisher would. When naysayers point to the statistics that say self-published books average less than 200 units sold, I can rebut with a missing link in the formula and Poytner’s list. Remember, if your book is really good, well edited, designed, printed, distributed, and promoted, it will succeed, regardless of the road taken in the yellow wood of publishing.

Yorkshire Publishing offers ghostwriting, writing coaching, editing, design, printing, distribution and marketing services.

When Procrastination Wins: What Do You Do To Return To Productivity?

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This post, from Shaun Kilgore, originally appeared on his website on 1/25/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

What happens when procrastination wins and you find yourself staring at all the unfinished tasks or projects that you have to perform?  What do you do?  It can be frustrating.  You may even be suffering from anxiety due to putting things off.

Nowhere is this truer than when you are working at home and you alone are responsible for your work schedule.  You are the one who has to manage your time in constructive ways.  There is no one to tell you what to do.  It can be liberating at first.  Then you may realize that the loss of structure created by having a boss or supervisor and the set time frame of your work hours actually sends you spinning out of control.

I’ve always struggled with procrastination.  It is a struggle to keep things focused and on target.  My freelance writing business is no exception.  I’ve been a writer for the past four years.  I’m self-employed.  While the venue has changed some, I’m still the one who is ultimately responsible for how successful or unsuccessful my business is.

Procrastination does put me in some tight binds from time to time.  Depending on your view of the causes of procrastination, you may think I need to think more positively about my abilities, get busy working and stop dwelling on the past, or get an appointment with a psychological professional.  (It could be a little bit of all three.)

Why Am I Writing About Procrastination?

It’s been a recurring issue with me lately.  That’s the short answer.  Why am I procrastinating and putting off my work or at least not spending all the time I could on it?  Well, I have other ambitions or creative endeavors that are distracting me from the bare bones work I have to do.  For instance, I’m starting a publishing company.  This has taken a great deal of mental energy and time and diverted it to something not related to freelance writing.  I’m thinking about the upcoming release of the first book.  I’m speculating about future books and future authors we could have in our business.

Another reason I’m procrastinating is that I’m more interested in building this blog up and exploring my brand as a writer and creator rather than being the pen behind somebody else.  Ghostwriting does have financial incentives, but I’m at the point where my name on a blog post has more power to arrest my attention.

Perhaps, some of you are dealing with similar circumstances.  Heck, maybe some of you are dealing with the same issues in a more constructive way.  I applaud you for that.  If you have some tips, I would appreciate them.  I do have a few things to say that might help you (and maybe me as well.)

Productive Again

1. Be positive. I’ve got to stop dwelling on negative thoughts.  (So do you.)  Starting doing what you can to build your confidence about the tasks that you’ve been stuck on.  If you accomplish a series of daily goals, you will not only increase you confidence about the whole project but also increase your sense of satisfaction.

2. Break things up. This is accomplished by setting your mind on accomplishing a set number of daily goals and making them something you can accomplish easily.  Once a task is complete, you will feel better about the whole situation.  The funny question comes to mind: How do you eat an elephant?  Answer: One bite at a time. With this strategy comes the ability to start planning ahead more.  It may also give you a way to be more organized as well.  It’s important that you really take the time to separated those big tasks into smaller, manageable components.

3. Start immediately! Don’t let yourself procrastinate about dealing with your procrastination.  You must determine within yourself to start dealing with the problem now.  Right now, while you are reading this. (Even, while I’m writing this.)  You have to do something about it because no one else can.  When you start to tell yourself that you’ll start on this tomorrow, stop yourself.  That’s procrastination talking.  Every day is precious and once you’ve spent it, you cannot get it back.  Remember: If you want to break a bad habit, then break it already!

4. Make priorities.  You’ve got to do this one too.  When you have a whole host of things to do, there may be a tendency to start with the easy things.  In fact, the whole dynamic of your procrastination may run on this first assumption.  When you choose to start with easy things, you may end up putting it off since it’s so easy.  That’s a mistake. You must organize all of your daily tasks in order of legitimate importance or based on their overall practical value.  As a freelance writer, the priority should be the paying gigs that get money in your coffers.  Everything else should come after that.  Yes, develop those other businesses and potential projects, but don’t neglect what helps you stay afloat.

The Power Of Choice

I want to summarize all of this by way of an analysis of how you deal with the choices you make.  Everyone has the power of choice.  But not everyone knows how to use choice to their advantage.

The first thing you should do when given an assignment or taking on a project is to pay attention to how you first respond and your attitude.  You should be conscious of your choices – the ones that you make right away.  Your awareness of these choices will help you fight the urge to avoid the work. Pay attention to how you feel when you choose to tackle those tasks and get things done.  Make sure you keep a list of clear responsibilities.  This will help you set realistic and relevant goals.  Also, make sure you can be realistic about how long each of these tasks is going to take.  Being conscious and maintaining a focus on the power of your choices should give a way to be confident and help spur you on to more actions.

In Closing

I’m ready to defeat procrastination in my writing life so I can find the balance I need to expand my businesses and become successful at what I enjoy doing.  I’m lucky to be a writer, working from home.  Not everyone gets that option.  I cannot let procrastination rule the day.  Neither should you.  There is too much to do and you only have so much time in this life to do it.

If you have anything you want to add, please contact me or post your comments [at the original post].  I’d love to hear from you.  Until next time, keep fighting the good fight.  And keep writing.

Shaun Kilgore is a freelance writer and co-founder of Founders House Publishing, a new small press.  If you’d like to read more of what Shaun has written please check out his blog at www.shaunkilgore.com.

Writing Detail: Finding the Right Balance

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Last night I read the one-page intro to my 4th mystery to my sister-in-law, a retired nurse and a non-writer. It’s supposed to be funny, but her reaction was rather unexpected. “Did you write that?”

“Well, yes, why?”

“I couldn’t believe the clarity of detail in your descriptions. I could see everything you were writing about in my mind’s eye!”

I’m never one to aw shucks a nice complement. I thanked her and later on, I thought back on the incident. It was the detail of the story which had impressed her. Evidently I had written the right amount. That’s what I wanted to blog about today—the need for writers to strike a balance between enough details to make what they write interesting without being too parsimonious or too wordy. Perhaps you have read something that left you puzzled, not sure you understood what was being written. Or, perhaps you wondered when the writer was going to shut up about the golden red sunset that sent the lady, who was wearing the virginally white dress with the freshly tatted lace given to her by her latest beau into a dizzying paroxysm of awestruck marveling about…well, I think you get my drift.

Know the Genre

A good storyteller, instinctively considers the target audience’s need for information about the story and how much to include. Oral storytellers commonly tailor their tales to the vibes they get from their audiences. So much so, that it may seem they never tell the same story in the same way twice. Writers of stories don’t have the luxury of immediate audience feedback, so they have to come to an understanding of what may be expected by typical readers of the genre in which they are writing. How do they do that? By reading an immense amount of material from that genre to learn how others do it; by talking to folks who enjoy reading the genre, about who they like and why. Armed with this kind of knowledge, the writer then has a better feel for what is expected from his stories and descriptions.

Realism and Accuracy

It’s important that the details be realistic without going overboard. One wonderful example of a writer who did this consistently well was the great writer of westerns, Louis LaMour. The amount of research he did was amazing. If he wrote about a cowboy’s life being saved in the desert because he stumbled upon a watering hole at such and such a place, you could go to that location today and find that watering hole. Readers in the know were constantly blown away by the accuracy of his detail. Of course, there can also be too much of a good thing. James Michener was infamous for his, “How this region was formed and grew to be,” first chapters of almost everything he wrote. Some of us found this information to be excellent background; however, there were many readers who would actually skip over this plentitude of background detail and charge ahead to where the characters first appear so the story could commence to unroll.

Nonfiction Too

This concept of detail balance is especially evident in nonfiction. Different readers have different needs. Compare, if you would, the level of detail present in a textbook about a certain subject to the level of detail found in a simple how-to book on the same subject. Again, it’s all about who your target audience is and what they need and expect from writers. It is the amount and complexity of detail that makes written material readable. Software that provides a grade level of readability for written passages uses just these points of evaluation—word and sentence length, choice, and amount of detail.

Ignore at Your Peril

It is essential that you write with the appropriate amount and level of detail expected by your readers. There is no hard and fast rule of this. The best writers are usually the best readers—familiar enough with what they write about to find that best balance between what might be considered way too much or far too little. Good luck on the seesaw of life.

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

Promote Your Book on Facebook – Six Strategies for Success

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Many book authors set up a profile on Facebook, but they fail to take full advantage of this powerful networking tool. Below are six strategies for promoting books and authors on Facebook:

1. Take full advantage of the promotional opportunities on your Facebook Profile. For example, just below your photo is a small box where you can enter a concise description of what you do, including the title of your book and a link to your book sales page.

The About Me box (under Personal Information) is a good place to describe your book and your business. In the Contact Information section you can enter multiple website addresses. Post your book cover in your photo album or another application and display it in the left column of your profile.

Mention your book in your status updates, without being too promotional. For example, announce your book launch, mention reviews and awards the book has received, talk your own book promotion activities.
Remember, your Facebook profile must be registered in your real name. If you create a profile for your book or business, you risk having your account cancelled.

2. Facebook Pages are similar to personal profiles, but they are created for business use and they are an ideal place for promoting books. You can create a page for your book, your business, or even one of the characters in your novel. People join a page by becoming a fan.

You may want to offer an incentive to join (or at least visit) your page, such as a free download or a coupon for one of your products. Another way to attract fans is to set your page up as an information hub, offering links and resources. You can also send messages to your fan base, which will show up in their Facebook newsfeeds.

3. Groups are a great place for book authors to meet people who share their interests and find new friends, while subtly promoting books. Search for groups by entering keywords in the Search box at the top of the page and then clicking on the Groups tab. You can gain visibility on a group page by introducing yourself on the wall, participating in disucssions, and posting your book cover, photos or videos.

Forming your own group can also be beneficial. Be sure to encourage discussions and offer valuable information such as free downloads and links to resources. You can send direct message the entire group.

4. Hosting an event is another way of promoting books. Set up a Facebook Event and invite others to live or virtual events such as book signings, teleseminars book launches, speaking engagements or virtual book tours.  Joining other people’s events is a good way to get visibility because you can write on the event wall and post photos.

5. Facebook displays pay-per-click ads on most pages on the site, and ads can be targeted by age, gender, location, education level, relationship status, or keywords in people’s profiles. Consider advertising if you have a very specific target market that can be targeted by more than one of the above criteria. For example, if you have written an exercise book for women over 50, you can target that demographic on Facebook and you can even target the keyword "exercise" in people’s profiles.

6. The Facebook Marketplace is a classified advertising area where you can post a free listing promoting your books. It’s worth an experiment if the topic of your book is something that might be searched for on a classified site. For example, if you have a book about collecting costume jewelry, people searching for costume jewelry will see your listing. (Don’t forget to use this strategy on Craig’s List and eBay as well).

There are a number of ways of promoting books and authors on Facebook, but remember to be subtle when using profiles, pages, groups and events. If you are too promotional or make promoting books your main focus, you will turn people off.

Excerpted from Facebook Guide for Authors.

A Book Is A Book

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A few weeks ago I entered a short essay contest at Backword Books. The Grand Prize was a copy of all eight works on the site. Second prize was a single book to each of eight second-place winners, and the contest rules asked each entrant to include mention of which individual book they might like to receive with their entry.

The book I chose, and the book I won with this entry, was Waiting for Spring by R. J. Keller.

How did I choose which book I was interested in winning? Well, a combination of factors. I read all the summaries, so content was probably the most important filter. Then there was subject matter: I like Maine, and I thought it would be interesting to read something by someone from Maine. Third, the cover interested me, because I like snow and cold. The more snow in my world the better, and if you want to drop -50° F on top of the white stuff, I’m down with that. So barren trees tends in a field of white tends to draw me in.  

My prize copy of Waiting for Spring arrived shortly after the close of the contest. The package that arrived had the weight of a book, and when I opened it that’s what I found: a book.

Flipping through the text I could see it was deep black against crisp white pages, giving good contrast. And the pages had some heft to them, so flipping back and forth was easy. In fact, I’ve flipped through a lot of books in my day, and if something had been markedly different about Waiting for Spring I think my book-flipping instincts, muscles and experience would have tipped me off. But no: it flips like a book.

I paused in a few places to read a paragraph or two, and what I read seemed able and sure-footed, like most of the text in most of the books I’ve ever read. I have no comment about the work as a whole because I haven’t read it yet. It’s still sitting pretty much where I left it, on a small stack with other books I intend to read when I have some time. But it doesn’t look out of place on the stack: it looks like a book.

Even as I type this I don’t know much more about it. I don’t even know if it has a copyright page or an ISBN. [Mark pauses to check.]

Okay, it has a brief copyright page, but no ISBN listed. On the back, however, there’s a bar code, and an ISBN is listed on the bar code. The book also contains some blurbs up front, and a Shakespeare quote, and I just discovered that it’s also signed, which is cool — and not because she gave away a signed copy of her book in a subsequent drawing and like and idiot I assumed that meant my copy was unsigned. It’s cool because it seems more real somehow. (Yes, that’s a serious tip to all you would-be authors. However, my lawyer would like me to remind you that if you blow a signature and ruin and entire copy with your errant scrawl it’s not my fault.)

In pretty much every respect Waiting for Spring looks like a book, inside and out. Yes, there’s the question of content. No, I won’t be posting a review. Yes, the publishing industry says it has all sorts of critical checks against content quality, meaning that a self-published work is probably crap. No, I don’t believe them in either case: they produce plenty of crap, and somewhere there’s an author self-publishing books who meets every test of quality and skill.

In the end, looking at the copy of Waiting for Spring now sitting in front of me on my desk, it seems unremarkable. Liberating as an idea, yes, but unremarkable as an object. Despite all the hand-wringing and the snobbery and the fear-mongering and the hysteria, a self-published book is pretty much like a published book, except perhaps in some small ways that simply don’t register with me. To the extent that these might be pointed out, I would never take anyone’s craft knowledge away from them, and I do not doubt the merit or value of their skills.

But from where I sit, at least today, a book is a book.

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

Copyright Page Samples You Can Copy and Paste Into Your Book

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One of the most common questions I get from new self-publishers is, “What do I put on the copyright page?” For some reason, the copyright page has the power to intimidate some people, with its small print and legalistic language, not to mention all those mysterious numbers.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are a few necessary items on the copyright page, and others that publishers add for various reasons. I’ve treated the copyright page in some detail in other posts, so if you want background please check here: Self-Publishing Basics: The Copyright Page. In a guest post, Joanne Bolton supplied some useful information for books that are printed overseas, and you can find her post here: Copyright Page Requirements for Books Printed Overseas.

To see the place of the copyright page within the book as a whole, check out An Unabridged List of the Parts of a Book.

The only elements required on a copyright page are the copyright notice itself:

© 2009 Joel Friedlander

And some statement giving notice that the rights to reproduce the work are reserved to the copyright holder.

All Rights Reserved.

Next you’ll see two versions of the copyright page, one long page with a CIP data block and a short version. Feel free to copy and paste these into your book file. Just remember to put your own information in.
 

Sample of a Long Copyright Page with CIP Data Block

Here’s an example of a copyright page that has the necessary elements, then adds ordering information, web address, CIP Data block (I’ve put this in blue so you can identify what is included; replace this with your own or delete it if you’re not obtaining CIP), edition information, and printing numbers (the string at the bottom) and dates for future editions.

Copyright © 2010 by Bill Shakespeare

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Imaginary Press
1233 Pennsylvania Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94909
www.imaginarypress.com

Ordering Information:
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Big Distribution: Tel: (800) 800-8000; Fax: (800) 800-8001 or visit www.bigbooks.com.

Printed in the United States of America

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Shakespeare, William.
A title of a book : a subtitle of the same book / Bill Shakespeare ; with Ben Johnson.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-9000000-0-0
1. The main category of the book —History —Other category. 2. Another subject category —From one perspective. 3. More categories —And their modifiers. I. Johnson, Ben. II. Title.
HF0000.A0 A00 2010
299.000 00–dc22 2010999999

First Edition

14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A Short Copyright Page Example

Here’s a very short and to the point copyright page. It gives the necessary elements and not much more:

Copyright © 2010 by Wily E. Coyote
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2010

ISBN 0-9000000-0-0

Falling Anvil Publishing
123 Mesa Street
Scottsdale, AZ 00000

www.FallingAnvilBooks.com

This is the quick and easy way to get generic copyright page language into your book. Even with this short example, your copyright page will do the job it’s supposed to do, and give interested parties the means to contact you for publishing-related questions.

Next: Using disclaimers and giving credit on the copyright page. Let me know if you have questions about the copyright page. I’ll see if I can answer them.

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer blog.

#fridayflash: Almonds

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I’m going on hiatus from #fridayflash for a while – too much else on my plate now, and in the coming months. Thanks to everyone who’s read and commented on my stories to date; I hope to rejoin you again, probably next year, after the launch of the revised/updated edition of The IndieAuthor Guide this winter.

“I miss the almond tree.”

Nancy looked up from her coffee. “What, honey?” she asked.

Ryan sighed. “I miss the almond tree,” he repeated, gazing out the window at the spot where the tree once stood in the backyard. Now there was a walkway leading to the remodeled back part of the house, where Nancy’s bedroom was.

Nancy wasn’t sure how to respond. She glanced up at the clock, and the daily routine came to her rescue. “Ryan, if you’re going to catch the school bus you need to leave right now.” She helped him gather his things and gave his shoulders a squeeze as he headed out the door. “Pick you up after basketball practice,” she said.

“’Kay. See ya.”

As the door closed behind him, her mind was already racing with worry. The almond tree? What did it mean? He used to climb that tree when he was, what? Nine, or ten? But that was so long ago. She scanned her memories of the months leading up to the remodel; it was a happy time. And Scott’s car accident happened months afterward, it had nothing to do with their home improvement project. Was Ryan associating the tree with his memories of a time before his dad died? The walkway had been her idea; was he blaming her for Scott’s death, somehow? She reached for the phone and dialed Dr. Crandall’s number.

“Dr. Crandall’s office. May I help you?” answered the lilting voice of the secretary.

“Yes, hello Alice. This is Mrs. Munroe. I need to speak to Dr. Crandall.”

“Um,” Alice’s voice trailed off, “let me see if he’s…yes, he’s just getting off the elevator. Hold, please.”

A moment later, Dr. Crandall came on the line. “Hello, Mrs. Munroe. What can I do for you?”

“I think I need to bring Ryan in. Right away. Today, if possible.”

“Has there been some sort of incident?”

“He seems very sad all of a sudden. He’s been talking about the almond tree he used to climb in our backyard when he was little. We had that tree taken out when we remodeled. I think he’s associating the tree with the way things used to be, you know, before Scott died.”

“Well of course, I’m happy to see him if you think he needs my help. Let me hand you back to Alice, and tell her I said I’d see you at five-thirty.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.”

Later, as Nancy drove Ryan north on the I-20, he looked up from texting his girlfriend long enough to notice they weren’t on the way home. “Where are we going?” he asked.

Nancy took a breath and steeled herself for his reaction. “I’m taking you to see Dr. Crandall.”

“Mom!” he whined. “Why?”

“I noticed you seem a little sad lately, and I thought it might help you to talk to someone.”

“I’m not sad. I’m fine.”

“Ryan, denial isn’t going to help.”

“Again with the psycho-babble,” Ryan huffed, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Jeez, Mom! Give it a rest. Dad’s been gone for like, four years now. Aren’t you ever going to stop with this stuff?! Aren’t you ever going to go back to work and get a life of your own so you can stop messing with mine?!”

“Look, the appointment has already been made. If you need to talk to Dr. Crandall you can. And if not, well…better safe than sorry.”

He angrily turned his back to her and stared out the window in silence the rest of the way.

“Ryan!” Dr. Crandall said as he opened his waiting room door to them, clapping a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Come on in.” He turned to Nancy. “You don’t mind if Ryan and I speak in private?”

“Of course not, Doctor.” She took a seat in the empty waiting room and picked up a magazine. “I really appreciate you seeing us after hours.”

Dr. Crandall nodded and he and Ryan disappeared behind his office door. Less than five minutes later, the door opened and Ryan stepped out into the waiting room, already texting his girlfriend again. “Ryan,” Dr. Crandall said, “You can wait here.” Ryan barely acknowledged the instruction with a slight nod as he lowered himself into a chair. “Nancy?”

“Yes, Doctor?” Nancy asked, standing up.

“Ryan likes almonds. That’s all.”

“Oh, what a relief!” Nancy said.

“Is it?” Dr. Crandall asked, ushering Nancy into his office and closing the door behind him. “Let’s talk about that.”

 

Why I'm Podcasting

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Note:  This was cross-posted for me by the owner of Publetariat.com. Originally it was intended for my blog, so if it sounds a little too "self-promotey" it wasn’t an intentional "ZOMG publetariat guyz look at me!" Re-reading it in this context it may come off that way, so thought I would add a little explanation, since Publetariat wasn’t the original intended audience.

I’ve been thinking about the podcasting and why I’m doing it. I came across Charlotte Stein’s blog. and it’s very silly and goofy and awesome and made of win. Believe it or not, I’m very silly and goofy (I won’t go so far as to say I’m awesome and made of win here, since that’s just never going to come off right.)

This rarely comes off online. I’m very passionate about publishing and my writing and about every other topic under the sun. I have an opinion about everything. I may not be right, but I have a viewpoint and I’m not shy about sharing it. Sometimes people read anger that isn’t there. And I get that. My grandfather once yelled at one of my best friends on Halloween when she came over there with me. Only he wasn’t really yelling AT her. He was just really irate about something and he was yelling “in general” but it seemed like he was yelling at her. She was an audience for his yelling but not it’s intended target.

He doesn’t realize he does it.

I’m kind of in that same boat. Only I realize (generally after the fact) that I do it. Though generally I come off much “harsher” in text. I wish I could let my silly side out and my freak flag fly (and sometimes I do a little bit on Twitter), but online I’m just always on a crusade, even when I’m not trying to be. I’m just intense. And there are days I want a vacation from myself and that intensity.

Though I’m still passionate and intense about things on my podcast, I feel like the more personal level of a podcast changes things. Like I listened to April Hamilton being interviewed by Joanna Penn on this podcast.

In many ways, April is a lot like me. We can both be very outspoken and brash and we can both get into very intense debates with people that somehow go sour when someone gets upset because they feel it’s gotten personal even when it hasn’t. But hearing her speak on the podcast, her voice softens those edges and she sounds about as friendly as a person can get. Then suddenly you’re able to re-frame nearly everything she’s ever said as it’s actually intended to be. I’ve always “gotten” April’s intentions in these sorts of exchanges, but hearing that friendly of a voice on a podcast, drove it home more sharply.

And so I think that’s what a podcast does for me. It gives me that extra dimension and softens some edges. (Well when I don’t sound like a chipmunk in a trailer park. Cause DUDE holy crap sometimes it gets crazy.) Hopefully while it still may be passionate and intense, it becomes clear that I’m *not* angry with everyone. I’m incredibly excited about the path I’m on and what I’m doing.

Then the fiction podcast, that’s all about the work, and it gives me another way to get the work out there and hopefully interacting with and engaging with an audience. Plus I know this sounds crazy-level vain but I really like my reading voice. It’s much better than my other podcast voice or my live interview voice because when I take the time to slow down and enunciate properly the twang is there, but it’s not like ZOMG insane.

Anyway… I also promised a link to the Breakthru Radio Book Talk episode I was on, so here it is. It should be noted that parts of the interview I’ve got that trailer park chipmunk thing going on. Though the reading at the end sounds a lot better (not perfect, but much better!)

Anywho… and then there are times during the interview (I don’t know why I torture myself by re-listening to it) where I remember even during the interview I’m thinking “Don’t say that. My GOD Zoe, shut UP!” But yeah, no. Never happens. No one should give me a microphone and just let me talk, that’s madness I tell you.

Click here to check out my very first podcast. It’s not "state of the art" podcasting but it’s a starting point. Sometimes the important thing is just getting started. And doing a basic podcast really isn’t rocket science. It can be done.


This is a cross-posting from Zoe Winters’ blog.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest Entry

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Monday was the first day for a week to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. I had been preparing for a month to enter my next book. After I finished writing the story, I went over and over it. Even taped the book for a friend in the nursing home. Reading the story out loud helps me catch mistakes that I missed when I read the sentences to myself. So by Sunday, I had the book ready to enter. A 300 word pitch and a copy the first 5000 words to the story had to entered in a separate part on the form.

I’d be the first to admit that blurbs for book covers and pitches are not my strong point. For me, trying to condense the whole story into a few words is hard. I entered the Amazon contest last year. My pitch was not good. Once I found out about the contest, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to work on it. This year I was better prepared. That 300 hundred words is what the judges look at to pick the 1000 contestants to go on, or how ever many have a good pitch up to a 1000. Next the judges look at the first 5000 words in the story and narrow the entries down again. Finally, three are picked and from that three one gets a book deal with Penguin.

This contest takes place until late June. In late February, the writers of the 1000 pitches are announced. Do I expect to be in the running? Yes, I think this year I’ve a good chance of getting into the first round. I’ll update you on that when I find out. If I’m not in the running, I should have a new self published book on the market in a few months. My pitch entry will work well as a jacket blurb so I have that out of the way. Look for the next book in my Amish Series Nurse Hal Among The Amish – Nurse’s Hal’s Rainbow.

As usual, anything that has to do with the computer does not come easy for me, but I didn’t expect the entry to take me all day. Once, I started I had to stay with it. The first entry was contact information. I filled it in and saved it. Time after time, red words warned me I need to enter the complete address or that my zipcode was wrong. Finally, the last time the form came up the space for state popped up. I filled that in, and I was ready for the next form. Copy and paste for the pitch and 5000 word entry went well, but no way could I get the form to accept my manuscript. My word processors weren’t compatible. I have Open Office and an outdated Lotus that no one has heard of lately. I could buy Microsoft, but once I figured out what I was doing with what I had, I didn’t want to take the time to learn anything new. I’d entered in this contest before so I knew I could if I figured out what I needed to do. After hours of trying, finally the manuscript was accepted, but the form didn’t think my pitch was right. I cut and copied the same pitch again and clicked save. That did it.

Last year, I received two reviews from the judges based on the first 5000 words. One judge was very complimentary about my original idea. The other pointed out my piece was poorly written with grammatical errors which didn’t surprise me since the story was no way near ready to turn in. That was the review that was the most helpful. I took the review to heart and went over my story to clean it up before I published it. I’m hoping this year’s entry is in better shape, but no matter what, I’m looking forward to the expert reviews if they do that again.

Now I’m working on short stories for the writing contest that is due the last of April. That gives me plenty of time to tighten the stories up to fit the word criteria and theme. I have some luck in those contests, but even if I didn’t it’s fun to compete with other writers.

　

　

Publetariat Vault Opens To Indie Press -Published Authors

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By popular request, the Publetariat Vault is now open to authors who are published with a small, independent press and wish to seek a larger publisher or literary agent, or who hope to connect with TV, film, game and other content producers. Vault listings are free of charge through June of this year, and Vault University’s Author Platform/Promo curriculum is offered free of charge to any author with an active Vault listing, making this a terrific opportunity for indie authors of every stripe.

If you have no idea what the Vault is, here’s a description from the site:

The Publetariat Vault provides a groundbreaking service: the opportunity to get your self-published or indie-published book in front of the agents, publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for representation or low-risk acquisitions. If you’ve ever thought that if agents, publishers or producers only knew how much readers like your book, or how well it’s selling, or what a great job you’re doing to promote both it and yourself, they’d sit up and take notice, then the Vault was made for you…

For purposes of the Vault, a "small, independent press" is defined as any publisher which is not an imprint of a larger, corporate trade publisher (e.g., Random House, Penguin, etc.). We’re making this distinction, and limitation, because self-published authors and authors published by small, indie presses have less exposure to agents, producers and large publishers than those who are already published by larger publishers. Since Publetariat is all about serving the needs of indies everywhere, it seems only fair to make Vault listings available to indie press -published authors.

To learn more about the Vault, you can click here to view a blank listing form, here to view a sample published listing, and here to view the search form agents, publishers and content producers will use. Click here to view the site’s FAQ, and here to view the site’s Terms of Use.

To list a book in the Vault for free through the end of June, just go to the Vault site, review the Terms of Use and if you agree to abide by them, register for your free account. Next, follow the directions provided in the new user registration email to create your listing(s). All listings are created as ‘draft’ listings by default, not visible to searchers, until the author chooses to ‘publish’ them. This allows authors to take as much time as they need to complete and polish their listings before making them available for search by agents, publishers and producers. When you’re ready to publish your listing, use the Vault’s Contact Us form to request publication of your listing, bypassing the site’s PayPal payment processing and alerting a Publetariat admin to enroll you in the Vault University Author Platform/Promo curriculum at no charge. You will receive an email with your login information for Vault U.

Here’s some information about Vault U. from the Vault U. site:

Vault University is an offshoot of the Publetariat Vault, and is brought to you by Publetariat. Vault U. provides lessons in self-publishing, author platform and book promotion free of charge for authors with published Vault listings, and offers enrollment on a fee basis for all other authors. 

Vault U. offers a Publishing curriculum and an Author Platform/Promotion curriculum, with a new lesson posted to each curriculum at the beginning of each month. Vault U. enrollees have direct access to instructors via the comment forms provided at the end of each lesson, which ‘students’ can use to get answers to their specific questions about the lesson, or to further discuss any aspect of the lesson. Click here to learn more about Vault University, here to view a sample Vault U lesson, and here to view the What Goes Into an Author Press Kit portion of the Vault U lesson entitled ‘Your Marketing/Distribution Plan’.

Approximately two weeks prior to the end of June, 2010, all Vault-listed authors will receive an email reminding them that the free listing period is drawing to a close, and asking them to either cancel their listings or renew them at the usual rate of $10 per month. Authors who wish to cancel their Vault listings but remain enrolled in Vault U. will be able to do so by switching to paid enrollment at the usual rate of $5 per month. 

 

Do I Care About Mobile Readers? [A Checklist]

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This post, from Piotr Kowalczyk ( @namenick on Twitter) originally appeared on his Password Incorrect site on 1/10/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Year 2010 has already been called “The Year of the Mobile”. Internet activity is shifting from desktop computers to laptops to tablets to mobile phones. This is an inevitable trend. People play music on mobile phones, update their social networks, watch movies and even play games. What about reading? It seems to be one of the easiest things. It’s not.

One side of the story is that people complain about general reading comfort – and this is a common excuse to stay with paper. The other side of the story is a fact, that a majority of Internet content is still not mobile friendly.

Here’s a quick checklist of things which can be done to make mobile readers’ life much easier.

Do I publish my books in formats optimized for mobile reading?

If you plan to publish a next book, a free teaser of a book or any new piece of writing, think not only of Scribd, BookBuzzr or Lulu. Think also of sites which convert your book to formats tailored for mobile viewing, like ePub or mobi. The most popular services, besides Amazon’s Kindle Store, are Smashwords, Feedbooks, Wattpad and Kobo.

Do I use a mobile friendly blogging platform?

Most of what 2.0 authors write is not actually books, but everything else intended to draw attention to those books. A blog is still a major place to share thoughts and tease about a book (first chapters, excerpts, etc). If you’re on WordPress.com, you are 100% mobile friendly. When a reader is visiting your blog from a cellphone, a mobile theme is automatically loaded instead of a regular one.

Do I use mobilizing plugins for my self-hosted blog? 

 If you run a self-hosted blog, you can use a proper plugin. This is especially important, when a blog is rich with many advanced plugins. They make it slow to load and probably the content will not display correctly as well. A list of blog mobilizing plugins can be found here.

Do I use blog mobilizing services?

If not a plugin, you can use one of convenient blog mobilizing services, like Mofuse or Mippin. You may also consider mobilizing part of your blog (such as one category) – and this tool seems to be the best option. Just paste the RSS feed in and in a couple of easy steps you’ll have it running. The list of services is also available in the above mentioned article.

Does my feed shows full articles?

More and more people are switching to reading RSS feeds on their mobile phones. If you set up an option to show only an excerpt of your post, the reader is forced to move to your page in order to read the rest. If your blog is not mobilized, consider it a lost view (or even a last view). A much better option would be to show a full length post in a feed.

Do I tweet mobile links?

Even if you haven’t done any of the above, you can still make your content mobile friendly. This is especially important if you spend a considerable part of your time in mobile communities like Twitter, Brightkite and alike. You can always use Google Mobilizer – just paste a link and in one click you’ll have your page optimized for mobile viewing.

Now, if your content is already mobilized, there is one more thing you could do. [As] non-mobilized blogs [are still common], the general attitude [toward reading blogs on mobile devices] is “do not open this link”. So ask yourself…

Do I inform readers that my blog is mobilized?

You can easily do that. Use text or widgets delivered by blog mobilizing services. Hopefully one day it won’t be needed any longer.

 

Also see this article, which provides instructions for how to make your blog available for sale to Kindle owners.

Stuck: Is the DIY Scaring Them Off?

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"So you are in Ingram’s?," they ask, as if it’s some kind of legitimizing checkpoint in order to go any further. Because if the book wasn’t listed, like there’s no possible way in a million years they would even take this conversation any further.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump.]

There is no veritable "indie" brotherhood from which an author can establish a relationship with indie bookstores. I can’t breeze in and ask them to carry my book, just because they’re independent and I’m independent. Ok, good enough, they have to read it first. Fine. Makes enough sense. But how can I afford to send out potentially hundreds of promo copies? Why can’t my synopsis be good enough? Is it because I’m the author walking into the bookstore and that is too accessible?

Is the D.I.Y scaring them off?  All this time I’ve been poo-pooing those statements by certain twitter detractors that author accessibility is always a good thing, especially for no-names like me. Is it possible though, that bookstore owners are uncomfortable with the author walking in with a copy of the book and asking them to carry it?  So, is the D.I.Y. scaring them off? They want a little more professionalism, anonymity?

I had these beautiful, glossy 4×6 postcards with the cover on one side and the synopsis/backflap copy and ISBN info on the back. How much money am I going to piss away by doing a mass mailing to selected indie bookstores throughout the country?

But what is their risk in carrying something no one’s ever heard of? Is it shelf space? I can understand that. They have to make a buck, and the real estate in these small spaces carries a premium for titles that will sell with a profitable margin.

But 29 Jobs and a Million Lies is slim. It’s got a nice cover, really, it does. What’s the risk? Just take a chance on me. I’ll promote the book the best I can, and I’ll do a reading at one of your events, even on a regular basis.

I need to bring my following, you say? I have a following if I don’t have an opportunity to sell my book locally? Ahh, that independent Catch-22. The onus is on me to cultivate that following, even if it’s friends who I’ll have to drag to these readings and events. Friends do not always equal Fans, though they can overlap.

I’ve learned that the Twitter "following" numbers do not equate to sales, or even real "fans." So how do I cultivate a local following who will trail me to these events and boost up attendance at coffee-house readings? Really–how? Because I can’t get the Ocean County Library or the Middletown Library to return my calls inquiring about carrying the book and doing a reading.

I’m willing to do it all. I’m a little stuck now.

On the positive side, the local arts paper has agreed to do a profile (I’ll be whoring that right here soon) on me so I guess I can use that to get in the door at a few of these joints.

Right? That’ll un-stuck me?

(Oh my god, my first post without a "fuck".)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

This is a cross-posting from Jenn Topper‘s Don’t Publish Me! blog.

Dear Publisher

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This post, from Dan Holloway, originally appeared on his The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes blog on 1/20/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. In it, Dan pokes a little fun at boilerplate query responses while revealing some salient truths about authorship and today’s chilly trade publishing climate.

Thank you for sending me your contract for consideration. I am sure you will appreciate that talented authors receive many unsolicited contracts. Nonetheless, I am aware that a publisher like yourself relies upon discovering new talent in order to keep its lists fresh and win new readers, so I hope that you will not be too disappointed that in this case I am declining your kind offer. I wish you all the best in seeking exciting new talent elsewhere.

I understand that it is frustrating to receive a form rejection from an author, without any elaboration on specific areas to work on in your contract. I hope that the following general points may help you in your future submissions.

1. An author relies for their living upon a day job. They write, edit, and network in the evenings, at weekends, and in lunch hours and teabreaks. A publisher’s advance, the largest incentive for an author to sign a contract, is not sufficient for them to give up their day job with any security.

2. Many talented, exciting authors write work that will not appeal to large readerships. Publishers need to sell large amounts of books. The result of this tension is that many of these authors will fail to recoup publishers’ outlay within their first two books, and it will not be viable for publishers to keep them on board.

3. Without a publisher, a writer is under no such pressure, and will not be junked if their initial books "fail".

4. Should a writer achieve initial success wit ha publisher, they will be expected to produce similar works, and not explore or develop their talent.

5. Without a publisher there is no pressure to change, for a writer, the way they write in order to fit market needs.

6. Without a publisher there is the freedom to experiment, change genre at will, try, fail, try again, fail again, and devlop one’s talent, voice, and potential to the full.

7. With a publisher a writer must concede control over cover design, the way their work is presented to the world.

8. The long cycle of the publishing industry means that the time from pen to audience inevitably freezes some of the initial energy and excitement of the creative process, leading to a less real and invigorating feedback process between writer and audience, and a less meaningful feedback loop.

9. With a publisher, a new writer loses editorial control. Not just total control of final cut, but control of which editor to use in the first place. An editor must have two qualities – the ability to be utterly ruthless; and absolute sympathy with an author’s aims. An author needs to be free to select their own, trusted, editor.

10. Pricing – whilst unsigned, the author is free to set the price for all his books – and other merchandise. This includes setting the price at free should the author wish to do that with, for example, her ebooks. It also means the freedom to create and price special and limited editions of the work.

In conclusion, I am afraid that authors must consider not just their short-term but their long-term future. And whilst I am sure that your kind offer, were I to accept it, would put me in a financially more advantageous position one year from now, and possibly three years from now, compared to that if I reject it; I am afraid that the models I have run show that in five, ten, and twenty years – that is, over the course of my career – there is no financial advantage, and in many models financial disadvantage, in my accepting.

I wish you every success in your future publishing career.


Dan Holloway is an author and the founder of the Year Zero Writer’s Collective. Learn more about the upcoming Year Zero live reading tour here.

How To Lose Friends And Tick Off People On Facebook

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This article, from Scott Stratten, originally appeared on UnMarketing on 1/20/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. While it is addressed to social media consultants, the advice here is equally useful to authors, publishers, and anyone else who hopes to avoid missteps in using social media.

An open letter to all my friends in the social media consultant/guru game,

Please stop.

You’re steering people the wrong way.

You sell yourself as social media consultants, the ones that can show you the way and then fark it up.

I beg of you to stop.

Go back to teaching Internet marketing from the old days, I could at least ignore you then. I talk to you at conferences, share the stage but I can’t listen to you up there any longer spewing “tips” that hurt people and their relationships.

Here is what I and many, if not most of the world, request of you to stop immediately when teaching “Facebook Strategy”:

Photo by the awesome Racheal McCaig

1. Stop telling people to invite everyone in their contact list to every event, even if it’s local. If you invite me to your 1 hour workshop at the library in New Mexico, and I live in Toronto, it hurts my view of you and questions your geography skills

2. Stop teaching people to create fake events. You know what I’m talking about… it’s the “month long event” that you say people should create, and then they “message” all the “no’s and maybe’s” and “not yet responded” to continue to pump out their message. It makes me feel all unfriendy. (yes, that’s unfriendy)

3. You know that trick of tagging people in articles/pics/videos that they don’t appear in so they come and read it? Stop it. Getting me to think I’m mentioned somewhere just to find out I’m not and you’re just being a selfish bumhole, does not bode well for our future “friend” status on the book of faces.

4. Inviting me to a “loss weight” teleseminar event, where it lists people you’ve invited is like being on a roll call at fat camp. Really? Do I look fat in these jogging pants? I know a lot of people are overweight, but inviting someone to an event to lose that weight, especially when I’m perfectly happy living my life of denial, does not strengthen our relationship.

And while we’re here, can you start teaching your clients:

1. Inviting me to assassinate someone in the temple in Mafia Wars may give off the wrong vibe for your brand… I don’t know about you, but I like to be a sniper in the privacy of my own Xbox, not regular updates on my wall of whose neck I’ve cracked

2. Hundreds of Farmville updates on your wall doesn’t make me think you’ll focus on my needs if I become your client. Especially if you’re positioned as a “busy” person, and your status update says “I have no time!!!” And yet we can read how you just nursed a sickly cat on your farm in FarmVille, well, um, it’s just awkward.

3. Blingee generic mass-sent greeting animated cards make people go nuts. Before turning off and blocking the app, I had 43 posted on my wall. In 4 hours. Nothing says “I thought of you personally” like a mass sent lame greeting self-serving wall post. “Hey Scott, if you don’t like the app, you can just turn it off” Well, I didn’t ask you, but if you insist, that’s like me having to tell people to stop kicking me in the nuts. It should be opt-in, not opt-out.

If you’re going to be in the position of an expert, act like one.

Teach people that really, truly want to know how to do things in social media properly. Show them how to:

1. Connect with people on an authentic, not automated level.

2. Show them that with time and effort, you can meet the greatest people in the world on sites like Twitter, if they only would only invest their time, care and knowledge first.

3. That “success” is subjective, not a number of friends/followers. If by success you mean some of the most incredible relationships you’ve ever had, that once trust is established can also lead to a fruitful business, you can have it within social media.

4. Tell them to treat others like they would like to be treated. That sending repeat invites weekly to your event on Facebook would really really suck if they had 20 people doing it to them every week, and that promoting others is sometimes better than promoting yourself.

5. And warn them, that us, the self-appointed guards of social media are very protective, very persistent and aren’t goin anywhere.

There you have it my fellow social media teachers. I’m sure we’ll get along fine with just these small but meaningful changes.

Love you.

Sincerely,

The entire Internet

(As a special treat, I also made this into a song for you. With apologies to Heart)

UPDATE – Thanks to the awesome @SnipeyHead here is a post on how to get rid of most of this annoying schtuff by using FaceBook Lite. 

Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing.com. He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing. It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of target market, so when they have the need, they choose you, That’s UN-Marketing.

Over 45,000 people follow his daily rantings on Twitter and was voted one of the top influencers on the site with over 20 million users . His recent Tweet-a-thon raised over $16,000 for child hunger, in less than 12 hours. His book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging” is due to hit the shelves in the Fall of 2010 from Wiley & Sons.

His clients’ viral marketing videos have been viewed over 60 million times and has generated massive profits and lists. One of the movies was chosen by the Chicago Bears as their biggest motivator towards their Super Bowl run a few years ago, while another made their client over $5 million in 7 days. He recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Mashable.com, USA Today, CNN.com and Fast Company. That plus $5 gets him a coffee anywhere in the world.

Since he still has to pay for his own coffee, he earns his keep by speaking and consulting around the world on how businesses can engage better (or at all!) with their current and potential customer base using social media, viral marketing and just plain old engaging conversation. His team of Un-Jedi’s are responsible for such online hits as “The Dash Movie”, “The Time Movie” as well as the tongue-in-cheek “I’m Breaking Up With The Leafs” (although Scott wants you to know he really is no longer a Leafs fan).

Writing Styles

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Last night I found myself taking several tweets to explain why I write like I do. That told me I had stumbled onto a good blog topic, so here goes. First, let me say that whatever your style, if it works for you, it’s right for you. My purpose is simply to explain what I do.

There are generally two types of writers:

  • Seat of their Pants Writers
  • Outliners

Seat of their Pants Writers

These are the people who follow their muse. They believe that were they to do any kind of pre-writing organizing, they might stultify their creativity. They are also folks who must then do a lot of rewriting to get it right. For me, that’s a lot of work. Being the lazy person I am, I don’t find it very attractive for my purposes.

Outliners

These are those who like to work with a logical framework right out of the starting gate. I am generally an outliner, as you can probably tell from my past articles which start out with a list of bullets and then expand those into points I want to make, such as I’m doing here. It is definitely possible to organize your thoughts and then use the muse to fill out what you’re trying to say so both approaches get served. That would be me.

Why I do what I do

During my twenty-five years time in and with the military, I wrote a lot of messages, a lot of intelligence reports, and as a tester and evaluator of new military systems and concepts, a lot of highly technical plans and reports which were of the scope of doctoral dissertations. This type of bureaucratic writing demands a high degree of organization and its readers may have to make decisions that affect many lives or millions of dollars. (What you are now is what you were when.) On the other hand, it is possible to adjust writing styles. When I began writing nonfiction how-to books, I knew I had to communicate with a much broader, more informal audience. The highest compliment I have ever received about that transition came from a fan in the 1990s: “Reading one of Bob Spear’s books is like sitting down with him in my living room in front of my fireplace and having a conversation.” I always keep that in mind when I write fiction. I’m not interested in or have pretensions for writing the great American literary novel. Instead, I want to tell a story that captivates and entertains. I was a music/business major, not a literature/English major.

The Importance of Storytelling to Me

My first six years of my life were spent on a self-sufficient Quaker farm in North Central Indiana. I had no playmates, brothers, or sisters living within miles. My grandmother would tell me oral stories of our family; my mother would read to me; and I would spend hours in front of our old Motorola radio listening to classic radio theater (this was the late 40s and early 50s, so no TV yet for us). Storytelling became so important to me as a form of entertainment, that I began telling stories out loud to myself. I would always be the hero ,and I would free form my way through never-ending stories (…and then…and then…and then). I told my first story to an adult at the age of four when I tried to outdo a tall tale told by our hired hand. My grandma was listening inside at the window and just about fell over she was laughing so hard. The hired hand just stood there speechless with his mouth wide open as I told him about being chased by wild Indiana, swimming to England and back, and riding to Indiana and home.

Remembering those years led me to become a professional storyteller in 1997. I quickly became a performance resource on the juried Kansas Arts Commission Touring Roster. I found myself performing at schools and communities all over the state. This is why the story is everything to me when I write fiction.

A Recent Example of My Process

It is time to write my 5th mystery, but I needed to write it more as a thriller. This is my approach. First, I take a look a look at my character database, my ‘Bible,’ and determine how my characters need to grow or change in both good and bad ways. I also give a thought to any new characters which are needed. So, I guess you could say the interaction of my characters among themselves and with outside events, natural or man-made, is the basis for my stories. After I play with the characters a little, I begin laying out plot points in some kind of logical time line that allows for those characters to continue to develop. Each plot point is written in a format of one to several sentences. These serve as memory ticklers as I write. Each plot point becomes a chapter. For this latest book, I’ve come up with a structure initially built upon 45 chapters. I lay out my chapter heads and include my plot points just under them so I can glance up to them to make sure I’m not forgetting any key elements.

Now, I allow my muse to kick in again (the first times were when I developed my characters and my plot points). I begin writing, now filling in settings, thoughts, motivations, dialogs, etc. This approach eliminates the need for extensive rewrites. It becomes much easier to quit and return to my writing without losing my thoughts as to what I’m doing where. That’s really important because I write in my bookstore, an environment where my work gets interrupted often by customers or my wife needing help.

In other words, I have developed a process that works for me. It might not work well for you at all, but it may give you an idea or two to try. Until my next post, happy writing!

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