100 Free Lectures That Will Make You a Better Writer

by

This article, from Caitlin Smith, originally appeared on the Online Universities Blog on March 9, 2009.

Being a writer means you constantly evolve and grow in your writing knowledge. One way to aid in this evolution to becoming a better writer is by learning from what others have to offer. The following lectures cover a wide range of fields including literature, speeches from current writers, lectures from Nobel Laureates in literature, lectures about fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism, and even entire classes on writing.

Learn from Great Literature

These lectures focus on specific writers and their works, frequently with an emphasis and analysis on the writing.

  1. Richard Wright, Black Boy. Professor Amy Hungerford takes a look at this American novel and also explores the writer’s determination to maintain the integrity of his novel in the face of a Book of the Month Club president.
     
  2. Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood. The first part of this two-part lecture series discusses faith and interpretation while the second part examines the novel in several different contexts.
     
  3. Milton. Professor John Rogers teaches this class from Yale with lectures on a variety of Milton’s works, especially Paradise Lost.
     
  4. Modern Poetry. From Robert Frost to T.S. Eliot to Elizabeth Bishop, learn from modern poets in these lectures given by Professor Langdon Hammer at Yale.
     
  5. J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey. Learn to use evidence from the text to make a sound argument with this novel as an example.
     
  6. Guest Lecture by Andrew Goldstone. This lecture focuses on Vladimir Nabokov’s writing style in relation to other modern writers.
     
  7. John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse. Watch this lecture to find out about Barth’s commitment to language expressed in the risks he takes as a writer and how it accentuates the relationship of language and love.
     
  8. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying Lot of 49. Amy Hungerford looks at Pynchon’s work as "a sincere call for connection, and a lament for loss, as much as it is an ironic, playful puzzle."
     
  9. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. Examine the role that language as violence plays in Morrison’s work.
     
  10. English 205: Lectures. Read the lectures from this class at Los Angeles Harbor College that covers English literature up to 1800.

Read the rest of the article, which includes links to lectures #11 – 100, under the headings Learn From Current Writers, Learn From Nobel Winners, Fiction Writing, Nonfiction Writing, Poetry, Miscellaneous Classes, University Classes Teaching Writing, and Journalism, on the Online Universities Blog.

Boost Your Profit Margin with Amazon Associates

by

Every author who has a book for sale on Amazon.com should be enrolled in the Amazon Associates affiliate program. Even if you don’t have a book on Amazon, you can still profit from this program by promoting other books or products using your affiliate link.

Just sign up for an Associates account, then create affiliate links to place on your website for your own books and any other books or products you’d like to promote. As an Associate, you will earn a commission (called a referral fee) each time someone clicks on one of your affiliate links and purchases the product. This is extra revenue, above and beyond whatever you normally make when you sell a book on Amazon.com.

Even better, you’re paid a commission on anything else the customer purchases during the same shopping session on Amazon. So if they put your book in their shopping cart, then decide to purchase a Kindle or a new vacuum cleaner, you get commissions on those items as well.

The amount of the commission depends on the type of product and your monthly sales volume, but it ranges from 4% to 10% of the total purchase made by the customer. You can read the fine print and find a commission chart here. You can’t use your affiliate link when you make personal purchases on Amazon.

To get started, sign up for an Associates account at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/. You will be assigned an Associates ID, usually a string of numbers or letters ending in 20.  To create a link that will give you credit for sales, use this formula:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/?tag=ASSOCIATESID

Replace “ASSOCIATESID” with your own Associates ID

Replace “ASIN” with the Amazon product ID. For books, use the ISBN-10 (10-digit ISBN).  For other products, look for the ASIN. Both are located in the Product Details section of the product page.

Associates
 
Check your product link to make sure there are no extra spaces, and test it to make sure it works. There are also some link building tools on the Amazon Associates page, and you can even create banner ads or a whole store full of products.

What other products could you promote? Feature complementary, non-competing books that would appeal to the people who read your books. If you’re a cookbook author, you can link to your favorite cooking gadgets for sale on Amazon. If you’ve written a travel book or a book on photography, you could link to cameras. Think about how the product categories on Amazon.com tie to your book and use your imagination.

Other Amazon-Related Articles:

How to Increase Your Book’s Visibility in Amazon’s Search Results

Publishing Content for Amazon’s Kindle

This is a reprint of an article that originally appeared in Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer newsletter for November 2009. You can subscribe to the Newsletter for free here, on The Savvy Book Marketer site (see signup box near the middle of the left-hand column of the site).

Everything You Thought You Knew is Wrong

by

And this is what surprises me. Harlequin, you’re brilliant. You’ve made nothing but all the right steps in all these decades of publishing. You flourish where others founder. You took a great (welcome) leap with Carina, but this? This displays the business sense of a kindergartner.

–Moriah Jovan, Harlequin: Ur doin it rong

How fast is the publishing industry changing?

Two weeks ago, I praised Harlequin for their new digital-only imprint, Carina Press, noting that its business model, while not “new” by any stretch, was a great leap into the future for a traditional publisher to make, especially a well-established leader in its niche. Commentary about the new initiative was mostly positive all around, and purely measured on buzz, its announcement was a PR success.

Last week, they got a noticeably different response to another new initiative, the launch of a self-publishing program under the banner Harlequin Horizons, in partnership with Author Solutions, Inc.. The backlash was fast and furious  from both the Romance Writers Association and several outspoken members of the romance community, including Jackie Kessler, whose “Harlequin Horizons versus RWA” post is a must-read.

By almost any definition, last week was a PR disaster for Harlequin, but for authors, it was just the latest sign that everything you thought you knew about publishing  is wrong.

Ten years ago, when I worked for Poets & Writers, they didn’t accept advertising from vanity presses, and their definition was pretty strict and unwavering. A little over two years ago, when I worked for Writer’s Digest, we had some heated debates over how to handle the topic of self-publishing from an editorial perspective, as well as how to deal with the various advertisers in the space, some with worse reputations than others.

Earlier this year, Author Solutions acquired another one of its competitors, Xlibris; entered partnerships with traditional publishers Thomas Nelson and Harlequin to create self-publishing imprints; and partnered with Sony to make all of their books available as eBooks.

Other recent developments in the POD/self-publishing space include Amazon’s merger of Booksurge and CreateSpace; Lulu’s adding 200,000 eBooks from traditional publishers to their platform; and Andrew Sullivan is self-publishing a book via Blurb.

The publishing industry is changing dramatically, and while it’s much too early to predict where things will end up and whom will be left standing, one thing is very clear: the old rules are being thrown out the window.

Publishing, whether traditionally or DIY, is a business decision, not an artistic or political statement–it needs to be approached with a rational head; an understanding of the pros and cons; and a clear definition of what “success” means based on your own goals.

Everyone has their own agenda when it comes to publishing, but at the end of the day, it’s your book, your career, and your decision.

Anyone who tells you differently is either selling something, or clinging to the past.

This is a cross-posting of a piece that originally appeared on Guy LeCharles Gonzalez’ blog on 11/23/09.

 

From The Editor's Desk: Publetariat Takes A Holiday And Gives Thanks

by

Publetariat staff will be unavailable from Wednesday, 11/25/09 through Sunday, 11/29/09 (in the Pacific time zone) in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. New articles will still post on the usual days according to schedule, but no email or contact form correspondence will be answered, no comments will be moderated and no memberships will be processed until Monday, 11/30/09.

In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, I’d like to take this opportunity to express my personal gratitude to all of Publetariat’s contributors and just as importantly, if not more so, to you: Publetariat’s audience. After all, the wonderful work and input of Publetariat’s editorial roster doesn’t mean much on this site unless it means something to you.

Thank you for making Publetariat a part of your writing and publishing life. My aim in founding the site was to give self-publishers and small imprints a welcoming home on the web. I wanted Publetariat to be a place where their specific needs for industry news, assistance with the craft and business of authorship and publishing, and an interactive community would be met, and their informed decisions in publishing would be honored. I wanted Publetariat to be a place where they would finally get the recognition and respect they deserve. 

The credit for making that dream a reality rests with you, the Publetariat community.

I am deeply humbled by how quickly the site has grown in traffic and memberships since its launch on February 11 of this year, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t also express my gratitude to the larger community of kindred independent artists in every field, publishers, writers and authors of every stripe who’ve embraced Publetariat and have supported its vision even if they themselves are not involved in any way with self-publishing. 

So thank you, every one of you: self publishers, indie artists outside of publishing, micro and small imprint operators and staff, mainstream publishers, mainstream published authors, aspiring authors, industry watchers, literary and publishing professionals in all walks, readers, book bloggers, teachers, academics, members of the media and yes, even Publetariat’s critics. 

I wish all of you a happy and restful few days, and look forward to rejoining you Monday.

GeoCities, Scribd and Your Content

by

This post, from Mark Barrett, originally appeared on his Ditchwalk site on 10/8/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

I ran across a short note on Mashable yesterday announcing that Yahoo will be closing GeoCities this month. While the post rightly notes that GeoCities was one of the first social networking sites, that’s not what I first thought about when I read the news.

What I thought of was this:

In January 1999, near the peak of the dot-com bubble, Geocities was purchased by Yahoo! for $3.57 billion in stock, with Yahoo! taking control on May 28. The acquisition proved extremely unpopular; users began to leave en masse in protest at the new terms of service put out by Yahoo! for GeoCities. The terms stated that the company owned all rights and content, including media such as pictures.

Yes, you’re reading that right. Yahoo paid 3.5 billion dollars for an online community, then one of the first things they told every user in the GeoCities community was that Yahoo now owned all of the content on each and every GeoCities web site. In the business world this type of decision is known as the dumbest thing anyone has ever done.  

I wasn’t going to post about this bit of web history, however, because there’s nothing new under the sun. Facebook, MySpace, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and hundreds of other tech players are constantly trying to figure out how they can own or exploit user-generated content. That’s the entire online game. It’s not the ads or the clicks or the twits or the tweets or the bleats. It’s legal ownership. (Which is why there is no greater battle being waged on behalf of independent authors than the copyright battle.)

Yesterday afternoon, however, I ran across a week-old forum post on a writing-related forum in which a frustrated writer pointed to this section of the Scribd Support FAQ:

Every three months we’ll review your earnings balance. If your balance is at least US$100, Scribd will issue you a check or credit your PayPal account, depending on your preferred payment setting. If your balance is less than US$100, we’ll roll your earnings over to the next quarter.

The author in question wanted to remove a story from Scribd and cash out her balance of approximately $50. But the Scribd elves pointed her to the $100 threshold in the FAQ and told her they couldn’t give her the money she’d earned from her own story. In effect, until she earns $100 from the work, Scribd holds any earnings hostage.

I have no idea if her dispute was resolved or not, but I have to hand it to Scribd: they figured out how to effectively lease content from authors with no money down, while simultaneously cutting cash-flow needs by instituting a relatively-high minimum-payment threshold. Where GeoCities tried to steal user-generated content outright, the noble lords at Scribd — whose stated passion is making documents available to the masses — have figured out how to control authored content and disbursements in a way that benefits themselves.

Am I saying Scribd is doing something illegal? No, and that’s exactly the point. If you put your content on Scribd you’re agreeing to a CONTRACT Scribd wrote which governs how you are paid for YOUR CONTENT.

Given that most authors probably do not meet the $100 threshold for any given quarter it would be interesting to know how much cash Scribd rolls over each month, and how much interest is made on that money. Assuming the money is being invested, of course, as opposed to, say, being used to cover operating or legal expenses.

It would obviously be a shame if Scribd went under and took all those small author-earned balances with it. I would hope funds earned by authors are kept separate from Scribd’s own business expenses, but the FAQ doesn’t seem to address that question. It also doesn’t spell out whether Scribd invests author-earned revenue, or whether authors are entitled to interest on their own earnings.

The moral here is pretty simple. If you have content, corporations who want you or your stuff on their web sites are going to try to profit from your content any way they legally can. That’s how you know these people are not your friends. At best they’re your business partners, but they’re better at business than you’re ever going to be. They have lawyers and financial advisers on staff or available through funding agents. You have nothing, and they know it.

Watch your back. Read the fine print. Don’t give up your rights.

Update: To make sure that Scribd’s policy was not the industry standard, I asked Smashwords’ Mark Coker about his policy on payments to writers:

We’ve traditionally had a $25 threshold, though we officially lowered it last week when we added a formal PayPal option. See your Payee page via your Account page. If an author leaves Smashwords, we settle up with them, no matter how small the amount. Otherwise, we pay at the thresholds (though we make exceptions all the time on request).

Mark added that Smashwords settles up with any author who wants to leave the site:

We’ve paid some former authors as little as $2.80. It’s their money.

Yes it is.

Show Me The Money, Bitches

by

At the end of the day, I can be a very pragmatic and mercenary individual. Some people deeply admire this about me, some think it makes me a bitch or naive. But it is what it is. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a published author. I wanted my book to be on bookstore shelves and I wanted to be famous. 

At that time, I believed that everybody who had a big publisher publishing their books, who had a book on bookstore shelves, was making a living doing it. Hell, even into adulthood as I started to seriously begin the undertaking of writing novels I still believed this.

So naturally, in the beginning I was all about traditional publishing for myself. I read all the standard magazines and books and knew all about how to query an agent. I was confident I was one of the smart ones because I wasn’t like these other little boob wannabes who were sending in their submissions on pink scented paper and telling the agent that their grandmother loved it and their grandmother’s dog took a nap on it which meant that the dog loved it too.

At some point I don’t know how or why, I started to wake up. I mean let’s be real here, this may not be the truth for everyone, but I am not working my ass off to give up control of my work and get paid shit for it. Period. dot com, dot net, dot org. It just ain’t happening. I don’t really care what everybody else is doing, or what the socially approved standard path is, or what is “respectable.” “Socially acceptable” has never paid a single person’s bills.

I think my eyes were opened when I started talking to a published author on LiveJournal. It was my first actual back and forth real written contact with a published author and I was thrilled that she’d taken time out of her glamorous life to help me. (Though later when I decided to self-publish, she heavily encouraged me not to cause I wouldn’t make any money self-pubbing, but on to that in a minute.) I won’t mention this author’s name because I’m not dragging her into my diatribe, and I admire her and her writing very much, but suffice it to say, her posts were candid enough that I could read between the lines.

Even though she had a major name brand publisher that we’ve all heard of, she still had a full-time job and wasn’t able to live solely on her writing income. This gave me considerable pause. As I studied more, and read between more lines of what authors were saying and specifically what they weren’t saying (the exact dollar amount of their advances), I began to realize that this author was in no way unique.

I felt like I’d been Mary Kay’d. I might need to explain that reference. When I was eighteen I signed up to sell Mary Kay. I was lured in with the promise of the pink car. I knew I was motivated and could sell things and surely I could have the pink car. But once I was inside I started to see all the downfalls of multi-level marketing and why most people can’t make a living at it. And why the pink car, was not going to be a part of my future most likely.

It seems this is the same thing that has gone on forever in the publishing industry. Hopeful writers believe at first they’ll make a living just by being published by a big name publisher. Then once they’re in, they realize they need to have a backlist first (though please explain to me how an author can gain any traction in this way when so many times they only can manage to keep 2-5 books “in print” at any given time. I prefer a treadmill that makes my ass smaller, thanks.)

Then of course the realization starts to sink in that MOST published authors, including many who have reached that pinnacle, the NYT Bestseller list, are not making a living doing this. Only those with huge prolific outputs that are fairly successful along with the famous ones, are making a living doing this. (And I really just don’t want to put out more than one novel a year on average. I want to put out better quality books not more of them. And normally quality suffers with quantity. We’ve all seen it happen.)

Once I learned these financial realities, I was off the trad train. Fuck that. If I’m going to make peanuts, I’m keeping full creative control. I’m going to be able to approve or deny my cover. I’m going to pick how my book is laid out, and how it’s marketed and distributed. I’m picking the formats. I’m picking the editors, I’m titling my own books. (i.e. I’m not coming up with a great title just to have someone’s marketing department shoot it down and rename it.)

I am not your commodity.

I belong to me. My words, thoughts, feelings, and art belongs to me. And I will create it, package it, and distribute it the way I see fit. The ONLY people that matter in this equation outside of myself, are my readers. Not the talking heads in the publishing industry. I don’t need a publisher to get my words in front of readers. I don’t need a publisher to make a little money. And I certainly don’t need the drama, politics, and headache of the whole treadmill if I’m only going to discover that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for most is fool’s gold.

With authors doing so much of their own marketing now, and fewer people buying most of their books in brick and mortar bookstores anyway… with so little money on the table for most even after years of grueling work and many books… exactly what the hell could possibly be in it for me besides external validation from the other writers and the “publishing industry” as a whole? Why is that validation worth my soul? It isn’t.

So many discourage those who want to self-publish with the warning: “You’re unlikely to make money self-publishing.” As opposed to what option? And how are we quantifying the phrase “making money” here? Because a tiny bit of money is still a tiny bit of money even if your publisher handed it to you.

Will I “make a living” self-publishing? Well… that’s hard to answer because I’m thinking inside a different box. I have the MPC-mentality (multiple-profit-centers.) My “business” is basically finding every way in which I can make money from my writing and making use of it. This includes writing websites that I monetize, selling fiction in print and ebook, selling nonfiction/infoproducts in print and ebook, copywriting, a bit of freelance work, and any other ideas I come up with.

This little mini writing empire is on a 10 year plan, of which I’m in year 2. Some of the plates I spin are more for passion than for profit, like fiction. But considering the fact that I can keep my ENTIRE backlist in print, I’m writing a series, and I keep ALL the profit and not just a royalty, the concept that I could “make a living” just from fiction in ten years isn’t so outside the realm of realistic that I can’t even entertain the possibility.

I do understand that writers are part of a community and in some ways I purposefully alienate myself from this community. But at the same time, most of the politics and drama is unnecessary to my life. And I always get burnt because what I’m saying is not what people want to hear. Even if I say it nicely and temper it with many caveats. I have my own tune, my own plan, and I’ll follow it succeed or fail. But what I won’t do is jump on a treadmill that to me isn’t worth the small payment at the end.

Self-publishing, even if at the end of the day I make little money, IS worth it to me, because it’s MINE. There is a pride of ownership there. Even if it’s not considered as socially acceptable yet as say opening a flower shop, it’s not like I’m running a brothel here. Social attitudes will catch up (and if they don’t you know I’m still doing it, because that’s just me.)

And on the money issue. KEPT has sold 2,500 copies on Amazon and has had 15,000 readers otherwise in the past year. It’s only a dollar on Amazon because they wouldn’t let me give it away for free. It was initial test marketing, not a money-making enterprise. Nevertheless, I’ve already in one year made more in royalties from the novella on the Kindle than I likely would have been paid as a first-time author, had I had my novella accepted for a print anthology.

I don’t write “for the money.” But if money wasn’t any piece of the motivation for me, I would just give all my work away for free. What is the point of selling it for profit if you don’t intend to actually MAKE a profit? I intend to make a profit. There is no crime in this. But I realize I can’t make a profit worth my time inside the standard publishing system. Your mileage of course may vary and it’s okay if it does. I don’t require a bunch of bobble-head yes-men in my life. You can disagree with me and I won’t call your momma names.

So yes, self-publishing for me is a business decision and a personal decision.

Also, just in case you think I’m talking out of my ass and can’t possibly know anything cause I haven’t been inducted into the standard publishing system, here are some posts for you to chew on… two traditionally published authors, both saying basically the same things I am, they just draw different conclusions for their own lives (i.e. not self-publishing), and say it a little differently. But it’s the same bottom line truth.

More on the reality of a times bestseller

The Big Lie

[Publetariat Editor’s note: also see this post from author Kimberly Pauley, in which she shares some of her financial details, and some other authors do likewise in the comments section.]

This is a cross-posting from the weblog of Zoe Winters.

Antellus to Offer Free Downloads of Sample Chapters

by

Antellus – Science Fantasy Adventure and Nonfiction Books
http://www.antellus.com

Antellus to Offer Free Downloads of Sample Chapters

Antellus, a private independent publisher of science fantasy adventure and nonfiction books, now offers free PDF downloads of sample portions of its books and ebooks for shoppers to view before buying.

"We have always tried to honor the rule buyers have of looking before they buy," Antellus CEO and author Theresa M. Moore said. "So as part of our marketing efforts we are offering sample chapters so people can know what they are getting for their discretionary dollars."

The samples can be downloaded directly through the site, and contain at least a quarter portion of each book, with pages varying in number according to the size of the book. Antellus offers all its books in print, Adobe PDF, and other formats through other providers like Smashwords and Amazon Kindle.

Antellus is a privately owned independent publisher of science fantasy adventure and nonfiction books on a variety of related topics like history, mythology and science. Requests for information may be made by email to: info (at) antellus.com. The publisher is located in Sherman Oaks, California.

November Novel Writing Month

by

Na No Wri Mo Sounds like words to an African tribal dance if I didn’t know better. In 2007, I read about this National Novel Writing Month contest which takes place in November. This contest has been happening since 1999. Thanks to the internet the amount of contestants, called NaNoers, went from 21 in 1999 to 94,000 in 2007.

This year I decided to check into the details. The contest is free to enter. At the end of the month I would have to have fifty thousand words to finish in the contest. Then in December the novel can be edited and polished. A winner is picked from the entries. There is a list of writers that have had a novel published after entering it in this contest.

From what I read the authors are winging their story. They aren’t expected to know where the novel is going, but every day just pick up where they left off. Don’t worry about a chapter by chapter plot synopsis or an outline. This approach to writing is not new to me. It’s the way I approached all my books. The secret is in going back to rework the story, edit and polish it into a work you can be proud to have your name on.

On a whim I entered the 6th of November. So I was already five days behind which worried me. I tried to tell myself two thousands words a day doesn’t sound like a lot for me. Once I made up for those six days that is, fifty thousand words should be no problem. Little did I know that this would be one of those months when I would be gone at least half of the thirty days. Little things have gotten in the way of my writing a novel like a wedding, book signing, dental visits and now Thanksgiving.

Several November days, I spent most of the afternoon emailing libraries in Iowa, Missouri and Pennsylvania to let them know about my two Amish books listed in Ingram Distribution Catalog. In the email I mentioned that I had an online bookstore that all my books can be purchased from, thinking that libraries could go to the website to look at the books. Maybe even buy books from my site.

Quite an undertaking to do that many emails when I realized how many libraries there were in each state. Made me glad for copy and paste. For Iowa, I mentioned that I lived here. As for Missouri, I had emailed the libraries last year when I published my Civil War book which is a fact/fiction book based in Vernon County, Missouri. Maybe they will remember me. Maybe not. I’ve been told many emails about new books target libraries. As for Pennsylvania, residents buy my Amish books more than any other state. One theme that was on most library sites in that state was the fact state funding had been cut for libraries which meant their budgets had to be reduced. This didn’t sound like a good time to be advertising books for sale, but my self published, paperback books are inexpensive compared to books from publishers that are sold in bookstores. Perhaps, a library’s reduced budget would be a reason to buy my books. Now I wait and see. If I have any luck with these libraries, I still have 48 states to go.

　

There’s something to be said for incentive. Being in the NaNoWriMo contest has given me that. I had the story line all plotted in my head for some time but advertising and starting the new website had kept me from getting started on the book. Now I am well under way. Maybe not far enough along for NaNoWriMo, but looking forward to releasing it sometime next year.

Thanksgiving is upon us. As with many family gatherings, relatives have to travel. We go to Marion to my younger brother’s for lunch. As usual, he has barbecued turkey on the menu. Not such an undertaking the way he does it. The grill is in the garage out of the wind. There’s a thermometer inserted in the turkey that transmit to a sensor in the kitchen so he can watch the rising temperature. Once or twice, my brother runs outside to check briefly just to be on the safe side. The rest of the time he is visiting with us and watching a parade.

For the evening meal, we rush forty miles or so from Marion to Belle Plaine to my husband’s mother’s house for another big meal. Sometimes I think it was a mistake to put Thanksgiving and Christmas so close on the calendar. We no sooner get our appetites back from Thanksgiving and Christmas comes with more food. Come to think of it. We are truly blessed and should count our blessings every day. We have our families close and plenty to eat.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and travel safe. I’ll be back next Tuesday.

　

　

　

　

　

21 Steps: How to Publish a Kindle Blog (And Why You Might Want To….)

by

This post, from Stephen Windwalker, originally appeared on his Kindle Nation Daily blog on 11/15/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Kindle, how do I blog thee? Let me count the ways….

In the past few months I’ve had numerous writer-blogger-publisher friends and colleagues ask me how to publish their blogs and other content as Kindle Blogs.

 

  • Or how to take the short stories or social commentary that they have been writing for other media and make it come alive on the Kindle.
     
  • Or, in the case of some very talented people who write everything from business marketing material to political content to community organizing campaign literature, how they could re-purpose the publications that they or their organizations are already doing as Kindle blogs so that they could begin to reach a wider audience.
     
  • Or how to take those steamy stories they’ve been writing for years and connect them with the thousands of Kindle readers who appear — from Kindle sales rankings — to have an appetite for erotica and like the fact that the Kindle does not require a brown paper bag.
     
  • Or how to turn Kindle owners on to the wonderful services or products that their businesses provide to the public.
     

Those of us who tapdance on the keyboards come in so many different shapes, sizes, and settings.

At first, back in June when I had just begun to make Kindle Nation Daily available as a Kindle edition blog, I might have answered, "Don’t bother." Although I had plenty of independent confirmation of wide and growing readership, I was skeptical that significant numbers of people were going to pay for the goat when I was already giving away the goat’s milk for free.

With monthly summaries that show up a couple of weeks after the end of each month, Amazon is slower to report Kindle blog subscription and revenue data to its publishers than any other of its formats, which generally report in something close to real time when they are working. But based on the data that I could gather, it seemed that very few Kindle blogs were thriving. When my own numbers began to come in — with 7 subscriptions in May and even with 150 for June and 201 for July — well, it was nice to have some paying readers, but at 30 cents a pop as my monthly royalty for each 99-cent-a-month subscription it certainly did not seem like a business model. I now have over 7,500 people reading my posts each week in their several free formats, and I certainly don’t expect the number of paid readers ever to catch up with the number of free readers.

But as the "installed base" of Kindle owners has continued to grow dramatically each month, and promises to keep growing, I’ve changed my mind about the usefulness of the Kindle blogging format, and I would no longer say "Don’t bother" to anyone with useful information or creative work to share. Granted, the number of Kindle owners who subscribe to Kindle blogs remains very small: my educated guess is that there are somewhere south of 10,000 regular Kindle blog subscribers among roughly 2 million Kindle owners at present. My own subscriber numbers keep growing — from 201 in July to 346 in August, 494 in September and 778 in October — but while the percentages of increase are astonishing, the actual numbers and revenue figures are tiny. It’s great to be the #1 blog in the Kindle Store this morning, but the fact that somewhere in the ballpark of 99.96% of Kindle owners do not read my blog certainly constitutes a cold splash of reality.

Or should I see it as opportunity?

To extrapolate based on my recent month-over-month subscription growth rates yields laughable results (the last four months’ figures are 56.64%, 67.02%, 36.82%, 58.12%, or so says my handle little Google Docs spreadsheet), yet even the act of plugging in seemingly "conservative" growth rates in the 5 to 10 percent range yields projections that are wild enough both to concentrate my attention and to suggest to me that, with an 11-year-old son who I am probably not going to talk out of going to college, I should continue to make Kindle Nation Daily a priority even if it weren’t so much fun.

What are the real parameters for potential growth in subscribers for the Kindle edition of my blog or anyone else’s in the future?

I certainly believe that Kindle ownership will continue to grow dramatically in the next few years. People far smarter than me are suggesting that there will be as many as 25 million or more ebook readers by the end of 2013, and that a large percentage of these will be Kindles of some sort. So, even if I had 25,000 subscribers by then, something over 99.97% of all Kindle owners would not be subscribers.

Will the percentage of Kindle owners who read blogs on their Kindles increase significantly in the future? As with anything else, it probably depends on convenience, the importance and value of the content being delivered, and the relative terms of price and convenience under which such content is available elsewhere. Although blogging as a zeitgeist phenomenon may be beginning to seem, well, "so 2005," it has the potential to gain real force as other content formats and sources fall away and creative content providers find new ways to use the incredible simple blogsite architectures to deliver fiction, poetry, other narrative, and other forms of business, cultural, and political comment.

Those of us who read blog content on the Kindle find it a very convenient, portable feature, and it is great to have new posts pushed regularly to my Kindle so that I don’t have to remember to go looking for them. I subscribe to about 10 blogs on a range of subjects including technology, news, sports, and creative content, and whenever a blog is refreshed and moves to the top of my home screen, it takes me only a few seconds of peeking at its Table of Contents and an initial sentence or two to decide if there is something new that I want to read or flag for future reading.

Just as important, both for myself and for other bloggers, we are finding ways to include the Kindle editions of our blogs in a symbiotic loop wherein each kind of subscriber, reader, or visitor is more likely to visit other associated venues. Not only does my Kindlized blog help make interested readers aware of my Kindle books, but it also drives visitors to my free blog, the free weekly email newsletter that I publish with the help of Constant Contact’s growing suite of complementary services, and even to my telephone or my email inbox if they want to engage me in helping them in their efforts. Most of these other centers of activity, in turn, also build my base of Kinle edition subscribers: proof again that what goes around comes around. And what works for me is working for many other authors, publishers, businesses and organizations as well.

Kindle blogs may be the ultimate long-tail phenomenon, so they only make sense from a business point of view if they require little or no investment either by Amazon or by the bloggers in question. That’s the situation here. I spend plenty of hours each month posting to my blog, but the total amount of time I spend maintaining its Kindle edition architecture amounts to less than 5 minutes.

Initially, though, it took me about three times that much time to get up and running.

Yep, 15 minutes.

If you have blog content that you want to make available on the Kindle, all you need is a U.S. bank account and an existing blog. Here’s how, in 21 easy steps:
 

  1. Get the RSS feed address for the existing blog that you wish to publish on the Kindle and paste it into a text file so that it will be ready to paste in the appropriate place later in this process. Have your blog’s main page open in another window or tab as you proceed. You can bring up the RSS feed address by clicking on the little syndication icon at the far right of the URL field for your blog’s main address near the top of your browser when you are looking at the blog’s main page in that other window or tab. For this blog, whose address is http://thekindlenationblog.blogspot.com, the RSS feed address is http://thekindlenationblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss.
     
  2. Go to the Kindle Publishing for Blogs Beta page, which is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems, and click on the Create a New Account link.
     
  3. Create your account using an email addresss that is not associated with an existing Amazon account. (You can always set up a new email account, free, with Gmail and have the new account’s incoming mail sent to an existing email address, including one that is associated with an existing Amazon account.)
     
  4. Choose and answer your security questions and affirm that you have read and accept the program’s Terms and Conditions.
     
  5. Click on the "Add new blog" link in the upper right corner of the "Dashboard" display that appears on your screen.
  6. Enter your contact and bank account information on the next screen. This will allow Amazon to pay you royalties for your blog subscriptions. Monthly royalties are 30% of the monthly subscription price for actual subscriptions. You don’t get paid for the 14-day free trial that precedes any subscription. Once your bank account’s routing number and account number as well as your social security or tax identification number are successfully entered, you will be able to have royalties deposited electronically in your bank account, usually in the second half of the month following the subscription revenues on which you are being paid.
     
  7. On the "Add Blog" page which appears next on your display, paste in your blog’s RSS feed address from Step 1.
     
  8. Type or copy and paste the blog’s title, tagline, and blog description directly from your blog’s main page. This metadata will appear in the Kindle Store so it should be worded in an attractive way and conform to the material already on your blog. You may find it beneficial to include a descriptive subtitle such as my blog’s "The inside scoop on all things Kindle." Why? Because everything you do to package and market any content on Amazon should reflect your awareness of the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) within Amazon’s, and the web’s, architecture. I have also found it beneficial to include some search keywords in a blog’s tagline.
     
  9. Enter your name or pen name of the name of your publishing company, business, or organization as the blog’s publisher.
     
  10. Take a screenshot of your blog using COMMAND+SHIFT+4 on a Mac or the PrintScreen key on a PC, and then use Preview or Paint to save the image as a GIF, JPEG, TIFF, or BMP file. You may find it beneficial here to select a particular post with attractive above-the-fold graphics and overall presentation and bring that post onto your screen for the screenshot.
     
  11. Click on "Upload image" to browse, select, and upload your screenshot to the "Add Blog" page.
     
  12. Follow a similar process to upload a masthead graphic. This should be a simple icon image; it will appear, in a tiny image, at the head of each post in the Kindle’s rendering of your blog.
     
  13. Enter the actual website address for your blog where indicated; this is not the RSS feed address that you have already entered above.
     
  14. Select your blog’s language and choose three categories from the list of 10 offered. You may easily change these categories in the future.
     
  15. Enter search keywords to help Kindle owners to find your blog in the Kindle store or the overall Amazon website. This process, again, is all about SEO, and it may prove helpful to check out similar or other blogs in the Kindle Store and scroll down to the section headed "Tags Customers Associate with This Product."
     
  16. For the "Blog Post Frequency" pulldown menu, be conservative. If you post 4 or 5 times a week, choose "2 to 5 times a week" rather than "Daily," and if you post 10 times a week, choose "Daily" rather than "Multiple times a day." Readers get annoyed if you do not delivered what you promise, and that annoyance can be reflected not only in your subscription sales but in lethal negative reviews. It may also be true that the "Multiple times a day" option, even if true, might actually drive away some potential subscribers if they are concerned that they may be inundated with posts.
     
  17. Click on the "Generate Blog Preview" button to make sure that everything looks right. Your preview will take a few minutes to format and load, then you can click "View Preview" and a Kindle-sized display of your blog will appear.
     
  18. If so, check the box showing that you accept the "Terms and Conditions" (after you’ve read them, of course), click on the "Save" button.
     
  19. The orange "Publish Blog to Kindle" button will then become live on your screen. Click it, and you’re done. All you have to do from here on out is keep posting to your blog, and each post will be delivered directly to subscribers’ Kindles within an hour or so of your posts.
     
  20. Amazon will set the price of your blog between 99 cents and $1.99. It’s probably better for you if the price is 99 cents, since that’s the price for many of the most popular blogs in the Kindle Store, but it is out of your control.
     
  21. Subscribe to your own blog, if you have a Kindle, so that you can keep a close eye on how it looks on the Kindle and trouble-shoot any problems. If you don’t have a Kindle yet, and you don’t want to spring for the $259 to buy a new one, you can buy a refurbished Kindle 1 for just $149.99 by clicking here. But you do not need to own a Kindle to publish your blog in the Kindle Store.

I know, I said you could do all this in 15 minutes, and it probably took you a little longer because we writers are careful people. Or should be. And I didn’t mean to include the time it took you to read this post in the 15 minutes.

In any case, I wish you good luck, and I hope that you will stay in touch with me at KindleNation@gmail.com to let me know how this goes for you.

(If you’d rather have me set this up for you for a one-time fee of $49, just click on the Buy Now button [at the bottom of the original post, here] and send an email to KindleNation@gmail.com with Kindle Blog Publishing Package in the subject line and your blog’s URL and an email address and phone number so that I contact you in the the main body. I’m not looking for the extra work, but it may be easier for me than for you and I don’t want to see you blocked from participation if I can help.)
 

Cartoon reprinted with permission from We Blog Cartoons.

RWA Wants Associate Members Who Foster Relationships Between Readers and Authors

by

This post, from Jane L, originally appeared on Dear Author on 11/23/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

I received a letter today from RWA [Ed. note – Romance Writers of America] indicating that I would not be able to renew my membership when it expires at the end of the month. I have posted the letter for you all to read it. While it says that I am a General Member, this is an error that RWA has consistently made. I’ve signed up an associate member for the three years that I have paid my dues. I want to state at the outset there there is absolutely nothing in the letter that is not true except for one thing.

Dear Ms. Litte,

On November 30, 2009 your General membership with Romance Writers of America will expire. We are unable to renew General membership for individuals who have indicated in writing that they are not in serious pursuit of a career in romance writing.

General membership in RWA is open to all persons “seriously pursuing a romance fiction writing career” (Section 4.1.1 RWA Restated Bylaws 2007). On September 11, 2009, you wrote, “I have not written a book nor do I have plans to write a book…” Staff is unable to allow renewal of General membership for individuals who publish statements such as the one cited above.

In most instances, we are able to offer Associate membership to individuals who do not qualify for General membership. However, Associate membership is offered to individuals, “who support the organization and its purposes but do not meet the requirements for General membership” (Section 4.1.2 RWA Restated Bylaws 2007). We have been made aware of numerous posts on your blog and on the “romfail” thread on Twitter that indicate you do not support RWA or romance authors.

This decision is not one that we would have chosen. We feel that authors’ and readers’ interests are closely related and that both have much to gain by a harmonious and mutually beneficial relationship. In light of the evidence on file, RWA is not offering you the option to renew.

It is true that I have publicly stated I have no aspirations to write. (See blog post referenced in letter here). It is also true that I make fun of bad books (or what I consider to be bad books). Examples can be seen here.

It is also true that I have been critical of RWA and its inability to provide its members full information on the panoply of ways that publishing is changing for the membership.

It is also true that I have been critical of authors.

I do find it interesting that the justification for blackballing me from RWA is because my blog posts and #romfail thread on Twitter” indicate that I do not support RWA or romance authors. I have supported RWA but I have also been extremely critical of them. I don’t support romance authors individually, but I do support the romance authors in general; and, of course, I support the romance genre and romance books.

I actually had not planned to renew my membership. I joined because it gave you a discount for the RWA conference and you received the RWR but over the past three years, I’ve read the RWR only a couple of times and I decided that this year I would go to RomCon instead of RWA.

I have had a lot of supportive emails sent to me over this. I hope that none of you jeopardize your own membership or standing or position in RWA or with your fellow authors over this issue because I do not want to be the cause of any more disharmony for authors. And I can apparently still be an RWA member if I choose to publicly state that I am seriously pursuing a writing career.

Anyone who reads this blog will know that RWA’s actions will not change my conviction that true advocacy requires a conversation among many different — often contrary and conflicting — views. I will never believe that bad books are a necessity about which we must remain quiet, nor will I relinquish my critical views of a genre I love and an industry in which I have taken an active interest. Hopefully authors know that whatever they get here at Dear Author is candid, honest, and a product of my faith in good books and the readers who love them.

Jane

 

Jane L. is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. She’s currently loving contemporary authors like Sarah Mayberry and Kristan Higgins but her first love will always be the historical. Some of her old time favorites are Amanda Quick and Johanna Lindsey and some of the new favorites are Sherry Thomas, Joanna Bourne and Claudia Dain.

Book Interior Designing Trends

by

There used to be sacrosanct rules in the layout of book interiors. To violate these rules was to scream, as the Germans would say, “Unprofi” or unprofessional. That became one of the sure signs of a self-published book. That is no longer the case. Green considerations about wasting paper and economic considerations about printing costs when margins are so small for the publisher have forced publishers to re-think how books should be laid out.

One of the major changes is the old rule about always beginning new chapters on the recto or right hand side. When a chapter ended on the recto, there would follow a blank page on the next verso or left hand page. That is seen as wasteful today. Chapters’ beginning pages will often be seen on either page, eliminating the need for blank pages on the left. This cuts down on the page count.

Another rule is to not show headers or footers on blank pages and pages where a chapter begins. This is beginning to change. One, there are fewer blank pages. Two, not showing a page number on the start of a chapter, especially when the table of contents gives one is annoying to the reader. The header above the chapter heading still should be eliminated because the page will look too cluttered; however, the page numbers should be placed as footers and they should remain so someone can more easily find a chapter from the TOC.

The inclusion of Library of Congress numbers on the Copyright page. I see these as optional. One, the staff at the LOC seems somewhat overwhelmed by the number of number requests. Two, if you don’t feel there is a large market in the library sector for your book, why bother with it. The librarians are the only folks who refer to these numbers in any way. If your book was designed to sell off the back table at your lectures and your primary sales venues are direct sales or bookstores, don’t bother with the LOC number.

These may seem like small points, but trust me, many publishers agonize over them. If any of you know some other practices which are changing and why, please add a comment below.

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

Create Hard-Hitting Ads for Your Book…

by


Hard hitting? Well, that particular expression may be a bit dated, but the old idea is to clobber the reader with intent. Nothing’s changed.  Any ad, whether it appears in print or online, is intended to motivate the reader to BUY your product, or at least allow themselves to be pitched. We’ve discussed how important it is in book marketing to define just who your reader actually is. Now it’s time to utilize a relatively inexpensive device to reach out and grab their attention.

 

A simple tool…

Ads are communication tools, nothing more. They are part of a complete marketing plan. Ads can either be designed for a mass market, or targeted to a specific niche. It all depends upon the medium carrying the advertising, and it’s positioning in the medium, as to which the ad should be be designed for.  You need to focus on who you intend the ad to reach.

So before you even consider running advertising, do your research to find several different publications, or online sites, including social networking and blog sites where you are pretty sure your market can be found. If you are truly intrepid, you’ll take the time to contact the advertisers you see in these locations to find out how effective their experience with that medium has been. If your product is not perceived by the advertiser as direct competition, you may be lucky enough to get some really useful information.

Questions you might ask after the initial introduction and explanation (should you be lucky enough to get a favorable response) run through ad sizes used, positions that were found effective, and any seasonal adjustments the advertiser made or considered making. Was the artwork varied? Did the message vary? Which worked the best? The answers will help you parse your list down to the ones you believe will help you reach your market.

Media Kits…

Once you have made a “list” of potential locations and have some idea of how well they will work for your needs, contact the webmaster or their own advertising department to get their “media” kit. A typical media kit (or advertising insertion page, if online) will usually include some demographic data regarding their readers, which can in most cases be considered accurate (if not spun in whatever direction they intend). Print media must provide factual circulation information by law, but the internet, as you know by now, is not so well-regulated, so proceed with “Caveat Emptor” playing softly in the background.

A media kit will also have the publication, or website’s requirements regarding size, image resolution, linking limitations(for online ads) and, of course, cost. I’ve always looked for the smallest ad space that will effectively stop my own eye when skimming a publication or site. I’m especially careful if the publication or site tends to relegate smaller ads to their own pages rather than inserting them within the content. While a “Buying Guide” page format may work for some products seasonally, being stuck in with a bunch of tiny ads doesn’t usually give you the best visibility, unless it is specifically targeted towards buyers of YOUR product. I prefer to run my ads where they can appear with content or editorial material. The reader’s attention will be focused on that page longer, so you’ll get better chances to grab it. If that kind of position means buying slightly “upmarket” (Oh, how I just love the old jargon…), then by all means do so, unless your budget can’t really handle it.

For argument’s sake, let’s assume you’ve decided on a specific medium and location, and need to choose your ad’s size. One thing to keep in mind is that, unless you have unlimited funds, the right size is the smallest size that will carry everything you need to say, effectively. Effectively means legibly and with as much impact as can be mustered. Even a nice, big ad, if poorly conceived and badly executed will not have any results beyond emptying your wallet.

Never say no…

The idea here is to reduce your pitch to its simplest, most direct terms: “Want to find out?” “Buy this book”. One thing I always do when beginning to conceive ad copy, is to NEVER allow any question you pose to be answered by the reader, “no”. Questions are good things, but they must persuade the reader to respond in the way you intend. So, create a few alternatives and ask friends, other writers, people you meet (all carefully selected to be confirmed “members” of your target reader group, of course) which question holds their attention longer. It should be short, and to the point. It should convey emotion, and be connected – even obliquely – with the subject of your book. Just be sure that none of the possibilities can be answered by “no”, such as “Do you need to know what happened to little Judy?”

To get them to actually read your ad you’ll use graphics initially, to draw them in. We’ve discussed the importance of color in designing a book jacket and expanded that to using cover graphics in collateral pieces, such as bookmarks and flyers (The “One Page” that most book sellers and distributors expect to see). This carries over into print and online advertising as well. If you have designed an effective cover, then the chances are that an element of your cover graphics will make an effective ad. It also creates recognition for your book, by planting the seed, which may be useful later, as your reader browses a bookstore’s shelves and tables.

Use what you’ve already got…

If your cover conveys a particular emotion, as it should, then by all means, USE that in setting up your hook copy. Always bear in mind, however, that the reader of your ad will have less than a second to make the decision to read your copy, so keep it short and to the point. One real benefit of online advertising is that you don’t need to use up ad space with contact information. That’s what the link does for you.

Do it now: Click!

Just a single click, and your reader is transported to the wonderful world of online retail and sublime pitching. They don’t have to write down your bookseller’s address or remember a phone number! All they have to do is click that mouse button! That single act is what your online advertising is designed to do – get them to click on your ad. You don’t even have to direct them to do so – just make the ad compelling enough and they’ll do it.

One really good tool, that most ad responders appreciate, is the use of the link attribute “target”. I use target = “_blank” when setting up ad link codes, so that the link opens in its own new window, making a return to the medium content very easy. Look for it, if you’re using an online form for links. Using it, you’ll have moved the reader to a new stage where your pitch in all its glory can unfold properly.

Print ads are much more difficult to control and predict response in that they demand a lot of a reader. I believe it is better to use smaller print advertising to simply create recognition for your product. You’ll have other ways to draw them in once recognition is established.

For a reader of a print ad to respond directly, they will have to retain or write down the information you direct them to. If you pose a compelling question or make a strong statement in a compelling graphic setting and they see it enough times, your target reader may be motivated to respond when they are in, or close to a retail venue. Or they may respond in other ways leading to an eventual sale such as giving them the idea that your book is a wonderful gift for someone “special” (insert qualifier here).

Track, track and track…

Another device used for ads in print, besides creating recognition, is to offer the reader an opportunity to express themselves. This may be still easier to work into an online ad. Your ad may carry a suggestion that the reader’s own opinions or experiences are somehow meaningful to you, and you’d like to hear from them.

Responses from your advertised invitation can lead to your gathering a lot of data regarding the effectiveness of that medium and your ad design, but it can also overwhelm your in-box if you’ve done your job well, so use it with care. Always be sure to set up a special email address for this kind of response, so that your private in-box doesn’t get spammed. You can usually set up several “child” email accounts with most IPs, so that you can easily separate responses by mediums, etc.

Another tracking/response device you can use effectively, that also doubles as a direct sales motivator is the “coupon” code that will save the reader money. Savings appeal to almost everyone and depending upon your target readers, may be an important element to any ad you design. Specific coupon “codes” you create are also useful in tracking which mediums are more productive, so you use your media budget most effectively.

Of course, if budget is no consideration, you can just fill up the available media slots with your pitch, but most of us need to keep our costs down. Consider that each new use of any medium is really a test for that medium and for your ad’s effectiveness. Give it a few cycles to get enough exposure to determine if it works. If it doesn’t…move on. Find another medium on your list, or if you’re absolutely sure that your readers inhabit that medium, change your ad design.

Arriving at the correct mix of ad copy, design and media placement is an art that needs lots of cultivation. That’s why the top agencies and marketing consultants make the big bucks, but if you approach the entire process as a learning opportunity, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts in lots of ways you won’t even think of when you begin. The nuts and bolts may litter the floor when we’re finished, and you may have some sweeping up to do, but you’ll know where you want to go and how to get there.

Next week: Ad layout: What to keep in, what to throw out. Small can be good!

  

#fridayflash: Angelcake Excerpt

by

This week, I present an excerpt from Angelcake: a screenplay I wrote and have been working on converting into a novel off and on for years. In the story, following her accidental death, Judy Stringer is pressed into service as an unlikely, otherworldly suicide interventionist. She must prevent three suicides, or spend the equivalent of three lives’ worth of life expectancy as an afterlife public service worker under a literal boss from Hell: a matronly shrew of a demon supervisor nicknamed Attila the Bun.

Sarah, seventeen, slender and pretty, sits on the edge of the tub gazing stupidly at a positive pregnancy test.  She wears a modest sundress and no make up. A low whine escapes from her and she quickly covers her mouth to muffle the noise. Her mother knocks on the door from the outside.

“Sarah honey, come on, it’s time for church.”

“Just a minute, Mom.”

Sarah stuffs the pregnancy test in her handbag, then goes to the sink and splashes some water on her face. She blots her face on a towel and tries to put on a normal expression as she looks at herself in the mirror. She can’t maintain it, her tears return. She opens the medicine cabinet and paws through its contents, looking for prescription drugs. All she finds is a bottle of aspirin. She closes the cabinet, reads the label, and notices Judy materializing behind her. The bottle falls from Sarah’s hand and her face registers awe.

“It won’t kill you,” Judy says, “but it will give you a nasty, bleeding ulcer. And it’s bad for the baby, too.”

Sarah spins around to face Judy and wipes away her tears, her voice halting and hopeful, her eyes glowing. “You know about the baby? Are you…an angel?”

“No, I—“ Judy notes the cross around Sarah’s neck and some religious bric-a-brac around the room. “Not yet, I mean. I’m not officially making with the wings and the harp and all, but I’m in the training program.”

Sarah falls to her knees and clutches at Judy’s dress. “I’ve done such an awful thing…and I’m an awful person!”

Judy pulls Sarah up and they sit on the edge of the tub together. Judy pulls a few sheets of toilet paper off the roll and offers them to Sarah. “And what about the father,” Judy asks. “Didn’t he have a little something to do with this?”

“Well…yes,” Sarah answers, accepting the tissue. “But he wasn’t who I thought he was. He said he loved me!  He said…a lot of things he didn’t mean.”

Judy puts an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and gives them a light squeeze. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I really, truly am. But what’s done is done. There’s no use crying about it and suicide is no solution.”

“But what can I do?! I can’t tell my Mom, she’ll kill me!”

Judy chuckles and waves a hand in the air dismissively. “No she won’t. Kids always think that, but it’s not true. She’ll be mad, sure. And probably disappointed, and worried. But she’s not going to kill you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Ten minutes later, Sarah and her mother sit at the small kitchen dinette table in silence. Sarah studies her mother’s stunned, blank face for some clue of how she’s taken the news. Abruptly, her mother pounces at Sarah in a rage, knocking Sarah off her chair and bellowing, “How could you?! What were you thinking?!”

Sarah scrambles into the corner, wedging herself behind the table. “Mama! Calm down!”

“I’ll calm down after I’m done with you!”

She grabs at Sarah’s dress and drags Sarah out from behind the table. Judy materializes between the two, affecting her most beatific expression and holding a hand out in front of her in the stereotypical ‘stop’ gesture.

“Unhandeth the child, O mother of Sarah!”

Sarah’s mother lets go of Sarah’s dress and backs away, into her chair. Sarah retreats to the corner. Judy whispers over her shoulder to Sarah, “You were right about her. My bad.”

Sarah’s mother gasps, “Are you—“

Not waiting for her to finish, Judy announces in her most heavenly-hosty voice, “Behold, I am an angel!” Feeling a little blasphemous, she adds, “More or less.”

Sarah cautiously emerges from behind the table and reaches for her mother’s hand. “Look, Mama!  She’s an angel sent to help us in our time of need and tribulation.”

Sarah’s mother bows her head in deference and fear. Judy puts her arms out to her sides and does her best angel impersonation.

“Verily, I sayeth unto you, that any mother who so…slayeth her daughter…who is with child…eth…” Judy struggles for words, then drops her arms to her sides, sits in the chair next to Sarah’s mother and says, “Look, can we just talk about this?”
 

 

 

The Fulfilling Facet: Emotional Influence

by

This post, from Anthony James Barnett, originally appeared on his Tell Me A Story blog on 11/17/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Emotional influence is sometimes the most ignored facet in novels. Emotion is important, not only when linked to what characters feel about themselves and others, but in the reaction they stir in readers.

But what is emotion? How do you create such an elusive element? Naming an emotion doesn’t produce it. We can declare our protagonists irritated, anxious, broken-hearted or suchlike, but it doesn’t generate the emotion in the reader. How then do we use this intangible feature in writing?

Emotion is the outcome of all the other elements.

  1. Consequence. There must be consequence. The degree of emotive reaction is a reflection of the character’s problem. Will there be incentive if the central character makes it, will there be tragedy if he doesn’t.
  2. Theme. The outcome of the story must be important in some way. The story must mean something. If the predicament doesn’t matter one way or another, readers won’t be bothered about the outcome.
  3. Struggle. There must not only be consequence, there must be serious tussle both inner and outer, otherwise no emotion will come from it. No matter how severe the crisis, if it is easily sorted, no one will care; no one will feel anything.
  4. Passion. Passion grows from the story’s significance. If the task is meaningless, there will be no feeling, no identity.
  5. Atmosphere. A story should have mood, ambience, atmosphere, call it what you will. Mood comes from all the restrained emotions that arise from the material elements of your story. It’s not enough to set a house in front of your characters; we need to know how they feel about it. Is it scary, full of love, what does it mean to them; how does it move them?
  6. Senses. Characters shouldn’t walk in a vacant space. Tell readers what is around them. Emotions can be constructed from sensory reaction even when there isn’t a problem. It won’t be a strong emotion, but it can exist as an entirety by itself.
  7. Moderation. Never give emotions too full rein when you’re displaying how a character feels, use moderation, it’s a good maxim. Play down the most moving events. Encounter in itself carries drama, and key sentiments become implicit without description.
  8. Limited detail. Be cautious of littering scenes with too much detail. It takes only a few well-chosen words to describe a setting. Humans don’t have time to respond to every element around them, and characters should not respond to everything either. Opt for the most valuable details; the reader will fill in the rest.

So maybe the lesson to be learned is to write with every single sense, including the sixth, but write with restraint. Remember, more than enough is too much. Use your descriptive powers with self-control. Make every word count.

Dan Clancy Answers a Few Quick Questions About the New Google Book Search Settlement

by

This post, from Siva Vaidhyanathan, originally appeared on his The Googlization of Everything site on 11/17/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. Dan Clancy is the Engineering Director for Google Books.

Hi Dan.

I know it must have been a stressful week for you. So I hesitate to ask you for a favor. But there are a lot of people in the scholarly/library community who have unanswered questions about the terms of the new GBS deal. So I was hoping you could help us out.

Would you mind answering these so I can post the answers on my blog?

1) The settlement is now restricted to works from the Anglophone world (which will mean mostly, but not entirely, books in English). Does that mean y’all will stop scanning books published and copyrighted in other countries that sit on the shelves of partner libraries?

Dan: Google is still scanning non-english books just as we are doing today. These books simply are not covered by the settlement so we will treat them as we do today (i.e. showing snippets, etc). As always, if a rightsholder requests that we not scan their book or that we stop indexing their book and showing results in Google, we will respect this request.

2) Will you still offer research access to the larger corpus of works (including non-Anglophone-published works)? Or will you restrict research access to works covered by the settlement plus public domain plus partner books?

Dan: The library partners are responsible for creating the research corpus. The settlement agreement will only provide authorization regarding the research corpus for those books covered by the settlement agreement. How they decide to use those books not covered by the settlement agreement is up to our partner libraries and what is allowed under US copyright law.

3) Does Hathi have to remove non-Anglophone-published books from its collection?

Dan: No. Again, everything stays the same as today.

 

4) How does this settlement affect the scanning deals you have with BN in France and other such sources of books?

Dan: There is no impact. The settlement only covered scanning in the US to begin with. All of our partnerships with non-US libraries focus on public domain books or books where there is explicit authorization.

Thank you, Dan!