Think

Opinion pieces offering commentary on various aspects of book culture, publishing and self-publishing.

Quick Link: 5 Ways Independent Authors Can Advocate for Themselves

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We all know there is a bias against self-publishing. While there are now more indie authors than ever, there is still a struggle to legitimize the choice of doing it yourself.  Brooke Warner has some great thoughts on how indie authors can help themselves as well as the rest of us.

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5 Ways Independent Authors Can Advocate for Themselves

by Brooke Warner

Earlier this month I moderated a panel at the Bay Area Book Festival called “The Future of Book Publishing.” We had an esteemed group of panelists from all areas of the industry, with Jack Jensen, publisher of Chronicle Books as the traditional figurehead, and Mark Coker of Smashwords representing the self-publishing contingent.

A question surfaced from the audience: Do some people avoid self-publishing because they don’t qualify for awards?

Jensen was the first to respond, telling the earnest woman that anyone can submit to contests — just submit. I almost felt bad to have to inform him of his industry’s bias — that no, you can’t just submit, and that countless awards programs bar self-published authors (and any author, in fact, who’s invested in their own work) from entering.

Jensen was shocked, and I was shocked that he was shocked. And yet gratified too. Even someone with such illustrious credentials who’s been in this industry nearly four decades thinks policies like these are bullshit.

A couple days later I was being interviewed for a podcast. The host started talking to me about the topic of bias in the industry, which seems to follow me everywhere I go (because I’m vocal about the aforementioned bullshit factor). She said she suggests self-published authors have their own imprints and submit wherever they want to and say that they’re published on a “small press” (their own) and no one will be any the wiser.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: Brood For Thought: On The Enduring Appeal Of The Moody Male Lead

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Today’s post focuses on stereotypes, more specifically the stereotype of the moody leading male. Think Wolverine from the movies, or even Mr. Darcy. Rosalind Moran, at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America shares some deep thoughts about this topic. Let us know who your favorite moody male lead is or if you just disagree.

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Brood For Thought: On The Enduring Appeal Of The Moody Male Lead

by Rosalind Moran

Works of Science-Fiction and Fantasy routinely suffer genre snobbery. Clichés are identified down to an infinitesimally small degree, and then torn apart with grim satisfaction. Neither unlikely boys with great destinies nor elderly men of genealogical significance are spared.

It’s a tough time to be an archetype.

Yet while authors are aware of heightened scrutiny and increased demands on originality within genres framed by convention, they nevertheless continue to write certain characters – such as male leads – in forms often adhering to well-worn moulds. Take the dark, troubled hero: he remains prominent in stories ranging from Twilight (pardon my language) to A Game Of Thrones, even if these have supposedly grown more nuanced since the I-carry-five-foot-swords-on-my-back era of the 80s.

And why is this the case? The moody male lead is widespread throughout all genres, but it can be difficult to see why anybody would want to spend time with him. He’s brooding, exceedingly individualistic, melancholic, and disposed to hanging around outdoors during thunderstorms for no good reason beyond cultivating his mystique. Furthermore, despite possessing attributes such as introspection, sophistication in some form, and intelligence, he is also typically rather unpleasant.

So what’s underpinning his enduring presence and appeal in fiction?

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Quick Link: 3 Ways to Improve Your Storytelling

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The always impressive Janice Harding has a great article on what to do to improve your storytelling.  These tips work well with a bare bones outline approach we talked about in a previous post. Head on over to Fiction University to learn more!

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3 Ways to Improve Your Storytelling

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week’s Refresher Friday takes another look at three ways to improve your storytelling. Enjoy!

My high school creative writing teacher had the best definition of story that I’ve ever seen.

A story is interesting people, solving interesting problems, in interesting ways.

The genius is in its simplicity. Interesting is subjective and open to so many possibilities, which allows for everyone to approach it in their own creative way. But the core idea is solid. People solving problems. At the heart of every story is a problem to be solved (the conflict).

To improve our storytelling skills, all we have to do it focus on the three things that make a story a story.

1. Interesting People (The Characters)

Even in formula-heavy action stories, character stands out. Everyone knows James Bond, or Harry Potter, or that gal Dorothy Gale from Kansas. A great story has characters who offer something interesting to readers.

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Quick Link: 3 Simple Ways to Win the Argument with Your Inner Critic

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I don’t know about you, but I definitely struggle against my inner critic. And since you can’t always silence them with chocolate and wine, check out Lauren Sapala‘s post on winning arguments with that nagging little voice.

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3 Simple Ways to Win the Argument with Your Inner Critic

by Lauren Sapala

If you’re an artist or a writer—or both—then you know what I’m talking about when I say “inner critic.” It’s not just a way of describing a tendency toward self-judgment. For us, the inner critic is a loud, nasty, disgusting creature who invades our thoughts, whips us mercilessly, and sometimes decides to chain us up in the dungeon.

That might sound extreme, but if you’re an artist or a writer, you know how accurate that description is.

When you’re in that kind of critical head space it can make you feel insane, and like you’re the only one who’s ever gone through this. But, as a coach who works with highly creative people, I can assure you the inner critic visits all of us. Not only that, but it uses the same three arguments over and over as a form of attack. Each one is surprisingly simple, which is probably why they work so well. They have universal appeal to the most vulnerable parts of any human personality.

Here are the Big Three:

You’re Not Working Fast Enough/Doing Enough Work

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Quick Link: How Novelists Can Work Plot Twists into Their Stories

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Today’s post is all about the plot twist! At Live Write Thrive, C.S. Lakin talks about working good twists into your script.

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How Novelists Can Work Plot Twists into Their Stories

by C. S. Lakin

Yummy yummy plot twists
Yummy yummy plot twists

Plot twists are important and powerful elements in a novel. We took a quick look at twists last week, and I explained that you can have these twists in various places in your story, and they can vary in strength.

One novel may have lots of small twists that are basically complications and obstacles the protagonist encounters. But often you’ll have one or two huge twists that wrench the story, and those are terrific when done well.

So what do you need to keep in mind when creating a plot twist?

Twists are all about redirection. Going against expectations.

Think about what readers are expecting and hoping for at a given moment in the story. Then keep twisting the story into new directions that stun and delight them.

If your POV character is seeing indications that her boyfriend is going to propose to her—he’s invited her to a special dinner, says he has something important to tell her, etc., she’s going to get her hopes up. The more you, the author, can imply that’s the boyfriend’s intention, the more impacting the twist will be when he shows up at the restaurant and tells her, sadly, that he has to call it quits. That his long-lost love he thought dead was really alive and well in Chicago, and he just happened to bump into her at the dry cleaners. Or something like that.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Where to Begin Your Book: How to Choose the Best Opening

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Having a strong opening to your story is key in getting people to go beyond the free preview. Award wining author Mary Carroll Moore shares her tips on how to get it right.

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Where to Begin Your Book: How to Choose the Best Opening

by Mary Carroll Moore

Vintage picture frameLots of writers struggle with the opening to their books, no matter what genre. I’m working with one client in my retainer coaching program who is writing a very large story–it spans thirty years or more. It’s a memoir, and a lot has happened to her in her long life, so choosing the starting moment is very challenging for her.

We begin by asking what this book is about. “My life,” she answers, and that’s true. But I ask again, “What’s it really about?”

I’m asking her: What’s the focus? What’s the subject of your story, the part you’re going to include in this particular book? Not your entire life. What will you select and why?

Everything you select for your book, whatever genre, sits within a frame. Imagine a photo frame that holds the photograph of your story. Just like any photo, it shows selected segment, a slice of a life. When you find yourself at a loss to imagine this frame–as my client said, “I can’t not put that in, or that either–that has to go in”–you don’t yet have a frame.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Publishing: Kindle Scout Case Study

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Do you Kindle Scout? I do, as a reader I love it. I love being able to help authors generate buzz for their titles and finding new works to read. If your book is selected by Amazon, you get a contract and I get a free book.

Even if your book doesn’t get published by Amazon, you can still self-publish. The readers who voted for you are notified so they can buy the story. I have, especially if the price is right. would know how great Kindle Scout is for authors. Check out her Kindle Scout experienc at Self Publishing Advice Center

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Publishing: Kindle Scout Case Study

kindlescoutBy Katherine Hayton on July 14, 2016

New Zealand novelist Katherine Hayton shares her inspiring success story about her fourth novel’s success in a Kindle Scout campaign, leading to a publishing contract with Amazon’s own imprint, Kindle Press.

Back in January, I ran a Kindle Scout campaign for my fourth full-length novel, The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton, and was accepted for publication by Kindle Press on the 8th February. After the effort of the campaign, I was excited to be selected, and so far my experience with Kindle Press has shown me they can sell a lot more of my books than I could manage on my own. I’m in my second month (release date 29th March) and I think I’ll have earned out my advance by the end of this month, or early next month, so it seems on track with their expectation of 25k over five years.

Regular Promotions by Kindle

Because they’re an Amazon imprint, they have access to place their published books on the advertising slots available to Amazon, and their aim is to place each book in some kind of promotion every ninety days or so. These range from month long $1.99 promotions in genre selections to individual book titles featured on the $0.99 Kindle Daily Deals. From talking with other authors in Kindle Press, there are mixed results among the books they’ve selected. Some authors have taken a year or more to earn out their advance of $1,500, while others have earned over $12,000 in their first year.

Degree of Author Control

An author with Kindle Press retains a lot more control than they would with a larger press, so I had final say over all edits, title, cover, and book description. Anything else (eg categories) can be suggested but not necessarily taken on board. The pricing is determined by word count and seems unshakable apart from a book’s inclusion in discounted pricing promotions. If there’s anything about the book that Kindle Press thinks will harm the chances of promotion slots, they’ll discuss it directly with the author so they have the chance to either change it or stick to their own vision.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

 

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Quick Link: 3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do

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You know we love authors of all kinds here at Publetariat. Anyone who writes a story is my kind of hero, but we do lean towards the self-publishing author just a little more. At Jane Friedman, Jane shares three reasons why sometimes being indie is the right choice.

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3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do

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Portrait of fastidious businesswoman in Santa cap holding giftbox

Years ago, when I still worked for a traditional publisher, I wrote a blog post about the No. 1 disappointment of all published authors: the lack of marketing support from their publisher. This was back when social media was still a fringe pastime, limited mostly to MySpace. So if your publisher wasn’t investing in marketing or publicity, you probably had few available tools to market and publicize your work outside your community—unless you had funds to hire a publicist or a national platform of some kind.

Today, some form of online marketing by both author and publisher is essential for all titles, and while traditional forms of marketing and publicity are still key—everyone wants a mix of online and offline exposure to maximize word of mouth—publishers’ launch efforts may be focused primarily or entirely on online channels. It tends to be more efficient, targeted, and cost effective.

Yet authors still have very traditional ideas of what their publisher ought to do to demonstrate support for their book, even though where and how books get sold has changed dramatically in the last decade. Here are three things that you may want or expect your publisher to do—but are very unlikely to happen.

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Quick Link: 5 Musts for Self-Publishing Great Books

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A timely post now that NaNoWriMo is almost done! Once you have completed writing your story there are some essentials you need to do to make it worth publishing. Laurisa White Reyes from Janice Hardy’s Fiction University lists them out for you. 

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5 Musts for Self-Publishing Great Books

By Laurisa White Reyes, @lwreyes

Quality Puzzle Showing Excellent Services And Products
I will give you a hint…

Part of the Indie Authors Series

When I was fourteen years old, I described my life’s dream on a page in my journal. I wanted, more than anything, to be an author. Not just any author. I wanted to be a New York Times Best-selling author. I fantasized about autographing books and winning the Newbery Award. In bookstores, I scanned the shelves, hunting for the very spot where my books would one day be. Once I actually started writing novels about a dozen years ago, I fully believed this dream was within reach, that any writer who worked hard enough could achieve it.

Naïve as I was, this dream kept me motivated through fourteen complete manuscripts and hundreds of rejection letters. Along the way, I did get three books published with small presses. I thought my dream was coming true. But I soon discovered that publication is no guarantee of success, and that too often, getting published with a small press (as well-meaning and author-friendly as many of them are) can be worse for an author’s career than having never published at all.

That’s where I found myself in 2015, with three published titles, a career in the publishing industry, and an impressive list of awards and recognitions under my belt. Yet I felt no closer to my dream than I had been as a teenager. By that time, I had spent two decades working on one particular book that meant a great deal to me.

In 1993, I worked as an office assistant at an AIDS clinic in Pasadena, California. I witnessed a lot of tragedy there, people suffering from a disease for which, at the time, there was no effective treatment. My experiences stuck with me and eventually resulted in a children’s novel about a girl whose father is dying of AIDS. Though I received numerous positive responses from literary agents, the manuscript accumulated close to thirty rejections. One agent told me that though The Storytellers was good, “kids today aren’t interested in reading about AIDS in the 90s.” In other words, it simply wasn’t marketable.

I was discouraged. I was disillusioned. Maybe the publishing industry was somehow rigged against people like me. I had a decision to make: Give up on the book or self-publish.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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I am thankful for you. Corny but true.
I am thankful for you. Corny but true.

We will be back to our regular schedule tomorrow. Have a wonderful day.

Quick Links 4 Tips for a Successful Ebook Blog Tour

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Blog tours can be a great way to get buzz for your story, but they can also be a lot of work. Make your blog tour work for you with these great tips from at Digital Book World.

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4 Tips for a Successful Ebook Blog Tour

By: |

 pinup retro woman with travel bag isolatedExpert publishing blog opinions are solely those of the blogger and not necessarily endorsed by DBW.

For every genre of ebook, there are hundreds of book bloggers—people who read books and post reviews on their sites. When ebook authors plan their book launches, many of them add blog tours to their marketing plans. A blog tour is series of pre-arranged blog posts, usually scheduled during the months just before and just after a book launch.

The exposure ebook authors receive in blog tours can help jumpstart interest in their book. The book cover will be introduced to all the bloggers’ followers, and an enthusiastic review can generate the buzz a title needs to get off to a strong start.

But blog tours can be a lot of work. And sometimes, especially for first-time self-published authors, blog tours don’t generate as many sales as anticipated.

There are specific steps, though, that you can take to help make your blog tour successful.

1. Start Early and Be a Blogger Yourself

Bloggers are more likely to agree to write a blog post about your book if they already have a relationship with you. That’s why it’s important to start networking as early as possible. If you are a member of your genre’s blogging community, you will have many advantages when your book launches. First and foremost, you will have personal connections with the other bloggers, so they’ll be inclined to read and review your book. People in these networks become friends with other authors and often support each other.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Why It’s Crucial to “Write Ugly”

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Writing “ugly” means giving up the all the rules that we have learned,  to just write. That is  part of the charm of NaNoWriMo for me, as I am so focused on the numbers even though I sometimes still wince at my writing. Writer Unboxed‘s talks about how trying to write pretty can actually be holding you back from authentically good writing. Check it out.

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Why It’s Crucial to “Write Ugly”

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Holding a filthy heart.Here’s a scary thought. When it comes to writing, you may have done everything you’ve been taught to do with utter perfection, and precisely because of that, it turns out you’ve written something that is flat, boring and uninvolving. This all too common phenomenon is something I’m going to be deconstructing, myth by myth, for the next several months in my columns here. I’m beginning this month with the overarching granddaddy of them all – the myth that derails otherwise riveting stories before they’re even created.

It’s this: The myth that beautiful writing is what makes you a real writer, and (an even more damaging belief) that the beautiful writing comes first, before everything else. Beautiful writing is often equated with talent, and without talent, why write at all?

It is heartbreaking how many writers suffer from the deep rooted, often crippling fear of not “writing beautifully” from the very first iteration of the very first sentence on the very first page of the novel. We’ve been trained to be so fearful of penning anything that feels like “ugly writing” that we often end up creating something far worse.

To be very clear, by “writing ugly” I don’t mean writing about hard things, painful things, or any kind of “ugliness” – which is utterly crucial to good stories. Otherwise, you’re basically Hallmark, which is to say, irrelevant, cutesy and dull. Story is about the exact opposite. In fact, story is often about how to dig out from under the sugar coated, stifling straightjacket of the status-quo, which almost always means diving into what polite society has deemed to be ugly, unseemly, and uncomfortable.

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Quick Links: 5 most common obstacles to writing your book

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Writing a book is hard. I can hear the snorts and feel the eye rolls from here. Yes it is hard. A majority of people want to write a story but very few people actually do. I can’t say anything as I join NaNoWriMo every year for the past year, but alas still no complete book. Is it any wonder that I love the people who actually manage to write great stories? Guest poster Kate Hanley at Build Book Buzz talks about the five most common reasons why people like me don’t write a book and how we can overcome them. How about you? What would you tell writer wannabes?

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Guest post: 5 most common obstacles to writing your book

Written on July 13, 2016

sign-detour_f18fkpdoOur guest blogger on common obstacles to writing your book is my friend-in-real-life Kate Hanley, a New York Times-bestselling ghostwriter who helps authors get their message out and make a difference in the world. Her self-paced online class, “Write Your Book Like a Boss,” covers the nitty-gritty details of how to get a book written and published, as well as the squishier subjects, such as how to deal with your inner critic. (If you take the course, please select my name in the drop down menu — I will receive a small commission for the referral.) Kate is also the author of books under her own name. I received A Year of Daily Calm for Mother’s Day (my request!) and love it. Learn more about Kate on her website. 

Guest post: 5 most common obstacles to writing your book

By Kate Hanley

There’s a reason why 80 percent of Americans (that’s 200 million people) say they want to write a book, yet only .04 percent of them actually do it in any given year: Writing a book is no small undertaking.

Doable? Absolutely. Easy? Not so much.

Especially if you’re falling prey to one or some of the most common obstacles to actually getting a book out into the world.

Are you subjecting yourself to any of these common roadblock thoughts? I hope seeing them with more clarity—and learning their workarounds—will help you get going!

Roadblock thought #1: “I don’t have the time.”

Of course getting all those words and thoughts down seems like it will take up mountains of time—and who has those lying around?

Detour: Rather than trying to “find” the time, presume it’s already there, and then go about claiming it.

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Quick Links: Veronica Scott presents: Where Does Your Story Actually Begin?

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It’s all about the backstory. Do you have too much? This hits home for me because right now my NaNoWriMo effort is all backstory. To be fair I am world & character building and if this story every makes it to publishing I plan on massive rewrites that won’t include all the extra information. is completely right in her article on Romance University, it is important to know when your story really starts.

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Veronica Scott presents: Where Does Your Story Actually Begin?

July 13, 2016 by Veronica Scott

db-316-winter-121-4447A story starts on page one, right? This post by author Veronica Scott will make you think about where your story really starts…

Welcome back, Veronica!

Where does your story actually begin? “Once upon a time” is a nice intro but maybe even fairy tales include too much backstory.

I’ve been judging various contests for unpublished authors recently and while of course I won’t mention any specifics, the main problem I see is that the author begins with one, two, sometimes even three chapters of material which they feel is necessary to the book. Unfortunately, all too often these chapters are solid info dump backstory or history. If I weren’t judging a contest entry for them, I’d be closing the manuscript and moving on. I’d never even get to the actual story! I see this same comment often in my social media feed from agents and editors, regarding submissions they receive.

(All examples are made up for this post!)

The author runs several risks here. First, while they certainly need to understand the history and events shaping their own world building, the reader is going to become bored fast with the events of the 200 Year War, told year by year, with no immediate connection to a hero or heroine they care about. This technique is even more likely to turn people off early if the author throws in a lot of terms and made-up language details. I’ve had a number of published authors tell me they do write this sort of material, often in early drafts of the novel, because it helps them think through their world building details, but they then delete the material from the final drafts. (I tend to keep scribbly notes on various purple legal pads scattered around the house, rather than write it all out, but that’s me.)

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Quick Links: Is Being a “Good” Girl Hurting Your Career? Why “Bad” Girls Become Best-Sellers

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This one is for all the ladies out there, especially you nasty women! Ok, it is for everyone who needs it, men or women, nasty or not. It is not about being nice or bad, but about being confident and taking chances. I feel this one. Thank you Kristen Lamb for another great post.

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Is Being a “Good” Girl Hurting Your Career? Why “Bad” Girls Become Best-Sellers

by Kristen Lamb

Smiling businesswoman standing in front her colleagues
It is really about standing up for yourself and having confidence, which is easier said than done

Today is a repost because of a death in the family last week. But you know what? Life moves on.  I chose this post because we all need a good kick in the ass now and again, even ME.

It was a FUN post and a good way to get my moxie back….because seriously my moxie got kicked in the face last week. I am sure NONE of you have been there. Feeling like a failure, like nothing you do matters?

Well, get over it. We are going to have a hell raising Monday!

Last fall I read Kate White’s I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know. There are bad books, okay books, good books and great books. But there is another kind of book and it’s the rarest.

The game-changer.

White has a witty, sassy style. She is seamlessly intelligent and down-to-earth in her fiction. And guess what? Her nonfiction delivers more of the same.

Back to our topic of being too damn nice for our own good.

Good Girls Don’t Become Best-Sellers

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